Josh's March Journal

March 11, 2008
Last weekend we took a long weekend to Kampala. We had to bring a speaker here who is leading a marriage conference for local pastors for two weeks, so we decided to enjoy the trip and spend a few relaxed days as a family. Thursday we spend the day at the pool at Jinja Nile Resort. It was a beautiful hotel complex on the banks of the Nile river (steep banks - hotel is probably 200 feet higher than the water) with lots of gardens and flowers. There by the pool side was a group of about 15 people having some sort of business meeting. It was then that I verbalized how overrated meeting and teaching outside is. Sure, it has a romantic relaxed feel, but from a practical perspective - worthless. Mandy was surprised I would say such a thing so she asked why. I have taught outside a lot more than I have taught inside. Wind makes it hard to hear each other, blows notebooks off desks, even blew the blackboard off the stand the other day. Chickens crowing and scratching in the “classroom” are fairly well ignored, but a nanny-goat-in-heat followed closely by a billy-goat running between me and the students is both loud and distracting (not to mention a target for a swift kick).
While we were in Kampala we had a nice time relaxing a couple days as a family. I had had a cheese burger and a milkshake the first night in town and two milkshakes the last night in town. We also took the kids to Didi’s World - the disney world of Uganda. It is really nice because it only costs $3 per person, then when you are sick of it (which you are after a few hours) you are free to leave and don’t feel like you have to stay several hours to try to get your money’s worth. We went on Saturday night from about 5-8. It had rained so it was cloudy and cool. I went on the bumper cars and the elevated train - that was it, unless you count the merry-go-round, which I stood on, but was not allowed to sit on the horses. Our girls really like that place though.
March 16
This week a couple people from Set Free Ministries in Grand Rapids are here leading a marriage conference. It has made for a very busy week. I was not planning to be involved, but Tim’s van was not running the early part of the week, so I ended up doing a lot more than I expected. About 50 local church leaders are attending the conference. I spent five hours Friday and again Saturday leading freedom appointments with some of the students from the Bible College who are also attending the conference. One of the set free ministries pastors from Kampala is also here. He knows about a half dozen languages. After church this morning he said he felt Ateso is the hardest language in all of Uganda. He travels a lot in Uganda and is exposed to a lot of languages. He felt Ateso is the hardest of them all - based on word length, way of speech, and exclusive vocabulary. It made me feel good about how far I have come in Ateso, but also makes me feel bad about how far I have to go. It is too bad people here don’t use Ki-Swahili, a much simpler language used throughout much of East Africa.
I did train the blind to measure out orange tree orchards this week. They were very excited and left Friday to start three orchards in Amuria district. I find it to be a step of faith to entrust this project to blind people. I made them lay out an orchard from start to finish before I would let them begin the project. Although their orchard was not perfectly square, it was close and was certainly good enough to grow trees. The thing they struggled with the most was picking up the ropes (we use ropes with knots in to mark the fence posts and tree locations - one knot for a fence posts, two knots for a tree location.) Weather people are predicting drought this year for Amuria and Katakwi (where half our orchards are supposed to go) so we are praying the meteorologists are wrong.
In my free time then I am still working on courses for Bethel Bible college. I am currently working on an Old Testament Survey course. I am up to king David (about 1/3 of the way through the course). The biggest struggle continues to be deciding what to include and what to exclude.
March 19
There is still no internet, so this letter just keeps getting longer. Today we got a major rain storm, complete with wind, hail, thunder and lightning. It lasted about an hour, almost as long as it took us to clean up after it went through. Houses here vents above the windows; however, they have no way to be closed. Every window on the North or East side of the house let water in - and not just a little bit. It accumulated enough in the girls room that it flowed out into the hall way. Tabitha and I spent an hour mopping up water once the wind died down. What a mess!!!
March 30
I had a nice talk with Basil, one of the Bible school students, this week. We had been talking about the students’ outreach to Karamoja. I explained that we had three reasons for sending them on the outreach: 1. To show the Teso people that the Karamojong are real people. 2. Hopes that some of the students might be led by God to bring the gospel to places where it has never been heard. 3. So all pastors who graduate have a knowledge of the responsibility that all members of the body of Christ have to spread the Good News. The literal meaning of “missions” is not going as so many people think. “missions” actually means “to send”. Missions is the work of the church, not of the missionary. Churches here in Teso are not exempt from that responsibility, but so far they have missed out on the privilege of being involved. I think young people would be willing to go if churches were willing to send.
Basil said before coming to BBC he had a dream that he was supposed to attend a Bible college along the Lira road. He was expecting a nice school with good housing and electricity. He was very disappointed in BBC so he looked for another school but could not find one. He felt strongly that the dream was from God, so he thought he better stay at BBC, even though he has often been frustrated with things there. Basil also said he once worked with a pastor who visited Soroti. While they were praying, the pastor had a vision of a bright light going out from Teso to other areas of East Africa. They understood the light to be the Light, the gospel of Jesus, but Basil couldn’t understand how the Gospel would ever be sent from Teso to other areas. After talking with me about the outreach and why we are here in Soroti, Basil said he felt our coming there was the beginning of the fulfillment of the vision that the gospel would go out from Teso land.
The last month here has been a real struggle. We have felt as though Satan is really opposing us. It seems as though so many little things are going wrong. I was so encouraged to hear Basil’s comment and celebrate the fact that at least one student out of this group has caught the vision for raising up missionaries from here in Teso and sending them to place like Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Middle East. Praise God!!! May He open the hearts of others - both church leaders and youth - that missionaries can be trained at BBC and sent to all parts of the world.
On a much less important note, we planted the garden yesterday. Lydia and Grace helped me. Mandy supervised - an important role any time Grace is nearby. We don’t have a rotatiller so I had to work it all up by hand. By the time I got done I took my boots off and poured the sweat out - Mandy was totally grossed out. We had a nice rain last night and again tonight, so hopefully things are beginning to germinate.
I also started teaching Children’s church this morning. Our church had no children’s program and many of the kids were distracting during the sermon (including our own); others simply went outside to play. I have been trying to get it started for a few weeks, but was not successful. Today we had about 15 children on three benches on the porch of the house next-door to the church. I taught them Gen. 1:1 - we memorized it in Ateso: Ko toma ageunet, obu Edeke, kosub akuj ka akwap. I then told them the creation story, asked them some questions, sang one song (I was afraid singing would distract the congregation 15 feet away from our group since there are just openings for windows.) I was happy how it went for a first time. The kids listened well.