Namorupus Outreach Postponed One Week (October 19-22)

At 6:30am we drove to Tokora Health Center (about 4 miles from us) where we left the vehicle and began hiking. It was about a 2 hour hike to reach our final destination. There was quite an unexpected turn of events. In an effort to find the best venue for our ministry, some locals suggested that we just use ‘the church’. Al and I were quite puzzled – ‘What church?’ We learned that there is indeed a church building built by the locals. We reached what turned out to be quite an impressive albeit very humble building constructed with wooden poles and a grass roof on a clearing high up in these hills at the place of a gorgeous view. We were told that ‘the pastor’ was away for the day. When we asked who this pastor was, we were told that he was associated with ‘Emuron’. Reverend Emuron is our friend in Namalu to whose congregation we regularly preach. I managed to reach him by phone to ask about this group. He told me that he had no involvement with them but that they had likely used his (widely known) name so that their group would be accepted as a legitimate church in the area. He told me of a Korean missionary who had also worked with them but that he had left them and that they were very ‘disorganized’, needing help and that we should preach to them and help them plant a real church. We happened to know that missionary, Choi, a Korean Presbyterian. He and his wife live in Kapchorwa, a district south of Karamoja. I knew that they had spent some time in Karamoja in the past but had no idea that they had been in Namorupus. I remembered that in our brief contact with them I had saved Choi’s phone number. I phoned him. The communication was a bit difficult as his English is not great but he was very happy to have us doing ministry in the very place that he had been.

Well, after wrestling with what to do, we decided that it might be good to indeed minister among this group. Of course, first we would need to ask this pastor about it. We decided that it would be better to leave him a message informing of our willingness to come and do this ministry. The people expressed their delight with the prospect of our coming and assured us that they would pass on the message to the pastor who would then send us a word of confirmation. So we began the long hike back. After about 2/3 of the journey, we decided to sit down for a rest in some shade. A Karimojong man also sat in the shade with us. We struck up a brief conversation with him as we shared with him some of the peanuts we were enjoying. After sitting there some time we learned that the man was a believer. He was eager to show us his Karimojong New Testament as well as his English Bible. Finally, we discovered that he was the very pastor whom we had missed on the top of the mountain. So we were able to speak with him in person and he warmly welcomed us to come. An extra week of preparation will give him some time to ‘mobilize’ (invite many in the community to come) and will likely give us some better weather as the recent heavy rains seem to be moving on.