Politics Here

The busyness of politics make for challenges for the ministry. I thought David put it well in a recent communication to his Presbytery.

"With the upcoming elections (presidential and many others), in Karamoja and throughout Uganda, campaigning is quite a focus of attention and can be a distraction to ministry. Just today, when we reached one of the villages where we lead a Bible study every Thursday afternoon, there was absolutely no one around as all had been suddenly called to attend a political rally for a man running for a position in our local district. In keeping with the common practice, after hearing the candidate’s speech, filled with all of his promises to greatly improve their lives with paved roads, electricity etc., the crowd is treated to a generous round of the local brew as an advance ‘thank you’ for their votes. Sounds like a good time, doesn’t it? Much like American politics I guess, except for the booze. Hard to compete with that. But we press on.

We have been working on teaching stories chronologically through the Bible, showing how the gospel is revealed in all of the Scriptures while calling men to repentance and faith. We have been working hard on translating it into Karimojong in such a way as to be clearly understood in this language and culture. Not only do we teach the lessons ourselves, but we put copies in the hands of many others hoping that the message will be spread and be used of the Lord to satisfy a hunger for his Word among this people. We do also continue to lead a meeting where we put these materials in the hands of church leaders and others seeking to learn and to teach God’s word to others.

Using these same materials, we have also been doing much teaching among a particular indigenous church. The pastor and members seem so blessed and express such appreciation for the ministry that we wonder if more time should be invested in already established indigenous churches rather than in starting new works. Please pray for God’s wisdom as we seek His will on this matter saying – ‘Here I am Lord, send me. But where exactly should I go?’"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Still Out Here...

Well, we have finally gotten with the times I suppose and have started a blog. We plan to put our updates out here for you all to read. Please forgive the delay in hearing from us. We have just finished a busy season of visitors. It was a blessing to have them here. We had a total of 4 groups that came from the beginning of June until just this past week. Some overlapped, so at one point we had 19 with us! It’s always an encouragement to have short-termers with us and our kids love having new “friends” around. It was also fun to see old friends back here (like Amy DeWit). We even had our own pediatrician here for a few weeks. Free check-ups for the kids! Dr. Gayle Murray was a blessing to have, not just for her expertise, but also her fellowship. We also had two friends from our home church here. Karen and Laura Goodhart came for 3 weeks. Laura, a nurse, worked in the medical clinic. Karen, a 1st grade school teacher did some “school” time with our 5 ½ yr old Caleb while she was here (...
Read more

Sojourns, Snow and Sickness

Image
Sojourns... Well, as furlough continues so do travels. We stayed in some fun places on the east coast during our recent 10 day trip in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. We were blessed to be with the Tricaricos' (our teammates in Karamoja) old church in Vienna, Virginia as well as a congregation in Leesburg. From there we moved on to meet with the Committee on Foreign Missions of the OPC in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. While in the area we also visited the congregation in Glenside. What fun for me to see my old friend, Chandra, and for David to catch up with his seminary buddy, Lane. From there we moved on and spent a couple of days visiting our friends, the Howards, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A bonus was Chad Anderson (former Peace Corps guy who lived in Mbale, Uganda) driving all the way from Michigan to join us. Then we made our way to Maryland where we visited OP congregations in Frederick and Columbia. Again we saw many friends, some from San Diego days (David & Jolie C...
Read more

Clinic Crisis Update

Thank you for your prayers for us our regarding our conflict with the community. Another meeting took place yesterday. This one included the Local Chairman (LCIII) of our sub-county. We had hoped that his presence and leadership would bring a more peaceful and orderly environment in which to address the concerns of the community. As it turned out, the meeting was anything but peaceful and orderly. Never in my life have I been verbally assaulted and maligned like my fellow Mission members and I were yesterday over the course of that 5 hour meeting. In one passionate speech we were even called ‘killers’ and ‘Satan’. It would be difficult to recall all of the specific issues raised. Much criticism flowed out of a general frustration over our Mission’s failure to help the community to the extent and in every way that they believe that we ought to be ‘helping’. Just to give one example, there was protest of the charges, which patients incur at the Clinic. We were accused of being in Karamoj...
Read more