Roads, Roads, and Roads

I mentioned in a post I made after we drove up to Gulu how amazed I was at all the work being done on the road from Kampala to Gulu. After spending several days in Gulu, I was even more amazed at the work being done. All the major roads and many of the less important roads had been graded in Gulu. The main road from Gulu to Juba in South Sudan is now paved except for the center of Gulu where they are working full speed ahead. I was told by one of the drivers that the entire road will be paved by December and I have no doubt that this will happen based on what I observed. I even found that the smaller roads we take to visit one of Beth's and my sponsored children who lives way out in the bush had been graded and they were working on culverts.

Dora, one of my friends who is a former WVU staff person at the Children of War Center, said that the other reason so much work is being done is that the President of Uganda is running again next year and so he has the full court press on completing these road projects so he can use them as reasons that people should re-elect him.

On the ride down to Entebbe every once in a while I noticed these coiled pink tubes lying on the side of the road. I did see them on the way up to Gulu, but assumed they would be used for water or gas or something else. I couldn't believe it when my driver said those tubes are for the fiber-optic cables that will be running the length of the highway from Kampala to Gulu. Wow! I am astonished by the changes I have seen over the seven years that I have  been coming to Uganda!

A Big Surprise

One of the biggest surprises that I had at the St. Thomas Moore School was seeing Robert Ogwete for the first time in about four years. I met Robert on my first visit to the school in 2008. He was an orphan who was dirt poor but hungry to attend school and learn. Alex, the headmaster, was actually helping him pay for his tuition. Many of us on that trip collected money to pay for the remainder of his tuition for that year. In 2009, the first Vision Trip our church took, we collected enough money to pay for his tuition for that year as well.

Robert graduated from St. Thomas Moore and then attended a teacher's college. He had wanted to attend a four year university but wasn't able to find the funds to pay for it. But he has graduated from the teacher's college and is now teaching at another school in the Gulu district. It was such a joy to see him!

St. Thomas Moore

Now that I have returned from Uganda, I want to blog several more times about the trip. As I said in my previous post, the visit to St. Thomas Moore was amazing. All my trips there have been great, but for some reason this surpassed them. As I was reflecting on why this was the case, I came to the conclusion that the Program Manager of the Gulu Cluster, Harriet, was a major reason for it. I thought I had a picture of her by herself, but I didn't take one so this picture will have to do. She translated for me when I spoke with the students.

Harriet is warm, inviting and full of joy. Not only did she make us feel welcome, she made the students and the teachers at St. Thomas Moore feel welcome. There was something in the way that she interacted with all of us that made for such a memorable visit, I think.

I kept remembering the first two visits and the contrast of what I was experiencing on this visit. It was so different. I could not have imagined the degree of change that our partnership had produced back in 2008 and 2009.

The Director of Education for northern Uganda, Catherine, attended the first part of the day. I was impressed with her demeanor and with the message that she shared with the students. After the ground breaking ceremony was completed, she gracefully departed for another function. Below is her picture.

According to Alex, St. Thomas Moore is ranked number 11 in the northern district. 

Overwhelmed

I don't even know where to begin. This was the best day that I have spent in Uganda since I first traveled here in 2008. We spent 7 hours at St. Thomas Moore that defies words. It's late and I am still trying to process what happened so I will share just briefly and post blogs about our experience when I return. Let me summarize what we received from the school: one chicken, one goat, one large container of honey in the honeycomb, two poems, a beautiful picture by the art instructor, and had one song dedicated to us. There was a lot of singing, dancing, speech-making, and laughing. I even played some volleyball and didn't do too badly for an old guy. We had a ground-breaking ceremony for the new library. I also was given a Ugandan name by Harriet, the project manager of the Koro-Bobi ADP. My Ugandan name is Omara, which means "He loves." I will post a few pictures to give you a little taste of what we experienced. Joan and Michelle feel as overwhelmed as I do. We are going to have time to process it on our trip to Entebbe tomorrow.

Below is a picture of Todo Alex and his wife, Joy. This was the first time that I met her. I think it was Alex and Joy who gave us the goat. They intended for us to eat it for breakfast. I asked Harriet, the Program Manager for Koro-Bobi, to give the goat to a needy family. They are going to give it to one of Beth's and my sponsored children, Brenda.

The picture below is the sign we unveiled at the ground breaking for the library.

As you can see, Joan handles a mean pick. I was afraid that Michelle was going to hit someone in the head with hers!

Two of our gifts...

Tomorrow I don't think I will be able to blog, so there may be a 2 day gap before I can blog again about our visit to St. Thomas Moore.

Vision Fund

Today we focused on the Vision Fund, the entity that World Vision has created for microfinance. After devotions we received a briefing on how the Vision Fund works by some of the Vision Fund staff. It has been operative in Gulu for about 4 years and they are having a lot of success with it. The one criteria that differentiates them from other microfinance organizations is that the person seeking the loan must have children. Since WV focuses its work on children and their well-being, they want to insure that the loan will in some way benefit children. As I have read elsewhere, women are better at repaying loans than men, and the repayment rate is extremely high.

After the briefing, we drove for 1 1/2 hours or so to the Candangmone community which received microfinance loans. The president, Santos, spoke about the community and how the Vision Fund helped them. Below are a couple of pictures from the day. Santos is standing and Flavia is translating in the first picture and the second is of some of the Vision Trip Team,

After the briefing we headed back to Gulu and partway back stopped to meet Peter, a man who had received a microfinance loan. He was quite impressive. He spoke in English which surprised me, and he had received his first loan to help him in his farming. He is growing sweet potatoes to sell to farmers who will be planting them when the rainy season starts in the next several weeks. The neighbors were references for him to get the loan because of his investment in the community, trying to teach others about farming. His success will affect the well-being of those in his community. We took a field trip to see some of his fields planted with sweet potatoes. Below is a picture of one of them.

Tomorrow we spend the day at St. Thomas Moore School and Joan, Michelle, and I  are really excited about spending the day there.

Sharing in the Life of Children

The Gulu Cluster has moved to the former Children of War Center. (COWC) I feel very connected to that place so I am actually happy that it has moved. Because they were renting the former office and WVU owns the COWC and it was no longer functioning in that capacity, they decided to move last year.

Harriet is the Cluster manager and she lead a very lively devotions. During one of the songs we formed a conga line singing a praise song in Luo. After singing I gave the message with a translator, and this was followed by introductions of the Gulu Cluster staff and those of us on the Vision Trip.

When devotions ended, we all headed to the open market to purchase some food stuffs for each of the families of our sponsored children. This included 3 litres of cooking oil, 10 kilos of corn flour, 1 kilo of sugar, 2 kilos of salt, 2 kilos of rice, two long bars of laundry washing soap, a big package of biscuits (cookies) and 2 kilos of onions. We needed to buy for a total of 18 sponsored children between the two churches. We came back to the hotel, divided everything up, placed them in large bags that we had also purchased. Because of the large number of sponsored children, it was not possible to visit all of the them at their homes. So most of the children came to our hotel with one or both parents and were there from approximately 10:30 am to 3:00 pm. I headed out around 10:30 am with several of the WVU staff to visit Beth's and my sponsored children. At the end of the day, everyone had a moving time with our sponsored children.

On my way to visit one of my children, we passed by a pond that was filled with people hunting Mudfish. Mudfish dig down into the mud, and apparently they go deeply. This pond was filled with people hunting for them. Many had spears whose head was a 1 to 2 feet long thin cylinder with a point. Some people were trying to dig for them with their hands. I didn't actually see anyone in the process of catching one but the second picture shows a man who is holding up his recently caught mudfish.

Two of my favorite sponsored children are Stephen and Ronald. They are best friends, their families are very close, and they are really cute. Stephen is affectionate and Ronald is shier, but I always visit them together with one boy sitting on my right and the other on the left. It turns out that the clothes that Miriam helped me buy in Entebbe for the children fit amazingly well. She did a great job. Below is a picture of the boys in the shirts I bought them. Stephen is on the left and Ronald on the right.

Oh, did I mention that today was the hottest day that I have experienced in Uganda? It hit 106 degrees. The humidity is low so it felt more like Phoenix than Miami. It was a great day.

On the Road

We met for breakfast at 7:00 am and headed for the WVU National Headquarters around 7:45. We attended devotions with the WVU staff and after the presentation we introduced ourselves to those staff who were there. I always look forward to devotions because my friend Vincent who is in charge of spiritual development for all of WVU leads them and I get to see him if for even a brief time. Below is a picture of Vincent.

After listening to several presentations on the work of WVU, we headed up to Gulu around 11:30 am. We were in a convoy of four vehicles. Joan, Michelle, and I were in a vehicle together and the other church split up between the other three vehicles. We were fully loaded with all of the luggage that we brought, a lot of it was for the children. The trip normally takes from four to five hours. We made good time on the first half of the journey and stopped at a nice rest stop to stretch our legs and get something to drink. It wasn't too long after that we started running into road reconstruction. The amount of roadwork that I saw amazed me.

For a number of years the government has been working to rebuild the road to Gulu. Each time I return they have made progress. I never saw much actual work being done, and I might see one modern road construction vehicle like a grader in the work area. Today, however was totally different. Not only did I observe the "usual" work" but from a little over halfway to Gulu, road construction was actually occuring or had been done but not completed all the way to Gulu. It dawned on me after I saw an Asian looking man supervising at one place, that this is the result of the billions of dollars that the Chinese government has been pouring into Subsaharan Africa. I was astonished that the road work has gone all the way to Gulu. When I was here at the end of July, virtually none of this occured--it has all happened in nine months!

In addition to the road work slowing us down, the lead vehicle had a flat tire. The spare tire was too soft to use, so one of the drivers of another vehicle drove it to a gas station not to far up the road to fill it with air. That episode took about 40 minutes. Below are a few pictures of it.

We finally rolled into the Bomah Hotel around 7:30 pm. We were glad to be in Gulu and hungry for dinner. 

Tomorrow we will share devotions at the Gulu Cluster and then visit with our sponsored children, something we are all looking forward to.

Two for One

We headed for church this morning a few minutes before 10:00 am and arrived  few minutes later--the church is not far from Fulukas' and Miriam's house. Their church is named the "Solid Rock Pentecostal Church." See the picture from the outside of the building below.

Below is a picture of the pastor of the church and myself after the service.

If you remember from my last post, he invited me to preach at the Sunday service. He, in fact, said "main" preacher. Last summer when I was there I was introduced to the congregation and invited to say something. This time he wanted a sermon, so as it turns out, there were two "main" sermons: his and mine.

I was surprised that there was almost no singing at the beginning of the service because my experience of worshiping at Pentecostal services is that there is a lot of singing, sometimes more than an hour at the beginning of the service. After a welcome and some prayers, the pastor started preaching on David and Goliath from I Samuel and in a lively manner preached for 45 minutes. Everything was translated during the service and different people were used to do the translation. I am always amazed at the fluidity of the translation. Sometimes the pastor would speak in English and the translator into the local language, and without warning the pastor would switch into the local language and the translator without skipping a beat would speak English.

After he finished, there were a group of people that did a drama which the congregation found hilarious. It was after the small play that the singing began and it went for quite a while. I was then introduced and I preached with a translator for 45 minutes (that is about the minimum amount of time for preaching a respectable pentecostal sermon). There was a little singing after I was finished and the service ended. In all it lasted approximately 3 1/2 hours. See the pictures below.

Worship was joyful and full of energy. They didn't seem to mind that they were getting two sermons in one worship service, and I could tell that they were attentive to my message. 

I spent the afternoon with Fulukas and Miriam and we headed for the Imperial Royale Hotel where the group is staying in Kampala. I met up with Joan and Michelle and the folks  from the other church from Midland, MI who are sharing this Vision Trip with us.

Tomorrow we head for the national headquarters for WVU to share in morning worship at 8:00 pm and we will head out for Gulu around 11:00 am and should arrive in Gulu between 4:00  pm and 5:00 pm.

Surprise, Surprise

Miriam picked me up at the hotel yesterday around 11:00 am and we headed for Kampala and then Wakiso where she and Fulukas live. Wakiso is about 10 miles northwest of Kamapala. We were about halfway between Entebbe and Kampala when a convoy of about 10 vehicles were moving rapidly in the opposite direction. Miriam was driving slowly on the shoulder and then some police pulled her over and were extremely agitated. The president of Uganda was in the convoy, and apparently when you pass a convoy for him, you are supposed to pull off the road and stop no matter what direction your are traveling. (I don't think Miriam knew this). When they pulled us over, they were very angry at Miriam and said they were going to charge her, that she was going to court and some other threats. I thought that we were in big trouble.  She calmly told me that she would talk with them and it would be OK and got out of the car. They were arguing and threatening her with prison. At one point the angriest of officers came to my window and told me they were going to charge her and she would have to go to court. I calmly told him that she had just picked me up and I don't think she knew she was supposed to get off the road. I am not sure if he was thinking that he might get a bribe from me. He didn't say anything and walked back. She came back to the car to get her driver's license and when I asked her what was going on, she said that they wanted a bribe and she wasn't going to give a bribe. She went back to talk with them and about 10 minutes later she came back with a smile and we went on our way. She said that she doesn't pay bribes and she wasn't going to pay one. What a gutsy lady--I was impressed!

We made it to Kampala where we went to the highest point in Kampala where the Anglican Cathedral is located. It was nice and cool there but I didn't have a really clear view of the city. I was planning on taking a picture, but it wasn't good enough to post. However, below is a picture of the cathedral, which was beautiful.

We arrived at their home in Wakiso around 4:00 pm. I will be staying her for two nights. Below is a picture of the back of their house.

They have a wonderful view from the patio where I am typing this post to my blog and every once in a while look up to enjoy the view.

Last night there were eight couples from a church group that were meeting and I was the guest speaker. Miriam told me about this when I talked with her Thursday night by phone. I thought she wanted me to do this Saturday night, but it turns out it was last night. So we arrived at a restaurant nearby and we sat at some tables outside. Couples introduced themselves and after all of the introductions I was asked to speak. I spoke about 30 minutes after which we ate. There was a lot of conversation and a lot of laughter. The couples were clearly enjoying themselves and were engaged in my topic, the 5 Languages of Love. I think we broke up around 10:00 pm

The pastor of their church and his wife were one of the couples. He asked me if I would be the main preacher at church on Sunday. In all honesty, I would rather not preach ( I was hoping for a break), but it was an offer that I couldn't refuse. I need to preach for at least 45 minutes, but someone will be translating for me and that will take up some time. :-)

A Beautiful Morning

This is the view from my window this morning: in the distance you can see Lake Victoria. It is really beautiful. WVU has a contract with this hotel in Entebbe so we always stay here our first night. I have always had a room on a lower floor so the trees have blocked my view, so I was delighted to actually have this view of the lake.

Below is a picture of the inside of the hotel, the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel. It amazes me because this is a large hotel and I have never been here when there have been more than just a handful of people. I wonder how they can afford to stay open.

I am waiting in the lobby for Miriam to pick me up and head for Kampala. I normally bring gifts for Beth's and my sponsored children, but because I came a week early and and didn't have an extra bag I didn't have much room for that. So Miriam is going to take me to some stores on our way to Wakiso where I can buy gifts for them.

It also turns out that I will be speaking about marriage to a group of Christian couples to which Fulukas and Miriam belong and whose focus is strengthening their marriages. Last July when I was here Miriam asked if I might meet with them and do some teaching, and I said I would be willing to do that at some point. She took the initiative and set up a time for tomorrow evening. We are invited to dinner at one of the couples homes after which I will speak. It's a good thing that I have the marriage seminar materials with me!

Arusha-Nairobi-Entebbe

In case your wondering, I did not see Mt. Kilimanjaro as I went to the airport today. That means I am 0 for 4 in trips, and 0 for 10 in actual times I might have seen it. I wasn't too disappointed, though, because it was hazy in Arusha this morning and I figured it would be worse by the airport and it was. My driver, Mr. Mwanga, wants me to see it as much as I do. I think he was more disappointed than I was.

My first flight went from Kilimanjaro to Nairobi and my second flight from Nairobi to Entebbe. Each flight was approximately 45 minutes long. Nairobi airport has a huge new terminal that just opened and looks like an airport in the West. If you remember, a number of years ago there was a terrorist attack that destroyed a significant portion of the terminal. When I went through Nairobi last July it was still under construction. Someone told me that it opened a few months ago. In any case, it is quite an upgrade.

On the flight to Entebbe, I sat next to a very interesting man. His name is Paul Bukenya and he works for a Christian NGO based in Chicago called Opportunity International. This organization works in microfinance and his job is in IT. He is also active in his church and is involved with a group of Christians who have formed a program to develop Christian leaders. There are about 30 people per class, and they go to class every Saturday and Sunday for six months. They do pay a tuition that pays for the rent for the building they have leased and for overhead. He shared with me some of the texts that they use and I was impressed. He said that they have about 300 graduates.

He has a wife, son, and two other children they are caring for live in Kampala. When I told him how amazed I was at how clean Kampala was after they appointed a very high level kind of "Clean Up Czar," he actually told me the story behind it. The woman who was appointed in this position was a tax lawyer who had just retired. She loves cooking and baking and that is what she planned on doing. I don't remember the exact details, but I think someone asked her if she had been asked or was interested in the position and she said she was retired and she wasn't interested. Shortly after that when she was praying, God told her that she was going to get that position. (She was known by high government officials, but wasn't seeking the position as I said.) She was amazed by that and said, I haven't even been asked. A couple of days later, she got a call out of the blue from the president of Uganda asking her if she would accept it.

She is a committed Christian and Paul's mentor knows her. She was giving her testimony and has had not only death threats against her but there have been several attempted assassinations. She now has a body guard that accompanies her. Paul himself told me how amazed he was at what she has accomplished. He didn't think it would ever happen. The corruption is rampant and for years and years those in charge of cleaning up the city just pocketed the money.She has quite a testimony and a lot of courage. It is truly amazing how much cleaner it is not only Kampala but even in Gulu.

  

A Most Satisfying Day

George ended staying up until 1:00 a.m. this morning translating my handouts into Swahili and then running them off so that we could have them when we started this morning. I am so thankful for him. He is truly an outstanding translator as I mentioned in my last post.

At 9:00 this morning there were exactly 0 people in the conference room. It followed the pattern of yesterday, people trickling in slowly, nobody in a particular hurry to arrive. By 10:00 there were 7 or 8 people and we decided to have our coffee and tea break with the hope that more people would arrive while we were on break. That in fact did happen and we began the session at 10:30, a vast improvement over 11:20.

My biggest concern was that couples who had not made it yesterday would attend. It wasn't that they didn't learned yesterday's materials, but that they would significantly dilute the trust level that emerged and which allowed some of the deeper sharing to occur yesterday. There were actually more than twice as many people attending today as yesterday. I decided to address that issue by having one wife and one husband share with the group what they had learned yesterday rather than me summarizing. I knew how enthusiastic and energized the group was yesterday and thought that it would have a positive impact on the new people. I think it did help for by the end of the training there was a good deal of people risking to make themselves vulnerable in what they said.

The two topics we discussed were Dealing with Conflict and Issues Concerning Sex.I was especially curious on how they would respond to the the section on sex since sex is really not discussed in this culture. The couples were hungry to learn, asked questions, made comments, and were fully engaged. I was surprised by their response to the material concerning sex. We talked more explicitly about sexual issues than I thought they would be comfortable with, but we had some interesting discussions.

Once again, the women by their comments, investment in the conversations, the smiles on their faces were thrilled with this seminar. They didn't want the seminar to end. In terms of the evaluations, nearly everyone put as the major weakness of the seminar was not enough time. So the men felt that way as well. But I spent a lot of time helping husbands understand why their wives respond the way they do, and the wives would be shaking their heads in agreement as I was speaking. (It kind of felt like the experience I have had in an African-American church where people in the congregation make comments while the preacher is preaching, like, "Amen" and "Preach it brother."). One wife came up to me after we had finished and thanked me saying, "When we came here our marriage was in a big hole but now we have come out of it." She was beaming. Another reason the women were particularly eager to stay is that their husbands captive for the time they were there and through some of the work and assignments I gave the couples, could talk with them, share feelings that they are not normally able to share, and enjoy being with them.

One couple sitting right in front of the podium caught my attention. I marveled at the way the husband spoke about their marriage, the way he gently touched her shoulder as he talked about her, and in general is tenderness in talking with her. I actually used him as an example of the way a husband should treat his wife.

I want to share a couple of pictures from today. The first is a picture of Janeth (not a typo) who is a WVT staff person who was helping George out. When I saw the colorful dress that she wore to the seminar this morning, I told her that I had to take a picture of her.  She is married and has two children.

This second picture is of Pastor Masirika Mwambusa and his wife. I was very impressed with his thoughtfulness, vulnerability, honesty, and his gentle presence. He asked excellent questions. He was drinking up this seminar. He is actually a missionary to Tanzania from the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo). He lives on the border with Rwanda and has been in Tanzania for about a year. He asked me at the end of the conference if his wife could take a picture of us together. Afterwards, I took this picture of him and his wife.

I want to offer a heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been praying for me and for this seminar. It was a great success and WVT wants me to come back to do more training. There is such a great need for this here (and probably everywhere).

Tomorrow afternoon I head for Entebbe via Nairobi. I should arrive in Entebbe around 7:00 pm. i would ask for your continued prayers and especially for Joan and Michelle who will be heading to Uganda on Friday.

God Works in Mysterious Ways

Today the conference was supposed to begin at 9:00 am and go to 5:00 pm. I wasn't really expecting it to begin on time because in this culture beginning and ending on time isn't a priority. So at 9:00 am there was one person in the room. At 9:15 there were two people in the room, at 9:30 there were three people in the room and at 10:00 we were back down to two. Daniel said to me  "We need patience like a donkey."George Mngodo, my WVT translator whom I mentioned in a previous email, got in touch with the pastor who was supposed to be bringing 8-10 couples from a nearby ADP thought the conference was Wednesday and Thursday, not Tuesday and Wednesday. At 10:30, it was time for coffee and tea break, so Daniel, George, myself and maybe four others had coffee break. Daniel and George decided that we would start at 11:15 no matter who was present. So we actually began at 11:20 with 6 couples and 2 men whose wives were not able to attend today but are planning on coming tomorrow. It's the first time that I have had a coffee break before the conference actually started. Below is a picture of the conference room around 8:50 a.m.

It turned out that a number of those attending did not speak any English and many of the others were not very proficient in English so we decided that George would translate for me. It was definitely the right thing to do and George did an outstanding job as translator. He was smooth and my fear of it being overly disjointed was not an issue. The main problem was that my handouts were in English and he needed to translate them for the attendees. After the day was over, I gave him copies of my handouts for tomorrow and he planned to translate them into Swahili and print them off for tomorrow morning. The picture below shows George translating for me.

I had asked George to find someone to lead some singing before we began and Thekla, Pastor Orestes wife, led the singing. Africans' ability to make music without instruments but by clapping rhythms never ceases to amaze me. It was joyous singing and all the attendees got into it.

The picture above is of Pastor Orestes and his wife, Thekla. After the singing was finished, Daniel talked about this being sponsored by WVT and why they were holding this seminar and then introduced me. I gave some opening background about myself and why I was in Tanzania and began teaching. We were originally going to break for lunch at noon, but Daniel changed the time to 1:30 pm so we had a decent amount of time engage the topic. I used scripture to make a case for the equality of women and was uncertain how they would receive it. But it actually went quite well. Then I began the next topic which was "communication," but we broke for lunch before long. We returned and continued the topic around 2:30 and finished up around 4:30.

As it turns out the smaller group lent itself to more openness and trust and I was thrilled with the level of honesty and sharing that occurred in the room. I wasn't sure how comfortable they would be with me and uncertain if they would interact with me, but they started sharing comments and asking questions almost from the beginning, and in the session after lunch, the trust level deepened. The one thing that I felt most gratified about was the response of the wives. I spent time explaining to their husbands general differences between the way men and women deal especially with feelings, and as I was speaking, they were all nodding "yes" and smiling. I think they felt validated and to the husbands credits, they were enlightened and seemed genuinely appreciative of learning this about their wives.

After today's seminar was over, Daniel, George, and I met and they were excited about the response those attending had. They said that frequently when presenters come, especially from the West, they don't connect. I want to thank you for your prayers because I do believe that they helped create a climate of trust and openness today. Please keep tomorrow in your prayers.

Daniel told me at the end of the debrief that tomorrow there would be an additional 10-15 couples attending. If that actually happens, I am sad that they weren't able to attend this first day but hope that the dynamic of trust that we established today isn't diluted. We shall see...

Cramming for the Conference

This morning I met with Daniel and George, the WVT staff person in charge of Christian Witness, who is responsible for interacting with pastors and their churches, coordinating trainings, and serving the local church in general. We went to the conference room at the hotel where I am staying and met with the hotel set up staff so they know how I want the room configured. Since I am not a Powerpoint man, I am very low tech: flip chart and markers!

I was planning for 30 couples--pastors and their wives--but uncertain about who was actually attending this conference.  George estimates that there will be somewhere between 25 and 30 couples attending and he informed me that there will be a wide range of ages as well as educational levels and years of experience in the parish. I think he told me that there would be 5 bishops attending, a number of whom have done graduate work. There may also be pastors with little or no education.

By the way, the pentecostal churches frequently have bishops. From my experience, they are generally founders of a church which then grows and plants sister churches in the same city and may grow to populate other cities and even other countries. For example, Bishop Stephen was visiting and preaching at the new Eagle Christian Church in Arusha. He has four churches in Nairobi, this church, and he is leaving this week to Cape Town, South Africa to plant a new church there.

George suggested that we may want to translate into Swahili. I'm sure most of the pastors and their wives will be fluent in English but some may not have a sufficiently good practical grasp of English and might have difficulty understanding. The problem with translation is that it almost doubles the time it takes to communicate. I already realized that I have too much material to present as is, and translating coupled with a content change I have made to the beginning of my presentation, I am afraid that I will have to cut a lot of important material. But I would rather cover well what we do cover and have attendees understand what we are covering rather than presenting more material but less comprehension.

In any case, I am excited and a bit nervous about tomorrow and would encourage your prayers for my presentation and all the details.

On another note, there is a great cafe a stone's throw away from my hotel on the same side of the street called "Africafe." They have great cafe lattes and I had what I think was the best grilled cheese and tomato sandwich I have ever had anywhere. They have pretty good wifi so I have periodically tanked up on coffee and worked on my presentation there.

One of the things I really like about it is that most of the customers are African. In other cafes I have gone to in Arusha and Gulu, it is almost always Europeans and North Americans who are the major clientele. In the Africafe there are always a few of us, but the vast majority areTanzanians. The owners have done a great job with the decor. Below is a picture I took of the inside.

One More Time...

Yesterday afternoon I visited my driver’s, Mr. Mwanga’s, home. He lives on the east side of Arusha. His wife was just heading out to meet up with someone and I didn’t understand her first name, but she seemed very friendly. They have three sons: Hussein, Hassan, and Hushein (not sure of the spelling of the youngest son’s name). His oldest son is 23 and is attending the police academy, Hassan is 18 has just taken exams and waiting to see where he will be going to school. He is a great young man. His English is excellent and we had a nice conversation. He likes science and especially biology. Here is a picture of Mr. Mwanga and his two younger sons.

Since it was a beautiful day and I didn’t have anything scheduled, I asked if he could drive me to a point where I could view Mt. Kilimanjaro. We agreed on a price and headed out: it was about ½ hour drive. As we drove the haze became thicker and thicker in the distance, and when we arrived at the bend in the road where the mountain is visible, it was total haze. I couldn’t see anything.  He told me that the day before the mountain was as clear as a bell. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow…

Worship at the Eagles Christian Church-Arusha

This morning Daniel took me to his, church, the Eagles Christian Church-Arusha, a Pentecostal church. It has been gathered for about eight months and is part of Eagles Christian Church in Kenya, of which there are four in Nairobi. The founder and bishop is Dr. Stephen Mutua who happened to be at the church today preaching. I met the pastor of the church, Orestis, in July when I was here.

The church meets in a large conference room at a local hotel and I estimate that about 80 people were worshiping. Like all of the Pentecostal services I have attended, worship was lively. The singers led the congregation in song at the beginning of the service for a little under and hour. For one of the praise songs, the leader had the congregation do a line dance through the room. It truly was joyful.

There were some prayers in the beginning as well and after the singing there were some announcements. After the service people were invited to go to the hotel swimming pool where they were going to baptize a number of people.

Bishop Stephen then spoke for about ½ hour about the seven kind of people that you need in your life—encourager, dream maker, way maker, destiny connector, king maker, wealth maker, and successor. At the end he was really energized and said that was the “appetizer” and now he was going to preach the sermon on God’s favor from Proverbs 3:4. It was a very motivational and encouraging message. He spoke mostly in English but periodically would switch into Swahili. (The songs were a mixture of English and Swahili.). He preached for about 45 minutes.

 There was then an altar call and seven women and one man came forward and he prayed a fairly long prayer, which they repeated (it was in Swahili.) The last part of worship was celebrating the Eucharist. For me personally, I love to celebrate communion when I am traveling and realize that even though I am in a country far away from home, in a vastly different culture in a denomination that is significantly different from my own, we are one in Christ.

Part way through the service he had all the first time guests stand and give their names and where they were from. I was surprised by how many visitors there were. I would estimate that there were 10 to 15 guests from Tanzania and that in addition to me there were two other international guests, one from Italy and one from Japan. All in all the service lasted a little under 3 hours.

One interesting side note to the church service. Because Daniel was participating in the baptismal service at the pool after the main worship service was over, he asked a woman from the church, Adeline, if she would drive me back to my hotel (which wasn’t far away). We hadn’t gone far when a policeman pulled her to the side of the road, for no particular reason. He asked to see her driver’s license and she only had her old one. She had just gotten a new one and had forgotten to put it in her wallet. The officer from the get-go was looking for a bribe. This is the second time this has happened in a vehicle I was in in Tanzania. His English was good and he looked in and addressed me trying to make the case that his hands were tied. I told him that in the U.S. they let you go home and get your license. He was surprise by that and said he would let her do that but she would have to leave the car. Adeline and he talked back and forth in Swahili for a while and one more time he addressed me and I said I thought he should let her get her license. In the end he let her go and she didn’t pay the bribe. I felt happy that I was able to play a small role in helping her. But this happens all the time in East Africa at least in the three East African countries I have visited: Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. In everyone I have been in vehicles stopped by police looking for bribes. In Kenya last year, I actually paid the bribe money.

This afternoon I am going to visit the family of the driver who is a friend of Daniels and a practicing Muslim. I always ask him about his family when I see him—he is married and I am not sure if he has 3 or 4 children because his English isn’t great and my Swahili is far worse. On the way from the airport to my hotel last night he mentioned he would like me to meet his family if possible and I said I would love to meet them, I just didn’t know what my schedule would be. So it turns out that I am free this afternoon and evening and will have the chance to meet them in about an hour.

Arrived in Arusha

I arrived at Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania safely around 8:30 pm yesterday. Since I was sitting near the front, I was able to get off fairly quickly and made it through customs quickly. My bag was already on the conveyor belt so I picked it up and headed outside. There my driver, Mr. Mwanga, was waiting for me and we headed for Arusha, about a 45 minute drive away. I am staying at the New Safari Hotel where the conference on Tuesday and Wednesday will be held.

My hope on this visit is that I will actually be able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro. On my third visit I saw the peak from the air as we arrived in Tanzania, but other than that it has been completely covered in clouds, so completely that I haven't even been able to see the base of the mountain. Last night it was clear when I arrived--the sky was full of stars--but it was so dark, I couldn't see it. Arusha is too far away to see it, so my next chance will be on Thursday when I fly to Entebbe. If I am successful, I will try to take a picture of it and post it on the blog.

This morning I am in the lobby of the hotel awaiting the arrival of my host here, Daniel Muvengi who is on the World Vision Tanzania staff. I will be attending church with him and his family. He has three children: Hope who is 16, Shalom who is 13, and Fadhili (which means Mercy) who is 9. I haven't met his wife or Hope yet, both of whom were visiting relatives in Nairobi when I went to church with him a year ago.

Thank you for your prayers and please keep praying!