Thursday: More Training

Thursday was the continuation of Wednesday's teaching. Dad continued in Ephesians through the beginning of chapter 6. We had discovered the day before that polygamy was a very prominent problem in the district. Unlike in the States, the laws for marriage are not as detailed. Many of the marriages are sanction by the community and the government considers that sufficient. So during the section of Ephesians 5 which deals with the relationship between an man and his wife, Dad stressed the need for godly men to follow Scripture and love their wife as Christ loves the church. He taught this along with the topics of "How should a Church Member live?" and "What is the role of the pastors?" 

After lunch we again spilt into our groups and mom and I taught the ladies and Dad and Jonathan taught the men. The men finished out Ephesians by looking at the armor of God and examining how the church should conduct herself when under persecution. I went a different direction and looked at what it meant to be a biblical woman. We looked first at the story of Eve and saw the reason why woman was created and how it was later distorted by sin. Then we looked at the stories of Sarah and Hannah and compared them to one another. The women related to these women very well for just as the women were in polygamist relationships so were they. They asked how they could live alongside their cowives and what kind of a relationship they should have with them. Many of them wanted to know if God could still use a second wife for his glory. They wanted to know how they could deal with the other women and how they could be witnesses to both them and their husband. Mom and I did the best we could with the help of Mrs Irene and answered those questions as gracefully and biblically as we knew how. This is a situation we do not see often in America nor is it a problem we had ever encountered. Many of the second ( third, etc) wives did not want to leave the man and were afraid of being put away because there was no way they could provide for their children. I read to them the story of when Sarah put out Hagar and Ishmael and how God provided for them in the desert. I told them that while it is a frightening thing to live without provision, God is faithful to provide for his worshippers. One of the things we told the women is that while they many not be able to escape these relationships themselves they can teach their children (especially their sons) to follow the biblical principle and by doing that they will save their children from their lifestyle. 

These are pictures of our group on Wednesday but on Thursday we had almost 70 women listening.

Wednesday: Bible Conference

Today marked the start of the conference. We opened the day with beautiful singing in Swahili, then Dad taught for two hours on Ephesians chapter 1. In this section he addressed the question "What is the Church?" He spelled out how we see that throughout biblical history God's plan has always been to make worshippers, and his ultimate plan was the creation of the church. He explained that we as saints are commanded to be worshippers of God. He spoke of how salvation is through faith alone and that works cannot gain us salvation. In addition, it is the Holy Spirit who seals our salvation in Christ. Because of this we will one day receive an inheritance as a reward in heaven for what we as believers have done on earth. He then opened the floor for questions the listeners might have. Two of the questions dealt with sin: 1) If I am a saint, why do I keep falling into sin? 2) What must I do to stop committing sin? These people were starving for the truth of the word and desired greatly the wisdom of the Word to sink into their everyday lives. 

This picture is of an old Pastor who sat on the front row holding his tattered Bible and reading glasses that looked as if they had been repaired a hundred times. Both days he sat and soaked in every word said.

In the afternoon we split up into two groups: men and women. Mom and I taught the women while Dad and Jonathan taught the men. The men walked through the second and third chapters of Ephesians. Mom read both of those passages, explaining some of the concepts as she went, and at the end asked if there were any questions. There were many questions and they continued until we had run out of time. The first was "How can I raise my children to be godly Church Members?" Another asked about gossip in the church, explaining that there were women in her church that were spreading rumors about her. Some women were dealing with adulterous husbands, and others with polygamists. One woman asked about a situation where her 6th grade daughter had gotten pregnant and her school would no longer allow her to attend. What should she do? Wait for the child to be born and care for it while her daughter is in school? Or would it be better to abort? We obviously advised the first option. Another woman asked about how to care for their family and avoid domestic strife/violence within the home. Mom and I and a couple other church leaders addressed these problems the best we could and we hope and pray that our words were taken to heart. We pray our words encouraged these women to stay strong in their faith and remain faithful to their husband and families. 

Mom and Mrs Irene (Pastor Lawrence's wife) who interpreted for us. 

Some of the 40+ women who came to hear us. 

Tuesday: The Great Harvest

Tuesday was much like Monday. We gathered at the church in the morning, prayed together, sang together, and then went out in groups again. Today we had a slightly different group than before: 

Sylver (our translator) 

 

Evangelist Charles, Pastor Charles, and Teacher Charles (left to right) 

Lydia

Jackson (Compassion worker) and Pastor Cosmos

We went out and visited 13 homes through the whole day. The first two homes we went into and shared with there were three professions. The next place we went there was an old Catholic lady who followed us from her house to the next three houses and discouraged the people there from believing the gospel. We pray that what we spoke would penetrate her heart for she heard the message three times. We also pray that those she discouraged would be given another chance to believe. 

The next place we went was the home of  an older man, his wife, and their numerous grandchildren. Both the old man and his wife, along with another woman who had stopped by to see the wide and heard, believed. He had many questions about the differences between Catholicism and the gospel. Along the way we met many who professed to be what is called Charismatic Catholics. Our translators and pastors explained what that was for we were quite confused. Basically, rather than praying to Mary and believing that their works through the sacraments would save them they worshipped and believed in Jesus through faith. Nonetheless they continued to follow many of the catholic traditions and beliefs, including their submission to the Pope. After lunch we went to a new section of the village to preach for we were getting too close to the Kenyan boarder and many in our group would not be able to go for they did not have passports. We went in the opposite direction, which involved piling 14 people in a van and driving up a narrow "road" leading towards the rocky hilly part of the village. This area was defined by a hilly area which was peppered with large boulders jutting up from the earth in some of the most strange manners. But in this area, which is home to a government medical center, we were able to speak to a few more people. We stopped at one house and two women and two young men heard the gospel and confessed Christ. After that we were able to encourage a couple who lived in the area and were believers already. They pointed us to the last house we visited. This very old man lived there with a few grandchildren. He was is the processes of marking out the ground for a new house, but he stopped his work to hear us. We shared the gospel with him and he too believed. When we joined back together that afternoon with the other teams we learned that 57 individuals had confessed faith in Christ that day. The local pastors were able to record the names and homes of the new believers in order to follow up with them. Some of which we did on Friday. We praise God for the great harvest he has brought in just two days. 

Monday: Day 1 in Busia —Evangelism

We started the day on Monday with a nice cup of African Tea and some fantastic bananas! We loaded up and drove a few miles down the road to Buteba Baptist Church (BBC), it is the mother church of the nine churches in Busia. Pastor Lawrence is the head pastor over the association. There we met our team of 20 people who we would be going with to do evangelism for the day. We were split into four groups, Paul and Pastor Michael went together in group Judea, Jonathan and I were in group Jerusalem, Mom and Dad were in group Bethlehem, and Timmy was in group Jericho. We went out once in the morning for an hour an a half and again after lunch for two hours. We went in different directions with our groups and walked miles through the village surrounding the church. 

There are many stories of the day's events which I could tell, but here are just a few. Jonathan and I went together and talked to many people and visited many families. The first house we went to we sat down and talked to a man. Jonathan presented the gospel and the man confessed with tears in his eyes. This is the first tome Jonathan had ever led anyone to accept Christ, despite his faithfulness to be a witness. 

Then there was a lady who we were able to talk to who accepted the gospel and confessed Jesus as Lord. Her name was Lydia. 

There was a timid little girl who was between 12-15 years old who would not respond to the questions of the men but when I sat down beside her and told her the story of Christ, her eyes lit up and she too believed.

At another house we met an older lady, we shared the gospel with her but she told us she believed she was fine how she was for her son was a deacon and because of that she would be saved. She would not be convinced otherwise. We continued on and spoke to many others and many more believed.

The first day's totals came to be about 36 professions of faith. From mom and dad's group there were 4 professions, from Paul's group there were 12 professions, from Timmy's group there were 11 professions (also because he had brought the knowledge of the gospel to the family's home they gave him a chicken!), and in our group there were 9 professions. 

We praise God for the salvation of 36 souls! 

Sunday: Worship and Travel

Saturday we drove to Kampala, Uganda, the Capital city of Uganda. We stopped at a coffee shop called Café Java and ate. For all my coffee shop friends, their Café au Lait was very good! Afterwards we went to the 50th year marriage anniversary for an American missionary who had been in Uganda for 32 years. That evening Pastor Michael informed Dad he would be preaching the next morning. So the next morning Dad preached two services at Agape Baptist Church where Michael is pastor. Jonathan, Mom, Timmy, and I sang two songs in the second service. It was then that we discovered that it was apparently seen as disrespectful for a man to sing standing next to his mother-in-law. Oops... Oh well, we were just standing in order of song parts. That afternoon we drove to Busia, Uganda on the east boarder of Uganda and Kenya. On the way, we stopped for chicken on a stick, which was sold by street venders who walked right up to your car in the street and sold it to you through the window. Talk about drive through service! Once we got to Busia we unloaded at the Rand Hotel where we stayed all week. We ate at the hotel with Pastor Lawrence and his wife, Mrs Irene, with whom we served all week. We went over the week's plan and hammered out the last minute details. Then we tucked our mosquito nets around our beds and slept quite well all night. 

The Conclusion of the Crazy Travel

There we were in Montreal... We got our tickets straightened out and made it to our gate with a few hours to spare. At 7:15 we took off on time for our 5 1/5 hr flight over the Atlantic to Amsterdam.
At this point we were still unaware of Jonathan's travel status. But, as the story was supplied later, he had arrived in Entebbe, Uganda, went through customs, and was treated by the driver who was supposed to take him to the hotel. He thought that he would be able to drop off his luggage, get the rooms, then go back to pick us up. Once he got to the hotel they told I'm out flights had been delayed and that we would be there tomorrow. So he bunkered down for the night and spent the day at the hotel.
Meanwhile in Holland... We had a three hour layover, two of those hours were spent running to opposite sides of the airport to get tickets and luggage confirmed. But we made the flight with an hour to spare and took off on our 10 hr flight to Entebbe, with a short stop in Kigali. Mm and Dad barely slept on either flight, but Paul, Timmy, and I got a few hours of sleep. Regardless, we were all exhausted.
Then came the moment we've all been waiting for, or at least me... We landed in Entebbe and made our way through customs, then we walked outside. Thankfully, Pastor Michael had been able to get ahold of Jonathan and he knew to meet us there that night. He was waiting for us with the driver outside the airport. Ten minutes later we were at our hotel and had our rooms. We went upstairs and got a nice hot shower. Well, the boys didn't, they didn't have enough water pressure so they took bucket baths instead.
The next morning, after a hot night of sleep under a mosquito net, we walked down to the beach, had a fantastic breakfast (coffee = fantastic, African Tea=fantastic, mangos = to die for), and packed up. We enjoyed a nice walk down the road and saw tons of monkeys. Then waited for Pastor Michael. Now it is 1:30PM and Pastor Michael has arrived to take us to Kampala.
Thus ends our journey in Entebbe.

Canada Connection Correction

We began our journey to Uganda yesterday morning. We left Skippers, VA (mom and dad's place) at 8:30AM, went to the bank to get our money, and arrived in DC by 2PM without any issues. (Special thank you to my lovely sis-in-law, Ryanne, for driving us.) We made it to our gate and chilled for a couple hours before being told that our flight was delayed 10 minutes. No problem, right, maybe not. Once we boarded the plane, we had to wait for 30 more minutes while the correct paperwork was given to us. Apparently there was some computer errors. Thankfully the flight was only an hour long. We hit the ground in Montreal with 30 minutes to spare. Unfortunately the plane which had been docked in our terminal before us had some mechanical issues and we had to be moved to another one. That took 20 of our 30 minutes. I quite literally ran off the plane and leaving the others to grab the luggage I flew through customs and in 10 minutes I made it to our departure gate. Again unfortunately, the plane had just pulled way.  I met back up with the rest of the group and we went through customs and started the reticketing process. That took 3 hours, but the lady was nice and helped us as much as she could. We were given hotel and food vouchers and they took care of us quite well. The cool thing was that the lady at the hotel told us, after we explained our plight, that she too was a believer and she prayed we would have a safe journey.
I know God has a reason for changing our plans, and we look to see that. In all things he does what is good. Here are a few things you can pray for today and tomorrow:
1. That we would have a safe flight to Amsterdam and then to Uganda.
2. That Jonathan, who is traveling separate, would also have safe flights, and that he would get the messages we left for him concerning our travel changes.
3. That God would be glorified in all this and he would give us gospel opportunities while we travel.