Sunday, June 22.
Greetings from Uganda! It was another nice day here in Iganga. Sunny and not very hot. This is good because none of the churches have air conditioning.
I got a good nights rest and slept in a little this morning. Instead of getting up at 6 am, I got up at 6:30 am. We had a leisurely breakfast and sat around and drank coffee for a couple of hours before we left for church. Pastor Daniel picked us up a few minutes past 10 am and we left for church worship services.
I taught the adult Sunday school class this morning and had been given 45 minutes. When we arrived at the church they were already worshipping and singing. By the time that Pastor Daniel introduced me it was 10:45 am. I made a huge mistake. In my planning for teaching this class, I had (without thinking) naturally assumed that I would be teaching in english and had planned accordingly. Unfortunately, everything had to be translated. I did not realize this until just before I walked up to the podium. You see, when you need to have a speech or talk interpreted you can roughly double the time that is required. So, instead of 45 minutes, it now would take 1:30 minutes. I thought about cutting out some parts of my talk but I was afraid that if I did that, I would leave out parts that would make the rest of the teaching not make much sense. So, I quickly said to myself to stick to the notes and ask forgiveness.
My teaching was entitled Leading your Family Like Jesus and it was well received despite going over my allotted time. After I finished, they had several groups of young people get up and sing. Then, it was Luke's turn to speak. He spoke on the topic of why Christians must suffer. He did a fantastic job! (Luke is such a great speaker and preacher and only used a small one page of notes) I believe that his message is one that they needed to hear but maybe one they did not want to hear. As he was preaching, I could help from thinking about the rise of Islam extremism throughout Africa. Pastor Daniel told us a day or so ago that the younger men who are muslims are being radicalized by Imams who have been trained and supported by Saudi Wahhabi's). It seems that in several places around Uganda, Christian pastors have been attacked. One even had acid poured over his head as he was walking down a city street to get to his car. Please pray for the Christian men and women of Uganda that they may remain faithful, even when they face violence and maybe even death.
After church, we went to Pastor Daniel's home and had lunch. He has such a great family and we met his wife, daughter, and one of his sons. His wife is really great cook. The meal was excellent. Pastor's Francis from Gulu and Alex from South Sudan also ate with us. After the meal, Luke and I asked them a lot of questions about where they live, the church they pastor, the challenges they face, as well as the general situation where they live. It is amazing what God can do with just a few resources in the hands of men who are completely surrendered to Jesus! These men are raising up leaders and planting churches in small villages without ANY outside financing from America or other western countries.
We then went back to the hotel to rest for a couple of hours. At 6 pm, Pastor Daniel picked us up and we drove to Pastor Jimmie's church on the other side of town. This is a new church plant that is a little over one year old. When we arrived we could see that the place was packed. There were mainly lots of children, middle schoolers, and teenagers, with several young and middle aged women. There were only a few men but most of them were mid-20's. They had all the kids come up and sing songs and several groups of girls also sang. Jimmie asked both Luke and I to speak to the congregation for a few minutes, so Luke and I spoke about 10-15 minutes each, mainly to give them some encouragement. Jimmie even asked Brittany to say a few words. We left at 8 pm and Pastor Daniel drove us through downtown on the way back to the hotel. It was very dark by now, but all the downtown shops and street vendors were open and the place was packed with people. Needless to say, I was surprised that at 8 pm on a Sunday evening people were out in the streets instead of getting some rest for the upcoming work week?
After we got back to the hotel, we changed clothes and ordered something to eat and drink. This place is awesome! They have Mountain Dew and Fanta orange and grape soda. I make it a practice to have a Mt. Dew every evening. At least one, if not two.
Well, tomorrow is a big day. We have two Encounter workshops on tap for tomorrow and they will last all day. This is where we see just how well we prepared them. I personally think that most of them will do great, but we do have 2 or 3 that are a little weak. So, keep us in your prayers for tomorrow. Our hope is that the workshops tomorrow will give them the confidence they need to be able to teach this later on when they return to the home communities.
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.
Blessings!
Fred
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