Bukonde OPCU

Every once in a while, Eric likes to write a blog post.  Here is one from him today!

Today we visited Bukonde OPCU for worship, which included three baptisms and the Lord’s Supper.

The church is up in the hills, and is a beautiful drive.  Here is a picture of Pastor Leonard Mukhwana in front of the church building.  Notice the newer portion of the building on the left – that was added because of increased attendance.  Pastor Leonard’s work is a real labor of love.  The money the church pays him is only enough to cover his costs such as transport to and from the church (he lives about 10km away), but he is a real servant for Christ and for Christ’s kingdom.  

While waiting for the service to start, I looked through the church register.  I noted the average weekly offering of 11,000 shillings, and average attendance of about 55 people.

For comparison, I looked at previous years and found this page from 2011 when the average attendance was 38 people and average offering only 1,380 shillings.  That means over the past 5 years there is a giving increase of almost 800%!  This is encouraging because it reflects increased dedication to the Lord among the saints in Bukonde. (In US dollars this is an increase from 48 cents to $3.50 per week.)

The church recently opened a nursery school, and that was evident in the blackboard and some charts:

When we arrived at the church, it was already set up for communion and baptism:

Here are some photos of the worshipping congregation:

Here is one of the baptisms:

At the end of the service the congregation came to the front for a picture (as well as my family):

Of course what photos cannot directly capture are the faith in the hearts of God’s people, their hope of heaven, the many trials they pass through, and the work God is doing among them.  Bukonde is in a heavily Muslim area, and some are coming to faith in Christ.  Please pray for this congregation, for the work Christ is doing among them, for the fledgling nursery school, for Pastor Leonard, and for the elders and deacons.  Satan is always attacking and trying to disorganize, but when God’s people around the world pray for one another and love one another, God hears these prayers and blesses his people. 

I hope your Sunday today was great.  As you go into this coming week, greetings from the saints in Bukonde, Uganda!

Our visit with my parents...

My parents arrived in Uganda last week to visit with us.  While their visit has been filled with unexpected challenges, we are so glad that they are able to come and see where we call home these days.  I was hoping that their visit here would be a relaxing change of pace for all of us. 

We haven't quite seen the relaxing part yet, though.

The day before they arrived in country, I came down with a very bad case of malaria.  In retrospect, I should have checked into a hospital and done IV treatments, but I chose to treat using tablets instead.  I still managed to ride along to pick them up from the airport, but on their first full day here I ended up in a clinic in Kampala due to dehydration.  It wasn't until Monday that I finally started to round a corner.  

Most of you know that we were without water for 2 weeks.  Finally, it came back on Thursday...just in time for Dad and Mom...yay!  But by the time we got back from picking them up, we realized that while city water was on, it didn't have enough pressure to push up to our tank in order to fill it.  Our entire house, except for 1 faucet in the kitchen is hooked up to our tank, so no water in the tank means no water in the house.  Towards the middle of the week, we were able to buy a small water pump and pump the water through the hose to fill up our tank.  That worked for a day, but then finally city water went out all together again for two days.  Thankfully, it got fixed on Friday night and after now three weeks of water troubles, we have had mostly good (at least as good as it usually is on a weekend) water.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday brought puking kids.  Just a 24 hour bug, but no fun when there are lots of things to do with grandparents!

Thursday, everyone seemed healthy so we piled into the Land Rover and drove up to Sipi Falls to go hiking for the day.  We almost made it there, but then the Land Rover decided to blow yet another head gasket!  While Eric set up a tow truck and private hire van for us, the rest of us took bodas up to Sipi Falls...Dad and Mom's first boda ride! :)

Then, when we were hiking back down, my dad slipped and hit his back against a rock.  He either severely bruised or broke a rib.  We spent the next day at a clinic getting x rays, and although they didn't find a break, he's still in a lot of pain.

Then on Friday, Benaiah got a pretty bad chest cold.  As I was putting him to bed that night, I noticed he was breathing really fast.  I checked his oxygen saturation and he was at 89%.  Not too great.  So I told Eric, when either of us wake up, we really need to check him.  Enter Mom-fail, right here.  I woke up with a start at 5 am, realizing I had slept all night without checking on him.  I jumped up, found the monitor and checked him and he was at 80%.  I went to the kitchen to start a pot of water to boil to get some steam going (because of course we had no showers since we had no water still...) and tripped over chairs and a small table set up in the kitchen and wondered why they were there.  And then, I woke up Eric.  He rolled over and sleepily said, "I know, I've been up with him sitting in the kitchen (thus the chairs!) giving him steam."  What a great daddy!  He didn't even wake me up!  :)  So, as soon as daylight came to Mbale, we were able to get him to CURE hospital and onto oxygen and some antibiotics.  By the afternoon, he was able to go off the oxygen and stayed pretty good and then we went home in the late afternoon.  When he took a nap at the hospital, his levels had dipped a bit, so tonight Eric and I are taking turns staying awake to monitor him...

...and clean up puke from one more puking child...

sigh...

but at least we have water to do the laundry tomorrow...

...and grandparents to read books and visit with... :)

And now, a few pictures...

Playing in a waterfall on the drive up Mt. Wanale:

My parents brought birthday gifts for each of the kids.  It was also my Dad's 70th birthday the day they flew here.  So we decided it would be great fun to have a birthday party for all the kids and dad.  And then my parents got to give each of the kids their gift.

On one of the days we were able to go out to visit a village and one of the village schools that has started.  We delivered some books that the public schools in Georgia were finished with and had donated to the schools here.  We also brought a stack of our books that we let the kids look at for a little while.  Then we walked to meet some of the church members, pray with them and then eat lunch at the pastor's house.

Here is a picture of our boda ride up to Sipi.

Dad holding a chameleon.

The kids found a swimming hole last time they went and were eager to go again.  The water was COLD though!

And here is a cell phone picture of little Benaiah at the hospital.  Even though he was sick, he thought it was great fun and really enjoyed his day.  haha!

Tomorrow, we are hoping to drive across the country and visit Queen Elizabeth National Park.  Please pray with us for safe travels, for my dad's rib to heal so he isn't in too much pain, for Benaiah to get the rest of the way better and for no more sick kids!  Thank you!

Teacher Training

And exciting development among four of the OPCU village churches, is that they have started small schools.  For most of them, they are doing Nursery (pre-K), primary 1 and primary 2 (grades 1 and 2).  We are very excited at the small beginning we are seeing with Christian education.  We hope and pray that the Lord will bless these schools.

Eric and I have, for some time, seen the need for teacher training.  While we knew that we couldn't do a lot, we did want to do some.  So this past Saturday, we organized an afternoon class at KTC.  Eric taught on what it means to have a Christ filled school...that it is more than working to produce good smart kids, but that Christ should be at the center of everything so that Christ's kingdom is built.  I taught on the academic side of things.  I used the classical education model to give them the "Tools of Learning"...namely, "memorizing the facts" (grammar), "understanding" (logic) and "speaking" (dialectic).  I presented it, not as a developmental pattern, but rather as a way that a child can learn any subject..."memorize the facts"; "understand" how they fit together; and then "speak" back to the teacher what he has learned so that the teacher can check for understanding.

We thought that it went really well!  The Ugandan way of teaching is very very different than what we have in America.  Some of the information that we gave them, they really understood, some of it was very new to them, but they were eager to understand, and some of it was quite a stretch, but at least the ideas were presented and seeds were planted.  All in all, though, the teachers seemed very receptive and eager to have more days like this.  

Please pray for these schools.  Pray that their small beginnings will be blessed by the Lord...both spiritually and physically.  They are very poor schools.  The idea of a distinctly Christian education...bringing Christ into every subject...is also relatively new.  Please pray that God's will pour out his grace upon these teachers and schools.