Hello
everyone ... Lyle here,
It seems
lately that our blogs begin with something to the effect of "we can't
believe its been over a month since our last blog." So once again I am
beginning this blog somehow the same way, as it’s been a month and half since
our last blog. Time has been so full and as Ingrid explained in our last blog,
there is no such thing as a typical day except that a typical day is never
typical.
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| Devotionals at Pastor's Training |
Since Ingrid
wrote the last blog we have been very busy. A highlight is that we had meetings
with clergy about their ministry needs and how AIM might be able to come
alongside and support and help equip national staff. We attended a Church
planting training put on by a ministry that began in the U.S. with a vision of
planting one million churches. The training was given to local pastors and was
given by church leaders from other parts of Uganda. We very much appreciated
the hearts of the presenters and the content of the material. Something that
was said in an online missiology class Ingrid and I are taking is that
"evangelism without discipleship and church planting breeds
heresy." This is exactly what we see here in Moroto District. In our
context here, I would take this a step further and add that the churches
planted need to be doctrinally sound. So often we see evangelistic blitzes that
may or may not be doctrinally sound and that lack mature believers to stay,
teach, disciple, and follow-up.
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| Youth Leaders' Training |
Immediately
following the pastors' training we attended the tail end of some youth leader
training that took place in the church we are attending. We so much appreciated
the heart of the Reverend teaching the class of youth leaders and his friend
from Kampala who assisted with the training. What we saw in the training so
typified what we have seen over and over again as we live here; people in
leadership that simply have no idea of what a Christian is. This group of young
men and women were sent from their respective churches from all over southern
Karamoja. When the Reverend asked them "when did you become a Christian?”
the answers varied. Some said, "I was confirmed." Others said,
"I was baptized." Many said, "I go to church." A few talked
of Jesus being their Lord and Savior. The Reverend was able to very lovingly
challenge the group that most of them were not saved nor Christians. He
explained to them that being a Christian is about receiving what Jesus did on
the cross and personally accepting Him as Savior and Lord. He did such a good
job of this and four of the youth leaders came forward and gave their life to
Christ as Lord!!! We wanted to shout in worship at hearing the truth of
Christ spoken.
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| Shepherd boy now in school |
The next
order of business was a trip to Kampala to take care of things that are
generally so simple in the States, but in Moroto are impossible. I got two
teeth filled, picked up a new pair of glasses, needed repairs to the car were
completed (the roads tear the car up terribly), we finally got our Uganda
driver's licenses, and we got a new set of tires on the car (a couple
generously donated for the tires). Our old set of tires lasted not quite 1 1/2
years. It's about a 10-hour drive to Kampala, not because of the distances, but
because of the roads. The first 3 hours of the drive is on a one-lane dirt
road. Please don't picture the dirt roads you are used to in the states. The
road is maybe 12 feet wide and we share it with huge trucks, overloaded with
limestone, driving way too fast, and insisting their portion of the road is in
the center. If not trucks from the quarry there are always tractor-trailer
combos, some times double trailers, vying for the same space. Actually, if I
were driving one of those trucks I would do the same. The roads are
significantly crowned so that the water runs off into the deep gully on either
side of the road. Even moving over to let the trucks pass almost always means
finding the safest spot we can, pulling over and stopping, and then hoping the
truck passes safely. It is not uncommon to see 1-3 trucks tipped on their side
with their contents from the rock quarry strewn about. Sometimes, when the road
is "good" we can get up to maybe 50 mph, but most of the time we
hover somewhere around 30-35 mph, swerving from left to right on a jaw breaking
washboard/corrugated road. As we rumble along we are anticipating the paved
road we will eventually reach. The next 1 1/2 hours is a dream. The road is
paved, wide, light traffic, and typical highway speeds are achieved! The last
five hours of the trip go from boredom to eye popping adrenaline. Typically,
the buses - we are talking Greyhound size buses - along with the taxis, which
are 14 passenger vans, don't really believe the traffic laws apply to them.
They will pass on blind curves and to the left of solid or double yellow lines,
the whole while speeding. If there is oncoming traffic they just flash their
headlights and expect you to swerve out of their way to avoid a collision. When
there is traffic that causes everyone to stop (happens often) the taxis will
make three lanes out of one lane attempting to pass.
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| Out in the manyatta |
Once in Kampala the
bodas (small motorcycles) are everywhere and also refuse to obey any laws. They
are literally like a swarm and vehicles can easily get stuck in the middle. Any
sudden movement to the left or right might result in a collision. So a trip to
Kampala is never boring and when we are done driving I pry my hands off the
steering wheel and Ingrid pries her hands off the handholds. Not only do we
pray for our trips before we go somewhere, but we seriously are so grateful how
the Lord has protected us on the journey and that we have arrived safely. It
really is not an understatement to say that we have had trips where our Lord
has literally performed miracles to ensure our arrival without us getting into
a head-on collision or striking someone who has darted in front of the car.
While driving I have literally slowed down simply because the Lord told me to,
only to see that if I had not of, we would have been involved in a collision. I
don't want to sound over spiritual with this, please understand that I struggle
deeply with my opinion of other drivers and my attitude deteriorates
proportionate to the drive. My heart often times is not where it should be.
There are those times where I see God's hand, but more often, it is me
repenting of my attitude. So trips to Kampala are a mixed bag. We are able to
accomplish and take care of things that we cannot in Moroto and we are able to
catch up on relationships that we so dearly miss, but the drive takes its toll
- which is why we usually break it up into a two-day drive. On our way back to
Moroto from Kampala we stopped at our Unit Leader's home and spent the night.
We were able to take most of the day that we arrived and some of the following
morning just to pray and talk about the Moroto District Team. It was a
wonderful time!
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| Out in the manyatta |
Most of
these activities were pretty much back to back, so by the time we arrived back
in Moroto, it was the middle of May. Since we have been back in Moroto we have
continued on with the Prison Bible study (which we are so grateful for),
Ingrid's ladies Bible study, enrolling boys into school (we now have 4 more boys), and trying to work out ways to successfully
minister to the police. The police Bible study continues to be difficult to set
up. Between the shift work and continuous mobilization of the police force it
is extremely difficult. Please continue to pray that our Lord will show us the
way He desires this to take place and for me to let go of my notions of what
this should look like. In between all of this we were working on our team
manual (which is no small task), made some visits out to the manyatta we hope to place a small team in, attended a portion of a seminar presented by a couple from the U.S., and as I said earlier, we were taking an online missiology class (we still have to take the final). This is a requirement for us before we are able to return to Uganda after our 2016 home assignment (we wanted to get it done early). We have also been able to get to know and continue in relationship with some of the ex-pat community working with humanitarian NGO's here in Moroto.
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| Out in the manyatta |
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| Out in the manyatta |
So on the
relational side of all of this...how are Ingrid and I doing? How is this
busyness impacting us? I think we have been emotionally and physically
exhausted (even now Ingrid is dealing with another bout of malaria as well as
some intestinal issues). The prison study however is an encouragement. The core
group of attenders is growing tremendously and are willing to let the Holy
Spirit speak into their lives. But we are tired just the same. I think part of
our tiredness has been how hectic and unexpected our schedule has been. The
other part is spiritual, as we continue to see the lack of mature Christians
who truly desire to serve the Lord. Instead, we mostly see those who only want
religion and don't really seem to care where that will take them. We have also
seen some teaching that, simply put, has grieved us and is not biblically
sound. Then there are the spiritual battles we face within ourselves each day,
even during this last trip to Kampala. One would expect a break from the
constant barrage of begging. Ingrid and I were in a shopping center and a young
man came up to me. He explained that he recognized our vehicle in the parking
lot (he used to live in Moroto) and came in to find us. I asked how he was and
he said he was fine and that he was working for a tour company. Then he asked
me for employment. I was really taken back since he just told me he was
working. I explained we have a couple of people who help us around our home,
but we don't employ people the way he was asking and that we had no work for
him. He looked at me and said he was not asking for work and that what he meant
by employment was that I give him something. I said no and abruptly ended the
conversation, quite disturbed inside that someone had intruded on our respite
from Moroto. It was a couple of weeks later, I don't even recall the
circumstances, that the Lord really convicted me of my response to this young
man. What were the chances of him running into us like that? If I would have
handled it differently how could I have led him one step closer to Jesus? I
really had to repent of my attitude and pray that if presented with something
similar, I would respond differently. Having said that, I probably will have
another opportunity, so please pray for me!
We really
do need your help. We need your prayers. I am not saying this passively. I am
asking for all of you to be praying for us. I think we are in a position where
we really do need to be the "watchman." There are things that need to
be addressed; we cannot remain silent, yet we need to speak with love,
gentleness, grace, and most importantly truth. Please pray that our hearts are
humble and that we only speak as the Lord leads us. Please pray that we find
our strength, courage, and rest in Him and Him alone. It is very easy to just
want to disconnect; to "veg" out or not address an issue. That is not
where the Lord would have us. Something we know is that our Lord has brought us
here, to Karamoja. We also see that others, although few, are coming (even
though others are leaving). We see that what the Lord has placed on our hearts
and has placed on others hearts is the same. We know God's heart is that
Karamoja would turn to Him as Lord and we believe that we, as well as others,
have been brought here to be part of that plan; His plan. As I am
writing this I am reminded of Luke 17: 7-10. I was reading it this morning in
my quiet time. "When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of
sheep, does his master say, 'Come in and eat with me?' No, he says, 'Prepare my
meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat. Then you can eat later.' And
does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do, of course
not. In the same way, when you obey me you should say, "We are unworthy
servants who have simply done our duty'" (NLT). You see, we get the
wonderful privilege of serving the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords; The
great I Am; the Alpha and the Omega. We can do nothing to earn that. There is
nothing in our past nor will there ever be anything in our future that we can
point to that merits such a privilege, yet our Lord choses us to be part of His
eternal plan. The other thing is that Jesus spoke these words to the disciples
in response to them asking how to increase their faith! Somehow we desire our
faith to be increased effortlessly, but the hard truth being taught here is
that our faith increases through obedience. When thinking of obedience, I am
reminded of James 4:5-6, “Or do you
suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over
the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?’ But he gives more grace. Therefore
it says, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (ESV). As
I read this I was reminded of the accounts in the Gospels of Jesus’ cleansing
of the temple. The temple was to be a place of prayer and worship, but it had
been turned into a marketplace. I was also reminded of 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 2
Corinthians 6:16 where Paul explains how we are the temple of God and that the
Holy Spirit lives in us. The context of Corinthians is that the church was
syncretistic. In other words, they were Christian in name, but had blended the
world around them into their beliefs, especially sexual immorality. They were
in essence living a comfortable Christianity, only obeying what was easy and
ignoring what might cost them or require change, just like so many today. So
the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Christ, who lives in us, desires that His
temple, our hearts and minds, are pure and undefiled, places of worship for Him. I can picture the Holy
Spirit cleansing me just as Jesus cleansed the temple. All of this has the
common thread of obedience woven through it. This is not just a simple act of
obedience, but obedience rooted in and driven by our love, gratitude, and
adoration for our Lord and Savior in response to His great love for us. And as
we live a life of obedience our faith grows!! What a wonderful picture.
This was
a very long-winded request to please pray for us. Our desire is to live out
these scriptures, and again, anyone living in obedience to Christ is in a
battle. We need each other! I hope you find these scriptures as challenging to you as we have to us.
We do have one more prayer request. This is an add on before I post this blog. Part of what we get is regular security reports. The one I just received reported that there had been a road ambush/robbery on June 2nd. This occurred on a road we frequently travel. No one was killed, but shots were fired and one person was wounded by an arrow. This appears to be an extremely isolated incident for this area, but it strikes me that as we are beginning to see the Holy Spirit move there will be a push from the other side; spiritually speaking. So again, please be praying for Karamoja.
We miss
you all and appreciate you all so very much. Thank you for serving with us and
for all of your support in so many ways.
Love,
Lyle and
Ingrid
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