October 2, 2017

Happy October to the eyes that are reading this!!!  I (Ingrid) cannot believe that it has been over two months since we last posted a blog.  I am sometimes surprised when I get word of weather cooling in Washington or Montana and I see pictures of beautiful leaves turning colors as it doesn’t fit the world I now live in.  Fall in the NW is one of my favorite seasons.  In Moroto, we are grateful for the weather we have been having.  The rain has faithfully fallen every few days for months; this is a first for us in our 3 and half years in Moroto.  The harvests have been bountiful for the first time since we arrived the beginning of 2014.  We have been the recipient of this bounty in the form of pumpkins, maze (field corn), local cucumbers, and something like zucchini, but somehow different.  Our friend Irene, a nurse in Lotirir, has been very generous in providing us with these treats, as well as our translator John and his wife Esther.

Since returning to Moroto mid August from our Mission Conference, life has been a blur.  Our teammate Nita, who many of you have prayed for, regarding her skin graft surgery from the injury she received from a motorbike hitting her leg, was able to return with us.  I am grateful and pleased to say she has fully recovered and has a passion ignited for reconnecting with the people here that is contagious.  Our welcome back, as always, was enthusiastic and for Lyle and me it started about an hour after we unpacked.  We spent the next three days with what felt like a parade of people “needing” to have time with us.  Lyle thought we had been home a week at that point and couldn’t believe that it had only been three days. 

We continue our service to the regional prison here, both with the warders (prison guards) and the prisoners, I with the women prisoners, and Lyle with the men.  The Bible study and discipleship time in one of the slums here continues to grow and the richness of the fruit in the people receiving the truth of Christ deeply touches our souls and spurs us on.  I cannot describe the joy deep in my soul in being able to witness the scales fall and someone understand the freedom and peace that comes with accepting the salvation offered by Jesus Christ.  One woman, who had tried to commit suicide many times, now understands why she is alive and she is so glad she wasn’t successful.  Another man, convicted of sin, fell on his knees before one woman he had lied to, and sobbing asked her for forgiveness.  Men in Uganda do not kneel for women for any reason.  This was an absolute miracle.  The joy in him at receiving forgiveness was awesome.  Lyle was pleaded with in another area of the bush to come and share God’s word, so he has started doing that every Saturday.

Tree church, waiting for people to arrive

I am feeling like focusing though on the precious people in the bush of Lotirir.  I wanted to tell just a bit of our story with them.  I first went to this area as the driver for a group of women in the Anglican Church that wanted to meet people in the bush but had no way to travel.  I went there every Sunday with 3-4 women for, I think, two months and I often went on my own during the week. 

Lotirir is on the vast plain about a 20 minute drive west of Moroto town, and the mountain range between Moroto town and Kenya looms large. It is very flat, with the Achaia trees infrequently being the main break on the horizon.  There are many settlements called manyattas that dot this high desert plain.  These are built out of daub (mud) and stick and are designed in a honeycomb kind of style.  There are big fences that surround the outside with a tiny entrance into the settlement. Then inside, each family unit has it’s own fence and huts carved out with more fences, with the dead center usually being reserved for the livestock to stay at night.  Some units, like my namesake Nakut Rose, keep their livestock in their own unit.  Needless to say, livestock smells mixed with human smells waft in the air. 

One does not enter the outer gate without an invitation from someone who lives inside.  I was privileged to have an open door into Nakut Rose’s manyatta.  I would go out to visit and say my few Ngakarimojong sentences; she would love it and then proceed to speak rapidly in Ngakarimojong.  I would reply in her language that I didn’t understand, and like in the USA if someone doesn’t understand you, she would speak louder as though I would get it by sheer volume.  She finally would give up frustrated and just yell at me; good for me I couldn’t understand.   When I would walk the 5-7 minute walk back to where I had parked the car under a tree near the community bore hole, I seriously would deeply feel the pleasure of the Lord.  I knew that God wanted us to develop a relationship with these people. 

Nakut Ingrid and Nakut Rose

Throughout our time here, Nakut Rose has visited us and I have spent time with her and her people.  In her family unit, she is the single adult there, she is the third wife of a deceased man, but has children from his first two wives as well as her own children and a couple of grandchildren living there.  She is a leader in the community and we think more affluent that most.  We have gone out and helped Rose weed her vast gardens and I have taken her to clinics to try to get help for a swollen knee and swelling on the side of her neck.  At one clinic, I was told that she had breast cancer that had metastasized to her knee.  Because of my medical background I felt this was way off base.  I asked the man telling me this, if he was a Doctor, and he admitted he was not.  So Rose and I left and I ended up taking her to a hospital about 40 minutes away.  She didn’t want to go because she is afraid of needles and she thought she would get stabbed with needles.  Through an interpreter I told her that she probably was right but I would hold her hand and be with her.  She finally reluctantly agreed and after making the trip three days in a row, going through time of consultation and X-ray etc. at the hospital, as the Dr. was putting a very long needle into her knee without anesthesia, and I was holding tight to her hand, she gave me the most awful look and yelled at me.  Again I was glad I couldn’t understand.  We laugh about it now, but she was so scared and yet so brave.  That was the time when she named me Nakut, which means gentle wind I am told.

Nakut Rose and I have endured challenges to our relationship.  There was the time I brought out an agronomist to help her learn how to plant cassava as she had told me she didn’t know how to plant it, and her maize and sorghum were dying from lack of rain.  Cassava is very drought resistant.  The young man I brought out is a friend and was doing me a favor by coming out on his day off.  He is Kjong and so could communicate well with her.  She told him she breaks the ground up by hand; I knew she used ox and a plow.  So I challenged her on that, then as he was talking to her, he realized that she knew exactly how to plant this, but didn’t really want to.  I was so upset with her, and upset that I had taken this man’s day off and wasted it for nothing.  Nakut knew that I was upset; I hide it so well as all of you know.  We left and I really didn’t know if I would ever go back out.  I really felt betrayed.  Over the next week the Lord really laid on my heart that I needed to share how I felt with Rose.  Keep in mind that one of their traditional heroes is the best liar - so lying is normal for them. I took my friend Pastor Noah, who also knows Rose and went back out to Lotirir.  As we greeted Rose and sat down underneath the shade of her open aired grass hut, I could tell she was apprehensive about the visit.  I had asked Pastor Noah to please translate directly what I was saying and to not soften it.  He promised to do so.  When I started speaking about her lying she started laughing and trying to make light of it.  I told her that she had broken trust with me and that this had damaged our relationship.  When Noah translated that, her laughter turned to sadness.  She looked down for a bit, we just sat there in silence, and when she looked up, she asked me to forgive her.  I understood that bit, and was very touched by this.  Of course I forgave her, but I did tell her that building trust would take time to happen.  I feel like we went from a superficial relationship to one deeper from that experience.  Today I believe that Nakut Rose knows how much I care for her and she knows that honesty is important in our relationship.  I believe that she cares for me too, but I do not yet know if it is a care that transcends the idea of me being able to help her.  I pray we can get to that point.

Irene and Betty

Another woman that the Lord has blessed me with is Irene.  Irene has lived in Lotirir for 7 years and speaks English, which is very helpful for me.  She is from Moroto district and has lived here her whole life.  She is the second wife of some man I have never met or seen.  I think she is around 30 years old. She has three children and one on the way.  Irene, out of all the people in Lotirir has demonstrated a character of kindness and compassion for others that is amazing, especially when she is literally the only one showing it most of the time.  When I would go out to Lotirir she would ask me to visit people who were ill and pray for them.  One woman we prayed for had been curled in a ball for months and only ate if someone gave her something to eat.  She had been badly shamed for stealing in the town and emotionally this was the result.  I had prayed for her and asked her to come out from the lean-to she was under.  I told her I had flour for her and beans, but that I would not give it to her unless she moved out on her own power.  Irene translated this for me and was just as firm as I was about it.  The woman finally crawled out and grabbed the food.  She was very angry with me for making her do this.  We left and I kind of forgot about the incident.  About 6-8 months later, Irene shared with me that she was now in her right mind and living normally again.  I was ecstatic!!

Fast forward to 2017.  We had not been out to Lotirir since our team had arrived.  This area was part of our vision for a future mission team: to live in Lotirir incarnationally, living in the love of Christ with these precious people, so that they could see He is real, not just a concept or idea or talisman to ward off evil or hell.  Lyle traveled out to Lotirir in March or April of this year with our team to show our dream or vision to a man visiting from AIM who was trying to capture Karamoja through a photo story.  This was on a Sunday afternoon, and I didn’t go because our three ladies and this man went with Lyle so the car was full.  Lyle walked to Rose’s manyatta and when she saw him she started yelling “akilip”, which means prayers, which is what church time is called here.  She started running around gathering people and continuing to yell akilip.  Lyle didn’t have a translator so the people started singing songs in Ngakarimojong and then on Lyle’s phone, through an app, he put on the Gospel of John in their language.  When he saw that they were getting restless, he stopped and more songs were sung and then he prayed and the people were so very happy.

Out of that experience, we went to the church we attend the next week and asked permission to start meeting with these people on Sundays for church, Akilip. We were only asking for a translator so that things could work more smoothly.  They gave us their approval and offered to us a young man named John Lokiru who has gone through a level of church training that allows him to help lead church services.  John had been working with the people in Lotirir prior to when I first went out there, but due to some difficulties he had left them on their own with resulting hurt as an outcome.  God has used us needing a translator to help him and the community out there to heal and forgive each other.  We didn’t realize this at the beginning of his time with us.  John and Esther are committed to knowing the Lord better and we feel that they are ones God is giving us to disciple.  Esther comes and serves with me in the prison with the women as well.

John and Lyle, and now Taryn and Nita all travel out to Lotirir on Thursdays to have a Bible study with anyone who wants to learn about the One true Living God.  Through these studies, where there is a lot of interaction, the feedback has been that now they understand that the “Akuj” (God) of their tradition is not the same God of the Bible.  They shared that they thought they were the same, and their god is distant and has the qualities of satan as well as good qualities, and that was why they worshipped their ancestors and demons, to try to appease god.  When they grasped that God is only good, and as they learned more of His character, they shared that their lives were changing.  That was when we heard that the men are beating the women less, and are even helping in the gardens.  We have been so joy filled to see God transform, we haven’t offered any lectures on how people should change. 

Tioko

We have been witnesses of serious struggles with this fledgling church as well.  In June of this year two of the women who are considered leaders in Lotirir developed a serious argument.  We had no knowledge of this until we arrived on Sunday for church. We could feel that something was off in how people we interacting, most of them were very quiet and troubled but we didn’t know why.  Some of the women shared with John that this fight had been going on all week, they were so grieved and fearful.  Both women showed up for church and after church we sat down with the two, somehow privately, as people kept walking up and wanting to hear what was going on.   We kept shooing them away, but everyone stayed under the church tree or in close proximity to where we were talking.   There were hurt feelings on both sides, but Lyle was able to remind them of the scriptures they had learned about the weeks before and how Christians were to respond to hurt, with forgiveness, not trying to get back.  They sat apart and each looking out ahead but not at each other.  We were finally able to get them to turn to each other and ask for forgiveness.  The whole church of 25 plus adults cheered when that happened.   Just last week we learned that most of the members are still going to the shrine as well as attending church.  This last Sunday Lyle was able to teach on how sacrificing at the shrine is actually sacrificing to demons not serving the one True Living God.  John said that the people really understood, but we will see as embracing Biblical culture and letting go of traditional culture is a challenge every Christ follower faces their whole lives.  Please pray for this heavenly reality to truly be rooted in their hearts.  This Thursday John is starting to instruct those who want to know about baptism.  I am very happy this is finally happening.  There is one elderly woman, her name is Tioko, who apparently has wanted to be baptized for years but no one responded to her desire.  I have been praying that she wouldn’t die before this happened.  I know God would honor her desire, but it just seems to mean so much to her, that I would love to see this desire fulfilled.  And getting back to Irene, she has continued to show me genuine love; I would say she is the only Kjong I have felt this from.  I am so grateful to the Lord for her.  We continue to build a friendship and I am excited to see what happens.

Where will Lotirir be in the future?  Two of our teammates say they potentially could see themselves living out there in a manyatta in the future.  They have been here for 7 months and understand better at this point what that commitment would cost them in terms of quality of life.  To see darkness in the eyes change to light is surely a motivator to say the cost is worth it.  As of the end of last week, the Anglican Church bought a piece of land in Lotirir to develop as a center for the church, God is moving rapidly, much more so than we could have imagined.  He doesn’t need us, but has allowed us to be part of what He is doing here.  Every one of you reading this has been allowed to be a part as well.  We are grateful for the team of support we have in many parts of the world that spur us on with love, prayers, and encouragement.

We will keep you posted on what is happening in Lotirir through out the rest of the year.  We would ask for prayer that the Lord would prepare a team willing to live in Lotirir, to love these people with His love and show them through their lives Who the Creator of all truly is.