The last two months have melded together in so many
ways for me (Ingrid) and I have had on my list of to-dos, to share with you who
serve with us here in Moroto through prayer, fellowship and financial support. I
want to give to you a peek of what ‘normal’ life is for us here. We have had many ask, “so what is a normal
day for you?”
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| Neighbor's home from inside our bedroom window |
Our answer has been a consistent, “Well, normal is not
knowing what the day will hold even if we have a schedule and plans.” That remains true even today, Monday, which
we have designated as a “day off”. My
list for the day includes writing the blog, language study, continue working on
the Team Manual for our Moroto District Focus Team, working on our Missiology
Course through an on-line class, and taking time to spend with our Lord in deep
and concentrated prayer for Moroto District.
It is past noon and what has happened so far is a wonderful quiet time
with the Lord, working with the staff on various things, and then the
unexpected…helping build a shelter for the neighbor’s dog Japan who
unexpectedly got pregnant, (she got out with the sheep), and delivered 7
puppies last Thursday in the veranda area of their little dob house. Since that time, she has almost bitten
several people with no one seeming to understand that she was only trying to
protect her puppies.
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| Napeok with baby daughter and stepson |
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| Built of old brick blocks and "iron sheets" |
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| Esther with Ingrid |
Our house staff helper, Esther, was so full of
gratitude that we had left everything to help our neighbor as well. It is so second nature for us to do this,
that we find the response to our behavior surprising and then have to remember
that in this culture, everyone is about helping only themselves even in
families. The character trait of serving
others without expecting something from them is not a visible trait in
Karamoja. Esther, is a precious Kjong
lady who is growing in her faith in our Lord Jesus. She shared with me that her parents, who she
described as “good Christians”, gave her to a Muslim man for a bride
price. This man was from another tribe,
and Esther went to his place to live.
She has had 6 children with him.
He died unexpectedly beginning of last year and as is usual in Uganda,
his relatives claimed everything they had owned including the children, and
chased her off. She came back to Moroto
to try to find work and survive. She
wept deep profusely grief filled tears as she told me what happened to
her. Within the last six months, the
grandmother who was raising her youngest three children, two girls and a boy,
contacted her and asked her to come take them, as she was no longer able to
care for them. So Esther has the three
with her here in Moroto. She got them
right before she started working for us, which was the beginning of
January. We didn’t know her story until
after she started working for us. She
was sharing a room with another family and they had to leave a couple of months
ago, so with her income from us, she was able to rent a room all on her own in
one of the local slums. She was so
excited to share that with us, and that it had an iron door on it for
protection, a luxury for anyone in the slum.
A few days later, she came to me distraught, as she found out of the
three units in her building; the other two were rented by a witchdoctor
pharmacy. She had heard from many other
“Christians” that she needed to move so their evil didn’t touch her. She and I sat down and I asked her who had
more power, God or satan? She responded
that she knew God did. I asked her if
God lived in her, she affirmed He did. I
asked her if she needed to fear a lesser power, she said no she didn’t, and I could
see that she really, maybe for the first time, understood and received this
marvelous truth. I asked her if she
understood that God had created all the witchdoctors and that Jesus had died
for their sins as well, she thought about it and said yes she did understand
that. I asked her, “Esther, what if God
placed you there to be a light of love to these witchdoctors, that they might
find a different power to serve and worship.”
I shared with her that she needed to seek the Lord to see if He wanted
her to move, because what mattered was what God thought not what people
thought. She said she would pray. A couple of weeks went by without her
mentioning anything, so I asked her if she heard from the Lord. She said she had, and that they were to stay,
(you need to understand how VERY countercultural this decision is) and her
children agreed with this and were trusting the Lord to take care of them. PLEASE pray for this precious family, that
their relationship with our Lord Jesus would grow stronger and deeper. Esther had no Bible and we were able to
provide one for her in English as most Kjong do not know how to read their own
language. Pray that God’s Word would
become so very alive in her soul. She
shared with me that her and the children were sleeping on the concrete floor, as the mattress they had used was borrowed and the people came and took
it. Well that is hard for me to hear as
we have a guest room with three mattresses, which are only used occasionally;
actually they have been used on 5 occasions already in the five months we have
been here. But I wrestle with the luxury of this in the face of those without
anything. So I mentioned this to Lyle and we both began to pray about how to
help Esther with this need without it being a handout that devalues her and
leaves her feeling powerless to contribute to the solution of her
problems. All of a sudden this brilliant
idea came to me, if she found out how much a mattress cost, could she still
live ok, if we bought it up front, but deducted it from her wages in
installments. We brought the idea up to
her and she was overjoyed and very agreeable to this. So Esther and her children now are sleeping
on a very fine mattress and she is paying for it herself over 5 months. It felt so good to me to have her be involved
in how this could be resolved; I just praise the Lord for all He is teaching me
through my daily interactions with these precious people.
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| Simon with Lyle |
Simon our weekday guard is a joy to us. He is the exception among Kjong men. He is a hard worker and has been very honest
with us in all our dealings with him.
God answered our prayers with him, as we had been warned seriously about
the dangers of getting the wrong guard.
He also has a very tender heart toward the street boys we are
helping. We have met his wife and three
children, two boys and a girl. When we
interviewed him, Lyle gave the normal speech about no drinking on the job (that
is a normal thing here, drunk guards). All the other interviewees had assured
us they didn’t drink, but Simon said, “well I do occasionally drink, but won’t
on the job.” Lyle told him, what he did
on his own time was fine, just no drinking while working. They agreed and he has been very faithful to
keep that commitment. Simon and I were
walking together to go to a neighbor’s place, and he said to me out of the
blue, “Ehh, my wife, she has become born again.
For me I am a Catholic. But I
will let her have her own religion.” I
silently was seeking the Lord for how to respond and this is what came out.
“Simon, do you both not believe in Jesus and what He did for you on the
cross?” Simon answered, “Yes.” I asked, “Do you not believe in the same God
and the need to repent of your sins, and follow Jesus to go to heaven?” He answered, “Yes.” I then asked, “Then how is it a different
religion?” He thought about that and
after a few moments of complete silence, he said, “Well maybe I will join
her.” He has also asked for a Bible, and
we have shared with him, the following books that he has read: Crazy love, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, Kisses for Katie (which is about the
Kjong in Jinja). So far he has not been
interested in having a Bible study with Lyle, but it was a joy for us to see
the Lord working in his heart in an unexpected way. We had been given a second puppy by a little
shepherd boy, from the Tepeth tribe. According to this little boy, the puppy
was alone in the bush and refused to come into town, and he wanted us to take
her so she wouldn’t die. Our weekend
guard Luke was the one who brought her to us with this story. Well the little boy came to Simon after we
agreed to take her, he had been beaten by his employer for giving us this
puppy. The employer, an older Kjong lady,
came to us very angry about the puppy claiming it was hers. We met with her and Simon as interpreter, and
in the end she admitted she had 6 dogs already and didn’t need another one. But
out of all this, Simon learned that the shepherd boy’s mother was dead and that
the father took what little he earned.
Simon came to us and said that he wanted to help this little boy go to
school and had a plan for how to do it.
He contacted the father who lives in the foothills of Mt. Moroto, and he
and Lyle met with this man. The father
agreed to have the boy go to school next term, and they notified the employer
to start looking for another shepherd boy.
Our first reaction was to applaud Simon and then take over, but the Holy
Spirit helped us to see the absolute miracle of this heart in Simon and how he
needed to be able to follow through and serve the Lord by helping this
boy. So we have encouraged Simon to do
what he can and we will support him in this effort. Again, this is very countercultural, to help
someone from another tribe. Most Kjong
won’t help anyone with school outside their immediate family clan. So PLEASE, pray for what God is doing in
Simon’s heart. I continue to be amazed
at our infinite God, who used a little puppy to save a little boy when the boy
thought he was saving the puppy. By the
way, Luke and Simon named the puppy Namoni, which is the female version of
bush, since she lived in the bush. We
also bought dewormers for the 6 dogs and one cat of the employer as a sign of
gratitude.
One of the most tangible things that has changed for
me within, is that here in Moroto, for many I am no longer Ingrid. I am “the Lyles, Mrs. Lyles, or Mama Lyles.”
I grin as I write this, cause never in a million years would I have considered that
becoming one with this man, Lyle, would mean I would lose both my first and
last names. In church a couple of weeks
ago, during the worship part of the service, the Bishop ask Mama Lyles to pray
for families and children. I only heard
the Lyles part, so I looked at Lyle as he stayed seated, and he whispered to
me, it is you he asked. Ohhhh, I
thought, I need to listen better. Also our
home is known as the Lyles home. We have
both been given Ngakarimojong names; my name is Nakut, which means wind. I was given it by a dear lady whose name is
Nakut Rose. She wanted me to have her
name, but she also gave it to me during the windy, dusty season, so it was very
appropriate. Lyle’s name is Lopeok,
(which means one who brings visitors, or visitor) the male version of our lady
neighbor. In fact, Napeok calls Lyle her
namesake, which makes me smile.
We continue to be amazed at how little of what we do
is goes by unnoticed by literally most of Moroto. A few days ago, we were informed that one of
our streetboys, Peter, has left the home he has been in for almost a full year
now. He gave no explanation, and he has not been willing to come and speak with us about the reason. Lyle was in one of the stores, one that is
our idea of a real store. A man named
Omar, from Yemen, owns it. We like Omar;
he has always been very pleasant to us.
Well Lyle was informed by the boy that works for Omar, that Peter had
left school and home. We didn’t even
know these ones knew we had anything to do with Peter. Lyle asked the boy to let Peter know we were
back in town, (Peter left while we were in Kampala). Things like this continue to stretch us in
what community looks like in this culture.
We are praying that we will continue to learn and be pliable in all the
areas the Lord wants to grow us. This
afternoon our
youngest boy in school from the street showed up with a 4-inch
sutured deep gash on the top of his head, compliments of some man on the
street. He had been in the hospital for 3 days while we were gone because of
this injury. This one’s name is Denis, and we enrolled him in school in
February. He has dropped out because
there is no soap to wash his uniform and his books and pencils got stolen. I spent about two hours with Denis on the
veranda with Simon interpreting. I fed
him and stroked his little skinny arm and had no words of comfort for him. Lyle came home and with Simon’s help and
encouragement, we will go with Denis to school tomorrow and see if it is too
late for him to get back in to finish the term.
I gave him soap to wash his uniform tonight. Denis said he wanted to stay with us or go to
boarding school because it was too challenging trying to do school and live in
the streets. PLEASE keep this valuable
young boy in your prayers; it is so hard to send them back to the street.
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| Sutured head of Denis |
Another example of our thinking being challenged to
change happened a few months ago. A man
who goes to the church we attend passed us as we walked down the road. He pulled over and asked if we were attending
the wedding in Soroti that weekend. I
answered, “Phillip, we don’t even know the couple.” To which Phillip replied, “The
bride comes from our church. She is your daughter nonetheless.” Talk about mind
blowing!!! She is Karimojong, and I have
been accepted as one as well, so she is my daughter, even if I don’t know her.
When we were in Kampala, we had the pleasure of
meeting a young couple from Canada who had come over here on a short-term
mission with 3 little children. It
continues to amaze me and strengthen my faith to see young couples trusting the
Lord with their families in this very challenging way. The husband was disciplining the middle child
who responded to him most appropriately, “Yes dad.” I was very impressed, and said as much, and
the father said, “yes he is good with saying the right thing, but following
through in action, well not so much.” I
laughed and said “isn’t that just like us with Father God. We are good at saying the right things, but
our actions, not so much.” Oh I desire
that my actions match the theology that comes off my lips, that my Lord would
be pleased with me. That 2 Corinthians 2:15 would be
completely true of my life: Our lives are
a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God.
Oh that is the cry of my heart, that a Christ-like fragrance would be
who I am, day in and day out wherever I am, whomever I am with.
For those of you who have joined us in praying for the
Vision Strategy Plan, it has been completed, as have the requisitions that
allow people to see if the Lord would have them physically join AIM and us here
in Karamoja, in living the Gospel among this precious people group, for His
glory. Both the VSP and requisitions are
in the hands of the AIM sending regions all over the world. Oh may we ask you to pray for the team the
Lord would have join us here. They will
need to be people who desire to live completely for the Lord and willing to
endure hardship to bring Christ to these people. We are asking for a tough thing here, 85% of
the people in our district here of Moroto, live out in the bush in very harsh
conditions, and to bring Christ to them, they will be called to live in very
much similar conditions but with pit latrines, our closest version would be a
squatting outhouse , and concrete instead of dirt for floors inside their huts
and some sort of energy but even with all that, it will seem tough and very
isolated. The prayer team that was here
in January had a word for us regarding the VSP and our team: “Faith is seeing
and believing the things yet not seen.
Faith is walking a pathway for which there is no road map and has not
been walked before. Write the Vision Strategy Plan with words and plans that
are by faith and with wisdom from God and that are for God and not for
men.”
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| A reminder of God's beauty even in a fallen world |
Well, there is no road map for what God desires for us
to do here in Karamoja, and with the Matheniko clan here in Moroto district it
doesn’t seem to have been walked before in living incarnational among the
people. Please, please remember us with
fervent prayer for this tribe to become a transformed people by the power that
can come only from the Holy Spirit.
