Summary Photo File for Uganda

UGANDA IMPACT - SUMMARY REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS

A UNIQUE MATCH AND A STRATEGIC CONNECTION
Over the two and a half weeks we were with Bishop Patrick Okabe I witnessed a very amazing sense of brotherly friendship develop between that I am sure is a work of the Holy Spirit. We are different in many ways and I’m not talking about our divergent cultural backgrounds. Yet over this time I have discovered the pastor of a dynamic church in an African nation who in so many ways mirrors my own values and priorities as much as anyone I know. When you think that all of this happened because a young man from Uganda decided to take the very unusual step of coming to train in Australia. The UK or the US would have been far more likely places for him to go. I asked Patrick why Emmanual chose Australia and he responded with what sounded like an obvious answer: They both felt that it was what God wanted.

Add to that the fact that this man has not sought after connections with Christian leaders from western nations in the way that many African (and other) pastors tend to do. This man is has an apostolic ministry that has developed quite apart from any system or sponsorship. Add to that the idea that Patrick runs a network of churches involving around 200 and has a vision to support and make pastors effective across the whole eastern Uganda region. He has one of the few large churches outside Kampala and has spent himself in seeing thirty churches planted from that one church. Think that the Mbale church has only been going seven years. He has a kingdom perspective and is aggressive in seeking lost people. His heart is to see the cities, towns and communities transformed, not just churches that grow.

Think about the risk a man like this takes by inviting a name given to him by his son in Australia and on the strength of that suggestion gathers over a thousand pastors and leaders to a conference and organizes two city wide outdoor crusades. I can’t see myself taking that kind of “sight unseen” risk. When I made this observation in the presence of the church on our last time together Patrick responded by simply saying, “It is no longer a risk.”

What God will do with this I haven’t that faintest idea. I have some ideas of my own, but this is not the place to air them. I always have a lot of ideas. The success of this ministry trip almost begs some kind of sequel, but neither Patrick nor myself are prepared to speculate but are both prepared to see what God says and wants to do.


IMPORTANT TEACHING FUNCTION

I think there is a great need to build a stronger and deeper teaching ministry in churches like the ones represented in these conferences. Someone has made the (exaggerated I think) statement that “a lot of African Christianity is a mile wide and six inches deep.” I think it might be hard to substantiate, but Emmanuel has said to me that Africa can produce great preachers much more than it can produce great teachers. I think there is a vulnerability in any community where broad and thorough education has only emerged comparatively recently – especially in the rural areas. That vulnerability exists because both praise and preaching operate in that wonderfully dynamic way. Both are responsive, vibrant and emotional experiences. The excellence of the commitment by a large proportion of any congregation to participate fully and the genuine responsiveness all up creates its own vulnerability. It can, all by itself become the point of exploitation. It can become nothing more a stylized system of rhetoric. I am not here claiming to be an expert, I am merely wishing to make some summary comments. If our exposure happens to be unrepresentative I will gladly adjust my observations accordingly.

The point I am getting to is that I think there was something of value for us to contribute. Not that we are going to radically change something in a few short days, but I wondered beforehand what we from a nation like Australia might have to contribute. We have heard the great stories of revival and transformation. In reflection, I think there is a valid partnership and I think we do have something that might well contribute to the way ground that is taken could be held. Much of the community life we observed is still largely based on an oral culture. This is changing and I think there is yet an opportunity to meet these changes by providing partnership and resources that will multiply the opportunity for more believers to found their faith in their own exposure to God through the Word rather than on the preachers alone.


BROAD COMMUNITY IMPACT THROUGH A GREAT TEAM EFFORT
This team was absolutely fantastic. Everyone contributed a huge, challenging, physical and emotional (spiritually also) effort. The work of the team in schools, hospitals, jails and camps was as effective as it was appreciated. Many young people came to Christ all the way around these efforts and I will say that they were not necessarily “open season” situations. The worship and drama contributions they made were similarly spiritually impacting and greatly appreciated.

If I would venture another observation here: I think all of us (and many others who have experienced similar) were blown away by the celebration and worship. I would give all of my right arm and some of my left to see such wholehearted beautiful praise. It was simply and profound at the same time. It was engaging even for someone who couldn’t understand the language. It not only engaged the believers inside churches but it engaged the unbelievers in the crusade grounds. At the same time the level of engagement does not follow when the focus turns to what we could differentiate as worship. The Ugandans don’t do the meditative worship nearly as well as they do praise. The team from Liberty Church in Goulburn were greatly appreciated for their excellence in this area. Jaemin shared the preaching in the conference sessions and provided a hugely complementary stream. His contribution was as Jaemin’s whole approach to ministry always is: unique, clear, heartfelt and powerful.

The combination of community based ministry by the team members as parallel to the conference ministry compounded the impact overall. If I or someone else had simply gone to do the conference speaking and Crusade preaching that would have been okay, but this way it clearly multiplied the effect.


EXPOSURE TO THE CHALLENGES OF A RAVAGED BUT EMERGING NATION
It was a privilege and a great opportunity for all of us to travel to rural Uganda and get a taste of the life of a nation full of people who have endured such crippling incursions to their life and faith and remain faithful, joyful and hopeful. The town of Mbale has not seen the devastation in the same way as the Itesso people from the region around Soroti. Of course they suffered under Amin and Obote regimes. But you have to put it in context. The average life expectancy in Uganda currently is 47. There are older people of course, but Amin was in the seventies and Obote in the eighties. Those are twenty and thirty years ago now. What people are more aware of are the ravages of HIV and of the Joseph Koney terrorist war. When you put that with the hugely inadequate health system, financial poverty and the dietry and heath issues that go along with it, many people die. There are still millions of displaced people and thousands of orphans.

But there is hope. I don’t think there is a huge sense of hope in the political system. There is so much corruption and the current President is never far from being a military backed dictator in the way he has been able to manipulate the system to retain power. There is hope in the gospel. I have seen so many examples of people whose circumstances have been so changed by the intervention of the grace of God. I would make the claim based on an obviously small sampling that only the gospel deals with the real problems and only a thorough working out of the gospel in the society provides any real hope for the nation to be raised up from poverty, disease and division. This is obviously a challenge for any church. The same thing is true in Australia. Material wealth has never been much of a substitute for a heart made strong and pure by the power of the Spirit of God. The same gospel that can deliver a poverty stricken person from the ravaged soul can deliver the wealthy person from the ravages of materialistic humanism.

Patrick and I had many conversations. One of them involved the subject of true prosperity. He is clearly not taken by the prosperity teaching that has, e.g. seen a certain woman pastor of a large (5,000 member) church in Kampala purchase one of only three Hummer’s in the country as a sign of the blessing of God on her life. At the same time he preaches that God can lift a person out of their poverty and that obedience and faith must anticipate the blessing of God that includes freedom from poverty and sickness. He observed very perceptively that if he were preaching in America or e.g. Australia he would probably apply that message in a different way. I agreed totally with him. His own life is a testimony to that blessing. He wants all his people to believe God for a pathway that will lead to an increase for them, and their families. Its not a hyper spiritual thing in his case. He has been responsible for a whole raft of employment creating opportunities for all kinds of people.


DYNAMIC FAITH BUT NOT ENOUGH GRACE
If there is a strength to the faith of African people like we met in Uganda it is certainly the level of their faith. It is similar to the faith of people in China and India and other similar places around the world. Where people do not have the “support systems” we have come to depend on in the west, they are thrown directly on the mercies of God and such circumstances so many times will breed strong, deep faith in God.

This may be an observation based on an ignorance of the culture, but Jaemin raised it with me fairly early in the piece and I very much agree with him. I think there is a need for a greater understanding of grace among such people as we observed in Uganda. There is a very strong inbuilt mechanism that creates all kinds of hierarchies. We spoke about this in various ways and were told that it is built on a system of respect. But there is a very quick capacity in the people in any form of leadership to build their leadership around legalistic expectations rather than grace born expectations. I think this is a tendency wherever you have people who “have” and others who “have not” no matter what kind of “have” we are talking about. Position and authority are highly valued and often thoroughly abused across the culture and the church needs to reflect a different set of operatives if it is going to see a transformed culture, not just a reflected one. We have the opposite problem in Australia. We have such a strong commitment to “grace-do-called” that reflects the godless individualism rather than challenging it.

EXPOSURE TO THE CHALLENGES OF MINISTRY IN AN UNDER RESOURCED CHURCH SITUATION
What kinds of resources are essential for a strong, persevering and expanding church based ministry? In Australia we might have all kinds of things on the list. The church in China can prosper without buildings, bibles and budgets. I would say that they have found ways to do that and they have proved to the world, especially the west that a church can grow as it did in the first century with the limited resources available to the first century Christians. The issue is not that it can’t be done. The issue that tends to torture churches in places like we visited in Uganda is that resources do exist and can be provided but so few have them. Those of you who read “The Heavenly Man” will remember what happened in China when contacts with Western churches and church leaders began to happen during the late eighties and certainly the nineties. The people who were equally deprived in former times suddenly became unequal. Some had contacts and money and resources and others had none of the above. That single fact led to expressions of pride, competitiveness and division that was previously unknown.

That happens in Uganda. In Kampala there are churches that have contacts, money and resources and if they don’t flaunt the fact it does emerge nonetheless. Patrick has grown a church, planted thirty churches attracted leaders to his wise and trusted oversight and care. He has done this from nothing and virtually with nothing (comparatively). If I were going to make a comment about what kind of resources are most needed I would posit the following:

BIBLES I think every pastor should have a Bible and know how to use it
BIBLE PORTIONS I think every believer ought to have access to at minimum a part of the Bible
FOOD, SHELTER, EDUCATION I think orphans and widows should be loved and cared for
TEACHING FOCUS I think believers should be discipled so that they are more able to get their own revelation and wisdom from God and then confirm it through their leaders rather than being entirely dependent on their leaders with no personal way of hearing from God.

The sound equipment we had built here and shipped with us not only enabled us to do what was done during our own time in the country, but will be a totally vital tool for preaching the gospel. Bishop Patrick is Wesleyan in his approach to the Eastern region and the nation. He cannot conceive of transforming villages, regions, towns and cities apart from people getting a new heart and a new spirit by turning to Jesus. Every church in every village doesn’t need this kind of equipment, but Patrick will run crusades in all kinds of small and larger centres and will use their wonderful worship team to build a platform for the preaching of the gospel. This will continue to serve churches wherever they decide to go. We felt totally convinced that we had brought something that was going to translate an idea into a greater ministry reality.



PARTICIPATING IN A CITY BREAKTHROUGH MINISTRY
Soroti was clearly the greatest phenomenon of the journey. It was overwhelming to go to a town that has been so attacked, betrayed and ignored. The Itesso people who live in that region in many ways are considered by other groups in the nation to be the also ran people. Not only have the suffered under Kony, but they have missed out when so many other areas have been supported by government programs that facilitate real development. Even before we hit the town I had felt that we were in for the greatest challenge but also the greatest breakthrough. If you have read the diary notes you will see that we had our challenges there but we had the biggest attendance. It would be like getting thirty five thousand people to a series of evangelistic meetings in Canberra and seeing with three thousand people getting saved and half of those showing up to the first service of a new church while many of the others show up for church in other places around the town. In the diary notes you will see that there were wonderful testimonies when three hundred adults showed up at the first service of the new church along with a hundred children. Witches being saved, people walking from the hospital and getting healed and saved. Muslim people being saved a huge personal cost.

We were personally welcomed by the Mayor and his team and he said that if the hearts of people were not changed the city would not be changed. The impact of this particular crusade lifted the faith of the church leaders by sheer tangible evidence that there was a way to gather thousands of unbelievers into the city centre and minister to them dynamic worship and great local ministry people as well as the raspy preaching of a grey haired old white man. We have heard enough reports from the town even at this early stage to confirm that the city was impacted, not just some hundreds of people making Christian commitments. Add to that the welding of relationships between key pastors and church leaders and you have a very potent brew.


THE BEGINNING OF STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP POSSIBILITIES

I don’t know what will become of this set of partnerships. As I said earlier in this summary, I thing there are very many possibilities and it would not be much use to articulate them here. I do have a pretty strong sense that there are more things that we could do to support these precious people. There was such a strong and almost instant bonding between the team and a whole lot of people. I am aware of the way Africans think about white people all being a source of unending amounts of money for all kinds of worthwhile causes. I am of the opinion that this will not just be a fund raising exercise. Having said that, I am sure that there will be things that we could and should and probably will do that will involve money. But there is much more to this relationship than money. We were never asked for money by Patrick. We didn’t come on that basis. The sound and musical equipment we brought was our idea based on information that Emmanuel gave us. I am of the opinion that there will be much more important and more valuable commodities needed here than just funds. There is the potential here for a strategic alliance that will not have the “rich man-poor man” underlying assumption. I say again that I may be wrong, but this is how I see it at present.

I have invited Patrick and Christine to come to Australia in the middle of next year. They have not had a single week away from ministry for more than three years and I put forward the idea of bringing them here so that they could attend the Hillsong Conference, do some ministry with us and with Liberty Christian Fellowship and also visit their son Emmanuel. I think it would be great for us to let them relax a bit rather than just bring them for a packed ministry program.

As always I would value an feedback you might like to make. Nola asked me a very important question sometime during the last two days we have spent together since arriving in Sydney. She said, “If the Lord told you that you were going there for reasons that had to do with you and reasons that had to do with them, what are the reasons to do with you?” I am not able to give a final answer to that at this time. As with the matter above, I have some ideas but no precise summary conclusions. It was the most stretching experience I have had. I am linked to a wonderful apostolic man and his wife in a nation that I have prayed for long before I met Emmanuel. I have seen more people come to Christ in a couple of weeks than I have in twenty years of ministry in this nation. I have had a severe values check once again. All of those things have stirred things in me that I haven’t got specific direction about yet, but watch this space if it interests you.

MONDAY TO WEDNESDAY - OUT OF AFRICA

Its hard to believe that this challenging, stretching and vibrant experience has come to an end. The experience of rising each day with the single thought of responding to the demands and embracing ministry opportunities came to and end. For the first day in more than two weeks I wasn’t thinking about whether it would rain or not. I wasn’t thinking about how I could describe spiritual truth in a way that would cross one or two language barriers.

I can tell you what I was thinking of in one four letter word beginning with the letter ‘h’ and ending in the letter ‘e.’

There were certain realities that needed to be faced as far as the Monday program was concerned. Originally there had been a chance that I could link up with a friend of Evans Lagudah (an African and an elder at Grace) who worked at one of the Universities in Kampala. Originally I was thinking that there might have been room to move with the program and I could make myself available to meet with him and spend some time with some of the students at his University. He is connected with a very wonderful Christian ministry organization in Africa called African Enterprise. I had tried to contact him but somehow the connections did not work out and during the last week in Soroti I made all kinds of enquiries and phone calls but they were all to no avail. So I canned that idea. My second desire was to meet with Pastor John Mulinde. John runs a church and a ministry called World Trumpet Ministries and has been associated very strongly with George Otis from the Transformations (videos on revival and national transformation over the last ten years or so). I have tracked with this man’s teaching and ministry on prayer and revival for the last few years. As I tried to tee that meeting up I found that he would be out of the country for all but two days of the time we would be there. He invited me to attend a two day summit meeting at the Prayer Mountain he has established just outside of Kampala but it was during the week of meetings in Mbale and I couldn’t attend. I talked with his chief of staff person and thought there may be some value in meeting with him. As it turned out that was not possible either.

We were planning to leave Mbale at 8:00 am to make the four hour drive to Kampala. The team members were keen to do some shopping for people at home and there was a very good place called the National Theatre in Kampala that Christine said would be ideal for this purpose. People also had to change some money. But the trip down was slow and when we got to Kampala the traffic was of nightmare proportions. We had to go to the centre of the city for these things and we were locked in traffic jams for long periods of time. I was getting pretty edgy about time and told the Bishop that I would simply cancel the idea of going to Mulinde’s place and by the time people got to a money changing place and we loaded up to go to the Theatre, it was after one o’clock. Our plane left at just after four and I was not wanting to get to the airport after two thirty. Entebbe is more forty minutes drive from Kampala. So I warned everyone that we would have a very short stay at the Theatre and ended up having to round everyone up to leave. Regardless of the fact that Entebbe is not as busy as some other airports, I know that bureaucratic processes always seem to take longer than you think.
We ended up arriving at Entebbe not much before three o’clock. Our parting with Patrick, Christine and Emmanuel had to happen with what seemed to be regrettable haste. The parking policeman wouldn’t let the bus stay at the kerbside and at Entebbe the departnres area is restricted from before check in, so there was no real point in the Ungandans staying around. We said simple goodbyes and felt bereaved to do so after having shared together so fully for the past seventeen days.

Our trip to Dubai stopped at Addis Ababa for the regulation hour and a half (we all sat in the place for the duration) and we arrived at Dubai three quarters of an hour after midnight. If you;ve been to Dubai airport you will know how spread out it is. Our plane parked away from the terminal and the bus took fifteen minutes to drive us to the arrivals area. What a blessing it was to see a well dressed Hyatt Hotel man with my name on his care greet us just inside the arrivals gate. He showed us how to get through customs and we were greeted by the Hyatt staff who man a booth at the airport before we were escorted to the very comfortable mini bus and driven to the home of Rachel (nee Capon) and Chris Franzen’s home. Chris is a manager at the Dubai Hyatt Hotel and they have a nice town house in an estate operated by the Hotel for their staff. Rachel had all wonderfully set up her living room for multiple bodies as well as the spare room and one bed in their baby girl’s (Ashley) room. We simply flopped and dozed our way to around 7:45 am, had a simple but very welcome piece of toast (with Vegemite) and tea before the bus arrived just after 8:30 to take us back to the airport for our plane ride to Sydney. With traffic there was not a lot of time. Our plane left at 10:15 am and there are a lot of processes and checks even if you don’t have baggage to check through. You also have to walk from one building through a tunnel across a very wide access apron to the departures area. We arrived with just enough time but the plane was late boarding and when we got on board we were sitting there for a whole hour while they did something with the fuel – I think they needed to add more (which we all approved of by the way). But at last we were off for the nearly fourteen hour leg to Sydney.

No one could sleep. We had had a sleep and our journey took us to what would have been the early hours of a regular night. That translated into a 7:30 arrival at Sydney. After the customs rabble it was nearly nine by the time we walked out to the enormously anticipated welcome of husbands and wives. Unbelievable. The Goulburn crew were all traveling home in a small bus, and I accepted Nola’s offer of a slow ride to Canberra.

I will do one more posting on this Africa trip that will include some summary observations and comments. Thank you so much to all those who prayed for us. It was one of the most prayer aware times I have experienced and the grace of God that was obvious everywhere we turned was testimony to the faithful and persevering gift that you have given. Thank you also to those who contributed financially. We could not have accomplished what we did without the equipment that you provided along with the meals and support we were able to give to the people we served, especially those in the Displaced Persons’ Camps.

SOROTI PICTURE GALLERY

The numbers of people coming to the Crusade in Soroti ended up being larger than those in Mbale. Considering that the size of the town is much less than half the size the impact was much bigger













The responses were also as big most of the evenings as they were in Mbale and on one night were the biggest of the whole time in Uganda. I had been sensing from the Lord that Soroti was going to be a very special time.






The Mbale Worship Team, Voice of Faith were once again fantastic and every afternoon when they began to fill the garden park with the praises of heaven, people came and got involved in great numbers. The amount of energy expended in praising God comes much closer to the idea of "all my heart, soul, mind and strength" stuff than anything I have seen before now.











Emmanuel began to do some ministry one night during the celebration time and people began to fall to the ground.











Bishop Patrick would come up after the altar call to lead the people to make a commitment to Christ.










At least I had some semblance of an ordinary voice in Soroti. My throat is still not totally recovered. I wonder that I might be like this forever now. Maybe I'll become known as the "Whispering Evangelist"









There was a young woman in Soroti who had been miraculously healed from HIV and had a an amazing singing voice. Her name was Eglas and she sang wonderful original songs in both English and Itesso. Somewhere I have a couple of her CD's and I intend to play them on my IWAY FM program






On Sunday night in Mbale the whole team were prayed for by the church people there. We had such a great time and God did so many amazing things. Jaemin and I shared our vision and heart and the church there agreed to pray for us

SUNDAY - GREAT NEWS COMES FROM THE NORTH WEST

Six of the team woke up in Mbale this morning, five of them with the responsibility of sharing a short word in the early service. They were sitting around putting notes on paper and getting right into it. Jaemin and the rest of the team had stayed in Soroti to preach and sing in the first service of the church there. We were all keen to see how many of the new converts from the crusade would show up.

The morning service at Faith Fellowship was comparatively gentle to many of the meetings we had been in. Quite a few of the worship team were not there and were most likely recovering from the arduous days and nights of great work in two conferences and two crusades. It was still the vibrant fully committed worship that we have come to expect. Songs that have a beginning but no ending. People who dance and sing and interact totally for an hour without looking tired. Simple songs with simple music that generate power from the simple expression of passionate praise rather than the complex arrangement or crafted presentation.

I preached abut being obedient to the vision from heaven (Acts 26) and there was a humorous kind of irony about what happened at the end. I wanted to give opportunity for people to come to Christ and I should know enough about the need to make instructions very clear, but I messed it up. When a hundred or more people started coming forward I knew this couldn’t be the case. So I had to stop in mid stream and call people out who were wanting to come to Christ. About fifteen people were taken by the elders for counseling Then the way was clear to pray for hundreds of people looking to the Lord for their future and looking away from their past. After lunch the Bishop and his wife gave us some fruit and snacks to eat with the prospect of a meal together at one of the hotels here in the town. It is called the Mt Elgon Hotel and faces north from the town toward the very steep and majestic mountains that form a wall across that quadrant. The hotel is quite inexpensive but provides a priceless view.

We hadn’t been home for very long when the team arrived from Soroti. The news was that the church’s first service was attended by three hundred adults and a hundred children, mostly new converts. Jaemin reported with great excitement how people had testified about their experience of salvation. One such woman had been a witch but had felt the power of God lift her from one side to the other. Another woman came from her hospital bed and was both saved and healed within the space of half an hour. Jaemin seems to be the Muslim specialist. In Mbale he led a young Muslim guy to the Lord and then had the joy of baptizing him. In Soroti he did the same thing with another Muslim young woman. She gave her life to Christ at the Crusade and when she showed up for church on Sunday she told Jaemin that she had told her family what she did and they immediately disowned her. Her response to Jaemin was very humbling. She said Jesus had given her a new family and she would belong to that family now.

The Bishop said he had never seen anything like it before. What great glory belongs to our God. This has been an amazing time. I had a strong idea that Soroti would be something special but I couldn’t have foreshadowed the expanse of it all.

I finally got on to the internet tonight and teed up the details for our trip home. Rachel and Chris Franzen have kindly agreed to rescue us from the floor of Dubai airport and allow us to have some hours of sleep before we catch our plane for Sydney. It seems strange that we get on a plane at a bit after ten in the morning on Tuesday and don’t get to Sydney till six o’clock on Wednesday morning when it is only a fourteen hour flight. I know, it has to do with the time zones. Dubai is four hours behind eastern Australia.

In the evening service Jaemin and I shared something about Australia and our ministries there. The people prayed for us and blessed us in a beautiful way. We were very sad to be saying goodbye. These are such wonderful people. We have spent over two weeks without seeing more than a few European types from one end of it to the other. The mix has been so easy and the issues of relating have been as spontaneous and natural as they have been sincere.

I need to pay tribute to a wonderful man of God we have grown to know and love here apart from the Bishop Patrick his wife and Christine. There are others as well who, if justice were to be fully done, should have their names in this diary. But the person I am speaking about is Pastor Peter. He basically had responsibility for running the Conferences over the two weeks. He is such a godly and insightful man of God. He has responsibilities in the church in Mbale for pastoral care and training. I hope we can find ways of encouraging and supporting him and his lovely wife (who leads the worship team, but was sick with malaria – most Ugandans live with malaria in some form- while we were in Soroti. The Lord has and will use them more and more.

By the time we arrived back at the house tonight the whole team only has one thing on their mind. Walking out the door of the Arrivals area of Sydney Airport on Wednesday morning.

THIS WEEK IN SORTI

MONDAY
THE CONVOY MOVES TO THE NORTH WEST

I don’t know when we will be able to connect to the internet this week, so I am writing this just on spec that I will find a connection somewhere and get it sent. Monday morning was a rest morning and most of the team had the opportunity to sleep a bit longer. The Bishop was full of activity of course, getting across all the arrangements that had to be carried out to get all of our equipment to Soroti. That included the large stage that had been erected for the Crusade in Mbale. If you saw any of the photos of what went on on that stage you would realize what a large job this was. During the times when the worship team from Mbale would be leading the worship there could be as many as twenty people on the stage. Not only that be they would be in full up African dancing mode. So right after the last meeting on the Sunday night the crew went to work and pulled the whole thing apart and loaded it on the truck.

The Bishop Patrick and Christine’s home is about two kilometers from the main shopping area of Mbale and so most people walked up the street to do some shopping. Christine took the ladies in the team to some shops that she knew had good value things. A couple of the young guys bought heaps of stuff and so injected some good quality overseas dollars in the local economy.. Everyone who was game had the experience of riding home on the back of a “taxi bike.” These are bikes without gears where the rack behind the seat has been upholstered a bit to sit on. The women sit side-saddle and the men straight. Given the potholes and corrugations and the steep incline down to our house it makes for an exciting ride.

We were told that we would be traveling to Soroti after lunch. That happened to be after four o’clock by the time the church bus got back from its first trip. We were really chafing at the bit by that time. Our task was not only to get to Soroti, but we had an extra forty five minutes drive to the village where the Bishop had his village house. We ended up arriving at Soroti when it was nearly dark. The countryside is as flat here as you would know the Hay plains to be in Australia, but with much more vegetation. There are trees and there is long grass everywhere. We passed through a number of small villages on our way. There is almost no road anywhere that you don’t see people walking or riding bikes on the side. As usual the traffic takes up all the usable road space. There could be three vehicles passing or being passed at any one time given the fact that the road was free. When there could be a contest people are generally willing to give way depending on size.

We called in at the Crusade ground to see how things were going and the work on the stage was three parts completed. Then we set off for the village. The village where we are sleeping is only about thirty five kilometers from Soroti but the road is so bad that it is impossible to drive fast anywhere. No matter what time of the day or night there are always people riding bikes and walking along any part of the road. Given the fact that there is no moonlight at present all of us reckon the Africans have a super vision for seeing at night.

After coming to a small village that was dimly lit (but actually had network power) we passed along for another two or three kilometers and then Patrick dived off the road into what seemed nothing more than bush (high grass and trees) and we trekked along this track for a few more kilometers and came to a clearing where a brick house had been almost completed. We were amazed. There were some round huts next to the house but the house itself had windows and doors etc. There was no power and there was an outhouse with two pit toilets and a place for having a wash with a dipper and a basin. We were told to sit around while Patrick and Christine and some of the other village people here did unpacking and sorting. Then we were shown to the rooms where we had mattresses on the floor for sleeping. A definite luxury we were not expecting at all. Before long we were all getting into rice, cabbage and young goat meat that was as tender as any lamb I have eaten.

Without knowing what the surrounding area looked like and having made a whole lot of new friends we crashed into bed to get the energy bank full of what we would need for the first day of the program.



TUESDAY THE DAY OF VERY MIXED CIRCUMSTANCES

We were looking forward to the conference starting in the morning this morning but did not leave the village (I can never remember its name, but then I could call it anything at all and it wouldn’t make any difference would it.

Our first stop was the Crusade ground and we saw that preparations were going really well. Emmanual has been working tirelessly since we came. He has undertaken all of the sound and stage equipment and makes sure it happens. You wouldn’t want to know about some of the electrical connections that happen. Two bare wires hang in mid air and separation of active and earth is only by the grace of God or an experienced twist in the wire or both. The power to the main amplification system is something we don’t want to tell Anthony Price about (the great Canberra bloke who built the system we brought) because one of the huge risks that people take with amplification is that if the system is on and there is a power failure it can spike the speakers and cause expensive damage. Well, the generators sometimes fail and other things happen. But so far the system has been working wonderfully well. It is one of the very important factors of the success of the ministry not only because it pumps out the sound but because it is so portable. What happens is usually that it serves a task at the conference and then is unpacked and moved to the Crusade ground. It begins its work at the Crusade from about three in the afternoon and works until about “who knows when” at night when they go on dancing and celebrating. It has been doing this for about nine days now. There was one day off for good behaviour in the middle somewhere.

After a while at the central park area we were taken to the municipal offices to meet the Mayor of Soroti town. He and all his senior officials were there to welcome us. He is a comparatively young man for a Mayor and spoke very graciously and encouragingly to us. The Bishop spoke, I spoke and Jaemin introduced the rest of the team. Then the Clerk spoke and it was over. There has been a deal of opposition from some groups in Soroti to the meetings but it hasn’t come from the council. Some of it has come from some of the church leaders and as a result of some of them one of the judges in the town wrote a letter trying to ban the crusade. They also influenced some one in the police department and there was a bit of resistance from there. All of it has been overcome, to the praise of God.

The conference went really well. I have been very surprised that I have been able to get some of the measure of the people and God has given me a lot of liberty to speak and connect and even interact. All of that seems to be refreshing people. There is a reasonably strong culture of speaking and commanding on the part of leaders and listening and obeying on the part of people. We seem to have managed to crack through some of that. There has also been a strong influence here from the “faith” and “prosperity” side of the religious system. There is a lot of interaction on one level but it is not generally relational and I would agree with Jaemin there is an overall lack of grace. Please understand that I am not saying this is the overriding issue. But it is an issue and we are definitely here to represent some of that broader set of issues. Jaemin has been treating it in some of his teaching and I am also having a go. So far the response has been what I would think as being beyond my expectations. Our message is getting through I know that from the response we are getting and from what people are saying outside the sessions.

The Crusade began in normal mode this afternoon. The interesting thing was that I knew something was about to happen that I knew would create a disturbance. I can’t say I knew all of what would happen but I thought it was going to rain heavily and rather than telling the Bishop, and getting the preaching part happening sooner, all kinds of people had a go and the pre-program went on and on. I was getting really frustrated as this went on. I had hardly spoken for three minutes when the rain came heavy and hard. I actually continued to preach while people were scattering and all but the brave were somewhere else. I was so cranky with myself for not acting on the information better and because I felt the enemy was having a sideswipe at us and the program. It was even more pronounced because I have had a feeling that Soroti was the major purpose for us to be here. While I finished preaching and prayed a prayer that people could follow under the trees and the shop awnings and the service station the team were frenetically covering equipment in all directions. When I came down from the platform one of the pastors had a vehicle waiting for me to climb into out of the rain. I was soaked to the skin.

For the next forty five minutes or so we waited for the Bishop to return from wherever he had to go to. The bus was packed with worship team and Australians as was the vehicle we were in. Finally he came and we swam around to where some of the worship team were staying through the filled up potholes and water running everywhere. We got a few kilometers from Soroti and the rain had stopped. We got to the farm and the roads were dusty and dry. This was clearly an adversarial storm. I have seen a few of them in my time and this was the same as the others. I was really frustrated on the way home and at home. People were very encouraging to me personally but that wasn’t what I was interested in. I longed to get to a place of prayer and sort out what was going on.

Here was my conclusion: rain is a blessing to the people of Soroti, but the God of heaven doesn’t send rain just as the Word is about to be preached. God is sovereign and allows things to happen for his greater glory. Part of that greater glory is to stir the believers into greater and more focused commitment. This had been an attempt from the enemy to spoil what God was wanting to do. It was also a blessing to the people in the town (but not in the district where the farms are). God was wanting us to stir our hearts and our faith and to lift our game. I will talk with the team in the morning.
WEDNESDAY
AN AMAZING BREAKTHROUGH IN THE FIRST FULL CRUSADE MEETING

It was just wonderful to wake up and walk out to see this beautiful bushland of what they call Tasoland. It is the land of the Atasso (spelling may be off) speaking people of the lower north west of Uganda. Not as many people here speak English as in Mbale and the history of the area has clearly impacted the town and the people. As I said before, it is relatively flat but there are bumps here and there and gradually sloping higher ground. If you’ve ever been to The Rock down in the Riverina of New South Wales then Soroti is built right next to a much large rock. A bit like a much smaller version of Ularu in Oz.

Only a few years ago, the last concerted fling of the LRA (terrorist group armed by the Islamic government of north Sudan operating from bases in Sudan) was launched to try and capture this town. Their previous tactic had been to overrun smaller towns and the people would just leave. The LRA would take their animals and herd them across the border and sell them for guns and ammunition and supplies. The ongoing bad feeling here is that the Ugandan government would not dispatch the armed forces to defend the town. So the people of the town decided to form up an army and defend themselves. The government did give them some old guns and ammunition. It was a bloody and protracted battle. Many people still fled the town. But the Christians here were as much a part of the defense as the armed but untrained young men who fought the battles. They would have prayer happening around the clock. Christians literally would pray until they couldn’t stay awake and then sleep till they got more energy to pray. The young men fought bravely and with a grim and gritty resolution. Eventually and for the first time in the twenty plus years of the terrorist war the Kony forces were beaten back. The town was saved but horribly scarred. They were scarred by the battles themselves and by their feeling of betrayal by the government.

In Soroti there are many displaced people’s camps here. People who fled their villages from the north western areas because of the terrorists live here but all the government supplies are mud huts to live in. The people have to find all their own food and they go out each day looking for either a way to earn money or some way of receiving food. There is something very deep and horrible about this that cannot help but impact anyone who has contact with it.

We had a team gathering before we left the village today. I spoke to the people about what I felt had been happening and how God was wanting us to sharpen up and get our faith works focused on the job we were here to do. Everyone including the Bishop felt the same way and we had a great time of prayer before we left. We had another prayer time in the conference. I spoke at the conference about the natural signs and what they mean and it was a very powerful time. We spent the last period of time in earnest prayer seeking the grace and power of God to come and draw people to Christ.

We had a meeting of the whole team at 4:30 before we went to the Crusade and once again it was a terrific time of “girding up” whatever needs to be girded up.

From the moment the Crusade ministry began you could feel the atmosphere of victory. I mean, there was a huge crowd, there was an amazing expectancy. When it came time to preach I found a whole lot of things coming from my mouth that I had neither prepared nor considered but they flowed and when the altar call was made stacks of people came to receive Christ. I stood in awe and just knew the grace from heaven that was there in response to the faith of people from Uganda and Australia together - the ones here and the ones at home. We prayed for many people and when it came time to leave for the village the bus took off and we were along the road a bit when there was a phone call to tell us that Matt was still at the Crusade ground. He had been praying for this young person and witnessed an amazing instant healing. So we totally forgave him for not making his way to the bus according to our established custom.

There was a powerful celebration after the meeting. Emmanuel took over and there was a full on Holy Spirit shindig. Dust was flying everywhere as we drove off for the second time. The power of God was so profound that when we called at the petrol station just across the road from the Crusade ground the bishop and I led the guy working there to Christ. He lifted his hands to God right there as the petrol was being poured into the bus. It was certainly a different atmosphere when we arrive home. People were stuffed (tired) but so very thankful to God. At the end of the day, Soroti got some needed rain (albeit at the wrong time) and God was glorified even in what has happened.


THURSDAY
MORE MIGHTY MIRACLES

We all felt more confident and excited as we left for Soroti town this morning. We have become much more vigilant and the wider team members and the believers from the churches in the town were also much more determined to serve the purposes of God than when we started. Soroti has not seen a Crusade like this one before. There are about 120 churches in the town, the largest being about the same size as Grace.

In one way the days follow similar patterns for us. Patrick went to the local markets in the village yesterday before we left for town and bought wonderful fruit: oranges, mangos and the sweetest pineapple you could ever want to eat. I have been eating mainly fruit and a little rice and very small amounts of meat. Its not that the food has not been well prepared. I had a long talk with Christine one day and she said how careful she has been. The challenge of having white people stay was something she took very seriously because she said she has known pastors who have invited white people to come and they get very sick. We haven’t eaten a single piece of food that has been grilled. Everything has been boiled or stewed or however else it happens. We have had hard boiled eggs offered every morning. The milk has also been the safety version. They do have cows they milk at their home in Mbale, but Christine buys powdered milk and puts it with boiled water. We are so grateful for this very special gift of her love. She is an absolute treasure. She was an orphan by the age of seventeen and has had a very hard time, but is a woman of great wisdom and incredible faith.

The conference sessions go from 9:30 to 2:00 each day. Jaemin preaches in the first session and then the team often goes off to a school or to one of the camps. We put some of the money we had left to buy some food for the people in the camp we went to yesterday. It was about $A60 or USh 100,000 and it bought enough maize and rice to give every family a good portion each. It is sobering to think that it will only be a bit of food for a day or so. One of the things that always blows me away is the capacity these people have to be happy in the most dreadful circumstances.

I taught on the incarnation today. I know it isn’t what they are used to hearing from western preachers and therefore from Ugandan preachers. There is one lady pastor in Kampala who has a church of about 5,000 and has just bought a Hummer. There are only three in the country and they cost the absolute earth. She is a prosperity gospel preacher who married a man who had divorced his first wife in order to be free to marry the preacher. Of course it is all over the papers here and doesn’t bring honour to God. But because the nation is poor and because some people have been poor but are now comparatively well off, there is this huge dream of becoming prosperous and that prosperity is the sign of God’s approval. The Biblical issue is that God always does want to bless the poor but he doesn’t make everyone rich either. Also status is very important here. I have been offended by the way I have seen some government officials treating people and the way they talk with them. It is the old thing. When you get a bit of power you throw it around and “laud it over” whoever is down the pecking order. Well I ran right into all of that and spoke about the five things that belonged to Jesus’ glory as the incarnate son of God. I am looking forward to the question time tomorrow to see if any of it has hit home.

The Crusade was one of the most powerful times we have had since coming to Uganda. There were so many people in the garden park and they stayed glued to the program for the one and a half hours of worship and music that precedes the preaching. There is some amazing talent here. One outstanding one is a girl who has been healed of HIV and sings fantastic songs. I am bringing a CD of hers home with me to play on the radio station. But there is another group called “Mike and Joe” and they do the greatest rap kind of stuff you would hear anywhere (of course I am a world authority on good and bad rap). I am hoping to get something from them as well. The boys are from Mbale and the girl is from Soroti and sings in both Itesso (the language of the people from the Soroti region) and English.

After I preached tonight and gave the opportunity for people to receive Christ, people just flocked to the front. It was possibly the greatest number we have seen on any night. It was an amazing God thing that was overwhelming. Considering that the crowds here have been smaller than Mbale (6,000 or so to 3,000 here) it is simply wonderful. After they were counseled and all their details were written down we spent the rest of the time praying for sick people. So many people come for prayer. It is both depressing to see the need but exciting to be able to pray. The members of the Australian team and the pastors from the town get to lay hands on every person who comes and we could be there praying all night if we were up to it.

When that part is over Emmanual gets going and leads this great (and very loud) time of celebration. It is always still going strong when we get in the bus to come home to the village.

Patrick is an Itesso man and he was telling me today that the Itesso have always been the left out tribal group in Uganda. They have generally been looked down upon by others and have been excluded from any high office ever. He says he doesn’t really know why this is so, but he has a great desire to see God raise up an influence for the gospel through this people. That’s the core reason why he is here doing these meetings in Soroti and I know that is the primary reason we are here. The Itesso are not proud or independent people, but are hard working, faithful and loyal. May the Lord to a great work and raise up an army of spirit filled servants who could carry a pride-less mantle to the whole nation and be the catalyst for unity across the tribes that would see the nation become not just the pearl of Africa but carry their beautiful faith around the world.


FRIDAY - THE GREATEST MEETING SO FAR

Today was an amazing day of breakthrough and progress. There were a few casualties though. A number of the team members started getting the flu. I think it might happen because of the dust. Apparently when it has been dry the dust that is almost constantly in the air carries diseases. Oddly enough we have had beautiful rain this week as well, in the mornings it has been raining and the people are thinking this is a sign of the blessing of God because they have not had rain for a long time. By the afternoon it has cleared and the Crusades have all been in beautiful weather since the first evening when it bucketed down.

Jaemin was the worst hit. Amy was also pretty crook. When we got to town today the Patrick and Christine and I took Amy to the hotel just near where we are holding the conference meetings. We booked Amy a room to lie down in for the morning and she really appreciated that and was the better for it. By lunch time she picked up and when the team went to the Displaced Persons Camps today she felt up to going there with them.

Jaemin decided he would preach anyway and did a great job at it too. He had a difficult interpreter but we are learning to make better and simpler phrases when there is a breakdown in the interpreting process. At the start of the proceedings this morning I went looking for an internet café to try and download some blog material and check the emails. I found one, but they had no facility for me to plug my laptop in and so there was no opportunity to update the blog page. I will try another method tomorrow.

The second part of the conference was a great breakthrough time. There has been some little difficulty between some of the members of the pastors fellowship here in Soroti and the program we are doing and especially about Patrick starting a church. This had been complicated by the fact that the guy here who was supposed to coordinate things didn’t know how to handle the situation and simply backed away from it. This only led to more misunderstandings. While there have been quite a number of the pastors attending the conference each day, the main guys had stayed away. Well, today they showed up and there was a wonderful process of understanding and blessing and unity. The Bishop took the situation in hand and spoke very well and with great wisdom. He talked about unity and why he had come to the town and what he was hoping for. He was very honouring of the leaders of the pastors network and they were very positive toward what was happening. I finally got to speak and was able to reinforce the unity and purpose theme in my own way. I found out from one of the pastors that there are not more than 10,000 believers in Soroti. That’s a bigger percentage than Canberra but still not big. The pastors all agreed that the task was to work together to win the lost.

After lunch the team went off to the camp and I stayed at the Hotel to pray and prepare. I couldn’t have anticipated what was going to happen. The meeting today was the biggest since we have been in Uganda. There were more people in the garden park than even the largest day in Mbale. There were around seven thousand people there. This is in a town of seventy thousand residents. That would be like having 30,000 at a meeting in Canberra. God brought a tenth of the whole town to the Crusade. The response was the largest we have had since coming. Between two hundred and two hundred and fifty people received Christ and recorded their decision. I preached a very simple message on the prodigal son and it was overwhelming to see the people flocking forward to “come home.” After the people went to the side to have cards filled in and the follow up process put in place, we prayed for many sick and troubled people. Ugandans love to be prayed for and what we do is to have the team and the pastors from here stand in front of the platform and when the Bishop has finished praying we go through the crowd laying our hands on everyone. It’s a bit of an art because they are crowded together. You have to be careful where you put your feet because many of them have no shoes, especially the small ones. When you get out to the edge of the crowd coming for prayer you have to be careful in the dark because the mothers who come with their small children lay them on mats on the ground. In the darkness it can be hard to see a small dark body lying down. I think when God made white people he might have did some kind of upgrade on black people because they definitely seem to be able to see better in the dark. When we drive home along the bush road there are people walking and riding bikes. And these roads are full of deep corrugations and huge potholes. The moon doesn’t come out until early in the morning at the moment so it is very dark.

The last phase of the Crusade continued with the whole garden park area throbbing with the sound and movement of Christian worship and praise in the way only the Afticans can do it.

Tonight is our last night in the village. In the morning we will be packing up and bringing all our gear with us so that we can return to Mbale after the Crusade meeting. We are anticipating the largest crown of all tomorrow evening.

SUNDAY PHOTO GALLERY abridged today

The service this morning was the biggest this church has ever had. More than twelve hundred people packed themselves in and were standing outside. The atmosphere was generated most by the presence of a hundred and twenty or so new converts. The thing about Africa is that there is always room for about hundred more people in any given space anywhere anytime .





The baptism was an amazing experience. Even though we baptized over a hundred and twenty people the presence and grace of God was tangible and so wonderful.

A GREAT BAPTISM SERVICE AND THE LAST DAY OF THE CRUSADE

Today was the last day of the Crusade. The church services this morning were totally wonderful. We had a teaching time for the new converts at 9:00 or so. I taught about baptism and the church was full even at that time. We were going to do the baptisms before the main service but the water was still being piped into the newly constructed (re-constructed baptism pool. In the end we waited until after the main service. All that had to be taken care of was the clothes situation. The Africans are so keen to put their best into worshipping God that they don’t like to be dressed in anything less than their best gear. It’s not just a “British tradition” it is a sigh of honour toward God. You can’t criticize them on that could. Everyone gets dressed up. So Jaemin and I had to come back after the teaching session to get changed. Then we had to take our clothes for the baptism and get changed again.

The main service was totally packed with people standing outside. More than a hundred and ten of the new converts were in the service and they made a bit fuss of them in a very genuine way and gave them some books to help them with their Christian life. There were many other converts in other congregations around Mbale according to other pastors so that was absolutely wonderful. There were a lot of other new people as well and they reckon there was over twelve hundred in the service.

It was their seventh wedding anniversary as a church. Not bad having twelve hundred people gathering after seven years. They also have planted thirty churches and have two secondary schools and a primary school and have 700 kids being looked after in orphanages.

The actual baptism time was just terrific. We baptized over a hundred and twenty people. I don’t know how those guys baptized three thousand because I was pretty tired after this lot. They lined them up in two lines and Patrick and Jaemin baptized one line and one of the other pastors and myself baptized the second line. It was pretty wild in the pool as God began to touch some of the people as they were in the water. There are no shortages of people to haul anyone who needs it off the floor or out of the water. One of the things that I noticed was how so many of the older people especially were really thin and I don’t mean healthy thin. We’ve prayed for a lot of people with aids this week and you always think that if the person is really thin they are probably aids affected.

We came home for lunch and I did some preparation for the last Crusade meeting. I was expecting a small crowd but there were thousands once again. At the beginning of the altar call I thought we may have fished the pool dry, but people kept coming. What tends to happen is that about a half or two thirds of the people come through my appeal and then the bishop takes over and another third come. He is much more persuasive than I am and has a great rapport with the people. We make a good team.

We went out for pizza after the service. Imagine that - pizza in the heart of rural Uganda. It was beautiful and we really were hungry. Everyone was in really high spirits after the events of the day. One of the things that happened as we were leaving the school grounds: the people were celebrating like we have not seen all week. You would have to be here to see how this happens. Everyone gets moving. The little kids and the adults alike. If I was going to make a judgment I would say that the men dance with more rhythm that the women, but there wouldn’t be much in it. The worship team are great African dancers and they get the whole place moving. Emmanuel is the final segment celebration leaders specialist and he gets everyone involved.

Tomorrow we have a rest in the morning and then pack up and head for Soroti in the afternoon. There is a betting agency taking money on how long it will take to get there. We have heard as quick as an hour and we have heard three and a half hours. We are about to find out who gets the money.

I’m not sure if there will be opportunity for me to send from Soroti. I am hoping there will be an internet café there or something, but I will try.

The photos’ will probably come tomorrow. The power went out again and they are running a generator here at the house just for a short time.

Hope to keep you in touch. Love to you all and keep praying for us.

SATURDAY PHOTO GALLERY

One of the young guys on the team had his hair done in those tight plaits and then had some coloured hair added to the ends. When I was with Bishop Patrick this morning he told me that while that may not be important in Australia, in Africa only the women and the very rebellious young men have their hair done like this. It is a fashionable thing for women but a statement of rebellion for a man. So the team helped Dave get back to normal this afternoon before the Crusade





This is Dan. He is a young Acholi man who helps Patrick and Christine in the house. Here he is using the coke powered iron to do my shirt for me before the Crusade. They burn the pieces of coke inside the body of the iron and when it is hot they can iron the clothes. It takes a bit longer but works when there is no power.








The members of the team went to the prison this morning. It is about 40 km out along the road to Soroti where we will be going on Monday afternoon. As soon as you get into the country the style of housng changes quite significantly. Here is an example of it.










As I have described in the report, the team went without Jaemin and shared, sang and preached in the prison. They were quite impressed with the way the Christian prison governor handled the situation and the prisoners. Seven of the men gave their lives to Christ through this ministry.









Here is a better way to preach. If we have the British colonisers and missionaries to thank for the fact that the pastors wear suits and ties to preach, I am grateful that the Africans had better sense. This shirt is not quite as formal as the suit, but Patrick said it would be acceptable for me to wear. It will be even more appropriate when we go to Soroti where it is much hotter.

SATURDAY LAST DAY OF THE CONFERENCE MBALE

Today was the last day of the conference. It was a great meeting. Jaemin preached from about 9:00 till 10:00 am and it was wonderful stuff. We are still working with two interpreters and it makes the going slow. No way to keep speaking momentum. When there are two interpreters you need to speak in longer phrases or sentences so that people can get a whole thought at one time. It’s a bit harder but by no means impossible.

They had a great time of worship after the first session and then I was up. I spoke about the fourth imperative, that being the need to operate by the power of the Spirit and not on human ability. I spoke from about 10:30 to 12:45 and then we had ministry and the Holy Spirit certainly broke out in a big way. It was quite some time till things were back to normal. At the end of all of that the Bishop closed the meeting and recognized the pastors who had been attending and with whom he had relationship. He was quite candid in his comments about the fact that for many years the churches of Kampala had looked down on the pastors from the regional towns and villages. He re-emphasized his own vision and the vision of a large number of pastors from the eastern region, to come together to see the revival flow into every small village and every town. He said that a Kampala pastor had stopped by the Crusade and was amazed at the crowds and the responses and said to him the if he was in Kampala he would have a much bigger church than he had (Mbale is known for it’s hardness against the gospel. It is the main centre for Islam in the East Africa Region. They actually have an Islamic University here and Muslims come from all over Africa to study here. It is also a place where there is a lot of witchcraft. Churches have struggled to grow here, but the Spirit of the Lord is moving in a new way at this time and the Christians are very encouraged. Patrick said when the pastor from Kampala made the comment, that he didn’t want to have a big church in Kampala. He wanted to see the churches growing in Mbale and in all the villages.

They are holding a pastor’s convention at the end of August and there will be about 500 pastors coming. They will be seeking God for the ways to work together to see the work expand. They speakers are all going to be local and the prayer is going to be very focused. Jaemin and I have made an undertaking that we will make sure that all of the pastors who don’t have Bibles get Bibles. There may be as many as 200 pastors who don’t have Bibles. We are going to speak with the Bible Society in Kampala on our way back through to Entebbe to see which is the cheapest and best way to get them here. We need Bibles in English, Luganda and Acholi. It will be a big task to get them here in time, but we are determined to do it. Unfortunately even the cheapest Bibles here are about 12 dollars US which seems wrong to me when we can buy one for about three dollars in Australia. We will see if we can ship the English ones in from somewhere else. We will be trying to raise about three thousand dollars to cover the costs.

The team went to the jail outside of town today. A number of the prisoners made a commitment to Christ. The Governor of the prison is a Christian and once again there will be good support. They took a few boxes of soap to give to them. It was a great experience for the team to go there without Jaemin and as they preached people responded so they were really pumped up. Being Saturday there were no schools to go to so they had a well earned rest time this afternoon before going off to the Crusade.

The Crusade was great again tonight. I was wondering who would be there because the pastors and leaders from the Conference (about 1,000 in all) made up a part of the crowd each night. But we didn’t have any concerns as we drove to the ground because the place was full of people. Being Saturday there were a lot of locals who couldn’t come during the weekdays. There were large responses to the call for salvation and the people who are going to show up for baptism in water tomorrow at church will be large. The baptism pool was just being completed this afternoon.

Today the Bishop took me to a shop where he bought me two African shirts. They are formal shirts but have no collar and are much cooler to wear. I was all decked out in a shirt and tie, but he suggested I put it on in the shop and wear it to preach. That’s what I did. It sure felt a lot better than the suit and tie job. He bought me two and they were a good price. I might even buy one more and take them to Soroti which will be much hotter than here.

We are all gearing up for Soroti. We will be doing Conference and Crusade meetings every day from Tuesday to Saturday as well as schools and the displaced persons camps and one or two other places. It will be much more difficult than this week since we are sleeping at a village about 40 km from the town and there is no power or sewerage or any plumbing there. This means we will go into town first thing each morning and come home after the Crusade meetings at night. There will be no place to rest between meetings so we will have to do the best we can.

FRIDAY PHOTO GALLERY

The crowds gather in the Mbale Secondary School Ground as the Crusade Program begins. The people gather at 4:00 and the preaching starts at about 6:45 pm. After the altar call and healing ministry the people break out in this wonderful celebration of worship and praise








Both at the conference today and at the Crusade there was this pumped up worship band using these traditional instruments. They were a total blast. One of the things that happen as people perform worship songs like this is that people come up while they are presenting the items and put money in their hands to show their appreciation. They do it some times when you are preaching as well. I need to point out that I have received a total of 1,000 USh which amounts to about seventy cents Australian. Perhaps I need to pump up the preaching a bit.




By the time the preaching happens it is usually dark I asked Bishop Patrick if the people would be less likely to respond because it was dark and should be pull the program forward so that the altar call would be before the darkness comes. He said that people don't go home because it is dark and the darkness often make them more likely to respond. He is an astute operator, no doubt about it.






More and more people are coming to Christ. When they pray and commit their lives to Christ they are taken to the side and have all their names and contact details recorded. They are invited to church on Sunday to be baptized. The church has had to re-dig its baptism pool. It was outside the building and got covered with soil during a development . I saw all this digging going on yesterday and didn't know what was going on until the Bishop told me they were "re-digging the wells of revival" so to speak.

FRIDAY AT MBALE A LONG TREK FOR THE TEAM

I felt for the members of the team today. They have given themselves so totally to whatever has been asked of them and partly because they have been doing such a great job the pastors of Faith Fellowship Church who has been organizing the schools and orphanages packed them in today. Jaemin in particular has a tall order because he preaches for an hour each morning between 8:00 and 9:00 before all the others join him to go off to the school program. One of the state school principals was talking with the team today saying that the Ugandan government is totally disorganized when it comes to schools. They can be given thirty computers to use to teach the kids but some component of the system will be missing and they won’t be able to use them and it seems almost impossible to track down what they need. Also they can have computers but no one trained to teach with a similar result. He said it was all very political and not very educational. So many of the state school principals are believers and the guys on the team find it amazing and refreshing to have the Principle strongly urging the students to hear and respond to the message of the gospel. In those cases also the Principal’s will make very sincere commitments to follow up the students who become Christians.

In addition to the two schools they went to the local hospital this afternoon at 5:00. It was a pretty confronting scene for everyone, especially the girls on the team. Apparently the conditions were pretty poor and the state of people’s health was worse. There were a lot of aids affected people there and the whole thing impacted them quite noticeably. On top of that they were rushed back to the crusade to do their worship stint. Everyone appreciates what they do so that makes the energy demands a little more bearable. When they got home tonight they all had small meals and were quickly off to their beds.

I don’t know whether I have a picture of David Grevengoed or not. He is one of the guys on the team and yesterday he was talking to a lady who does people’s hair and he asked her if she would do his hair in those tightly plaited locks. It took her two hours or so and it was quite a work of art.

I had the morning off this morning. The Bishop and I had a talk about my voice. I have been just making it each day. By the time I speak for more than two hours in the morning and then preach at the Crusade I come home without a voice. We thought it if was rested for a morning that might help. There is still a long way to go in this work and so the Bishop decided to preach. I went along with him to the session. It was a very lively session indeed. He preaches like a fox terrier grabbing hold of someone’s trouser leg. He grabs hold and doesn’t let go while there is any hope of something worthwhile happening. At the end of the session we prayed for all of the pastors in particular, but what often happens when there is a Holy Spirit breakout here is that you inevitably end up with people writhing in a snake like way and they drag them up and lay them at the front. Sometimes they have to physically restrain them, but as the ministry goes on and the demons are cast out they end up lying there peacefully. All of that happened today.

By the time I got to preach at the Crusade this evening there had been some wonderful testimonies by a couple of guys who were now pastors of churches in the region. One was delivered of a bunch of demons that made him like a madman and the other pastor had been healed of aids….actually both he and his wife were healed. His first wife had died of aids and he and his second wife both contracted aids and they were listening to the Bishop preach on the radio and heard his call to reach out to Jesus to be healed. They both did and they both were. He was an older guy and was clearly healthy and strong and pasturing a growing church in a nearby town. I was going to preach another message, but when there was such a strong testimony of healing I preached about the woman who pressed through the crowd to receive her healing. There was once more a large response of people who came to the Lord and then we prayed for many many people to be healed. The presence of the Lord was once again very tangible and amazing. I know I have said it before, but there is something even more profound when the presence of God comes to an open air situation. This school ground is definitely holy ground at this time. I am reminded of what we were told about Carlos Annacondia in Argentina where that was literally born out in the fact that people who were sick would step onto the ground where the crusade was being held and be healed….and then come up onto the platform and testify to it. Well, there’s a challenge that we have yet to see here.

In the local papers (Kampala) today there was a story about a set of peace talks that are taking place today in South Sudan with leaders from the LRA. It seems that the Ugandan Government have agreed to attend these talks and it seems also that enough senior members of the LRA are prepared to go to the meeting. All of that does look a bit weird to me. Why would the government want to have peace talks with a person who has broken every human rights convention in the book. Patrick told me the government were going to the talks not to end up seeking a peace deal but to find out what state the LRA is in and what their terms might be. Already Joseph Kony is facing charges from the International Criminal Court. As with all stories there are more than two sides. One of the things that has empowered the LRA is the matter of discontent in the north and north west of the country. There have been ideas that there could be a secession and South Sudan and the extreme north of Uganda would form a new nation. It is a nightmare idea in all reality but like a lot of these things, when you get into the forgotten north here the people are not necessarily willing to think rationally. The disaffection is strong and therefore the opportunity to form a “One Nation” kind of confederacy become a reality. It is one of the issues the Ungandan Government is having to deal with. Because Kony so severely stepped over the line there is not broad support for him. There is certainly not a broadly felt idea that he could form an alternative government with South Sudan. But of course you have the same thing in the Sudan. People in the south are disaffected and angry and that’s how Kony was supported at the beginning. That’s where he got arms up until quite recently (as you may have seen in the video).

The reason I speak about all of this is not just the politics, but it highlights another great need and that is for churches to be planted in these areas. The re-settlement is slow and the impact of the gospel is currently weakest in this part of the country. For there to be a strong lift in the nation this problem has to be overcome. The back of the demonic opposition has been broken as you have seen, but this is the poorest part of the nation and like people everywhere there is a lag in the work of re-pioneering church planting in these areas. The Bishop is very aware of this and one of the reason why he wants to plant a church in Soroti is to use that town as a base for planting more churches into the north west region. He comes from Soroti and speaks the Acholi (spelling??) language. What a great work it would be to see this area not only resettled but evangelized.

THURSDAY PHOTOS

HERE IS THE PREACHER GIVING IT ALL HE'S GOT.














HERE ARE SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN COMING TO CHRIST EACH DAY IN THE CRUSADE.












THIS IS THE YOUNG MUSLIM MAN WHO GAVE HIS LIFE TO CHRIST AFTER BEING AT THE PREVIOUS THREE MEETINGS








HERE THE TEAM IS SHARING THE GOSPEL WITH YOUNG PEOPLE FROM ONE OF THE SCHOOLS

THURSDAY – MBALE

We are in the second part of the week now. The crusade will continue until Sunday night in the School ground. The School is about three kilometers from the church so most of the people at the conference walk there after lunch and walk back to sleep after the crusade. No one wants to leave early because of that. They probably would in Australia. There is clearly a hunger for God here. When you remember that relatively few people have Bibles it’s a matter of comparing Christian meetings to reading the Bible. It’s not quite like that but there is a strong hunger that surpasses self interest. That’s the key. There are great things happening in this nation. It is interesting to be here and to get a different perspective on things than the video presentations show. Its not that the videos are covering up the truth. They tell a part of the story.

The other part of the story has to do with all the usual suspects. There are some pastors who belong to a National Fellowship of Born Again Churches or some such name like that and some of them have more access to the political leaders and they have often tended to attract the interest that has been created outside Uganda by the videos. And, you could guess it, they attract more of the money and support that comes whether or not they are doing the front line ministry. The other side of it has to do with the other usual suspect of parochialism. The Kampala driven ministries are often restricted to the city and there are large regions of the country that need church planters and pioneer workers. Due to a hundred and twenty something years of missionary endeavor there is usually a residual of Christian awareness, but when people turn away from the things of God they turn to traditional paganism and witchcraft and the like. The enemy tends to rush in like a flood.

So there are very few who are pushing up through the centre to the north west areas. These, as you may be aware are the ones that have been most affected by the LRA terrorists. It seems that Joseph Coney is still around breathing threats. His power has been very significantly weakened as you saw in the video (if you haven’t seen “An Unconventional War” contact Toowoomba City Church and they will send you one. It is a great story. Very inspiring). People here have been aware of the fact that a journalistic team recently came to Uganda and somehow managed to arrange a meeting with Coney and they interviewed him. He is like the Osama Bin Laden of Uganda and the people here feel angered by the fact that a foreign team would find a way of getting to him but not do anything to help get him arrested. One of the claims he made was that he lives by the ten commandments. I think he might have a few less than ten in his book. Murder would be a glaring omission.

Soroti, where we are going next week, was a town that formed its own army when the Ugandan government would not come and protect them. Coney targeted the town to take it over and use it as a base. He had taken over other towns just through people leaving. But Soroti resisted him in two ways. They formed an army and got guns from the government to do so and the churches came together to pray. Before each attack the Christians would pray for the locally formed army and while they were in the battle they would engage in unceasing intercession. The result was that Soroti because the first town that Coney did not capture and it was a turning point in the war against this terrorist.

One of the reasons I am glad that God has brought us together with Bishop Patrick is that he has a huge heart for this region and has already been planting churches back up toward the north west. We will be helping them plant a new church in Soroti itself and I will be preaching at their first service. Patrick also works well with pastors in this eastern and central region. He is a real father figure. We would definitely call him an apostle because he has gained so much broad respect and because he provides a structure for churches to relate much like Crosslink. Here is a true pioneer. The church here in Mbale was only started in 1999. In the last twelve months it has doubled in size. Patrick is definitely Mr. Perpetual Motion. Everyone knows his mobile number and they text messages asking him to pray for them. And he does. He is on the radio every evening at 7:00 pm once again receiving prayer requests and praying for people’s needs.

We had another great day today. Conference session included Jaemin preaching for an hour between 8:00 and 9:00 and then I preached from 11:30 to after 1:30. Today was a bit more of a challenge because they were not only translating into Luganda (the most common language in Mbale) but there was an interpreter into the language that they speak to the north west of here, which I can’t remember the name. I have enjoyed working with Joseph, who does the first interpretation but the second guy was a bit slower and so I had to speak and then Joseph and then the third guy. It was okay once I got used to it. What I had to do was to speak in full short sentences rather than half sentences. Once I got that right it was okay. You can see why humour takes some doing in this kind of situation. You have to wait for the second group to get the words before they can react, and the first group react when they hear the first translation; and there are quite a few who speak English so they get it right away. Can be a bit confusing.

There seemed to be an even greater anointing in the crusade meeting this evening. There was a much bigger response to the altar call. One exciting story came from Jaemin. He had been scouting around the perimeter looking for people to talk to and had met this Muslim man. He had been at the meetings each night but when the appeal was made and Jaemin asked the question he always refused. Well, tonight he responded. It was so terrific. We were praying for sick people till much later. One of the difficulties is that Emmanual likes the sound to be totally full up. When you stand in front of the stage area praying for people you can’t hear a thing. The worship team always bring worship during the ministry time so that means you just lay hands on people and pray for all you are worth.

Tonight we came home and had a meal and headed straight for bed. Much much nicer plan, despite the great food last evening.

WEDNESDAY MUCH MORE IMPACT EVERWHERE

I’m probably going to get confused somewhere about now. The days are full and demanding, but at the same time exhilarating. These are great people to be in the midst of and we so much enjoy what we are doing. But it is like a long distance runner enjoys the challenge but has to find a stride somewhere in the middle that will keep the pace up without running out of steam. We have all put a lot into what we have been doing. The (mostly) younger guys from the team continue to work hard in the schools and at the crusade meetings. People always appreciate what they do and more an more teenagers have been making commitments to Christ.

Yesterday was the first day it didn’t rain at all from the beginning of the crusade. The sun was shining and there were more people. The responses have continued at about the same rate. One of the things that interests me is the fact that the altar call definitely needs to be extended from what we might think is appropriate. If I stopped the call when I would probably do so in Australia, only half the people would be there. It’s not just a matter of manipulation, and it may be cultural, I don’t know. It is certainly worthwhile. I am not one of those people who has any issue about long altar calls. I got saved through a long altar call and my salvation is pretty genuine. It’s a work of the Spirit and while it remains a work of the Spirit we just need to allow the Spirit to work. That’s what I say. I am learning to see what is needed and fall into line.

We spent a long time praying for sick people at the end of the meeting last night. African people are like aboriginal people as far as looking for prayer is concerned. We prayed for hundreds of people.

When it was over and we arrive back at the house (around 9:00 pm) the power was out. I think I may have mentioned how the power works. It is rationalized around the country and at any one time half the towns may be without power. So it was the turn for Mbale to be without power for a good long stint. Bishop Patrick decided that we would all go out for evening meal. It was a wonderful idea as far as Christine was concerned, but as for most of the rest of us it was a bit torturous. I for one was dead tired. And I mean dead. I had no voice, I couldn’t even whisper, so I sat there in the restaurant talking to no one. The whole thing took about two hours. It was a restaurant that served European food and it was very good of the Bishop to take us there. Many of the guys had steaks that looked terrific and it was relatively cheap. A full steak dish was only about $A10.00. I could only muster enough energy for an omelet. With the power out I wasn’t able to get near the web and so this report is coming late. This will be good practice for us of course because next week we will be staying in a village west of Soroti where there is no power.
While we were at the restaurant the girl serving the table quietly put some candles on the tables without saying anything and then about half an hour later the lights went out while they refueled their generator. Then they came back on. By the way, the restaurant was called “Oasis of Life” and they played Hillsong worship and Terry Macalmon worship tapes as background music.
This morning when I went to see if there was any way of ironing my shirt, Christine got a young boy to fire up a coke iron. I don’t know if you would ever have seen one, but coke was put into the body of the iron and it was left out on the step so that the wind could fire up the coke. When it was all hot and burning well, they closed up the iron and before a few minutes had elapsed I had a nice ironed shirt.

I will send this without pictures simply because I want to keep it happening. I so appreciate your interest and prayer support. My voice, as I explained above is still only a happening event when I am preaching. I said to the Bishop that if they had taped any of the session (which they don’t here because few people have players) and sent the tapes home no one would recognize my voice. I sound like one or two footballers who have been tackled by a stiff arm across the throat too many times.

In conversation this morning I was remonstrating (in a whisper of course; very hard to remonstrate well when you can only whisper) that Paul had asked three times to have his thorn removed. I said I had been asking three days and thought it should be gone by now. Then someone corrected me by saying that as far as we know, Paul never lost whatever it was that bothered him. He just experienced more grace. At that point I began to think of all the reasons why this could not be a thorn in the flesh. I wouldn’t like to spend the rest of my life operating like this. I would be needing to preach a sermon to have an intimate conversation with Nola. I don’t think she would find that very pleasing.

No I’m going to pray that God will heal me. It is definitely the result of the cold. I have preached as much as this before without a bother, so it is just one of those annoying things that God has allowed to happen so that purposes would be accomplished that I wasn’t planning for.