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.