Meeting the Neighbors Around the Corner and Across the Ocean

This past Thursday quietly came and went (well, not so quietly for me because I was chaperoning our high school band's trip to Madison to see the annual UW-Indoor Marching Band concert) and it occurred to me on the road downstate that I have been home officially a month now. Already Africa is getting a little smaller in the rear-view mirror and I have yet to really report on what we did there.

“So what did you do there?”

This is the question I am most frequently asked by those from town since returning who knew I was going (although not so much now since I've been home a month). I think the implication that I pick up from that query (rightly or wrongly) is that we went there to “do” something – build a church, dig a well, work at a refugee camp – otherwise a trip like ours is little more than a vacation with a benevolent spin to it. The fact is we traveled over 7,700 miles from Chetek to go meet people. As I shared in an earlier post ("GO TO AFRICA!"), last April a man from Uganda shared at our annual missions event of our fellowship and invited us to come visit him. A few weeks later a man from Nigeria coincidentally was with us and did the same and a month later a man from Liberia completed the invitational trifecta. Africa was beckoning us and while we did spend some time praying about it in retrospect we probably out-thought the matter. The real question for Refuge was, Having been invited to our neighbor's home – albeit our neighbor lived a continent and a half away and an ocean between us – would we accept the invitation and go? Eleven of us ultimately did (although three were not from our fellowship) and made that long journey to meet the neighbors on the far side of the pond.

Not one but two teams

Muzungus in back

There were two groups from Refuge that actually ventured forth to Africa, Team Kenya/Israel and Team Uganda. Troy Bol, one of our elders, led Team Kenya/Israel. Troy's team stayed in Nairobi for five days in the home of a Kenyan pastor, visiting and ministering locally, and then traveled to Israel for ten days of walking where Jesus walked and experiencing personal renewal. Pastor Evanson Gitu is the Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel Kenya Ongata Rongai as well as the overseer of Imani Yako, (Imani Yako, Inc) According to everyone who was a part of this team, in Pastor Gitu I have a “brother from another mother.” And by just looking at this picture, I can see the resemblance – short, stocky guy carrying a camera bag. Now who does that remind you of?

Even though I've heard a few of their stories on “Africa Story-telling Day” on Palm Sunday, I cannot speak much of their journey other than it was in character much like ours – meeting strangers who were both our neighbors and brothers. They were received warmly and treated graciously and one of our young women, Sarah, has since expressed her desire to return and work in their school.

Team Uganda, led by our other male elder, Randy Waterhouse, left about the time Team Kenya/Israel was coming to the end of their venture. Even though we had been invited by Pastor John of Namutumba (who had ministered at Refuge last April), we just felt for our introductory visit to Africa that it was better to stay on a YWAM campus there. Even though we knew no one on this particular campus, we know YWAM and knew they would be used to hosting North Americans like ourselves. In retrospect, that choice was providential because this particular campus turned out to be central to all the other people we ultimately met while in-country.

Team Uganda with Charles our host (left) and Joseph our driver (right)

At this particular point it would be very easy to slip into a travel-log of sorts that would be interesting to the five of us who participated in the journey but perhaps not so much to those who had sent us out and were praying for us back home. So, I'll try and limit my reminiscences to brief vignettes of our ten day stay there.

Arriving in Uganda

Part of the welcoming crew

It was late when we landed in Entebbe International - nearly 10:30 at night. But the first thing that got our attention that we were no longer in the wintry Midwest was the air temperature. Between Chicago and Uganda we not only had crossed eight time zones but had passed from winter directly into what felt like early August to me. It took us about an hour to get through customs and we were all curious who would be there to pick us up. Randy's only contact had been with the man who had agreed to serve as our host and the two of them had only communicated through email. But when we got through the doors there were not one but perhaps a dozen Ugandans waiting to meet us – some from the YWAM-Hopeland campus and some from Gospel Messengers Church (of Holiness and Righteousness) in Kampala. We were slated to minister at GMC on Sunday (a little over 36 hours following our arrival) and I think they wanted to make sure we were for real. They broke into smiles all around and hugs and very quickly were taking our bags and helping us find our way out to the parking lot. Imagine flying over 12,000 kilometers to a land you had never set foot in before and being welcomed by a dozen brothers and sisters at nearly midnight. It was not only a blessing but a reminder to the five of us that we weren't following a whim in traveling to Uganda but were being led.

YWAM-Hopeland

Downtown Jinja

Hopeland is located about 80km north of Kampala just outside of the city of Jinja, Uganda's second largest city. According to Wikipedia (Jinja, Uganda) that while Jinja may only have a population of 80,000 people on any given business day maybe 220,000 individuals may be found coming and going through her streets. (When I asked Randy how he decided on Hopeland he simply told me that he googled “YWAM, Uganda” and they were the first ministry that popped up, so he reached out to them.) They boast several schools (a Discipleship Training School, a School of Biblical Studies, and a handful of others), a sports center and ministries including running their own preschool, outreach to the local government hospital and prison and offering medical and spiritual care to women infected with HIV (YWAM-Hopeland).

Sharing with Women of Hope

During our ten-day stay, we met so many wonderful people from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, the UK, Canada and of course, the United States. As the largest YWAM campus in Uganda, it is a busy place what with the DTS (with 25-some students) presently in session as well as the daily preschool and the perhaps 50 associate/support staff coming and going. We had opportunities to accompany several YWAM teams to one of the prisons, the government-run hospital, as well as an outreach to a secondary school about an hour away. The women served at the preschool one morning (while Randy and I were at the prison), we shared with the Women of Hope one afternoon and helped the staff of Discovery Centre spruce up their place in anticipation of a youth event they would host the following week.

Charles and Susan

Charles, our most capable host, made sure we were where we needed to be and when we would venture off campus to connect with other people and ministries he would usually accompany us not only to ensure we got to where we needed to get to but also for the sake of the company. We liked him from the start (and were so grateful to his wife of only three months who was gracious to share him with us.) Charles connected us with Joseph the man who became our personal driver for the week driving us to Kampala, Namutumba, the back roads of Luuka District, the Source of the Nile – wherever we were beckoned to be he knew how to get there. He spoke little English and I knew zero Swahili but given that the “shotgun” seat was always reserved for the pastor, he and I became fast friends as he tried to tutor me in some elementary phrases of his native tongue as he maneuvered serpentine-like through Ugandan traffic.

Faithful driver and Swahili tutor

Finding hope in the strangest of places

The front gate

Since I am a pastor, I was given the opportunity to preach pretty much at most of the places we showed up at. The day we traveled to one of the local prisons our team consisted of Randy, myself and our driver and YWAM-staffer, Leki, a Tongan feeling called to Africa. He understood English better than he spoke it but only one month in-country he drove as if he had grew up in Uganda. We had been told that we would be ministering on “condemned row”; that is to say, death row. Immediately, that phrase conjured up images from The Shawshank Redemption and Pampilion, dark, dank, places that sucked hope and life out of those who were housed there.

We pulled up to the main building, something right out of a Dicken's novel what with a huge windowless front door and an equally huge door knocker upon it. We knocked twice, a small window slid open slightly to see who was there and then that big door was opened wide enough for us to enter a small antechamber where we signed in. And then the gate to the courtyard was opened and without so much as a “fare thee well” from the guard, we were with the prisoners. We followed a sidewalk of sorts that led to a set of stairs leading to the second level of the facility. The courtyard was full of inmates setting their wet bedding out to dry after being washed or milling about. One group began to volley with a volleyball. All of them looked in our direction. Some smiled courteously.

The courtyard was sorta like this

At the top of the stairs we were met by our interpreter, a condemned prisoner himself, and after passing through another locked gate we had entered death row. But it hardly looked dark to me. We were escorted down a hallway of sorts which opened onto the courtyard below on the left or passed the different blocks on the right where the inmates slept. We passed a very sleepy looking guard who sat ensconced on a chair about half way down the corridor and smiled at us as we passed. Captain Hadley she was not. At the end of this hallway it made a ninety-degree turn to the left and after perhaps fifty steps dead-ended. This, we learned, would be our sanctuary for the next hour or so.

A standard piece of worship equipment

The guys began filtering in almost right away and within minutes perhaps 25 inmates were seated on either side of the hallway waiting quietly for the gathering to begin. They looked at us curiously but without one drop of hostility. In fact, as I looked at their countenances every face revealed a sense of peace and contentment. These were not harrowed men gripped in a stranglehold of sin and bitterness. Rather, these were brothers who had eagerly come to hear good news. As was common at most gatherings we attended, worship always preceded Word. On two large djembes and with one crushed aluminum can filled with rocks as a shaker of sorts, the men led us in vibrant worship. We didn't know what they were singing but we obviously knew to Whom they were singing. The juxtaposition was noteworthy. From the hallway of the condemned section, loud songs of exaltation could be heard above the din of the idle chatter and game-playing of the inmates in the courtyard below. These men may be incarcerated for life (apparently no one has been executed in a very long time) but the life they lead inside these prison walls is one of hope and service and good will.

We learned later that not everyone on condemned row has committed a capital offense. Some, we were told, may actually be there for something as trivial as stealing a chicken. They are poor with no one on the outside to be their advocate and possibly their case has been lost somewhere very likely never to be found. And yet, as I walked up and down between these men and shared my impromptu message of hope and overcoming, they smiled or nodded their head or let out a loud, “Alleluia!” It was an odd place to find hope but Randy and I found it there in abundance.

Meeting Katie

Shortly after going public with our intention to travel to Uganda a friend of mine posted a link to a promotional video for the best-selling book, Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis. Up until that moment, I had never heard of this 23-year-old young woman from Nashville who at the tender age of 18 had turned her back on her affluent upbringing to embrace a life of love and service in Uganda. By the force of her will and God’s favor, she has established a ministry (Amazima, located right outside of Jinja see Amazima Ministries) that is serving the children of Uganda meeting both their physical and spiritual needs. She personally has taken 13 children into her own home (one cannot legally adopt in Uganda until the age of 25) and helped sponsor 500 others. Every Saturday, a couple hundred kids show up to play on their impressive playground (built by local Ugandan boys), participate in a wonderful chapel service led by their youth pastor, Raoul, and then enjoy a wonderful lunch of rice, beans and chicken served on the bone (in Uganda, chicken is not chicken if it does not have a bone in it.) At the end of the day, each child will leave their property with a three pound bag that will contain a pound of flour, a pound of beans and a pound of rice – sundries that will help feed these children for the next seven days.

Raoul (on right) is an amazing guy

Posing with Katie (does that make us posers?)

As the kids head for home they do so with "left-overs"

I want to be more like her

Sheryl and I both read her book on the plane over and were eager to make her acquaintance. What’s more, the folks at the American office of Amazima had sent us a tub to hand deliver to Katie. So on the Saturday before we headed for home, we showed up on their property, took the grand tour, pitched in to help load the bags the kids would later take home, sat in on chapel and sometime between the end of chapel and the beginning of lunch met Katie herself. We weren’t the only Westerners that afternoon visiting their property but Katie, the perfect host, made the rounds and made sure she introduced herself to each of us. She is as real and down-to-earth as she comes across in her book and the embodiment of what Jesus once said, “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it” (Matthew 10:39, NLT). In her words, “I quit college; I quit cute designer clothes and my little yellow convertible; I quit my boyfriend. I no longer have all the things the world says are important. I do not have a retirement fund; I do not even have electricity some days. But I have everything I know is important. I have a joy and a peace that are unimaginable and can come only from a place better than this earth. I cannot fathom being happier. Jesus wrecked my life, shattered it to pieces, and put it back together more beautifully.” (from the introduction) I want to be more like her.

Visiting our friends at Namutumba Word of Victory Church

One of the key purposes of our journey to Africa was having been visited by Pastor John last year we wanted to return the favor by visiting his fellowship this year. It was, in fact, one of our last memories in Uganda. On our last Sunday, Joseph picked us up just at daybreak for the hour and a half drive north. We arrived a little before 8. Namutumba is a small town as Ugandan towns go – complete with cows wandering up and down the main drag - but it is difficult to estimate just how many people live there. If our home town boasts 2,100 people, Pastor John’s town of ministry probably is at least twice that size (or more?) In a simple structure a little bit larger than our own sanctuary, we worshiped and enjoyed special music and then I shared the Word (with Pastor John interpreting). In between services, we walked to a nearby home for fresh bananas and pineapple and then returned to the sanctuary for an encore presentation. Our liturgy is a bit different and we sing different songs but church is still church the world over – worship, prayer, offering, Word and, yes, announcements.

We lunched with Pastor John and his family and then right before we headed back to Hopeland to change and finish packing for the long journey home, he led us about five minutes of the road to meet two very important people. As I have related before, last year was not the first time Pastor John shared at Refuge. We met John the Summer of 2008 when he was our guest for a long weekend. During his message he shared about the orphan-sponsoring ministry Word of Victory was leading and following his presentation two families from our fellowship chose to begin sponsoring a few of the orphans that are connected with WoV. Sheryl’s family had been one of them. After nearly four years of faithfully supporting the education of two sisters, Sheryl had the honor of finally going to their home (not all orphans live in orphanages in Uganda) and meeting them. It was, for Sheryl, one of the highlights of her trip. Instead of a glossy info sheet that she can affix to her fridge back home reminding her of what her benevolence is achieving for two sisters in Uganda, she has been to their home, hugged them and their parents as well both of whom are blind. It’s one of those moments when you are reminded that whatever cost it has been to her family these past four years, it really is not a sacrifice but a blessing.

I take a copy of The Alert with me wherever I go

Loving her neighbors

So…we met a lot of people

To answer the original question – “What did you do there?” – we had traveled half way across the world to meet the neighbors and we met a lot them – Pastor Deason and many of the leaders of Gospel Messengers Church in Kampala; Charles, Susan, Becca, Jessica, Nixon and so many others from YWAM-Hopeland; Rhodah and Ronald, both students at Mehta Secondary School; Pastor John and his family in Namutumba; Susan, a girlfriend of Charis’ (from Focus) who is working with Henry, Hassan and others in Lukka District to alleviate suffering and poverty there; Joseph our driver; the men at the prison; Judith and the Women of Hope; the members of the Imani Children’s Choir; Pastor Patrick, the caretaker of Amazima’s property, and Raoul, the youth pastor; Katie Davis and many others to say nothing of all the folks I greeted on my morning runs to Kakira or Wairaka. They are all our neighbors whom I met, worshiped and prayed with, shared my heart with as they shared theirs with mine (and their table as well) and now consider friends. Facebook (everybody in Uganda seems to be on it) and email allows us the opportunity to nurture our fledgling relationship. And while it is unlikely that any of the Ugandans I met will be able to come and stay with me anytime soon, we hope to return to them before too long if only to become better acquainted and strengthen the ties we have now made.

In the end, building a relationship with your neighbor, whether he lives across the yard or across the ocean, takes the same thing: time, intentionality, purpose, and, of course, love. I’m not going to be able to come over after Sunday worship for apple pie ala mode very regularly but I will purpose to pray and message my new friends via Facebook. It’s almost the next best thing to being there.