Hello everyone!

Speaking through a translator is difficult, let me tell you. You wouldn’t think that it would be all that bad, and it really isn’t, but the hardest part is just not being able to connect with the audience. I have noticed that in my speaking I love to get engaged and feed of reactions from those listening, but if I am making a passionate point they won’t respond until about 10 seconds after I say it once it is translated, and even then it is often difficult because of other cultural barriers. I am also putting a lot of trust in the person translating to do it well and not try to change any of it to fit what he would want to say. I wonder if this is how it is for good as we are His translators. How upset He must be when we take His words and distort them on our own wishes, or because we think we have a better idea and so we either leave something that He said out or add something that we think.

All that to say, it has been going really well lately. I preached at a girl’s secondary school yesterday, and I felt like that went really well. In the process of learning to be flexible in so many different ways, I am also learning how to be able to change what I am teaching/preaching on the spot when needed, so my sermon is still changing based on what I think the audience needs. Lately I have been really addressing how everyone and their mom thinks they are a Christian, just like in the States, and then clarifying the gospel through the prodigal son story. It seems like people have been blessed by it. One thing that is growing in frustration in me is all of the formality, liturgy, welcomes, thank you’s, and otherwise wasted time within the Anglican church service here. We weren’t able to teach as much as we had planned yesterday because of all of this, as well as they spent 30-45 minutes on an infant baptism. I wasn’t really frustrated all that much for myself, but rather just that this is partly because it has been exported to Uganda from other places in the West. I mean the main cathedral here has a huge ceiling and has spent 20 years building it. It seems as though they are trying to live up to some standard that has been set before them in the West, because I don’t know how they would have gotten the idea to do some of these things from the Bible.

Then in the afternoon we taught on one topic at the girl’s school, and three topics at a church, two of them being mine. I spoke on having purpose in life, how we can only find that through being a part of God’s story, and on relationships. It seems like they responded well and were blessed by it.

Today is an off day, and tomorrow we are back to teaching. Thanks for your prayers!