A day in Southern Uganda

We don't leave for Arua until tomorrow, but we spent yesterday here at the Africa Inland Missions house just 7 miles outside of Kampala. Jessica and I both had to return to the airport because our bags had not made it onto our flight into Entebbe with all of the craziness of flights changing. So Laurence, an older man who picked us up the previous night at the airport, had his son drive us there yesterday. As we started talking with him, it seemed like he was unsure at first of us, as I imagine that he has had different experiences with white Americans before. But as we began talking, he became more and more comfortable with us and we ended up having some really good discussion.

We went by a place called "Fresh Cuts" with a lot of people outside, and I asked him why they were all there, thinking that it was a hair cut place. He told me it was a place where you buy meat. Kinda funny how different cultures bring different meanings to words. He showed us where the President of Uganda lived, as it was right along our way to the airport. Even though we could only see it in the distance, his house was pretty big, yet it was not as big as some other business man's that we see on a distant hill. It was huge and extravagant, and compared to all of the poverty surrounding it, made absolutely no sense. Yet do we fool ourselves into thinking it is OK for us to live in homes larger than we need simply because we live further away from this sort of poverty?

What was really interesting was his description of the people near Arua, who he said he "had no love for." He described them as being blacker than him and that their language was incomprehensible. It is evident that there is a lot of tribal rivalry and even hatred. When I made an allusion to what happened in Rwanda, he said that it was not the same thing. Yet it is interesting that racism isn't really about skin color, it is about who we are as humanity. When there is very little diversity in skin color, people will find other things to distinguish themselves and then eventually hate about other people, whether it be the size of noses, shades of color, or whatever other distinctions can be found. The difference between Hutu and Tutsi people in Rwanda was apparently very small and insignificant, but tons of people were slaughtered over it. There is just something within us that causes us to choose teams and hate others.

I felt sick for the first time last night. I woke up periodically throughout the night with a headache and feeling nauseous, so I drank a lot of water and tried to stay asleep. I feel better now, but I also know that sickness is something to expect while here. I tend to romanticize suffering for the sake of the gospel, but honestly when I actually feel like crap, I just want to be done with it all and not feel pain. It makes me want to not press forward in service that would cause more pain. That is a problem. So I'm sure the Lord will work on me with that.

I also found out that the LRA was not really in Arua, but rather in areas to the East of Arua. But we learned a lot more about the church in Arua, and it sounds interesting and exciting. There is a lot of work to be done, and it seems they are excited about our coming. Can't wait to get there.

Craziness, but finally in Uganda!

So here is how it went down. We were 3 hours into our 7 hour flight on Wednesday evening heading towards Amsterdam when the captain came over the loud speaker to announce that we would be turning back to New York because one of the two air conditioning pieces was down. That seemed really silly to all of us, but what can you do? I have an inkling that this was just what we were told and that the real reason is only known by the powers at be, especially because right when we landed a flight attendant came out of the back cabin with a man following right behind her. They made a b-line to the exit before anyone else was allowed to get up. Suspicious eh? Yea that's what I said. So could it have been the air conditioning? Sure. But they also could have easily just made that up as a cover, that's all I'm saying.

We got back at 1:00am to New York, stood in line two hours to figure out connecting flights, finally got to a hotel at 4:00am, woke up at 11:00am for Continental breakfast, headed back to the airport, stood in line another two hours to get flights figured out, then did the whole New York to Amsterdam thing again... yet this time it actually worked! Then we were off to Nairobi, Kenya and then finally to Entebbe, Uganda tonight. We are now (2:00am Ugandan time on Saturday morning) here at this missions house 7 miles outside of Kampala, Uganda. We will be spending the weekend here doing some orientation, then heading up to Arua, Uganda on Monday.

So I learned some more about the NW region of Uganda which Arua is in today. Apparently that is where the majority of the stuff with the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army... you know, they guys doing the child soldiers and slaughtering people) was happening, and as of four years ago the area was described as "suicidal" to go to. Things seem to have changed now that the LRA has been pushed back on their heals by the Ugandan government, but at the very least there will be a lot of poverty, brokenness, and various other after-effects that we will be heading in to. I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for us and them over these 7 weeks.

Uganda Blog: Leaving tomorrow!

So it is weird to think that I am leaving tomorrow. We have been doing some training here in NY and looking through curriculums, but I'm not sure if I even feel all that much more prepared. It is so hard to know before I get there. I am excited to build friendships with Ugandan people. I am excited for Uganda to become home, even if it is just for a little while before I have to come back. I am excited to see the Lord stretch us in ways we have never been stretched, and hopefully use us to do things that we have never seen done.

But I know that the first few days there will be overwhelming, and it will be hard to know what He is going to do. So much of this trip will be learning their culture so that I don't make a fool of myself or get lost or screw something up bad.

Well I probably won't be able to write for a few days, so I wanted to get this out there. We are leaving JFK at 6:30pm and landing in Amsterdam at 8:00am, then leaving there at 11:00am and arriving in Uganda at 7:50pm on Thursday. Then we spend Friday in Kampala doing orientation with some missionaries on the field. And finally Saturday will be spent taking a 7 hour cramped van ride to Arua where we will be spending the next 7 weeks.

Uganda, here we come :)

Uganda blog: In New York

Hey everyone,

So I am going to be trying to blog as much of my experience as I can to let you have a window into this experience. I know that this trip is way bigger than me and the three others going with me, and even bigger than those we will meet in Uganda. This is all about Jesus, and everyone can be blessed by it. So I will document what I'm experiencing and learning.

We arrived in New York today at the Africa Inland Mission headquarters. We had spent the previous couple of days together preparing, but now it is good to be here with those who are sending us to talk through things more before we go. We are looking through some different resources to use while over there speaking at schools, but are still unsure.

What is hard right now is that we know very little of what we will actually be doing, and aren't able to prepare as much as we might like. But this is the situation that the Lord has created and there is not much we can do about it, so it is good to trust Him and really seek His leading on this trip, not trusting in our own efforts. I honestly don't know what this is going to be like. I have no clue what to expect. Is it going to be dangerous beyond what we could imagine, or will we be sheltered? Will we find ourselves unequipped to help, or will we be needed so much that we don't have time to do it all? Will we relate to them right away, or will it be really hard to build relationships across culture? What does the Lord want to teach us and them through this? What is the ultimate purpose of this trip?

These are all questions that loom over me, but I am excited to figure them out! :)

Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions

I wanted to share something that I am reading which I was blessed and challenged by. Jonathan Edwards, a well known pastor and great man of the faith from the 1700's, developed a set of seventy resolutions as standards for his own life. He desired to read them once a week and constantly commit his life to them. They are taken from Edward's book "Life and Diary of David Brainerd". Here are a few of them that stood out to me and I also want to live my life by. I hope they bless you.

5. Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.
6. To live with all my might while I do live.
7. Never to do anything which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
8. To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.
9. To think much, on all occasions, of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
10. When I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom and hell.
17. That I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
20. To maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.
22. To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the might, power, vigor, and vehemence, yea, violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way...
37. To inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent; what sin I have committed; and wherein I have denied myself.
55. To endeavor, to my utmost, so to act as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments.
58. Not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation; but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness, and benignity.
61. That I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatevre excuse I may have for it.
63. On the supposition that there never was to be but one individual in the world at any one time who was properly a complete Christian... to act just as I would do, if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time.

More thoughts on belief....

So I have been wrestling a lot with the concept of belief, and here are some of my latest thoughts...

At Cornerstone we have been reading through 1 Peter on our own, and a passage really stood out to me. Here is 1 Peter 1:3-9:

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

Please take a moment, or hopefully more than a moment, to really meditate on this passage. We really need to hear Peter. He speaks of "the salvation that is ready to be revealed", or the second coming of Christ and His ultimate salvation. He says we should rejoice in that greatly, or like he says in v.13, "fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." It is clear that he is imploring his readers to focus Heavenward, a future oriented hope.

He then goes on to say that "trials... come so that your faith... may be proved genuine." Wait, what? Why would faith need to be proved genuine? Well it seems that Peter is implying that some claims of faith are disingenuous, those that would not continue to hope in Christ's salvation in the midst of trials.

So then the question for you and I is this: how do we know that our faith is genuine? Just claiming to believe is not proof. And I'm not saying we need to prove it to anyone or to God, but I mean more so for ourselves to know if our faith is genuine, if we are really saved and will be in Heaven. It seems that is Peter's focus.

Well why would trials be the way that we see if our faith is genuine? I think the answer to that is within the context of the passage which we discussed already, Peter's imploring them to set their hope fully on the future salvation. Trials force us to let go of our hope in this world. Rejoicing in trials and suffering is predicated on a hope in something greater, something better to come. If I truly believe in Christ and His promises bought for me on the cross for the future salvation, then I will gladly endure trials because of what I know is coming. If I don't really believe in Christ and His promises, then I will continue to place my hope in this world and this life, and my so called "faith" will start to crumble and reveal itself as disingenuous during trials. As Peter alludes to, trials will "refine" and test what is really there, if anything.

Hebrews 11 gets at a very similar idea, as the writer speaks of faith and says that all of the great men and women of the faith in times past saw themselves as "strangers and aliens on earth" (v.13) and "were longing for a better country - a heavenly one" (v.16). The author implores us to do the same, to long for the heavenly Kingdom.

It is in this that we find faith to be genuine. Jesus speaks of it like this: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." The person who is willing to give up this life for the promise of a much greater one to come is a person who really believes in the promise. The person who is unwilling to give it up doesn't really believe. I think this is why Jesus makes the cost so high, so that faith would be proved either genuine or disingenuous.

We better be careful in our avoidance of trials and suffering. The culture in which we live trains us to avoid any type of suffering at all cost and instead seek comfort, which is quite possibly a big reason that the church is doing so poorly in America. We are a people who claim to believe in future glory and satisfaction, but so many self professing Christians in America are in direct contradiction of that claim by living for temporary glory and satisfaction. As Americans we are people who live for instant satisfaction, and it is just that which cripples our openness to the true gospel. Our avoidance of trials and suffering could very well be an indication that many (vast majority?) of the self-proclaimed belief in America is not real, and that so many of us are not really saved. At least we can say this: when are lives are filled with comfort and little suffering/trials, it is very hard for us to know if we are truly saved.

It is easy for me to say that my hope is fully "on the grace to be brought to (me) at the revelation of Jesus Christ" when my life is going great. It is another thing when I am called to suffer for this hope. I pray that my faith may be proved genuine in time... I don't think it has been yet... This doesn't mean that my faith isn't real, rather it means that it hasn't been fully proven yet. It could very well be real, and I feel strongly that it is, but I want it to be proved genuine as I undergo trials and suffering in this life. It will force me to see where my hope truly lies.

Monopoly

Have you ever played a good game of Monopoly with friends? You sit down with four other people who you are close with, and know that you will be spending the next 3+ hours with them competing for the coveted crown of best Monopoly player.

Now if you are anything like me, a competitive person, you start getting a little too much into the game. In your first few roles you land on "Chance", then "In Jail: Just Visiting", and then "Community Chest". You find yourself with $10 extra from finishing second place in a beauty contest, but meanwhile your competitors each have one or two properties. You can already see yourself falling behind, and even though you know it is just a game for fun, you start getting anxious and even maybe a bit frustrated.

Things start to change for you as you snag St. James Place, Indiana Ave, Pacific Ave, and Boardwalk in your next four roles. You are now the envy of everyone sitting around the table, and you feel pretty good about yourself, as though you were more valuable of a person because two little squares dropped out of your hand and stopped in a certain way by mere chance. You start eyeing victory and thinking that you surely are headed towards victory.

Eventually your one friend Jack, who is not quite as competitive or competent, makes a trade with your savvy friend Chris. The trade was very one-sided in Chris' favor. Poor Jack is now probably going to lose, but you can't help but feel bitterness towards him because of his poor decision. You convince yourself that you are frustrated because you feel bad for Jack, but really it is because now Chris is more powerful than you. Chris playfully teases you about it, but you don't find it funny and tell him to hurry up and roll because it is his turn.

You start looking around the table looking for one of your friends that you could possibly take advantage of, giving them Water Works for a property that would give you another monopoly. Maybe if you are nice enough, or argue well enough, you can convince them to do it.

You look at the clock and it reads 12:36am. It is down to you, Chris, and Sarah. Chris has his head in his hand, and Sarah yawns real loud as she stretches her arms out wide. She then comments, "Hey, would you guys be OK with stopping here and going to bed?" Quickly you respond, "No way, we are so close to someone winning." Chris agrees with Sarah though saying, "Yea man, I'm tired too. It's just a game. I need sleep for work in the morning." But they don't get it. It isn't just a game. You put too much time into acquiring all of these properties and money; you can't just stop now when you are so close to winning!


You probably think this is silly, and are saying to yourself, "Sean, maybe you are this competitive and crazy, but there is no way I would get so consumed and involved with something that is so temporary and unimportant in the long run." But isn't that what you are doing with your life?

Your life is this monopoly game.

Can't we see that our lives are but a short game or scene in the whole big picture of eternity? Yet why are we so wrapped up in it? Why do we get so much identity in how much stuff we have, how much pleasure we can get from it, how many friends we can have, how many people we can get to like us?

All these things, these accomplishments, these things for you to boast in, are less to your credit than rolling an 11 to get on Boardwalk. You were GIVEN a body, the ability to breathe/talk/walk, parents who care for you, and so many other essentials and pre-requisits to any of your so called "accomplishments". You don't get any of the credit, and have no more reason for pride than you would in your Monopoly game for having the dice fall the right way. After all, why are you here in America with tons of opportunity and priviledge when so many are suffering and hopeless in India, Africa, and other places?

Pretend someone walked into your monopoly game and offered to match all of your money and properties with real money and property. The choice would be obvious to sell him everything you have in exchange for the real stuff, even though you know you wouldn't be able to use real money and property in the Monopoly game. At that point, you see the huge gain that you would receive for tomorrow when you step back into reality and out of the artifical circumstance created by the game.

So if we believe that in less than 80 years all of us will have to pack up the game and put our piece, our money, our properties, and our houses/hotels back into the box, why are we so consumed with winning (being happy, succesful, pleasured, popular, etc.) here? We must realize that eternity (or "real life") is approaching very quickly, and we would be wise to invest as much as we can in that rather than this silly, little game. We also owe it to those playing the game with us to help them see the same thing, that Jesus Christ has offered to buy their pathetic lives and give them new, eternal life.

But here is the key: We gotta take the deal. We gotta sell it all. Please friend, I implore you with tears, sell it.

Almost everyone is consumed with this game called life, but please see beyond the board and pieces; cash out. Then spend the rest of your time going around the board telling others to do the same, even if they throw you in jail or force you to pay rent when you don't have the money. They will think you are crazy because in Monopoly world you appear to have so little, but you know that once the game is over you are going to experience true prosperity and they will be beggars for all of eternity.