As many of you know, Mike and I recently spent 2 weeks in Uganda in East Africa. I’m really grateful to be given this time to share some of the stories and the challenges that happened while we were there.
Have you ever stepped into a situation and been very unsure of why you’re there, and with nothing specific to do? Well – that was how I felt. Mike was going to teach on the School of Health Promotion – the first of these to be held in any country with this particular organisation. The students were learning principles of health and hygiene so that they could go and teach these in the villages and so improve people’s health. But I had nothing specific to do. And yet, as soon as we arrived, I felt quite sure it was God’s timing for us to be there at that particular time.
I need to give you a bit of background. In 1985 Mike and I joined an organisation called Youth With A Mission, or YWAM for short. In 1991 I went to Uganda for 5 months and Mike came out to visit several times. We were both teaching on different courses, and we returned to teach each year for several years after that. So we came to know quite a few people there.
When we first went to the YWAM base in 1991, it was in a rented house. But on my very first day of teaching there in 1991, there was a great ceremony to dig the first turf on a piece of land that YWAM had bought so they could build their own base. This piece of land is now over 70 acres and is called HopeLand. Over the years about 20 one storey buildings have been built for accommodation and for different schools, and many trees have been planted. As we arrived this time the rainy season started, so lots of trees were in flower. It is very beautiful, with many varieties of birds and butterflies.
Several of the people we had come to know over the years gave us a really warm welcome. I would like to share some stories from their lives.
The first story is of a couple called Sam and Irene. I was able to go to their wedding in 1991 and on this visit they invited us to their home for an evening meal.
It gets dark at 6.30pm in Uganda, and our evening at Sam and Irene’s was spent in the light of just one dim paraffin lamp. The electricity supply had been off for a week because during a storm someone had stolen a part of the transmitter. Lack of electricity is just one of the hazards of Uganda. And as we sat and chatted in the near dark, different children kept coming into the room and were introduced to us. Besides their own 2 children, Sam and Irene also care for 20 orphans in their home. They also oversee the care of 26 orphans who are looked after by other parents who live locally. Sam also leads the projects in Uganda of an organisation called OKM, or Orphans Know More. (OKM is a partnership between YWAM Uganda and YWAM Harpenden. Habitat is an international NGO partnering with YWAM to build low cost homes for OKM families.)
In addition Sam and Irene lead YWAM Uganda, and so have the responsibility for staff, training schools, and the work that is going on.
At this time Sam and Irene are trying to buy little plots of land around so that they can grow their own food and teach the children how to support themselves.
Sam and Irene and other parents who care for orphans are all struggling to pay for the children’s education and trying to help the older ones get a training so that they can earn their own living.
In 1993 a Ugandan friend of mine called Stella came over to London with her daughter Jennifer to help me on a course I was running. A few years later I was able to return to Uganda for her wedding to George. On this visit they invited us to the home they have built for them and their family: Jennifer, who is now a young woman and 4 other children. They showed us round the school they run. It began some years ago with just a few local children. This February, the beginning of their academic year, they have nearly 600 children up to the age of 12. Many of them have to be residential because they live too far away to go home every day. Stella and George have raised the money first to buy land, and then to build more classrooms as the school grows. They are still building for this year’s intake, as they need sleeping and eating space for so many children. There is no government support for the costs of this school, so Stella and George must raise all they need. The parents who can afford it pay fees for their children.
But support needs to come from other people as well. A friend of mine goes to the school to help each year. And there is a church in York where several of the congregation members visit each year to take donations and help in the school.
What is it that enables these people to continue living through the challenges they face day by day? They are all very aware of their need for God’s help. Travelling in Uganda is very dangerous. Unemployment is high so there is a lot of stealing. The darkness of evil is very evident in Uganda. One of the students on the school of Health Promotion was telling me how she had met a witch doctor who wanted to take over some of the people she was caring for. Other students knew of child sacrifice. Another student asked how to talk to people who offered to idols in the week and went to church on Sundays.
The Christians in Uganda are very aware of the other world – the spiritual world and the battle for good, for God’s ways, for protection, for provision. It’s as though these people whose stories I’ve shared, the YWAM base on HopeLand, the very many little churches that there are, are places of light, where the light of Jesus shines into the surrounding darkness which is always ready to crowd in. There is a sharp and ever-present awareness of the other world that is also part of our world.
And what is it that connects these two worlds? What gives us an awareness of the interleaving of God’s world and our world? It is prayer. Prayer is a major focus of daily life for Christians in Uganda. I was reminded of this so forcefully during our stay this time.
Mike and I arrived on HopeLand on Tuesday evening. The following Saturday morning I was woken at 6am by singing. It was strong and joyful singing of many voices. It was from a group of 30 pastors from local churches who had met on Friday evening on HopeLand and had spent the whole night together in prayer.
The following Thursday was the first Thursday of February. On the first Thursday of every month every YWAM base around the world has a day of fasting and prayer. During the days previous to this there had been some words on my heart that would not go away. There were some serious problems on the base and God was wanting to help with these. Mike and I were given space to speak at the prayer and fasting day.
Our words, and words from other people were listened to and then prayed about.
Its the praying that tests them, that makes them effective, that brought healing and wholeness, that brought in more of God’s kingdom. It’s praying that makes us increasingly aware of, alert to, God and his ways.
And I have two more stories to tell which show God’s working in our world.
The first happened in Gulu District, to the north of Uganda. It’s in the area where the Lord’s Resistance Army has been very active for many years. In order to keep up their numbers and supply the soldiers, they kidnap children. One night a school in Gulu run by Nuns was raided. The men took away 100 children. The next morning as soon as it was light, one of the nuns started walking from her school to follow the LRA kidnappers. She eventually caught up with them. She spoke with the leaders and managed to negotiate the release of 50 of the children. This was an amazing act of faith and courage and a great achievement. Many people in the area continued to pray, and many of the 50 children who were not released at that time, have subsequently found their way home.
One of the ministries on HopeLand takes some of these very traumatised children and works with them helping then back into some sort of normal life.
The second story was told by Leo, one of the YWAM leadership team who travelled by public bus on a very rough road right through the north of Uganda and into southern Sudan to teach. There he heard of a tribe who had not heard the good news of Jesus. God spoke to one of the men of this tribe one night. The man then spoke to others. Then a YWAM team arrived in the village. This team had completed the lecture phase of a training school and were now doing the outreach phase. They planned to visit another tribe, but were told that this tribe were very far away, so they decided not to go. Then every member of the team became ill. The team leader prayed and felt that God really did want them to visit this other tribe. The people they were staying with wouldn’t let them walk. They carried them all the way.
When they arrived it was evening, and they were asked to preach all night so that everyone could hear their message. God had gone ahead of this team. He had prepared people’s hearts to hear, to recognise and respond to his gospel.
During our stay on HopeLand we met people from many parts of the world. There were teams there from Australia, who were building an orphanage on nearby land. There was a team from India, another from Tyler in Texas. There was a team who had done their school in S. Africa. They were quite young – some from Europe and one young woman from Zimbabwe, who told of people in Zimbabwe having to eat grass because there was so little food. This team were having 2 days respite from a very difficult place on one of the islands in Lake Victoria. It was 4 hours away by boat, and the living was quite primitive, no luxuries. These young people were troubled with quite disruptive disunity among themselves. It was a real challenge to be invited to talk and pray with this team – a real reliance on the Holy Spirit to give us the right words. And we were very grateful to God and rejoicing with them when they thanked us the next day.
The YWAM staff on HopeLand are also international: from Tonga, USA, Canada, England, Congo, Ruanda, and of course Uganda. So it’s obviously a place where community is important, where differences have to be talked through and prayed about.
The staff reach out to people in the local villages too. There is a woman’s group that meets twice a week. The women are widows or have HIVAids and I was invited to speak to them twice. I could share some of my life with them through an interpreter, and they shared some of their sufferings with me. There is a pre-school on HopeLand with children of staff members and also some from the local community. But this year for the first time, the pre-school staff have offered places to some of the poorest local children who come for free as their parents cannot pay the fees. So at the beginning of this academic year, nearly 70 children turned up! I saw one man every day on his motorbike with 5 tiny children on board – 2 sitting in front of him, and 3 behind, all holding on tightly. So the pre-school is a work of faith too, as the staff seek to cover the cost of the children from the poorest homes.
Some of the staff, including the base leader, have spent time digging the ground for women in the nearby village who are unable to dig much themselves. It means using a heavy hoe, holding it up in the air and bringing it down to dig up the earth. It’s hard work – I tried it a few years ago. But if the women can’t dig, they can’t grow food for themselves.
I found this visit to Uganda challenging and very rewarding. I was so aware of God’s desire to work in our lives; his giving of challenges and then his enabling to fulfil them. It was very good to be with people who know that our struggles are not against enemies of flesh and blood, but are against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6.12). And people who reminded us that the place of prayer in our everyday lives is so central. It is through faithfulness in prayer that we become more aware of God. And the stories in our readings today are deliberately set for this last Sunday before Lent . The story of Elijah taken up into heaven; the story of the transfiguration of Jesus, both of these reveal God’s world invading our world. They are read today to remind us to seek God and his ways. They invite us, persuade us, to use the time of Lent to grow more aware of God’s ways within us, within our world.
May each one of us this Lent grow more fervent in our prayer to God – your kingdom come, your will be done -first in my life. May the light of Jesus within each of us, within us together, shine more brightly into the dark places of this world. Amen
