Tuesday 28 April 2015

Update

Just a quick update for those following.

All things are moving along well! The tailoring girls are improving everyday.
We have now transitioned the co/op girls to start their own small businesses, and the new tailoring girls will be integrated into the co/op once they are finished.

I was so pleased to know that three of our old girls have found employment in small local garment shops, using their tailoring skills.
These girls mentioned to us that the only reason they now have a full time job is because we trained them with tailoring skills and the know how to help them.
This is a great success in the developmental area. To have girls working for themselves, or for someone else, and to have them find employment because we spent the time to invest in them and train them with a bunch of holistic skills, really gives us joy.
This is what we aimed for from the very start, and you almost feel like a proud parent to see these girls now living on their own, and supporting themselves.

As C.S Lewis once wrote: The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state in where he no longer needs our gift. We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching. Thus a heavy task is laid upon Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say 'They need me no longer' should be our reward.

How very true that is.

At the moment I am currently in the process of getting an NGO volunteering visa. I am paying an agent to do most of the work, as doing things yourself here seems to be futile. Please pray that I get that visa in the next few weeks.
Agnes and I will also start on the long process of getting her a partner visa to live in Australia. This also takes a lot of work and documentation that needs to be provided.

I had mentioned in a facebook post the other day how one of the top local Muslim leaders here came up to me while I was standing on the street, and gave me a friendly slap on the back requesting that "Mr Luka you should come over to Islam"
I had responded to him and said "I could never, Yesu is the way the truth and the light". The Muslim man laughed and said that Islam better, to which I replied it was him to come over to Yesu.
During all of this we laughed and smiled!
It was nice to acknowledge that we could totally disagree with each other, with completely contrasting world views, yet find common ground in our humanity.
I am well aware that right now in the world there is a global genocide against Christians, and I do not want to take away from that. I recognize that a huge majority of this oppression is coming from Islam. From both Islamic governments and from Islamic communities, both extremists and also moderates.
But because of this, my little experience shined a little brighter, on how it is possible for opposite religions to cohabit. Uganda has done very well compared to other African nations, with its Christian and Muslim relations.

It is also an example to the west, in which the new age of tolerance seems to dictate that any one who disagrees or does not publicly endorse a certain belief, is a bigot and intolerant.
This happens all across the spectrum, to arguments around halal, to so called same sex marriage, to indigenous issues, abortion, immigration and more. Often no one wants to hear the unpopular sides to these arguments, because a majority disagrees with them. They claim that to have a different opinion around these issues means one is intolerant and a bigot.
This never made much sense to me. Intolerance and bigotry is determined by the way you treat the person with an opposing view, not because of the view itself that you hold. By claiming and shouting 'intolerance', or 'bigotry' at the slightest hint of a different viewpoint, you shut down genuine discussion and understanding.

This is where we can learn from peoples who totally disagree with each other, but respect each other as fellow human beings.

What is interesting in Christian and Muslim relations here, is that I run a general teachings class with a mixed group of boys on all different topics including human rights, drugs and alcohol, sexual abuse and so forth.

This group has a mixture of non Christians, Muslims, and some who claim Christianity as just a title. These boys themselves asked if I could run some extra classes for them, specifically on the bible and what it teaches.

Oh how I would be honored.

Often building relationships and trust, while developing friendships, can open up doors for the Gospel to be shared!
As Christians we do not propagate our faith by force, but we attract people to come and listen. Free will is a major component of Christianity, and we attract people with our lives so we can share with them the Gospel. Unlike many of the forced conversions to Islam you see in Africa and the middle east .. the foot of the oppressor is placed on the necks of Christians and other religious minorities, to force them to convert away from their faith.

I do believe this is something that attracts many in the Muslim community over here to the Gospel.

So I will be glad to add some extra biblical classes to these new friends of mine.




Otherwise we have started another Empower course today! Agnes, Rachel from Jinja Christian School, and myself are all running a trauma rehabilitation program for eight girls from the Village of Hope.
We look forward to this next week as we go through the empower program, and hope to see healing from past traumas.

Agnes also turned 30 the other week! So we were blessed by a loved one in Australia with some money to go out for a fancy meal! We took Agnes' younger brother along and all enjoyed pizza and chicken at two friends.


Thanks again to all those people who have been praying for us, as well as financially supporting us. It means a lot.


Monday 13 April 2015

Cynicism, C.S Lewis and Celebrations

I have recently been struck by my own personal revelations, ones that have helped me see my own self and the people around me.

I could say that in the last few months I have been struck again by my own cynicism towards those who think differently to me, especially those with different theologies or doctrines that I disagree with.
My attitude towards such people can often be frustration, cynicism and a certain lack of love and joy.

I am obviously (and write-fully so) frustrated at the amount of works righteousness and devastating prosperity gospel thinking that is rampant here. But I have noticed that I can often let these overtly gross distortions effect my attitude towards smaller secondary and third issues. Any hint of something that may point to a different way of thinking, or towards some of the things I have mentioned, has me looking down at it with disapproval. Not to mention my own personal sneers at those I think do not have it right.
Yes I know .. what a horrendous attitude to have. But when you are constantly surrounded by these false gospels that are on a continuum of outright obvious to more soft and hidden, you can begin to be someone who is sniffing out any sign of something wrong. This can creep up on you, and it has been a constant battle to remain humble and remind myself that I do not have it all worked out.
Reading the scriptures daily helps, because I am constantly confronted with something in the word that does not always fit nicely into my 'system of thinking'.

Recently I have been struck by something I have looked at incorrectly, and although I carelessly had thoughts that I had it right, I have been struck by joy and a revelation on how wrong I can get things.

The local church that Agnes and I go to, has been getting together to organize a big gathering at their compound in a few Sundays to come. All the church's belonging to the abundant life church's of Uganda gather once a year and hold a big celebration, where singing, dancing, preaching, fellowship and eating are all enjoyed. This year the local church Agnes and I go to has been nominated to host the event.
Nothing wrong with that I can hear you say! Why would I not be keen on such a thing. Well my judgement begun with the fact that the church is very small, and although the other abundant life church's have been able to host the event in their building, our local church needs to rent and hire big tents and lots of seats to be able to host everyone. Of course this costs quite a lot of money to do, and along with raising all the money for equipment and food for the day, the church is is up for a lot of expenses.

As a result each Sunday they have been gathering together to try and desperately raise this large amount of money that seems way over the top.
So in my western, logical and efficient mind (as I try to kid myself) I see a church of very poor people spending money on a one day celebration, and I start to question them, thinking it is very irresponsible. What about using all that money to help the poor, or the sick! How can they use their own money on such a thing, when they can barely pay for food and medicine for their own families. How irresponsible!
And just like Judas getting upset at the woman who poured perfume over Jesus' head, and claimed that it could of been sold and given to the poor, I too put my nose up at the idea. I was even thinking that if they want to waste the money, I wasn't going to contribute towards it! I would rather help people by spending my money on things like long term sponsorship's and medical costs for sick people! Not one day celebrations where the money disappears and is gone all at once.
Yes .. what an ugly attitude. As I said, you would be surprised at how easily cynicism can catch up on you, and to be honest it almost feels like cynicism is the spirit of our age, especially in our western culture, where we critic everything.

But thank God, that He sends messages and guidance to his children in many different forms, to help soften their hearts and open their eyes.

For me this came in the form of one of my favorite Christian writers of all time, C.S Lewis.
I have been reading Lewis' apologetic works for a while now, but last Christmas I was given his fantasy novels in the full set of the Chronicles of Narnia.
Yesterday I finished the last of the seven books 'The last battle'. Oh how glorious it has been to get lost in the adventures of Narnia, which are so full of wisdom and reflections on real life and the Christian faith.

One of the beautiful aspects of Lewis' writings is the way he captures joy in the Christian life. This is not a cheap 'chipper' joy that is often found in prosperity sermons and based around having no problems. So often his characters are put through trials and sufferings by Aslan (the Christ figure in Narnia) to help them grow in character. And the warnings of being attached to the riches of this world are all throughout the chronicles of Narnia.
But the overwhelming sense that Lewis gives throughout the Narnia books, is that despite the hardships there is great joy to be had in this life! This is not a picture of a sacrificial Christian life where one has to be somber all the time due to the great need in the world.
No, the characters enjoy great feasts, fellowship, times of exciting adventure in Narnia's nature, laughter around a table and the enjoyment of friends and companionship ... all with the blessing of Aslan.
These times of joy and enjoying great feasts and celebrations are often dotted throughout and in between the trials and suffering. What a true reflection of the faith walk. As John Piper says about the Christian life, while reflecting on Paul's writings, we are 'sorrowful but always rejoicing'.

Another defining aspect of Lewis' work, is his ability to create wonder and imagination of the possibilities of heaven and the new earth. He helps you see reflections of heaven in the everyday! The joy which awaits us in the new creation is enough to make you burst when you imagine it.

And if you have trouble imagining it, then I suggest you read Revelation 21, followed by the Chronicles of Narnia.

Often my reformed theology can lead me to great love towards God, as I wrestle with meaty questions and deep philosophical concepts. A systematic reformed theology has often helped me in the part of 'loving your God with all your mind'.

But oh how deadly indwelling sin is! How like sin it is to take something good and twist it into something prideful. And how true has this been for those of us in the reformed camp, and those who think they have 'good, correct theology'. So often because of my studying and knowledge, if I see something that seems less intelligible, or not inline with what I think is biblical, I can be fast to throw it out or condemn it in my heart. But a closer and more careful look may have me realizing that it is perhaps 'I' who is wrong, and there is much still for me to learn.

And although there are beliefs that Lewis had that I may not hold onto, and might question (his views on creation/evolution, the atonement, and hinting at the possibilities of some people outside the faith still being justified) and that I also do not want to hold him up as infallible, he has still helped me greatly in seeing the beauty and joy in life.

If reformed theology has been a great help in 'loving God with all your mind', then Lewis has also contributed towards 'loving God with all your heart and soul'

And so now I bring this all back to the celebration service at the church, with new Narnia colored glasses on.

These people want to celebrate with their brothers and sisters in Christ and worship God together. They feel honored to be able to host the other church's, even if it means they all need to come together and sacrifice to contribute towards the celebration. These are not wealthy people spending huge amounts of money on themselves with no care for others. This a community of very poor believers, who often sacrifice for each other and the needs of their brothers and sisters. But this is a community of very poor believers who are saying "Right now we are looking forward to a time of joy and celebration"

And who am I to question them and say that it is unwise to spend the money this way. Who am I can to hold an attitude of cynicism at those who think differently to me.

And do we not gather as a people of Christ, to worship, sing, eat and laugh, all to point towards a greater picture of something that is coming.
Isn't this a picture of the final great wedding banquet, when us poor beggars, who would give anything to join in that final celebration and joyous occasion, finally sing and listen and share and laugh and feast and shout in bursts of joy. When every tear is wiped away, every pain is gone, all poverty is replaced with riches and blessings and where Christ Himself sits and feasts with us. And to realize that it is all by grace that we are there! That no one at the great banquet table deserves to be there, but that everyone who is seated is greatly valued because of the great love of God. And that every single soul at that table was chosen to be seated there since before the foundation of the world.

Why, the thought of that is just about enough to take away any cynicism.



Saturday 11 April 2015

life, visa problems and Easter.

It has been a while since I last wrote in this blog.
Life has been the usual her with our programs continuing to run, with a few other things added into the mix over the last two weeks as well.

We continue to work in the community, trying to encourage and bring hope to who we can. We have been running special classes every Wednesday for both boys and girls in the community, which tackles different social issues.  We were given a pleasant surprise the other day as one of the mothers, and an aunt, of one of the girls who joins us for these programs came and visited us.  She simply wanted to come and show her appreciation for creating a place where her girl can come and feel safe, as well as learn new topics. She said that we are well known in the community and people speak very fondly of us now.  It seems that people in the community see us as an honest, reliable and helpful place that are reaching out to the youth.
It was encouraging to hear this mother speak, as she simply wanted to appreciate us. Sometimes the hard slog of trying to work in the community can blind you to the actual impact on people you are making, so to be told that we are appreciated is always refreshing.

The tailoring girls are also doing well, and are very committed. They can't miss a class these days, and are always around YSU even when class is not on.  Often you can find a very passionate game of ludo being played by a group of the tailoring girls on their free days, usually out the front in our garden.


We continue to run bible studies for them every Tuesday morning before their tailoring class. These bible studies are not compulsory, seeing as we have a few Muslim girls in the class.  We do not want to be forcing them, or using the tailoring class to manipulate them, but we would rather offer them the chance to come and hear about the gospel on their own free will. Sometimes the Muslim girls will sit outside, in the tailoring class, and practice their tailoring. Other times they come and join in and have a listen. We believe this is the best way to do it, when it is not done in compulsion but free will. We pray that we will be able to speak into their lives .. and that they see we are here to love them regardless of their faith.

Even the Christian girls have a lot to learn about the Christian faith! I am always taken aback by how little knowledge the christian girls can have of the Gospel.  Often we keep going back to the doctrines of grace and trying to explain it very clearly. Many of the girls still believe that Christianity is about being 'good' to get to heaven, and they are often scared of messing up and failing. This is a very clear works righteousness view, and we try to use different analogies to get through this type of thinking. We ask them if they would prefer their own children to obey them because they are scared of them and don't want to get into trouble, or if they want their children to obey them because they love their mother for all she has done for them.
There is a difference between obeying God out of works righteousness and fear, and obeying God out of grace and joy.
Every other belief system says that you must obey to be accepted. We teach that you are accepted and therefore have the freedom and power to obey.
Explaining the difference between good advice and good news also helps as well. An analogy we often use is of a battle that is raging outside of a city. The city sends out a messenger to the battle ground to get information to send back to the city. Good advice would be the messenger coming back to the city and explaining that the battle will soon be upon the city, that they should put defenses up, store up supplies and hide the women and children. Good news would be the messenger coming back to the city and proclaiming that the battle has been won! they are liberated.

Religion is trying to give good advice.

The Gospel is proclaiming good news.

We will continue to serve and teach among the young people, both proclaiming the good news and serving the poor. We believe these must go hand in hand, and we cannot commit to one while ignoring the other.  I understand that one is socially acceptable in our culture, and even commended as honorable, while the other is often looked down upon, and viewed as imposing your religion on someone else and is often ridiculed in our culture. But I believe that the Gospel both attracts and offends people, and we don't want to bow down to culture and be ashamed of the parts of the Gospel that our culture rejects.  We take it all in and obey all. Both the parts that make you look good in the worlds eyes, and the parts that make you look bad.

We have also been struggling in moving forward with our boy with the bad heart. Farouk got in contact with his father a while back, and it seems the boy has his own secrets and issues. The father confirmed that the boy has a serious heart condition, and the father even explained that he had tried to spend a lot of money to help the boy with an operation. It seems that the father is claiming that the boy has been to difficult for him to handle, stealing money and doing drugs on the street. It seems there has been quite a lot of conflict between the boy and the father.
The father seems to want nothing to do with the boy, and even said that we should just wait till the boy dies, and then call him to pick up the body.
The father was actually fairly civil with us, thanking us for doing what we can, but proclaiming he will not give the medical documents over to us, because his boy has stolen so much money from him.

We tried to have a long chat with the boy, but he denied a lot of these accusations. So both the father and the boy are blaming each other and refusing to budge from their position. Farouk and I have a feeling that both have played their own part to this very strained relationship.
The next move is to contact the boys uncle, and have a big talk with him. Perhaps the boy has stolen lots of money from the family, and if the uncle confirms this we are willing to set up some sort of reconciliation process. The boy works for us, and we could try to set up a system where some of his salary goes back to the family, to try and begin a reconciliation process that would be very important (if he agrees).
If the uncle says the boy is guilt free and the father is lying and unreliable, than we can move forward to trying to seek out options for an operation on the boys heart.

Right now with these family tensions, we cannot start the medical procedures. We could get ourselves in trouble if there was no family blessing, and we think it is incredibly important to have the family involved or have their blessing, seeing as the boy has both a father and a mother who is alive.

Please pray for us as we navigate through this difficult situation.

Agnes and I also spent a frustrating two days in Kampala trying to go for a partner visa for me. Again we were shut down and did not get this visa. It is quite frustrating because we are told information from one official source, and then rejected and told something else by the immigration officer we have to go to when applying.
We were supposed to meet someone in Kampala early on Wednesday morning to introduce us to someone who could help us. It had been arranged on Monday night, so Agnes and I traveled into Kampala to stay the night on Tuesday. When we called on Tuesday night to confirm, we were told that the person had a meeting and had to make it now on Thursday morning. This was quite frustrating because it meant extra money on transport, food and accommodation.
But we decided to stay.
On Tuesday night we stayed in the dodgiest place that we had been referred to from another hotel we tried to get, but was booked. The place we stayed in was smack back in the city, on top of a busy market. The whole place was very dimly light (you could barely see in our small room) and it could of looked like a brothel or a drug den. That night we did not sleep, as seedy people were yelling and screaming in the foyer all night, while drunk girls stumbling to their room would accidentally try and open our door. The room was pretty dirty as well, we think the bed had bed bugs which made us both itchy, plus there were used hair shavers in the bathrooms (with hair in it) and egg shells in the wardrobe (don't ask) ... needless to say we raced to a better hotel the next night, and got a much better sleep.
We did enjoy our day on Wednesday though, while trying to kill time. We went to Entebee zoo where Agnes has a friend who works there, and she managed to get us in for cheap.
I was impressed with the quality of the zoo! Check out some of the pics.










Back to the visa situation. Basically we got told that there is no way I can get a dependent partner visa, because I am a white male. They could not understand that a man would live in the woman's country, for them the woman was supposed to go and live with the man. These were the top immigration officers, and their cultural views were very strong that there was no way around it. They at least gave us some advice and told us the best way it will work for me, is if I get an NGO volunteering visa for two years. In two years time Agnes and I will have been married for three years, which means I am applicable to go for a resident visa here. But the immigration officer explained there is no way I will get that resident visa in Uganda unless Agnes has a resident visa in Australia first.
Their justification was "If Australia has not given your wife a resident visa, why should we give you one" .. I am not sure if that is in their constitution, but when dealing with authorities, there is no way to get around it.
It is just frustrating because you get different information from different people. We were told the dependent visa is possible if we have bank statements with sufficient funds, and when I went for the NGO visa last year, the NGO board told me that if I am married to a Ugandan I should just get the dependent visa.
All so confusing and frustrating.

Thankfully Agnes and I were not as shattered as we were the last time we got rejected. This time we went with no high expectations, and had prayed to God that whatever shall be shall be, and that we will be peaceful about it.

So I am still hopeful about getting an NGO volunteering visa, getting Agnes a resident visa in Australia, which would be mean in two years time I could get resident status here.
And if it doesn't work out that easy, we will accept what God wills.

Your prayers would be appreciated for the situation.

Lastly, we had a wonderful Easter here at our household. Agnes was very excited because she had spent the Saturday with her sisters (who came home for Easter) decorating the church. Agnes also led worship for the first time in church on Easter Sunday, and she did a great job (even though she was very nervous)




We had a great meal after the service at our house. This included Agnes' brother, her sisters, Farouk and Beatrice and their family, some of the girls who are living with us, and of course all the little children here as well.

It was beautiful to sit with this mix of people, some of them who have literally been plucked out of homelessness and brought into our house to share in hope and joy. We all reflected on the meaning of new life in Christ, and I am sure the concept of new life was something real and tangible to many of these people who have gone through so much, but have been brought into the love of God.