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.