It has been great to have my mother and aunties here in Uganda visiting me! I am sure they have enjoyed getting a first hand experience into the culture and the people. And it has been lovely to catch up (including eating a few nice meals)
There has been lots of rain here in Wairaka as well, so lots of mud when you walk around the place.
The HopeBuilders team is also here! And they will be doing some work on the YSU block, including the construction of a chicken coop, which we will use as an income for YSU.
We have also had Emily from Australia helping us run a few programs for young women. Emily is a midwife and has been trained in running a great program called 'wise choices for life' which looks at women's health issues, pregnancy issues and information on planning for families.
This has been very valuable, as often young women here don't have access to great information. There are lots of myths that run around in regards to pregnancy here. Some of these myths are less harmful but can result in confusion for people, like believing you can be pregnant for up to two years because every time you bleed during pregnancy you revert back a few weeks in the pregnancy stage. Other myths are downright dangerous, like believing that taking strong alcohol will help your baby develop in the womb.
So it has been great to have Emily run these classes, and many of the young women have been enjoying it.
I will spend some time writing a larger blog, perhaps next week, as I am very busy at the moment, but I wanted to share the story of young man who I have been mentoring recently.
His story is quite inspiring, and a challenge to all of us who follow Christ.
I have a group of boys who I meet with every Friday night, and we get together and just study the word and wrestle with deep questions.
I love how passionate these guys are, and how much they thirst to know more about Christ. Most of them have it quite rough, whether living in poverty or having tension with their families. One of the boys parents are Muslim, and so being a christian has meant he is not in good terms with his family. Trying to help guide him through that experience is difficult, and as they don't support him much as a result, you do feel the pressure to be the family of Christ in that situation, and offer what you can.
But one of the young men in particular has quite a striking story. Still only being in his late teens, he has a faith that could inspire many people who have been in the church for many years.
This young man actually grew up being converted into the Baha'i faith. If you don't know much about Bahaism, look it up, it came as an offshoot from Islam but has aspects of eastern mysticism in it. The teachings deny Christ as the son of God, but as just one of many manifestations of God. They are quite a peaceful people, who are involved in a lot of good development work, but they specifically deny many of the core tenants of the Christian faith. Enlightenment, or heaven (a state of being) is attained through good works.
This young man actually grew to be a prominent youth leader in the Baha'i community in Uganda. He was sent around the country to preach and convert people, and he talks about how he lead away many people who were from Christian homes, and converted them to the Baha'i faith.
The local leaders of this faith had actually promised a bright future for this young man, including all school sponsorship paid for, a promise of university scholarship, and all expense paid travel.
The ultimate dream for every young man here in Uganda.
He tells a story of when he joined a bible study at his high school, with the soul purpose of trying to prove his fellow students wrong.
The young men in the bible study class were not particularly educated in theology, nor where they apologists. Just simple youth who prayed together and studied the bible together. And in the end, this young man actually became born again and gave himself to Christ through this bible study class.
A testament to the fact, that it is not about how smart you are, or how good and intelligent your answers are .. but are you faithful? and does your life give testimony to Christ?
What has inspired me the most though, is everything this young man lost as a result of coming to faith in Christ.
He has told me how it all came to a point where he had to make a choice. As he was the rising star for the local Baha'i community, the leaders were naturally disappointed.
They told him that if he makes the decision to follow Christ, he can forget about his school sponsorship, he could forget about the security of having a university course paid for, and all of the privileges he used to get.
For those of in the west who can access these things, with more or less, some ease ... this is a massive thing for a young man living in poverty, who has always been told and believed that the key to a bright future is an education.
They also said all the support and friendship as a community that they would give him, would also stop.
In the end he walked away from it all to follow Christ. He chose to 'count it all as loss' as Paul said, to give his live to the creator.
He gave up his security for a future, for education, for privileges. He gave up unity in his family and friends, he gave up a community who took care of him but now shunned him.
He gave it all up because Christ was worth it to him.
And what continues to move me, is that through all the struggles he went through, he has so much genuine joy in Christ.
If you were to ever meet someone who is so passionate about Christ it is this young man.
He also tells me how he had been praying for someone to be under, someone who could teach him, and guide him in the study of the word ... as he was still new to the faith and there were a lot of things he did not yet understand.
That is why he seeked me out originally, and asked if I could be that person. So I have been dedicating myself to taking him under my wing ... whether that means praying and studying together, or helping out with his schooling if I can in anyway.
What is great about this young man is he never has asked for money. When he came to me, he said he is not coming to ask for any money (and still never has) but simply wants me to teach him. It has been great to be able to give him work at YSU to help him in being able to contribute towards his schooling.
He also now believes his calling is to learn as much as he can, and then go back and reach those people who he converted to Bahaism.
He is a very deep young man as well (perhaps the reason to why he was singled out as the rising star for youth leadership in the Baha'i faith) and can understand very deep theological concepts ... so naturally I love that as well!
He now struggles through life, and things do not always go smoothly now that he is following Christ (despite what some prosperity preachers will tell you) but he has a joy and a peace that he never had. And he will be the first one to tell you that it was 'worth it'.
His story is a message to all of us. Would you be willing to walk away from everything that gives you security and pleasure and happiness if Christ bid you to?
In the end what is the greatest treasure of your heart?
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. - Jesus Christ
No comments:
Post a Comment