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.

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.

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.

Update

Just a quick update on life here on the ground.

It is still very very hot, and it has not rained for at least 3 weeks now. I often find myself waking up with a headache, I think because it is always so muggy at night.
I can’t wait till it rains, and it cools down a bit.  It makes for good swimming weather though, but since we don’t have very close access to places for swimming (the lake near us has crocodiles in it) we don’t get to go much.

We did get to go out to the Nile gardens hotel with Andrew and the Brits before Andrew left. The hotel has a pool where we could cool down, and Agnes learnt to swim by herself for the first time (well she learnt how to float and kick herself forward with a doggy paddle for about 6 seconds … but a new record for her)

We continue to run our programs here! It interesting how much YSU has turned into a bit of a shelter for many of these tailoring girls. Often they don’t go home till very late, and very often they are here on days that class is not on. Usually they are just practicing their skills, but often you can find out the front of our house a very loud game of cards or ludo being played by a big group of them.

Every Tuesday morning is a time for praise, prayer and devotions for the girls. Agnes and I run these with the tailoring girls, and we give them something simple for their week to think about. The girls seem to love these little devotions, and it is interesting to see all girls from different backgrounds, some of them Muslim, come to our morning devotions, wanting to learn more about the gospel.

We also have our boys coming every Thursday for games evening. This includes many African styled games, cards and darts. It is a great way to build relationships with these guys.

We also ran another drug and alcohol information session with these boys (all of which have sly smiles on the side of their faces which give away that many have sampled most of the substances that we talk about)
This has been great, and the boys have responded positively. In the west we tend to think that everyone knows the dangers of drugs, but over here education is very limited on the topic. Many young guys have absolutely no idea that many of these drugs are actually dangerous. Just recently a young boy, that farouk knows, drunk himself to death, literally choking on his own vomit in a drunken stupor.

So Farouk and I hope we can use these classes to pass on information to them in a non-condemning way. Much of the warnings about drugs has been done in this type of way, a simple ‘don’t do drugs because they are bad and sinful’ is all the boys get. But to be able to sit with them in an environment that lets them ask questions, and doesn't judge them, while giving them information on why and how these substances are leading to negative consequences on their bodies and their communities really helps, as well as exploring with them why this type of selfishness is destructive.

The block of land continues to be developed, with a gate and a nearly completed fence around the block.

Right now we have the young boy I spoke about in my previous blog looking after the block during the day, and staying in the small house on the property.

We have had further contact with the hospital to talk about the boy’s situation. It seems that he has a very bad heart condition, and without any kind of operation it is unlikely for him to reach his early 20’s.

The operation might cost around the $2000 mark, so right now we are planning to take him to the international hospital to gather all the correct information.
Farouk and I will be traveling to this boy’s father’s home sometime soon to try and get more information from the father, and ask him if we can take on the boy’s case and try and help him out.

This is a man who has continually rejected his son, and chased him away from his home. Apparently the father has all the boys medical documentations, and when the father realized how serious the problem was, and that he couldn't afford the operation, instead of taking the boy back to his to care for him, he chased him away.

Hopefully with farouk and my presence, we will be able to convince him to accept.

The boy had actually been getting very sick because he was working for us as a laborer. The medical staff at st benedict’s told us we should not be making him labor. We talked to the boy about this and asked him why he never told us, as that we could never allow him to do heavy work if we had known. The boy responded that he was afraid that once we knew of his condition we would chase him away like everyone else has.

Please pray for us as we make these visits to his father’s house and to the hospital to gather all the correct information we would need before starting to fund raise for an operation for this boy.

Agnes and I have continued to attend the local church and help out with the local youth group. I run a bible study every second Sunday, while Agnes does a young women’s group on the following Sunday.

We have also been looking at mixing it up a bit and attending a different church occasionally. Sometimes I can find it a struggle, as I look for a bit more meat in the teachings. I also miss the type of worship I have been accustomed to.

Don’t get me wrong, the African worship here is amazing, they have passion and they dance and sing, and we could learn a thing or two about them.
But many of the songs are sung in Luganda, and the style of singing even in the English songs are very much about repetition over a long period of time. So a simple phrase like “we are singing in the house of Lord” can be repeated over the course of 5 minutes.
I do miss a good old fashioned hymn, with good strong lyrics and meaning. A bit of “How great though art” or “Amazing grace” always stirs my soul.
But of course, church is not about me, it is about God. And so no matter how I might want the ‘style’ of worship or preaching to be, we know the church is faithful and we want to support them in their mission.

I do get times of great fellowship in smaller gatherings, like at Ron and Anne’s school every Friday night, or with my youth on Saturday nights or Sunday evenings. I feel this is where I get my real fellowship from, and where I can sing and praise God and find joy.
We also have good friends here that we can sit and talk with! Andrew just left, but He spent a lot of time with us while he was here which is always encouraging. And we also had a lovely evening with Ron and Anne, as they came over for a dinner, and of course a long chat into the night.

I have also recently watched a documentary on the persecuted church. Agnes and I watched this film together, and I will be watching it with my group of boys on Saturday night as well. I was blown away by the film. I was deeply moved by the tragedy of the persecution around the world (Christians are the most persecution religious group in the world, and in a human rights context, the Christian community around the world are seeing the greatest persecution) but I was also inspired by the faith of many of these people. To be able to choose death instead of denying Christ is something I pray I would also be able to do.

You can watch the trailer here:
http://lovecostseverything.com/index.php/trailer

And buy a digital download here:
http://lovecostseverything.com/index.php/store

I really recommend it.

Yesterday was my birthday as well. I had lots of love from friends on facebook! My wife made me a breakfast of weetbix and mango. And I was blessed to have my brother in law, Douglas, come over with a cake that he baked.
Everyone in our household then spent some time saying some sort of kind comment about me, which was really nice.

I was also blessed by my big sister who gave Agnes and I some money to go out for birthday meal! So we went two friends restaurant and had an awesome meal of pizza and chicken burgers!

Thank you again for all your love and prayers. I also again thank those people who have supported me financially, and continue to do so. You make all of this possible and I am deeply grateful.

God bless.

Catching Mudfish and a boy with a bad heart.

Slowly things have been moving forward.

I have started up small devotion sessions and bible study classes with a few of our groups. This includes our young men's group, the youth from the village of hope, and all our tailoring girls.
This is hopefully a way to disciple these young people, as we saw a need (especially among the tailoring girls) to teach and minister to them.

Farouk has also been reaching out to a group of older boys who love to play soccer. We purchased a soccer ball for this group, which they all appreciated very much. Farouk has been using this opportunity to speak into the lives of these young men.

We have also invited these same young men to an 'open evening' at our house. This basically means they can come and relax, play card games and darts, as we develop relationships with these guys.
We have also opened up our house to different information sessions every second Wednesday evening. These sessions will include information on drugs and alcohol, gender equality issues and even some simple business classes.

We hope we can use this as a platform to speak into these young peoples lives, to raise opportunities to help them in their financial needs, but also their spiritual needs.

It can still be hard here, as you are constantly surrounded by need, and it is hard to choose which people to help. We are sponsoring one of the tailoring girls (who lives with us) little boy. Of course this means that many of the tailoring girls have found out, and they ask us to also sponsor their children. We can't help all of them, but we do try and find creative ways for them to get a bit of assistance, whether that be organizing paid work for them to do around the compound, or to try and provide them with some small business.

Our tailoring girls are still making African styled shoulder bags as well, and a new lot will be coming to Australia in a few weeks time. If you are interested in purchasing one for $20, feel free to email me on ooeeluke@hotmail.com, and I can link you up.

We have also been blessed to have our good friend from the UK, Rachel, come along and volunteer at YSU with her two friends Sarah and Will.
The Brits (as I like to call them) have been running an extra Wednesday class with our tailoring girls. The last class they ran was to help encourage the girls to see themselves as having purpose in this world. Many of the girls have always been beaten down and made to feel like they are worthless (one of the young girls in our class has told us how her sisters family, who she lives with, often spits on her and tells her that she is useless) So it has been great to encourage them and let these girls know that they have purpose and that they are valued and loved by us, but more importantly by God.
They also had fun making bracelets so that they could always look at these and remember what they have learnt.

Farouk and I have also been having a few fishing adventures here and there. We managed to catch a big African lungfish/mudfish in the swamp the other day. This fed a lot of us, and the meat we got off the fish was great to eat, with lots of flesh and barely any bones (the mudfish is more like a big eel)

If you would like to watch my little tutorial on how to catch one, just click below. I've still got some Aussie bushman spirit in me yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i8agSpz_jI&feature=youtu.be

The walls to the YSU property are also almost built. The HopeBuilders workers have been laboring away in the hot sun over the last few weeks, so that they can complete our wall. This looks great, and it starts to make the vision of the youth center come to life! The gate was added just yesterday. Next step will be to start building the foundations, once the plans are approved.

Farouk and I have also had some sad news about a young boy that we have been helping out. Farouk found this boy homeless while I was away in Australia. The boy had been sleeping in abandoned buildings and churches, but was chased away and left to sleep in the bush. Farouk had heard about the boy through the local chair person and decided to take him under his wing, since Farouk had a similar lifestyle growing up.
This boy has had a very hard life growing up, after his father married a second women, who hated his mother (the first wife) and convinced the father to chase them away. After a while the boys mother then remarried, but the stepfather didn't want the boy around and chased him away as well. Both the father and stepfather were very abusive from what we have been told.
On top of that, the boy has had to survive by getting paid measly amounts of money to do horrible work, including having to crawl done pit latrines and empty them out with nothing but his hands and a bucket.
While only young (about 14) Farouk set the boy up in the small house which is on the YSU block of land, and the boy was able to stay there and live, while getting some work looking after the property and helping labor for the builders.
Everyone took a liking to him, since he is good kid. Last week he asked if I could take him to the hospital, as he has had a chest problem for a long time now, and when I felt his chest you could feel continual muscle spasms going on.
Farouk and I had plans to take him to the hospital and look into perhaps getting him back to school to finish his primary education. But a few days ago we got a call from him saying that the local catholic hospital (which he had just visited due to knowing some people there) was sending him back to his father, and they were even paying the transport for him to go.
Farouk was a bit confused that he would up and leave like that, but the full story came out later that day. One of the nurses came and visited us and told us that the boy was well known to the hospital, and that he has a serious heart condition. The nurse was explaining that the boy does not have much longer to live without an operation, and even then it would be risky. From what we have gathered, it seems that the hospital is willing to take him on as a special case and try the operation. But they wanted him to get permission from his father first, and that is why they sent him back. The nurse (who was a family friend) suggested that years of abuse from the father has perhaps contributed to the boys condition.
After speaking with him today, Farouk has told me that the boy went to his father, but as soon as he reached his fathers house, he was chased away again. He stayed at his mothers for a little bit, but his stepfather also chased him away.

When it rains it can really seem to pour.

So the boy is now on his way back to wairaka, with no family to take him in.
Farouk is going to meet up with him today, and we will still allow him to stay in the small house on our property. In the next few days Farouk will try and get more information and escort this young boy to the hospital to vouch for him.
We are not quite sure what the outcome of all of this will be, but it seems that God has placed this young boy, oppressed, afflicted an mistreated, with no family that will claim him or support him, while having a serious life threatening condition, into our company right now,
Please pray for us as we try and help deal wisely with this situation. It certainly strikes you and is a fresh reminder of the suffering that people are facing here.
We are called to be hope and light in this world, and so pray for us as we try to help in what ways we can, by whatever means.
Please also pray for the boy ... I am not sure right now if it has to be a prayer for a miracle, but in the following days I am sure we will find out from the doctors what the condition may be.

Pray that God may keep the boy safe, and that we can be His hands and feet where we are able to be.


A prayer from the Psalms.

"Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.

You, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness
that would not be found out.
The Lord is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed,"

One week in

It has been one week since Agnes and I arrived in Uganda, and we feel we are settling in nicely now.
The flight was fine, and Agnes and I both slept for almost 10 hours each (although not a very good sleep due to crying babies in front of us the whole flight).
We had some worries about luggage weight, as we were packed to the brim, but luckily we had no problem and we got everything through.
We were also a bit concerned about getting an entry visa. For those of you who may not know, I have had a lot of trouble getting a permanent visa due to the corruption in the ministry of internal affairs. As a result I have a lot of tourist visas that have been extended, and sometimes this can raise an eyebrow at immigration.
Luckily the man at immigration saw myself with Agnes and was very happy that we were married (even trying to give me some marriage advice by telling me not to 'cheat' on Agnes) and so we had no problem getting my 3 month visa.
Hopefully this gives me a good amount of time to try and organise a long term partner visa.

As far as projects go, the last week has involved a lot of 'cleaning up' and sorting out issues. Agnes and I have both had to spend a lot of time sitting with different girls in the tailoring class, and co-op. This is includes warnings, counselling and also having to make hard decisions of letting some people go.
It has been unfortunate that some girls have really been causing a lot of division in the groups, with gossipping and bullying type behaviour. Other girls have just not been committed and never show up.
Agnes and I had to make the hard decision of letting a few girls go. Of course we tried to do the very best by them. With the money that they earned from making bags, they used to pay off half of their machine. So they have been sent on their way, with their own personal machine, plus the knowledge and the skills to do their own tailoring work.
Some girls just were not able to work well in a team.
It is also a decision we have had to make based on an outlook that we can only help those who themselves want to be helped. Continuing to try and pick someone up, and treat them like a child, when they themselves are an adult, does not necessarily do any good.
Especially when we do have dedicated hard working girls who would love this opportunity and as a result are missing out.
Agnes once told me of an African parable that says "You can bring a herd of cattle to green grass but only half of them may eat"
This is something we have found true with a large group of girls. Many of them will work hard at the new opportunity we have given to them, but there are others who don't put any effort in and take for granted the help offered.
We are still trying to work on ways to break this mentality though. Many girls have grown up as victims their whole life, so they can only see themselves in that light, and hence don't bother to try because they think they will fail anyway.

We see we still have a lot of work to do with these young women, the resources and support are there to help them create an income, but we are finding the social and emotional problems these girls have are bringing them down.

Farouk has also enjoyed having us back in Uganda to deal with all these issues. He has expressed that he doesn't wish to work so much with young women anymore, they certainly gave him more then a headache! As he was trying to manage the work for these girls, they were all expecting him to solve their little fights and tiffs as well.
Of course this was not what Farouk was expected to do, but he has done a great job either way without our presence.

Everything has been accounted for and it is good to know that I have someone I can trust!

Otherwise the tailoring co-op girls have been getting lots of work, and they have been making uniforms for at least three different schools! So the position they are in, compared to when they first begun, has really improved.

Farouk and I are looking at running an afternoon program for some of the rougher type boys in the community here. Many of them coming from Muslim backgrounds.
Because of Farouk's similar upbringing, he certainly has a way with these type of young guys, and they are very much attracted to him. As a result farouk has been running his own outreach type program every evening, where he goes and organises soccer games with these boys. Before, or after, they play, Farouk usually sits down with them to counsel them and give them advice on a whole range of different topics and issues.
I would love to utilise this special relationship he has already created with these boys, and see what other types of discipleship we could do with them.

We have also been blessed to have a few Australian girls volunteer for us at YSU, who have been teaching the tailoring girls English skills. We will also be hosting a group of British volunteers, including our good friend Racheal, to do some volunteer work with us.

An interesting little event happened on our way home from church the other day. Agnes, myself and the Australian girls were near subi house when we saw two young boys out the front with a baby monkey tied up with a rope around its waist.
The boys were teasing the monkey and treating it a bit rough. I asked them where they got the monkey from and they said they had caught it up at the school. When I asked them what they were doing with it, they said they wanted to sell it, possibly for someone to eat. After asking them how much they were selling it for they cheekily said "3,000" (about 1 Australian dollar). So we said we would pay them, we got a sack to put it in, and I hopped on a boda to take it back up to the top of the hill where all the monkeys live.
The hardest part was trying to untie the rope from around its waist, as I was scared it would bite me and give me rabies. I managed to do it by keeping the monkey in the bag I had it in, and kind of keeping it tucked in their while I had access to its belly.
The monkey then ran free into the bush where all the other monkeys lived! It was a job well done, and since I have always been fond of animals, I am glad I could help the little fella out.

Funnily just after I had left on the boda boda to take the monkey back up to the forest, the Australian girls paid the boys their 3,000, to which they started complaining and asking where the remaining money was. It seems they were meaning 30,000 (about 14 Australian dollars) Agnes scolded them and said that they had said 3,000 and that was their problem! So everyone left them and said 'too bad'.
Teaches them right for stealing baby monkeys anyway.



Otherwise we look forward to this year. I have already started up my little bible study group on Saturday night with my two boys. And we hope to get back into the swing of things now that the co-op has been sorted and the tailoring class is back up and running for the year.

Thanks again for all the prayers and support to all my friends and family.

Going back to Uganda!

So, Agnes and I have been enjoying our stay in Australia very much!
We have enjoyed catching up with friends and family, as well as spending time in our church community.
We have also had the chance to do some sight seeing, and Agnes got to experience a lot of new things while here in Australia (I think the shopping was her favourite)
It has been a full two months in Australia, and during that time I have not been writing my blog. I apologise for the lack of writing, I have been resting and taking quite a bit of time off.
Agnes and I both really needed the rest! Our community in Uganda is the kind of place you need to leave completely to be able to rest, due to the constant demands.
We were both at a point where a good rest and reflection was needed, and now we both feel ready to tackle the work ahead of us.
While we have been here in Australia, Farouk has been in Uganda managing everything for YSU.
So far the girls are still learning in their tailoring class, and the co-op girls have even been making money by making school uniforms in the community.
Two months was just enough time though, as Farouk is very excited and waiting for us to come back. He has done a fantastic job and I am very proud of him. He has really stepped up a level in his management, as he had to run everything by himself.
Farouk also hosted a HopeBuilders team while we were gone, and was able to walk the team through YSU and what we do.
At this point though, there are quite a few social issues we are having with some of our tailoring girls, including gossipping, divisiveness etc. Farouk really feels out of his league in dealing with these things, so I know he is looking forward to Agnes coming back to help out.
Please pray for some of the attitudes of the girls in the tailoring co-op. Some are great, and so committed, but we have been having problems with a few of them.

Overly we are both excited and nervous about the year ahead. We know there will be both joys and challenges, as there always is.
We have focused this year on five major areas that we would like to zone in on. We would like to continue to support and help vulnerable young women, and pregnant/single mothers. This is our way of supporting the oppressed, supporting young widows, and also making a stand against abortion. By being able to support women who would not be able to care for a child otherwise, and also by putting young women in positions that make them less at risk of getting an unwanted pregnancy (which would lead to abortion) we are able to contribute to this area we are convicted about.
Another area for Farouk and I is continuing to mentor, support and disciple young men. By contributing to the growth of young men, we hope to also contribute to our first focus (the young women) .. we hope to disciple Godly young men who will go on to be protectors and nurturers of women and children, instead of victimises.
We also aim to look more into training up some more Ugandans to be workers and volunteers for YSU, aiming to have Ugandans creating change among Ugandan youth.
We also have a focus on reaching out more to the Islamic community in our area, by creating options to financially support Muslim youth (as well recreational programs) we are able to get a foot in the door to share Christs love with these youth.
Lastly, we hope to start the construction of a youth center on a one acre block of land, and to also possible engage HB teams with this.

So a lot to look forward to this year! Please pray for all our needs while over there. For health, for visa issues (for me) and for the people we work with.

We also thank everyone who has made our time of rest a great experience.
I thank our support group of Andrew, Loz, Mum, Rob and Lynette, Chris and Jaz for all the love you have shown Agnes and I.
We continue to thank one hope community church, as well as all the people who support us financially. Without you people, we could not do what we do! You have been a real blessing and we thank you so much. There are many of you to be named, but you know who you are. Thank you so much and God bless you.
We also thank all those who have kept us in their prayers and encouraged us, it is most appreciated and certainly needed.

So now we head back for another long stint in Uganda! Again please pray for us, and you can stay connected to us through this blog.

God bless.

Some photos of our time in Australia.