21.11.09: DAY SEVENTY ONE. Chewing sugar cane.
I’m remembering the night Eric came over. The night we hunted the rat, hopelessly flapping sandals round the house until Emmanuel and Jane double teamed it with a walking stick and one of those woven baskets which may be used for sorting grain. Proper warrior stances and everything in their dress and shorts.
Talking to Eric in the taxi raised a question that I’ve lived with for a long time. Should I be a nutter? I’m frequently conscious of how my life falls short of Jesus, and even other Christians. If I really believe ‘with God, all things are possible’, why don’t I take advantage of it, and solidly do impossible things? Sell all I have and give it to the poor… tell everyone I meet about Jesus… go and pray for disabled beggars and see Jesus heal them… What really makes my head explode is when I hear people talk about regularly missing sleep so they can do more things to follow God. Eric has a high powered city job (with frequent foreign travel), a one year old son, 8 dependants, and leads the Worship, Evangelism and Youth work at church. And last Saturday, I discovered he’s also doing a Masters degree. HOW?!
Every night he goes to bed at, say, 10. Sleeps 3 hours. Gets up. Prays. Studies for university. Goes back to bed at 3am, sleeps until 6. Gets up, goes to work. Every day. That’s so he can have every evening free to work at the church. What?! I’ve had loads of advice over the years about keeping a balanced lifestyle, not doing to much, taking too much on, keeping my days off, doing some exercise, treating myself every once in a while… But Eric has some SERIOUS callings from God. We’re talking international revival. We’re talking multiple war torn Muslim countries transformed by Jesus. I don’t think I’m ever going to quite get there. But Emma suggested to me this week that the more we hunger for God, the more we’ll get him. The more we give our lives to him, the more we’ll find life in him. I think he’s right. So what does that mean for me?
15.11.09: DAY SIXTY FIVE. Eric’s, 10.05pm
I don’t know what’s going on. At the service this morning I felt provoked to give all my cash to the offering and trust God would provide some to get me home. After a struggle I went for it, shook out my wallet and trusted God.
16.11.09: DAY SIXTY SIX. 7.55am, Eric’s porch. (Supper was served, and there was a good film on TV…)
Back to the story. My other thought was that if God didn’t provide the money, I could stay overnight and go back tomorrow with Brian. Now I see that also includes a provision- the offer to stay. So without either I’d be screwed.
It all started from reading a book (you can’t be too careful…); the biography of a guy called Hudson Taylor. When he was younger than me, and without any dramatic or incontestable direction from God, he began putting himself in situations where God would have to provide for his needs or else he’d not be able to pay his rent, or starve. He didn’t tell anyone he was in need, just relied on God to get him the money when he needed it. He did it to test himself, to make himself ready for the big things God had called him to do. I’ve been feeling confident enough in Jesus to try this, too. I know I need to put myself to the test before some bigger steps of relying on God I can see in the future. Plus, I do long to push the envelope in following Jesus.
So the day went on: the service finished, people chatted around; I was invited over here for lunch as usual; we had our rehearsal. All went well, but with me frequently remembering (strange feeling) that my wallet is empty and that bar a miracle, I can’t get home. I keep reminding myself of God’s goodness, love for me, the ease with which he can provide 60p (my taxi fare home). I keep guessing how it’s going to come – probably right at the end of my day, after drama, when I’d normally be catching a taxi. Drama ends and I walk home with Ezekiel, here. Sit and chat. Take tea. Enjoy giving away a banana (did you see that, Father?) Nice time… and every minute or so I’m scrambling under my breath ‘help me Jesus’. It’s getting later and later. Nearly 8, with 1½ hr trip home. Send an ‘I’ll be late’ text to Brian. Still nothing happens.
And I give up. I tell God, ‘if you don’t get me the money by 8, I’m asking someone for it and going home. I can’t go any later.’ I’ve realised I’m sort of imposing myself on Eric and I’ve no invitation to stay. 8 passes, and I’ve decided Ezekiel’s the guy who will have 2000 shillings and who I feel okay asking to borrow from. He’s in the shower. 8.20, he’s out. I go ask. He’s very cool about it. I make to leave, and Eric invites me to stay over. Just as I give up and beg the money myself.
Now I don’t know what to do. Should I stay or should I go? Is this the answer to prayer, God’s intention, his better plan for me than getting the money? By now though, I’m thinking I want to get home for food, work, toothbrush, anti-malarials… So I decline, go out and try to catch a taxi, still in two minds. After 5-10 minutes of no taxis- which shows it was late and made travelling seem even less wise, Joel comes home and says ‘why don’t you stay over. It won’t be safe to travel.’ Okay lord.
It was actually a good night, and a good-
12.35pm. La Bonita theatre, town. (I got called for some good African tea and ended up watching 2 hours of Arsenal’s unbeaten 2003/4 season! Brilliant. Then just as I go, Emma says, ‘why don’t we got to the Miracle Centre lunch hour?...’)
-morning too – as you see. It’s been nothing dramatic, to say it’s DEFINITELY GOD’S WILL, but it has all come together quite nicely.
8.30pm. Back to mine.
The conclusion: live by faith, follow God, and say goodbye to your nicely ordered life. On one hand, being open to God’s alternative plans for your day, your life, is the gateway to ‘life in all its fullness’, ‘life that is truly life’. But it also includes that slept-over-after-a-party feeling, with a heavy cold, and hunger like you get when all that separates you from yesterday’s dinner is a small white roll. Plus a lot of ‘what the hell is going on?’
I’m still not sure what God’s saying though. Was giving all my money the right decision? Or should I hold back and provide for myself? I don’t feel the second option is right, but I also feel impressed that, while I should move boldly forward without waiting to have all the cash I need, I should also diligently seek provision as I do such things. I’m also reminded of the axiom ‘the need does not constitute the call’. Just because something radical could be done, doesn’t necessarily mean I should do it, at the moment. The Spirit will lead me step by step, at the pace I can take. So I’m going to be a nutter. But not an insomniac. Not yet.
A couple of crazy things I’m doing tomorrow that could use your prayers:
- running the Kampala Marathon 10k without registering, no training, walking trainers and a bacterial chest cold.
- preaching to the Makerere Main CU – and trying to bring a challenge!
Also, 4 productions coming to perform in the next two weeks.
And; today I got some great news which makes my decision about what I will do in January even harder. I need to hear God!
Shalom (think it sounds cool? check out everything it means!),
Tim
Saturday 21 November 2009
Thursday 12 November 2009
Days 53-58: The chicken at the end of the world
8.11.09: DAY FIFTY EIGHT. Taxi stage, Iganga.
I am sat on a chicken. My chicken. Just when I thought they couldn’t be any more good to me, Ezekiel and Florence send me on my way with a cockerel, a loaf of bread, and pay my taxi fare. I don’t understand how people can be so good. Culture doesn’t cover it. I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve it. They live in a concrete shell without power or running water. They just paid out a fortune to put on a massive Introduction for their daughter, with hundreds of guests. And another thing: amid the mayhem that would have certainly given me ulcers, Ezekiel remained cheerful and attentive to every guest. He was concerned with my transport arrangements, comfort and enjoyment… and he barely knows me! I kept treading lightly, not wanting to burden, but he was a picture of affability the whole weekend, even when his wallet disappeared. They even outdid me in expressing gratitude for my visiting them! I was cynical last time about Ezekiel stealing our schedule, but now I think he might have just been looking after us.
Still, I’m glad to be moving on. I got to a point last night, after the groom’s party arrived 4 hours late, trying to help with abrupt young men slamming pavilion poles around me, when I thought, ‘I’ve had as much culture as I can take.’ [I’ve been sat on this taxi for an hour, and we’re literally just pulling away] Yesterday reminds me how proud, judgemental and anti social I am. I once heard the phrase ‘an iceberg with social skills’. Interesting.
I asked a guy how he copes with waiting so long at functions like this. When I got him to stop guessing what I was saying, giving completely random answers, and repeated my question more clearly, he said, ‘We listen to the music. Maybe dance. We enjoy it.’ And a couple of minutes later they did dance. Some of the church choir jumped up and began gyrating to the house music, and a moment later my companion had begged a girl’s headscarf and was whisking hips with the best of them. Fantastic. It happened a couple of times over half an hour, then back to sitting around waiting; no sign that the DJ, vicar, schoolmistress, had it in them. It’s like the openness and sociability you sometimes see on taxis – one minutes there’s mud silence, the next everyone’s in on the joke. A culture waiting to break out. Life in all its richness hidden beneath city clothes. How much of that spirit is waiting in the children and young people I work with, and I haven’t seen it?
6.11.09: DAY FIFTY SIX. 11am, In a taxi.
10 minutes from Iganga now. Need to keep an eye out for the Busoga Uni sign where I’m meeting Ezekiel’s man. This guy I’ve never met and know nothing about. Then I go and preach at the CU, as I discovered last night in another ‘pardon’-filled phonecall. I’ve got my shoe-shoes on, suit out. I’m not ready and able. God help me.
3.25pm, Ezekiel’s veranda.
I guess he did. Encouraged that the students appreciated what I was saying (plenty of nodding and no more than a few walking off!), and that I got the dress code right. I’m loving this experience of being ‘on retreat’. No work pressure, no city craziness – I can hear some children in the distance, but as many birds and insects. Just a few cars. It’s overcast and cool. I’m looking out on countryside…
Now it’s raining. And Ladysmith Black Mambazo are singing in my head; ‘Rain, rain, beautiful rain.’ It’s wonderful when life, the world, is just clear like this. Simple. Feeling alive. Savouring. I’m sitting here thinking about what I want, what do I want to do, and sure I want adventures – in my work as much as my holidays – but what I really feel I want is… ‘to love and be loved’. Now here I am sitting on my own, thousands of miles from home, a hundred from anyone I know, and it’s partly the welcome warm heart of Africa, but mainly its Jesus: I’m feeling very loved indeed.
7.11.09: DAY FIFTY SEVEN. 8.50am, deep in the village.
I’m hiding back in my room. There’s only so long you can sit on cushionless wood frames between strangers when you slept 5 hours and nodded another couple wedged between dog collars in the front of a pickup cross country (with 2 more men sharing a sofa on the back!). It was pretty wild when we got here, around midnight. The ‘overnight’ consisted of a wild disco for all the local lads (girls afraid to come out after dark) – interspersed with preaching from every reverend in the district… and me. Oh yes, Ezekiel hadn’t mentioned that one either. It was 12.30. I was dead. But the Spirit led me to a bit of Matthew I was stirred by this morning and the translation gave me time to make it up as I went along. So Jesus carried me through again.
8.11.09: DAY FIFTY EIGHT. 7.55am. Taxi stage, Iganga.
2 days of extremes: fascination and boredom, overwhelming love and loneliness. I felt I was at the end of the world. Looking out into the Milky Way, I felt I could almost step into it. I wasn’t looking up. I was looking forward. The sky wasn’t dark – it was shimmering. Stars beyond stars like distant cities and towns, like a map of the world, like a tent for God. I’ve felt really lonely out here- as a special guest, pawing matoke alone while others watched hungry; hundreds of merrily chatting strangers, none with good enough English to hold a pleasant conversation; scores of children staring everywhere I went; repetitive music and rituals all in a language that I have once on this trip (followed with horror) referred to as ‘mumbo jumbo’.
I suspect last night was the outer limit of my journey from home. 8 weeks - 2/3 of the trip exactly. Pretty neat. The rest is bringing this baby in to land. Then I’ll discover what’s next. Thank you Jesus for never leaving me, for being my real companion so far from home. I came here looking for you and you are faithfully showing me more each day. This morning I feel convicted that I won’t ever know you just through study, but through life.
Tim
I am sat on a chicken. My chicken. Just when I thought they couldn’t be any more good to me, Ezekiel and Florence send me on my way with a cockerel, a loaf of bread, and pay my taxi fare. I don’t understand how people can be so good. Culture doesn’t cover it. I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve it. They live in a concrete shell without power or running water. They just paid out a fortune to put on a massive Introduction for their daughter, with hundreds of guests. And another thing: amid the mayhem that would have certainly given me ulcers, Ezekiel remained cheerful and attentive to every guest. He was concerned with my transport arrangements, comfort and enjoyment… and he barely knows me! I kept treading lightly, not wanting to burden, but he was a picture of affability the whole weekend, even when his wallet disappeared. They even outdid me in expressing gratitude for my visiting them! I was cynical last time about Ezekiel stealing our schedule, but now I think he might have just been looking after us.
Still, I’m glad to be moving on. I got to a point last night, after the groom’s party arrived 4 hours late, trying to help with abrupt young men slamming pavilion poles around me, when I thought, ‘I’ve had as much culture as I can take.’ [I’ve been sat on this taxi for an hour, and we’re literally just pulling away] Yesterday reminds me how proud, judgemental and anti social I am. I once heard the phrase ‘an iceberg with social skills’. Interesting.
I asked a guy how he copes with waiting so long at functions like this. When I got him to stop guessing what I was saying, giving completely random answers, and repeated my question more clearly, he said, ‘We listen to the music. Maybe dance. We enjoy it.’ And a couple of minutes later they did dance. Some of the church choir jumped up and began gyrating to the house music, and a moment later my companion had begged a girl’s headscarf and was whisking hips with the best of them. Fantastic. It happened a couple of times over half an hour, then back to sitting around waiting; no sign that the DJ, vicar, schoolmistress, had it in them. It’s like the openness and sociability you sometimes see on taxis – one minutes there’s mud silence, the next everyone’s in on the joke. A culture waiting to break out. Life in all its richness hidden beneath city clothes. How much of that spirit is waiting in the children and young people I work with, and I haven’t seen it?
6.11.09: DAY FIFTY SIX. 11am, In a taxi.
10 minutes from Iganga now. Need to keep an eye out for the Busoga Uni sign where I’m meeting Ezekiel’s man. This guy I’ve never met and know nothing about. Then I go and preach at the CU, as I discovered last night in another ‘pardon’-filled phonecall. I’ve got my shoe-shoes on, suit out. I’m not ready and able. God help me.
3.25pm, Ezekiel’s veranda.
I guess he did. Encouraged that the students appreciated what I was saying (plenty of nodding and no more than a few walking off!), and that I got the dress code right. I’m loving this experience of being ‘on retreat’. No work pressure, no city craziness – I can hear some children in the distance, but as many birds and insects. Just a few cars. It’s overcast and cool. I’m looking out on countryside…
Now it’s raining. And Ladysmith Black Mambazo are singing in my head; ‘Rain, rain, beautiful rain.’ It’s wonderful when life, the world, is just clear like this. Simple. Feeling alive. Savouring. I’m sitting here thinking about what I want, what do I want to do, and sure I want adventures – in my work as much as my holidays – but what I really feel I want is… ‘to love and be loved’. Now here I am sitting on my own, thousands of miles from home, a hundred from anyone I know, and it’s partly the welcome warm heart of Africa, but mainly its Jesus: I’m feeling very loved indeed.
7.11.09: DAY FIFTY SEVEN. 8.50am, deep in the village.
I’m hiding back in my room. There’s only so long you can sit on cushionless wood frames between strangers when you slept 5 hours and nodded another couple wedged between dog collars in the front of a pickup cross country (with 2 more men sharing a sofa on the back!). It was pretty wild when we got here, around midnight. The ‘overnight’ consisted of a wild disco for all the local lads (girls afraid to come out after dark) – interspersed with preaching from every reverend in the district… and me. Oh yes, Ezekiel hadn’t mentioned that one either. It was 12.30. I was dead. But the Spirit led me to a bit of Matthew I was stirred by this morning and the translation gave me time to make it up as I went along. So Jesus carried me through again.
8.11.09: DAY FIFTY EIGHT. 7.55am. Taxi stage, Iganga.
2 days of extremes: fascination and boredom, overwhelming love and loneliness. I felt I was at the end of the world. Looking out into the Milky Way, I felt I could almost step into it. I wasn’t looking up. I was looking forward. The sky wasn’t dark – it was shimmering. Stars beyond stars like distant cities and towns, like a map of the world, like a tent for God. I’ve felt really lonely out here- as a special guest, pawing matoke alone while others watched hungry; hundreds of merrily chatting strangers, none with good enough English to hold a pleasant conversation; scores of children staring everywhere I went; repetitive music and rituals all in a language that I have once on this trip (followed with horror) referred to as ‘mumbo jumbo’.
I suspect last night was the outer limit of my journey from home. 8 weeks - 2/3 of the trip exactly. Pretty neat. The rest is bringing this baby in to land. Then I’ll discover what’s next. Thank you Jesus for never leaving me, for being my real companion so far from home. I came here looking for you and you are faithfully showing me more each day. This morning I feel convicted that I won’t ever know you just through study, but through life.
Tim
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Days 40-52: Evangelism
30.10.09: DAY FORTY EIGHT
I got really pumped by a Simon Guillebaud talk (know the feeling?) on the 7th and wrote down some life goals & ‘Uganda goals’. Did you know people with written goals achieve 50-100x the success of people who just have goals in their head?! The first two things I wrote:
- Lead several people to Jesus.
- Do evangelism and make friends in Soweto.
They were really things I hadn’t gone anywhere near but would be gutted if I didn’t do. I’d never led anyone to Jesus in my life, and there was a cholera outbreak in the slum at the time. But this week we led 2 guys to Jesus in that bar, and last night I bumped into, and finally agreed to go back home with the painter guy called Sam who started talking to me on the street once and keeps wanting to meet again. Guess what? He lives in Soweto.
Just a single room in the twilight (no power this week) – a bed, two chairs and a packing case desk cover almost the whole floor. It smells of damp. You get to it down an alley then along a run of bricks above a little open sewer. He gets a couple of sodas, lights a candle and we trade life stories. And I didn’t know what I was going to do between drama club and getting lift home. God is good.
22.10.09: DAY FORTY ONE. Meeting Juko.
The guy’s an Emir. That’s no.2 in the local mosque. So he’s interested, but in a difficult position. All 3 of us visited his home (a crumbling room in the back of the Imam’s house, by the railway track out in the swamp) for lunch. I remembered, to visit someone’s home in this culture is how to honour them, rather than invite them to yours. He’s a good guy. We had a good time. Ezekiel shared his story of leaving Islam for Jesus – apparently for the first time ever – and was very impassioned. He shared it in Luganda so that’s all I got. Juko told us how a pastor charged him for his friend to be healed, and the guy is still paralysed 2 years later; how a producer told him ‘born agains are more honourable in business,’ then ripped off his song. I’m so sorry. Thank God we don’t believe in Christians! It does seem Jesus is drawing Juko to himself – he works with Christians, coaches a church football team, his sister’s become one, he’s open & interested and now we bump into him. We left him our numbers and Joel’s Luganda Bible. Pray he reads it and meets Jesus!
29.10.09: DAY FORTY SEVEN
Joel said, ‘that place is no good in the rain.’ But I remembered Hebrews 11.6 ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God’, and thought ‘He would totally love it if we just went out and trusted Him to hold off the rain.’ So we went for it. For much of the next 2 hours it did rain. Unanswered prayer? Nope. Jesus had a much more cunning plan.
Literally the first place we came to, through a couple of houses on the main road, was a bar. Now there are a few differences between bars in Uganda and the UK. Firstly, it consisted of a bench lined thatched hut with half height walls, about 2 metres across. Second, the men sitting round were drinking through long hollow sticks from a few odd pots on the floor containing what looked like Waggamma’s excellent apple & lime juice; only we could smell the alcohol 10 metres away, and when the first guy I spoke to took a draught, blister patches appeared all over his face. Uganda has a drinking problem. The guy told me work is temporary, as and when. Thousands of men sit in bars like that across the country all day, sucking up slime and massive debts.
So along come Joel and I, roll in out of the sporadic rain, a few greetings (we are quite welcome and the atmosphere is jovial throughout); then Joel says, “We’ve come to preach to you about Jesus.” And it’s not ‘clear off’; it’s ‘go on, then’. So I get talking to Tom, trying to find out where he’s at so I know how to help him, even though he’s mainly just like ‘tell me what you want to say.’ Him and the last guy we talked to (not so good english) were both “born Christians”, and really struggled to see ‘being saved’ as anything more than just a stricter religious deal (e.g. ‘no drinking’).
However, word must have spread about out us, because suddenly a couple of young guys, one with a faded hip-hop cap and the other a broken front tooth, tap me on the shoulder. “We want to get saved”, says broken tooth.
2.11.09: DAY FIFTY TWO
Yesterday was another evangelistic adventure. Almost a catalogue of organisational failures and ‘misfortunes’ (we know who didn’t want us going), God still saved 5 people in the hour we actually spent in the postnatal recovery ward at the main Mulago hospital. I got stuck in an interesting but unfruitful conversation with a family of 7th day Adventists – perhaps partly because I was well attracted to the ‘born again’ sister of the patient. I asked to go then, to get back for my rehearsal, but that was the moment it all kicked off.
The room of mothers waiting and hoping for their premature babies wanted prayer. We went and prayed together. We go to leave – the lady by the door asks to get saved. She doesn’t speak English so I get out the way. Joyce wishes aloud we had bibles to give these new believers. I have one – we go straight & give it to a Muslim lady who’s just given her life to Jesus. Get back, a bulging lady wants prayer to deliver. As we pray, I see a lady stop behind us, watching, waiting. One of the others prays with her. In the premature deliveries room, I see Joel kneeling with another lady, holding hands and heads bowed. Sylvia said when they caught us up at the taxi rank, “They just kept asking, ‘can I have a special prayer?’”
I guess God was really at work. The funny thing is, it never feels anything but completely normal when such things happen. I wonder if that’s just my insensitive side, or if there’s also so some truth that such things are normal with Jesus. Certainly it is in the Bible. I don’t think anything magic happens the moment you step on African soil. Maybe we still handicap ourselves by considering healings, miracles, conversions as ‘amazing’ things. Maybe if we just regarded them as normal, but desirable, we’d make space for a lot more.
30.10.09: DAY FORTY EIGHT
On the taxi, in the street, people don’t seem any less ‘secular’ than they do in the UK. They’re equally cynical of the men who stand at the crossroads with a bible and a mini-PA, shouting at the traffic. Which makes me wonder: if I was bold enough to approach people in the UK, and say ‘I’ve come to tell you about Jesus. Who wants to hear?’, would people start coming to me and saying, ‘How can I be saved?’
This week’s just been really positive all round. Something about crossing the halfway stage – suddenly it seems I’ve only a short time left. Suddenly I’m getting up early, I’m writing, I’m battling circumstances to get to rehearsals, I’m on top, I’m here. Suddenly I’m thinking, ‘this is pretty cool’. I hope this is more than a trick of the mind. Father, let it be a change for life!
Do pray for Humphrey & Pious, the two lads from the bar. No response to texting; no sign of them at church Sunday. Hoping they went to Humphrey’s mum’s church. Also for me – keeping positive, ongoing rehearsals, Wednesdays in Soweto, and Saturday morning I’m preaching at a student service in Iganga, all of which I really need Jesus’ help with!
Also, do let me know what you think about all this stuff; especially if you're not a christian! If these emails get a bit exclusive do let me know - I want them to be for everyone.
Love and Shalom, Tim
I got really pumped by a Simon Guillebaud talk (know the feeling?) on the 7th and wrote down some life goals & ‘Uganda goals’. Did you know people with written goals achieve 50-100x the success of people who just have goals in their head?! The first two things I wrote:
- Lead several people to Jesus.
- Do evangelism and make friends in Soweto.
They were really things I hadn’t gone anywhere near but would be gutted if I didn’t do. I’d never led anyone to Jesus in my life, and there was a cholera outbreak in the slum at the time. But this week we led 2 guys to Jesus in that bar, and last night I bumped into, and finally agreed to go back home with the painter guy called Sam who started talking to me on the street once and keeps wanting to meet again. Guess what? He lives in Soweto.
Just a single room in the twilight (no power this week) – a bed, two chairs and a packing case desk cover almost the whole floor. It smells of damp. You get to it down an alley then along a run of bricks above a little open sewer. He gets a couple of sodas, lights a candle and we trade life stories. And I didn’t know what I was going to do between drama club and getting lift home. God is good.
22.10.09: DAY FORTY ONE. Meeting Juko.
The guy’s an Emir. That’s no.2 in the local mosque. So he’s interested, but in a difficult position. All 3 of us visited his home (a crumbling room in the back of the Imam’s house, by the railway track out in the swamp) for lunch. I remembered, to visit someone’s home in this culture is how to honour them, rather than invite them to yours. He’s a good guy. We had a good time. Ezekiel shared his story of leaving Islam for Jesus – apparently for the first time ever – and was very impassioned. He shared it in Luganda so that’s all I got. Juko told us how a pastor charged him for his friend to be healed, and the guy is still paralysed 2 years later; how a producer told him ‘born agains are more honourable in business,’ then ripped off his song. I’m so sorry. Thank God we don’t believe in Christians! It does seem Jesus is drawing Juko to himself – he works with Christians, coaches a church football team, his sister’s become one, he’s open & interested and now we bump into him. We left him our numbers and Joel’s Luganda Bible. Pray he reads it and meets Jesus!
29.10.09: DAY FORTY SEVEN
Joel said, ‘that place is no good in the rain.’ But I remembered Hebrews 11.6 ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God’, and thought ‘He would totally love it if we just went out and trusted Him to hold off the rain.’ So we went for it. For much of the next 2 hours it did rain. Unanswered prayer? Nope. Jesus had a much more cunning plan.
Literally the first place we came to, through a couple of houses on the main road, was a bar. Now there are a few differences between bars in Uganda and the UK. Firstly, it consisted of a bench lined thatched hut with half height walls, about 2 metres across. Second, the men sitting round were drinking through long hollow sticks from a few odd pots on the floor containing what looked like Waggamma’s excellent apple & lime juice; only we could smell the alcohol 10 metres away, and when the first guy I spoke to took a draught, blister patches appeared all over his face. Uganda has a drinking problem. The guy told me work is temporary, as and when. Thousands of men sit in bars like that across the country all day, sucking up slime and massive debts.
So along come Joel and I, roll in out of the sporadic rain, a few greetings (we are quite welcome and the atmosphere is jovial throughout); then Joel says, “We’ve come to preach to you about Jesus.” And it’s not ‘clear off’; it’s ‘go on, then’. So I get talking to Tom, trying to find out where he’s at so I know how to help him, even though he’s mainly just like ‘tell me what you want to say.’ Him and the last guy we talked to (not so good english) were both “born Christians”, and really struggled to see ‘being saved’ as anything more than just a stricter religious deal (e.g. ‘no drinking’).
However, word must have spread about out us, because suddenly a couple of young guys, one with a faded hip-hop cap and the other a broken front tooth, tap me on the shoulder. “We want to get saved”, says broken tooth.
2.11.09: DAY FIFTY TWO
Yesterday was another evangelistic adventure. Almost a catalogue of organisational failures and ‘misfortunes’ (we know who didn’t want us going), God still saved 5 people in the hour we actually spent in the postnatal recovery ward at the main Mulago hospital. I got stuck in an interesting but unfruitful conversation with a family of 7th day Adventists – perhaps partly because I was well attracted to the ‘born again’ sister of the patient. I asked to go then, to get back for my rehearsal, but that was the moment it all kicked off.
The room of mothers waiting and hoping for their premature babies wanted prayer. We went and prayed together. We go to leave – the lady by the door asks to get saved. She doesn’t speak English so I get out the way. Joyce wishes aloud we had bibles to give these new believers. I have one – we go straight & give it to a Muslim lady who’s just given her life to Jesus. Get back, a bulging lady wants prayer to deliver. As we pray, I see a lady stop behind us, watching, waiting. One of the others prays with her. In the premature deliveries room, I see Joel kneeling with another lady, holding hands and heads bowed. Sylvia said when they caught us up at the taxi rank, “They just kept asking, ‘can I have a special prayer?’”
I guess God was really at work. The funny thing is, it never feels anything but completely normal when such things happen. I wonder if that’s just my insensitive side, or if there’s also so some truth that such things are normal with Jesus. Certainly it is in the Bible. I don’t think anything magic happens the moment you step on African soil. Maybe we still handicap ourselves by considering healings, miracles, conversions as ‘amazing’ things. Maybe if we just regarded them as normal, but desirable, we’d make space for a lot more.
30.10.09: DAY FORTY EIGHT
On the taxi, in the street, people don’t seem any less ‘secular’ than they do in the UK. They’re equally cynical of the men who stand at the crossroads with a bible and a mini-PA, shouting at the traffic. Which makes me wonder: if I was bold enough to approach people in the UK, and say ‘I’ve come to tell you about Jesus. Who wants to hear?’, would people start coming to me and saying, ‘How can I be saved?’
This week’s just been really positive all round. Something about crossing the halfway stage – suddenly it seems I’ve only a short time left. Suddenly I’m getting up early, I’m writing, I’m battling circumstances to get to rehearsals, I’m on top, I’m here. Suddenly I’m thinking, ‘this is pretty cool’. I hope this is more than a trick of the mind. Father, let it be a change for life!
Do pray for Humphrey & Pious, the two lads from the bar. No response to texting; no sign of them at church Sunday. Hoping they went to Humphrey’s mum’s church. Also for me – keeping positive, ongoing rehearsals, Wednesdays in Soweto, and Saturday morning I’m preaching at a student service in Iganga, all of which I really need Jesus’ help with!
Also, do let me know what you think about all this stuff; especially if you're not a christian! If these emails get a bit exclusive do let me know - I want them to be for everyone.
Love and Shalom, Tim
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