MISSION: Uganda

Hello, all! The Bassett’s returned from furlough last Wednesday. They are busily getting their affairs in order (cleaning and stocking a house unused for 9 months takes a bit of time). They went out on Sunday with us to the camp, and everyone was very excited to see them. Now that they have returned, it will effectively double the man hours of work that can be done out there, so we will be able to accomplish much more.

It was so nice to be able to teach Children’s Sunday School again. I had suspended it during their absence due to having to preach at all three points. We are preparing for VBS the second week of February. We are going to commence regular services at the youngest point, Kabazano. We are taking steps to organize the other two, Ngarama and Juru. Then there’s the possibility of new church plants. I look forward to being able to continue the English classes again also.

Pray for the work. Pray for the roads. The road building to the camp was delayed due to heavy rains this season, but now that we are in the dry season, I am praying that the work will continue. It would be nice to be able to get out there quicker and without beating our vehicle and our bodies to pieces. Pray for the teaching. We need to conclude the teaching of Genesis, and there are many more things besides that need to be taught. The day will come when a Bible College will be needed. Pray this can come to pass, and the resources and manpower will become available. Pray for this coming year. There is much to do, and I can feel my time here this term running out.

March 2013 will be here before you know it, so if any of you would like a visit from us during our impending furlough, please let me know.

God bless you!

Happy New Year! Everything went well out at Nakivale for the Christmas service and Children’s Christmas parties. We handed out the toy cars to the boys (huge excitement) and the stuffed bears to the girls and the infants (also huge excitement). Anna taught a Bible lesson, and we had KoolAid and cookies. It was tremendous fun. Then on Sunday, we had our Christmas service, on Christmas this year. I preached a Christmas message to the three churches. I rented a lorry to help get people from the other point to Sangano (transportation is an issue). With my family size, I just don’t have room for passengers, especially when hauling items out to Sangano for a meal. Then, we ate a meal together. Beans, matoke, roasted beef, and mandazi (fried round cakes – tasty). Mmmmmmm. There was enough for all and then some. No one left hungry, which was the goal. It was a great day for everyone.

In the New Year, I am working on trying to get the Juru building finished. They are nearly up to the eaves now. Construction was badly slowed by the heavy rains this season brought out there. The adobe bricks they make are dependent on sunshine and reasonably dry conditions, and we have been getting neither for several months. Once they, finally, get that done, and a latrine constructed, I will buy the sand needed, and start carrying bags of cement out there. Djuna is looking into getting a carpenter for the doors and windows. Meanwhile, I am trying to encourage them to finish the latrine at Ngarama. They had the same problem out there with the bricks, but now that we are entering the dry season at last, i expect they will progress more rapidly. Pray they make good progress.

Near the end of the month, possibly the first of February depending on when the Bassett’s come back from furlough, we will be doing another VBS. This time I want to include Kabazano (the fourth and youngest preaching point). This will take our marathon VBS up a notch. We will shorten our stay at the other three by 30 minutes, which will give us enough time to go the fourth point, and still be able to get back to Mbarara before dark. Pray for us. It’s a lot of work, and requires a lot of planning and preparation.

Pray for us as we seek to organize Juru and Ngarama this year, and possibly commence some new preaching points. Pray for souls to be saved and for growth. Pray for truth to be known, and the voice of the cults to be diminished.

God bless you!

Merry Almost Christmas! We are busily preparing for the Christmas parties out at the refugee camp tomorrow. We are having a short party at each of the three places for the church kids, and then giving out presents. The cars we've received are ready. The little stuffed bears for the girls are ready. It's going to be awesome! On Sunday, we will be sharing a meal together and having a joint service of the three churches, and giving gifts to the adults, including a bunch of purses Anna made for the ladies. It's going to be a great time. Being in the ministry means giving Christ's love to others, and Christmas is the supreme example of this. We love it.

Last week, Anna went with me to the class at Sangano. She's been teaching on the Women of Genesis, and doing a great job (I do my best to teach both the men and the women, but they really like having a lady to teach them). There was a fairly boisterous storm while there, and this was the result:

I hopped out of the car and reacted like you would expect an American male to react, "C'mon guys! There's 20 of us! We can move this thing!" I mean seriously, how often do you get the chance to pick up a tree? My fellow travelers, also stuck like us, were less than enthusiastic. Here's where culture intrudes on progress. I, being the American, immediately view the obstacle as a challenge to be overcome. The Ugandans view it as a job to be done for which they are not likely to be paid, so none of them wanted to get involved. Also, the tree was bleeding this nasty sticky white sap that they didn't want to get on their Sunday clothes (Ugandans are very keen on keeping their nice clothes looking 'smart'). They finally fetched a guy with an axe to chop off some of the canopy so a car could get through. I'm thinking about carrying a shovel and an axe with me when I go out there, for situations like this.

Busy weekend ahead!

God Bless You!

Hello, from the rain forest! While many of you are dealing with winter weather, the rainy season is in full swing here in Uganda. It rains, hard, nearly every day. Our yard is a swamp. Thankfully, we have some good grass on most of the yard, but it still makes it rather messy. I'm saving money to pave the muddy bits that remain, so we don't have to slog through the mess all the time. I bought a swing set for the kids for Christmas, and it promptly sank into the saturated soil (never fear, I'm getting some concrete pads made to prevent this, but it, as always, takes time).

I failed to get out to Nakivale on Wednesday because the seasonal runoff from the mountain had washed out the road. I parked the car in line with all the others, and hiked down the road to survey the damage. It was pretty bad. The Chinese road crew that's working on paving this road was on hand with a bulldozer, and dumped a bucket load in the breach. This worked briefly, but since it was only soil and not marm, it quickly turned to mud. They had extricated the two trucks blocking the road, and then another banana truck got stuck again. I'd been sitting there for two hours when this happened. It became readily apparent we weren't getting through that day, so I had to make my way back to Mbarara.

A couple weeks ago, we were driving out there on a Sunday and got stuck behind a UN truck hauling grain or other food items out to the camp. The road crew had been spreading lime on the road (binds with the soil, makes it harder, more resistant to rain). This creates dense clouds of white dust. It's sort of like driving in snow with whiteout conditions (you guys from Alaska know what I mean). I was blind, and kamikaze pedestrians kept materializing out of the cloud. So, I decided to pass the guy before somebody got killed. Well, there was a nice rock that the bulldozers had been good enough to excavate and leave directly in my path. It was too late to stop, so I ran over it. This dented our muffler and, as we found out later after we limped back to Mbarara, the brake line was cut. I had nearly made it home when the brake went to the floor. Not cool. I'm very glad I didn't try to forge ahead anyway.

Stuff like that has been happening a lot lately. Pray for the state of our vehicle. It's a good car, but the road conditions are very hard on it. The maintenance on it has been quite expensive of late, and is putting a lot of pressure on the finances. We need the car to do this ministry, so I have to keep pouring money into it to keep it in good repair.

Thanksgiving went very well. We had all the other missionaries over to our house again. As has become the tradition, we buy two live turkeys, and slaughter and prep them both (I paid a guy to do it. I'm by no means squeamish, but they are much more skilled and do a vastly better job.). One gets cooked and served for Thanksgiving, the other goes in the freezer for our private consumption later. Even on the other side of the world, we still have a great Thanksgiving (it helps to have so many good cooks around).

The construction on the church building at Juru continues. The walls have been raised nearly to the roof. It's looking really good. I expect within the month we'll need to start looking at buying cement to do the floor and the walls. Pray we'll have the money we need for this. I like to have churches give to these projects, because then I can truly say to the people there, "God provided the money to do this work. I did not do it." I'm trying to teach them to depend on God, not look to foreign interests to provide all their needs (this is the African way, after all). Once the building is done, and they have been organized under a constitution, there will be no further assistance. They are going to have to grow up, and take care of their own needs. It's a process though. Culture is very hard to overcome, because it takes a lifetime to develop.

I will be going through the church constitutions soon. This mostly involves discussing the rationale and Biblical basis for the policies contained therein, and giving detailed teaching on the doctrine to which we rightly adhere as Baptists. I have been spending a lot of preaching on dealing with false doctrine lately, so this will make for good followup.

We are already making plans for the Children's Christmas parties we are going to do out at the three churches on Christmas Eve Day, and the VBS we will be conducting in January. Thank you all so much for the toy cars you sent! There are going to be an awful lot of ecstatic little boys because of your loving generosity. We have enough to be able to give them all two cars each, and have plenty left over to give as prizes for VBS. It's always such a joy to be able to minister to children. Children tend to get treated as an afterthought around here, so we feel a particular burden to see they are cared for.

On Christmas Day, we'll be having church, and giving gifts to the adults. We are busily assembling the gifts, and I am looking forward to having services on Christmas Day. Then on Monday, we will celebrate Christmas at home as a family. That's the cool thing about living here. Christmas lasts way longer than just one day.

God bless you!

Greetings and salutations! Work is progressing very well on the church building at Juru. Every time we go out there, I find that the wall is higher. This week, you could see the windows. Another three feet or so and they will have reached the roof. Meanwhile, they are constructing latrines at the other places. I remind them often that this time it needs to have a door and roof tall enough that 6'6" missionaries don't have to urinate stooped over.

The Genesis class I'm teaching is doing well. Last week, we studied Genesis 10, The Table of Nations. Even though much of our knowledge about the distant past is sketchy (we lost a LOT of ancient knowledge during the Dark Ages), the Bible provides unparalleled insight into how the nations formed and dispersed following the Flood. It was fascinating to them. It also provided a valuable opportunity to dispel a racist myth that has been viciously imposed upon African nations by their unwanted European colonizers – the curse of Ham. These people actually feel that their bloodline is cursed because of the curse directed at the Canaanites by Noah. The Europeans have used this to justify their wicked exploitation of the African continent. It's all a lot of white supremacist, racist garbage of course, but it is a very persistent belief.

I taught them the truth – the descendants of Ham are inferior to no one. Some of their tribes may have been enslaved by Shemites and Japhethites, and they were, but Noah was only prophesying what would happen, not declaring what should happen. In truth, the Bible only said that Ham's children would serve their cousins, and they would all serve each other, and this is certainly so. We know that the earliest exploration of the world was done by Hamites. Everywhere the Europeans went, much later, they found the children of Ham had arrived first. The earliest and some of the greatest civilizations were created by Hamites (Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, the Hittites, and possibly the Mongols, Chinese, and Amerindians). They developed the earliest forms of agriculture, masonry, and metallurgy, and taught that knowledge to all the others. The modern world would have never existed in its current form without the foundation laid by the children of Ham. Even now, for all their difficulties, they have such potential. What difficulties they do have are the product of sin, common to all of Noah's children, and not due to any mythical curse. Once their hearts belong to God, and the evils that human nature produces have been overcome, they can accomplish nearly anything. They don't have to feel inferior to white, Western cultures.

We preach. We teach. We admonish. We plant churches and train leaders, and through this, we can change the world. That' s what we're up to here in Uganda, and what missionaries are attempting to accomplish all over Africa, and around the world.

God bless you!

Greetings! I thought I'd send a brief letter and let you see the latest construction out at the Juru church. They have put the roof on the pole building, and we had our first service at the new location yesterday. Thank you to the church that sent us money for the construction. This is what your money built:

We had a great service. The morale of the church is greatly improved. I know it wasn't terribly comfortable meeting in the old place, which had mud walls and a tarp roof ('til some lowlife stole it). It was wet in there when it rained, and hot in the sun. This new building is dry and cool. There's always a nice breeze.

As you can see, they are constructing the walls now. Once they are complete, they pour the floor and plaster the walls. Final phase, we get some windows made and some doors and attach them, then paint. It will make it much easier to teach and preach, and give the children a good place to meet for VBS. It's a great blessing.

God bless and keep you

Baptism. It's how we Baptists got our name. I conducted my first Baptismal service out at Nakivale refugee camp a few weeks back. It went great. I must say, I was a tad nervous, but I am happy to report nobody drowned. One of the advantages of my height is that I have the leverage to baptize nearly anybody. I baptized 5 brothers and sisters in Christ, and then we had a wonderful meal with the 3 churches represented. The church building at Sangano is fully repaired now. They are working on some cosmetic things (painting, cement repair, extending the front with an awning using the old roof pieces). Meanwhile, the church building at Juru has commenced construction. We received a gift from a church in Arkansas which covered the costs of the poles and iron sheets they are using to get started. Thank you! Later, they'll build the walls and floor, which will require lots of cement. Pray the money becomes available to continue the construction. In the meantime, we can meet there and be out of the rain and the sun. It's also much closer to the town center, which is a help to everyone.

We took a vacation last month, our first since coming to the field. Since we are only an hour or so away from Queen Elizabeth National Park, we decided to stay there for a few days and go see the many kinds of wildlife Africa has in abundance. We saw lots of elephants, gazelles, hippos, warthogs, baboons, Cape buffalo, and game wardens in their natural habitats. The kids got to swim lots, we spent time relaxing and playing games, and we took an hour-and-a-half hike down the mountain behind the lodge. It was great fun. Because we live so close, we can take these little vacations more often during the year, or just drive up there early, see the animals, have lunch, and then drive back to town. It's one of the many perks of living here.

In other news, the rains are coming well and with regularity. Our garden is growing, so we will have tomatoes, zucchini, squash, corn, peas, broccoli, and very soon STRAWBERRIES! Plus, our banana trees have begun producing, so we are getting bananas from the trees we planted a year ago. As always, our two avocado trees are producing bushels of avocados, so it's a good thing we like guacamole. Our young mango tree is finally maturing, which is awesome because I love mangoes.

I finally got the last of the money paid for the car, and I think I have located and fixed nearly everything that needed repair. It is a great blessing to have a reliable vehicle. I am getting a more powerful inverter constructed. Turns out you can get inverters built locally, much cheaper than the cost of a manufactured one. This is great because Umeme (world's most hated utility) has gone to 12-hour every other day power outages (load shedding), and occasionally 24-hour whenever it suits them. I have finally got us upgraded to six 200Ah batteries, which gives us approximately 24 hours of stored power. The world economic crisis is hitting Uganda pretty hard. In addition to the high cost of fuel, which translates into higher costs for virtually anything manufactured or imported, we are seeing much higher costs for food due to the high inflation Uganda is experiencing right now. Some sugar plants have curtailed production, which has caused the cost of sugar to skyrocket. All these things, in concert with the high cost of energy, are really putting the pinch on everybody, but especially the average Ugandan citizen, who didn't have a lot of economic advantages to begin with. Please pray for better government here. Uganda can no longer afford the levels of corruption and graft to which their government has become accustomed. Pray the economy will recover soon.

Pray about our house situation. Like tens of thousands of other Americans, we are upside down on our mortgage. We are looking into either doing a short sale, or trying to get another renter if that doesn't pan out (the last tenant stopped paying the bills, and trashed the place before she skipped town). God has provided thus far, but if we could eliminate our house and it's mortgage, it would be that much more funds available every month for the ministry.

God bless you all!

Greetings! Our first Lord's Supper at Sangano went very well. I had preached on this and taught on this, so when the day came, it was all done decently and in order. Everyone well understood the serious nature of the memorial service, and we moved through it at a good pace with time for instruction along the way. We got a good rain storm right before, naturally, so after waiting about 20 minutes for it to die down, we were able to get to it and actually hear ourselves (downpour on a tin roof is deafening). We had 20 members of 24 present, but LORD willing, this first beginning will grow to many more. Pray this motivates those who are still riding the fence on church membership to join the church here.

Construction is beginning on a more permanent building for the church at Juru to replace the temporary structure we were in. Pray for this process, that it will proceed well with minimal expense. Pray for safety for the workers, and protection from theft (construction materials are at a premium in the camp).

Also pray for the baptismal service at Sangano approaching in a few weeks. I've been involved in these before, but this time Anna and I are running the show, so pray everything proceeds smoothly. Our tenure at Nakivale is making tangible progress, and we look to the future to all that remains to accomplish here as God advances his work in the refugee camp.

276 children. 3 days, 2 hours each place, 3 preaching points, 3 complete VBS' a day: Marathon VBS at Nakivale! So, we had our very first VBS out at the refugee camp. It was quite the learning experience. I had for months been considering doing something like this. There are children everywhere at the camps, and little or nothing seems to be done for them from a ministry standpoint. Overall, it went very well. The kids were super excited, and even though Anna taught the lesson through an interpreter, they listened intently. The Betty Lukins stuff we were sent was great for this. I had put the word out about needing toy cars and other prizes, and my father's church, FBC of Bellfower sent a box full of these, which arrived three days before the VBS. Excellent timing! The cars, bracelets, and necklaces were a tremendous hit, as well as about 30 wooden crosses, which we used for memory verse prizes (these nearly sparked a riot when we tried to hand these out to the winners – this was another one of those learning experiences I mentioned). Tom and Cheryl Tracht, some of our fellow missionaries here in Mbarara, came with us and their kids, and were a HUGE help to us. We had songs (in Swahili), a memory verse for the week (also in Swahili), the Bible lesson each day, and a craft (they loved this). At Ngarama, even some of the adults colored pages (I don't think they had ever colored before) on the last day. Our adult workers at each of the places were extremely helpful. We couldn't have done this without their aid controlling the children and relaying instructions. The whole experience, albeit physically exhausting, was very positive, and I look forward to the next one we do, probably near the end of January.

On Sunday, I'll be conducting their first Lord's Supper at Sangano. The church just organized under a Constitution not long ago, so this is an important step. Pray for me that this will go smoothly. I am acutely aware of how this will likely set precedent, so I want to make sure it goes well. Continue to pray for the churches at Nakivale Refugee Camp in Uganda.

Hello again! Good news! God has provided the car we needed to get out to Nakivale. Our friend Ssuemko hunted high and low, and finally located a newish Toyota Land Cruiser with low miles, good engine, good shocks, good transmission, working A/C, and a body shop that could put the bull bars and roof rack on for us, and this is the result:

I went out on Friday to get it from the capitol. The man who purchased it took our old car in trade-in at the price we were asking, so we were able to reduce the cost of this car by that much money. We drove out to Nakivale as a family yesterday, and it performed very well. It has excellent pickup, loads of power, and handles the rough roads effortlessly. It's exactly the sort of "bushmobile" we need for the work God has called us to do. Praise the LORD for His gracious provision!

I preached at Ngarama and Sangano yesterday. The service went well, with one responding to the invitation for salvation. Remember how the roof was ripped off a few weeks back? It is repaired now. They are making bricks to fill in the gaps near the roof that were made when the roof came off, and then a few bags of cement should be sufficient for the plastering. Once that's done, a few coats of paint will be adequate to make the place look as good as new. Juna told me the Pentecostals and Church of Uganda guys were standing around mocking because of the disaster, because obviously "God is against you." Now they are marveling it was repaired so quickly and are saying "Only God could have done this."

Now that we can go to Nakivale again, I'm going to get back at the English classes, and expand them to include Juru and Sangano also. I will be teaching through Genesis with the men and women's classes at Sangano on Wednesdays. Pray for wisdom. Also pray for God's provision. Our money is extremely short this month on account of needing to replace a church roof and buy a car. We will need money for fuel and a few other essentials. Also, I am going to need to begin work on a building for the Juru church soon. We don't just swoop in and do everything, but we do assist with some things, like iron sheets, and transport for sand and other bulk construction materials. I will need funds for this as well. It's a pleasure, helping get these infant churches going, and then husbanding them and watching them grow. Pray for the Sangano Baptist Church as it takes it's first steps as an independent, organized church.

Pray for the ministry here. Pray for Uganda's economy, which is struggling against the dollar at the moment. This is driving up the costs of fuel and food, among other things. There have been multiple strikes, first shopkeepers, and then the boda drivers in Kampala in response to this. We are also having a sort of energy crisis right now. Mismanagement and corruption (BAU for many agencies here I'm afraid) has caused the electrical grid to come up short on power for Uganda's energy needs, since two of the largest independent energy plants (one hydro, one geothermal) have not been paid by the government for energy purchased to the tune of nearly 300 billion shillings (114 million USD). So, they have simply stopped generating power until they get paid. Consequently, we are on 12-hour load shedding every other day for the foreseeable future. This means I will have to run the generator more than normal, which increases our fuel costs for the month. Pray for Uganda, that good changes will come.

God bless you!