Mark 9:50.......Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

 

Our "new" Village

We arrived here in Kampala 4 December after a two week stay in Florida to gather a few things for our transition to Uganda. Even though we expected to finish our retirement service in Tanzania, at the close of the sixth year back in Africa, we were requested to take up needed service in Uganda where only one person would soon remain to manage a village as large as ours in Tanzania. The Uganda Village has nearly 84 children and more than 50 supporting personnel. Nearly all the children are teenagers or older. We left behind in Tanzania a young discipleship network managed by four people who we had five years to train, a group of well-trained schoolteachers, our house with nearly everything in it and many dear friends as well as the staff and children we had grown to know and love. It was difficult to leave realizing we would probably never return with the exception of a few weeks visit; however, we knew that God was asking us to take on another challenge.

Traffic and smog

Our porch "oasis"

Uganda is much smaller than Tanzania with a population of about 46 million. The capital is Kampala which is a sprawling city of at least 3 million on the shores of Lake Victoria (about 140 miles across and bisected by the equator). There are many suburbs, mostly reached by dirt roads many of which are eroded and filled with potholes. Our nearby town is Wakiso situated about nine miles northwest of the downtown area. Going into the city requires 90 minutes on a good traffic day but most of the time 2-3 hours with occasional grid lock traffic. It is so dangerous even our experienced personnel in the village often hire a driver. Our last trip into town a motorcycle with a passenger crashed into the side of our vehicle-thankfully no one was hurt. I was also thankful that we had a driver doing the driving! Not only is it necessary to watch out for careless drivers with skid marks on the sides of their vehicles; but an endless swarm of motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic, and people darting across main roads. Our trips into Kampala are for necessity only.

We were given a spacious house which was furnished, on our Village’s 50-acre property.  Peggy has added things to give the effect of comfortable living. We rarely have any break-ins with the perimeter patrolled on a regular basis by four night guards. The guards have a ferocious Germany shepherd, Stella, who we keep in a kennel during the day. She loves to patrol with the guards but is on a leash to prevent chasing birds and animals into the darkness of the night. The village is very beautiful with large spaces of lawn with generous and beautiful trees; and everything is green due to rains from the lake. There is a teacher’s training program here, but it is on hold due to the COVID problem. We were blessed to travel for 3 days to Murchison Falls over the New Years weekend and got to see a bit of the country. We took a boat cruise to see the Falls then another boat cruise to discover many new beautiful birds. 

Peggy started immediately on financial duties, much more extensive than in Moshi. She is also doing child care which involves overseeing students at University and trade schools as well as nearly 80 teenagers. My additional duties are in preventative maintenance and repair. On assuming these responsibilities, we met some very pressing problems. Our water supply had a muddy tinge to it and tasted bad. When I crawled into the 15,000-gallon tank on a tower there was about an inch of mud in the base with scattered embedded debris on the bottom-it was more than 10 gallons of corrosion which had scaled off the interior of the tank. After cleaning we discovered a hole under some of the adherent debris which we sealed with epoxy and silicone. For now, the issue is solved and we have a good water filter left by former missionaries to filter our drinking water. 

The power line to our main water pump was shorted out so we had to dig up the 400 meter line and replace it; but in the process two of the diggers chopped holes in a main water line. This was solved after some patches were made.

When we arrived, our voltage from the power grid was running at 260 volts (normally max at 220) preventing use of many pieces of important equipment-it was a transformer problem which the power company was able to solve  after some days. 

Murchison Falls

We needed a more secure cabinet to store our computers for student use in the RICE program, so we bought a wooden one in the city, but it needed extensive alteration to support the stacked heavy computer load. When I started alterations, the motor was burned out on our table saw. After having the motor in the saw rewound, it is in functional order now.  This is just a snapshot of everyday problems in running the village. Our maintenance man is willing and ready to learn new skills as I am able to train him in many maintenance issues. God continues to use us in creative ways to help in the work here. We continue to marvel at how every skill we have ever learned has been used in our work here in Africa.

On the spiritual side we our looking for a church to attend and there are many here in the city, but the quality is limited and so far the good ones are at considerable distance; which even on Sunday exposes a driver to the horrors of navigating the traffic. Both of us are wrestling more than usual with discouragement but to keep my perspective I am reviewing the life of Hudson Taylor (maybe for the fourth time) who started China Inland Mission which at its maximum had 1200 missionaries before the Boxer rebellion and the coming of the communist revolution. I left my study Bile in the States mainly due to official airline misinformation about carryon regulations. But I’ve started using the Crossway ESV study Bible which we have here in the village. It has been so helpful with a plethora of study notes which are very fine. This morning I was reviewing Mark 9 and the statement of Jesus in verse 50, “Have salt in yourselves”. The notes point out Lev 2:13 which says, “with all your offerings you shall offer salt”. Salt represents purification by the fire of suffering and hardship. As we offer daily our bodies as living and holy sacrifices, is it with salt, that is, the willing acceptance of suffering and hardship in the service of Christ? Our sufferings are so small compared to those who have gone before us and done great things for God.

But the two of us do need prayer to navigate what is laid out before us. We both want to finish well and the final sprint must be getting much closer.

Your bondservant in Christ, Kent and Peggy