Each Wednesday evening, we gather with the church folks in our immediate locale for a closer look at the sermon’s application to our lives here in this part of Kampala, Uganda!  Last week our cell group shared testimonies of God at work this past year, and dreams and prayers for the future!  We also celebrated JESUS’ birthday with a cake–His incarnation for us to be privileged to come into this marvelous family of God!  Ugandans, Congolese, Kenyan, South African, Malawian, Canadian, and us!

Yes, instead of working from the Central Region office near Kampala, Uganda, we have taken our computers with us to the banks of the Nile near Jinga!  In this gorgeous compound, we have a banda with our own personal veranda, from which we can work and relax!  Should be a marvelous week between the Christmas celebration and the New Years weekend!

Look closely at the objects in these photos. What do you see? These were both taken in the same big old workshop built some decades ago by the previous generation of missionaries in Obo, Central Africa Republic (CAR) where I visited for eight days this Dec 2011. I was gripped by this view. The old tractor and that biggest-band-saw-I’ve-ever-seen-in-my-life could perhaps be refurbished to function once again with skilful hands. Meanwhile without the presence of a missionary community to supply the spare parts and the power sources to keep em running, they have both sat idle, collecting dust and rust for decades. They are worthless.

Do you see the three stone fire pits? This cooking method is as old as mankind. These fires are where the UPDF (Uganda armed forces) are cooking their meals as they use the former AIM mission compound as their headquarters. The UPDF are in CAR to fight the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), a brutal force of bandits from Uganda who have moved to Congo and CAR for the past 3-4 years.

Modern day objects of technology expensive but worthless side by side with age old, low tech, low budget objects of great value. What can I as new mission leader learn from these objects as I grapple with the way forward for our current missionary generation? Transformational Development, Sustainable Development, Appropriate Technology, are some buzz words we are using. The tractor and band saw are not sustainable in Obo. The three stone fires are sustainable but hardly represent development.

At another center in CAR, the Church Christian Education Department pointed to the broken photocopiers, and broken mimeograph machines as “of course” evidence for their lack of progress in Christian Education. What kind of development does that represent?

Somewhere down there is a marker for the true center of Africa. They say we flew over it these days as we traveled from Zemio to Rafai, Central Africa Republic. It is the geographic center of both North/South and East/West of this vast continent. Somehow that fact nudged upward my sense of geographic significance a bit… sort of felt like crossing the equator for the first time.

We soared for eight days above the beautiful Congo forests, grasslands, mountains and towns. We received celebrity welcomes at the six medical centers we visited. We slept in the homes of the previous generation of missionaries. We were amazed at the thriving hospitals almost twenty years after the missionaries had fled the war zone. We were blessed by the commitment of the young Congolese doctors to minister spiritually as well as physically to the patients. Everywhere, the top of the request list was for a specialist to come and upgrade the generalist medical skills. We came away with the redefined strategy to send medical specialists to “Equip, Empower, and Encourage” the young medical staff. Meanwhile Dr. Phil was able to encourage them to look to the Greatest Specialist Physician for their personal wisdom and empowerment to become better physicians. Phil returned home from these eight days with a much clearer vision and enthusiasm for our mission partnership in Congo.

Does this look like Pennsylvania farmland? It very well could be but it is southern Brazil, as beautiful and well developed as much of the United States. And the Brazilian people were as lovely as the countryside.

Phil’s visit to Brazil for eight days was to participate in the AIM International Council meetings. Among other things we interviewed a visitor, the one gesturing in the board room photo. Allan Matamoros is Executive Officer of PMI, a 100% Latin American mission sending agency. Yes, the countries to whom we used to send missionaries from the U.S. are now sending their own missionaries around the world. In fact, AIM has a sending office in Brazil who were our most gracious hosts for these meetings.

The Church of Jesus Christ is on the move around the world!

AIM’s Chad Unit members are involved with translation work, nursery school, English teaching, literacy, vulnerable women’s care, church planting, and missionary kids’ schooling for the larger mission community in Chad!

We, Linda and Phil, joined them for their annual conference and listened to the recorded Bible teacher on Abraham’s faith journey and discussing how we are like him in our “scheming” to accomplish the promises God has given and seeking security in sources than our God!  We shared and prayed for one another’s lives and ministries, laughter and tears were abundant!  Phil led an interactive session with the members on Vision Enhancement… Impassioned, Empowered, Fruitful. We celebrated special mealtimes with pepperoni pizza one day and Canadian Thanksgiving complete with expensive chicken and homemade pumpkin pie another day.  We return to Uganda with delightful memories, compassionate care for these courageous missionaries and their ministries, sweaty clothes (lack of diesel for the generator meant hand fanning instead of AC) and love for these radiant beams of Sonshine spreading over this land!

Our travel from Uganda to Chad through Addis Ababa Airport on Ethiopian Air brought back keen memories of our first Africa missions experience in 1974/5.

“God is the best farmer,” was the opening challenge. Let’s learn from HIM. Off to the forest we followed, where we saw untilled soil covered with “God’s blanket” soft, rich with nutrients and teeming with life. Turn it upside down with a hoe or plow and the oxygen loving bacteria (aerobic) die in the oxygen deprived depths and the anaerobic bacteria come to the surface where they die also. Leave the uncovered soil exposed to the sun and it loses moisture, forms a hard crust, is vulnerable to erosion and gradually loses its ability to produce food. Do it God’s way and the soil becomes better year after year.
These hard working Sudanese farmers didn’t buy it readily. They even cited Genesis 3 as proof that God wants us to sweat to earn our bread. They equated sweating with digging (ploughing with heavy hoe). By day three most were convinced enough to pledge a try for this method and see if it will increase yields by up to 500% as our facilitator declared.

We also built a mulch pile to make compost and planted a demonstration plot. Most importantly we learned that God’s method provides what we need to relieve hunger and poverty if we cooperate with Him, even without tractors.

This three day Farming God’s Way (also called Conservation Agriculture) workshop is a highlight of my Sudan experiences. Thanks, August Basson.

Thanks be to God for this Farming…God’s Way seminar, and the prayer time of dedication of the soil of Southern Sudan, stained with blood and filled with curses, to the Creator and Ultimate Farmer!

The historic first cross-cultural mission-sending for Africa Inland Church Sudan took place at the Kor Abiot campus just south of Torit in the Imatong Mountains.  The efforts were spearheaded by Sudanese pastor/missionary James Nyika, who is working amongst the Toposa and Ik. Do remember in prayer these dedicated individuals who are involved, or considering involvement, sharing the good news cross-culturally with Sudanese people groups who have not yet heard!

Emerging leadership skills were enhanced in our three days of intensive empowering in Torit, South Sudan!

These recently appointed team leaders from South Sudan, Rwanda, and Uganda are enabling Phil to fulfil the leadership and member care needs of Central Region AIM.  Phil again cast the vision for aiming for the bulls eye of the target—-the centrality of our intimate relationship with JESUS! Rod from the International Office and Brian from the Regional Office facilitated the training time.