Things I love about Jinja

Today was a pretty good day, but over all the last month or so has been pretty H.A.R.D.. When that happens it gets easy to only see the negative and hate everything about Uganda. So today I am going to list the thing I LOVE about Uganda.

1. I love that I can go the Market and shop for a crazy variety of stuff. It is kinda like one big flea market but sometimes you can find some great treasures, even if you have to hunt. Today I found a swim suit that is my size. My old one is totally worn out, I had my friend bring me a new one a couple months ago but it was too big. So this is a blessing

2. I love that I can take Mary with me to the market and she can argue prices for me in local language and get things for 1/4 of the price I would have paid on my own. Friends are a blessing from God.

3. I will even appreciate the man that said I had a good appetite and that it makes me beautiful.

4. I love stress free Christmas shopping, low key and nice.

5. I love that the boda boda drivers (see my pic, they drive people around on a scooter like it and make a living) in a certain area all have a nickname for me that is NOT muzungu (a semi racial term for white/rich person) they call me "senior driver", which means I am a good driver.....they started this over a year ago and now it's my name.

6. I love that I can walk through town and have a lot of shop owners know who I am, and not think I am a tourist.

7. I love my Monday night dinner with "my girls" where they stuff themselves silly and then stretch and dance "to make more room for the food"

8. I love that they have opened up to me and tell me about their thoughts and lives

9. I love that we eat with our fingers and it is OK

10. I love that can meet random people on the street and have a conversation that helps to uplift your soul and is focused on God.

11. I love that I ran into 15 people I know on the street today, and that culturally we must stop and greet each other and ask about everything in thiner lives, just to be polite.

12. I love that tomorrow morning is my last morning of Ministry school, for 2 weeks and I get to go on a small holiday and catch up on rest, and just spend time with my Maker and His creation.

13. I love that God has called me, even on the days I don't love Uganda

Some Kinda life

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Today started out with a mental insane man (literally) walking into my house and demanding his check....oh which I have no idea what he was talking about. Me yelling to one of our staff members to go and get JB (another staff member) to come and protect me, and JB not showing up, me finally getting the crazy man out of my house. Only to see him walk up into my boss' house. He then came out of by boss' house and decided to sit on my porch until I finally convinced him to leave the compound and locked the gate after him.

Then headed to class where a class room full of Ugandan men decided to tease me about how short I am, as I tried to turn on an overhead fan....and all of them offering to pick me up so I can reach.

One o'clock found me at lunch with 2 Americans, an Australian and 2 Indian men. I love how culturally diverse my life can be.

And the night ended on a high note with finding out there is another Ugandan baby Megan, She is a twin to Jb, and they were born on a couple days ago. After that a Ugandan guy I have never seen before told me he loved me.

All an all a pretty typical crazy Ugandan day...I love my life.

Hello Everyone,

Last weekend was our “Spark up the Flame-rediscovering your first love.” youth conference. It went really well. We had almost 100 kids, which is the goal Ryan and I were shooting for. It was a time for the youth to learn about falling in love with Jesus on their own accord. In Uganda you are either Christian or Muslim, but it doesn’t mean the faith is really your own. Usually a person is one or the other here because of the family they were born into. It is kind of how America was 30 years ago, the I-am-an-American-so-I-am-a-Christian attitude. We had 4 great teachers and I think the kids really got that they needed to have a relationship with Christ that was personal and intimate

It is rainy season here, so having an outdoor conference is a risky thing. Ryan and I had all of our staff praying that there wouldn’t be rain for the Friday and Saturday of the conference. We had made a stage for the conference and the metal frame was done a week in advance, but for some reason the wood for the stage wasn’t going to be ready until Friday morning. Our plan had been if it wasn’t raining we would set up everything out side and then as soon as the wood inserts arrived put them in and be set for the conference. Friday morning Ryan and I were both up very early getting things ready in the rain. We were so bummed. We had a back up plan, and were setting up the church because of the rain, we hoped it would stop raining by lunch time and then we could move the conference back outside. We prayer and then said well we have prayed enough and God knows why He is allowing it to rain. Well we started the conference in the church and during the first speaker Aaron (who happens to be our carpenter), one of our staff went and picked up the boards, only to get them here and find out all of them were too big to fit in the frame. After Aaron was finished speaking we quickly grabbed him and he trimmed all the boards to fit during the second speaker so that by lunch time the sun was up and our stage was finished. The rest of the conference went off pretty smoothly.

We had a concert on Friday night as part of the conference. The group is called Pure Souls and they are a hip hop group formed by some Calvary Chapel Kampala members. They are really talented and really great guys; all of our kids really admire them and look up to them. The talked about many topics during the concert including their testimony, abstinence and AIDS. It was a time for our kids to let loose and have fun in a godly environment. Most of the kids were up dancing the whole time.

Schools have been on holidays so I haven’t been doing school ministry but I start back up this week and am excited to see the kids again. The first week of school in Uganda is funny, because schools cost, you can’t start school until you have paid. Well most Ugandan’s have very poor planning habits, so they don’t start looking the money for their children’s school fees until the day school starts. So most kids will not be in school this week, and some will still not be next week. It also means we will have hundreds of people showing up this week asking for help to pay their children’s school fees.

These next two months will be the months of teams. We have 3 teams coming the next two months. We have a team called Believers World, which is made up of Christians from all over the States; they will meet for the first time here in Uganda. We also have an adult team and a youth team from Calvary Chapel Albuquerque. The adult team comes this Saturday. We are all looking forward to them; they will be a lot of fun. They will also keep us all very busy as we have are normal ministries and they have special ministries planned.They will be doing dramas, testimonies, preaching and medical ministries in the schools, prisons, and local villages.

All of our Muzungu (read white people) staff here, except me, have attended Calvary Albuquerque’s School of Ministry. It is a 9 month course that teaches Bible, and is basically and church ministry training program. About 6 years ago Jessie (the pastor here) started a branch of the school of ministry here. It is a requirement for our elders in the church and people who are involved in ministry here. We have also used it to train pastors that then go out to other villages and start Calvary Chapels there. The next School of Ministry starts the first week of July. I will be attending this year on top of doing the ministry that I already do. I am not sure what God has for me after this year, but we all felt that if it was for me to stay here in Jinja with Calvary it was best for me to do School of Ministry this year. I am excited about starting the school in a couple months, but I am also worried about spreading myself too thin. You can all pray that God helps sustain me through it all. I will be attending class from 9-12pm Monday – Friday and then still doing prisons and school ministry after that. I will also be trying to spend most of the day on Saturday with our orphan girls that live here. So, it doesn’t leave much time for rest.

These last couple months have really been a blessing, as after last year I had kind of started to wonder if I could ever been really effective in Africa. I have started to see ways that I can make small impacts. It has also been nice because all the staff had been so encouraging. Last week our Ugandan pastor JB, came up to me and said how he has just really enjoyed having me here. He also said that my cheerful attitude has encouraged him, and he felt that I have really had a positive impact here. Wow that was such a blessing to hear. Last year I felt the whole time, if I am not making an impact why am I here? I still feel that last year was amazing preparation for this year, and for understanding Ugandan culture. There were several times where I think I offended people without even knowing it because of the culture differences, and I just struggled through it alone, not knowing the mistakes I had made. Now I feel I have such a support team of both Ugandan and Americans that let me know culture insights and tell me when I need to change things. I have even started taking Luganda language lessons from Ryan.

I met with Jen, the lady who lost her daughter. They haven’t caught the lady who ran her over yet. It breaks my heart to talk with her. She has become a strong Christian, but life is falling apart around her. Her husband has left her for another woman and now she has pretty much nothing. She has 2 more kids who are supposed to start school this week and no way to pay for them. I gave her the little spare money I had yesterday so that she can start building a chicken coop, she is hoping to raise chicken to sell them to make money. Please be praying that she stays strong in Christ even though this tough time.

Thank you everyone for all your prayers and support, it always just blesses me to know there are so many of you back home praying for me.

In Him,
Megan

Hello Everyone,

We have had 2 baby girls in the last 3 weeks; let me introduce you to them.

About 3 weeks ago, on a Monday morning, we had a beautiful baby girl born in the prison. She was taken to the hospital and then brought to Calvary about 4 hours after she was born. I got to hold her right away, she is quite precious. On Tuesday morning, we went to our normal prison Bible study, where I learned that the baby is now baby Megan. It is quite and honor! I was amazed that so quickly the women would name one of their babies after me. To name a baby after someone here it means that you want the baby to grow up to be like the person they were named after.

Our Second baby was the fourth born child of JB, our Ugandan pastor and his wife Grace. She was born this past Tuesday. Every Tuesday morning the women leadership of the church gets together to pray for the church and staff. Well last Tuesday morning, Grace did not come to prayer; her oldest daughter said that she was not feeling well. So, we all joked that maybe today was the day. I was the last person to pray and just as I was about to we heard loud voices and people saying that Grace was in labor. I quickly prayed asking God for a quick and safe delivery. We all then rushed to the house and started helping her get ready to go. It was apparent that she was very far along in labor. All of our Ugandan staff was running around trying to grab everything she needed. In Ugandan, when you go to the hospital you even have to bring your own sheets, and a big sheet of plastic to deliver on. Finally someone said she can’t wait any longer she needs to go now or she will have the baby in the car. Jb and Grace raced to the hospital, less then 20 minuets latter we got the call that she had delivered a healthy baby girl. JB said later that they walked straight into the hospital, on to a bed and out came the baby. All of us women joked that we had asked God for a quick delivery, but maybe we didn’t mean THAT quick.

In Uganda it is taboo to prepare things for the baby, even a name, or to talk about it before the baby is born. This unfortunately comes from witchcraft beliefs that you are alerting bad sprits of the baby and then they will take the baby. This is one of the many aspects of life in Uganda that is still impacted by witchcraft.

Schools start their holidays this week, so the kids will be out of school for the next month, which means my load will be a little lighter for the next month. Right now that will be a good thing. I have been working very hard and can use a couple days off. Bev, Jessie and Ryan are all on vacation in Mombassa, Kenya right now. So I am teaching my Bible studies plus Bev and Ryan’s on top of it! I had 3 different passages in Romans to teach in the last 6 days.

The week leading up to Easter was a crazy week for us! On Ash Wednesday we had a communion service and a wedding. Weddings in Uganda end up being over the top expensive and most poor Ugandan’s can not afford it. We offer a Wednesday night service wedding, so that I couple can come before the God and the congregation and say their vows. This makes it cheaper because then they are not trying to feed 400 people, which is the size of a typical wedding. It was a beautiful service and a lot of fun. We all had sodas and a small snack afterwards.

The next day Bev and I drove to Entebbe because at 5:40 am the next morning we were supposed to pick up Keith and Ellen Carpenter. However, we found out Thursdays night that they weren’t coming in till Saturday morning. Bev and I decided to stay because the price of fuel right now is too expensive to justify making the drive twice.

The Carpenters have moved out here to be long term missionaries and work with us here at Calvary. They are out of Calvary Albuquerque. The will be helping Jessie and the school of Ministry and helping with the pastors we support in the Village.

Though Bev and I were away, the church had a great Good Friday service. It is tradition here at Calvary that after the Good Friday services the church caries a cross outside and pounds it into the ground.

Saturday Bev and I picked up the Carpenters and there 12 suitcases, and drove as fast as we could back to Jinja. We pulled into the compound and went straight to a graduation ceremony for our school of ministry (SOM).

SOM is our church worker training program, it is a 9 month course and the next one will start in July. All of the missionary staff at Calvary has gone through SOM in Albuquerque. I however am going to start here in July and do the school on top off my other ministries, boy am I going to be busy.

Ryan and I were invited to a sunrise Easter service and the home of some friends. We then came home and cut TONS of flowers to decorate the church. It was very pretty. At the end of the service the church members take the flowers out of the church and take it to the cross put in the ground on good Friday, they used the beautiful live flowers to cover the dead cross. It was a pretty picture of the new life we have through the cross.

The last week has been politically scary in Uganda. A couple a weeks ago the president declared that he was giving a way a huge chunk of a protected forest to a sugar company. It then came out the government was a partial owner in this sugar company and, that the company has not paid taxes for the last 28 years. An Indian group owns the other part of the sugar company. There has always been tension between Indians and Ugandan’s, it exploded in the 70’s when Amin was in charge and expelled all the Indians from the country, allowing them to take nothing with them and leave all of their wealth and property in Uganda. Even our Christian Ugandan staff will say that all Ugandans hate all Indians. It has become a never ending circle. So last week there were 2 riots, 4 people died. There were Ugandan’s holding signs like “one tree chopped down 5 Indians killed.

Most of the parliament members have opposed the give away of the forest but the president says he won’t back down. He seems to be having a more or a negative impact on Uganda the longer he stays in power. Please be praying for the political situation in Uganda.

Also, you can be praying for Ryan and I, we are planning a youth conference for the 18^th and 19^th of May. We are hoping for close to 100 kids, if not more. The theme is “Spark the flame” hoping to reach many kids in Jinja. You can be praying for the right teacher, that the band we have booked really shows up, and for the finances for it all. We will be having 4 teachers a concert and feeding the kids both days. It will be a HUGE event!

God bless,

Megan

3rd email home

Hello Everyone,

The last couple weeks have been very busy, but that seems to be routine around here.

Some very typically Ugandan things have happened in the primary school ministry. Ryan (the youth pastor) and I are attempting to teach Bible studies in 2 primary schools a week, one on Wednesday and one on Fridays. The school we go to on Wednesday is the one that we had about 300-400 kinds on the first week. The next two weeks that we tried to go, but the kids were practicing for an intercity sports event. So we had no children. Then we went again this week and we had about 300! I taught the younger kids, about 150 of them. With a group that size it was very hard to keep them all interested and under control. I did however have about 30 kids who I could tell were really paying attention and could answer questions about what I was telling them.

The school we are supposed to teach at on Fridays hasn’t been going so well. The Principal is a Muslim, needless to say he is not very open to us being there. He agreed for us to come to the school every Friday but, every week he has had a different excuse about why we can’t preach that day. It happened again yesterday and I was very disappointed. You can be praying that he starts opening the doors for us to come.

I did go to a new secondary school this week with Ryan while he taught. He will continue to teach that one but I am going to start a small girls Bible study with the girls from that school. It will be Thursday after school and I am very excited about it.

I started my small group girls Bible study with the church girls 2 weeks ago. We are going through Proverbs. It is going really well. The girls come to my little apartment and sit on my living room floor (I have no chairs yet) and I give the tea and buns. I have made a question jar, so the girls can ask any questions they want. None of the girls have parents or adults in their lives that have time for them, so they are getting their views on life and sex and AIDS from school. They have a lot of misconceptions but have asked some really good questions. I am having a lot of fun getting to know them and spending time with them. Women’s day was Last week and the schools were closed, so I took all the girls swimming. It was really enjoyable day.

My work permit is going so much easier then last year. Bev has really held my hand through the whole thing and it has been so nice. I don’t think I would have figured everything out on my own, which I would have had to do last year. The sad news is, they raised the price of the work permit from about 150 US dollars to 1,000 US dollars. I don’t have to pay for about another 3 weeks, but it does have me a little stressed out.

I have started being the “creative side” of the youth group. I am coming up with games and fun activities to add to the youth group. None of our youth group kids seem to be friends, no one stays and talks afterwards. The come the sing the listen they go home, there is really no fellowship involved. I am trying to come up with a weekly short game (kind of like a Young Life game) to help create fellowship. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them!

Everything is going really well here. I feel like I am a good fit here. I am really getting close with our Ugandan staff here and enjoy working with them. God has brought a great group of people here. In so many ways it feels like home (no offense mom and dad )

2nd e-mail home

Hello Everyone,

Wow the last two weeks have been packed! I am getting settled into ministry and really enjoying it. I am keeping very busy, which is a blessing compared to last year when I felt I always had too much time on my hands. I really feel I am fitting in well here and able to be effective in the work I am doing. I have been doing all kinds of stuff lately from the women’s prison ministry to teaching a women’s Bible study, spending times with the girls, going to schools to teach Bible studies, and helping Bev with the day to day running of the church and its ministries.

The prison ministry has become really one of my favorite ministries. We go twice a week to do Bible studies. The women’s prison is actually a lot nicer then I was expecting it to be. I guess that 4 years ago the conditions in the women’s prison were horrid. All the women were stuffed in a very small room with no beds or even mattresses. Calvary had wanted to get them mattresses, but they knew they wouldn’t even be able to fit enough mattresses in the room. Then a princess from a European country came and visited the women’s prison. She decided she wanted to help and built a whole new prison for them, the place is actually pretty nice now. All of the prisoners have their own beds and there is indoor plumbing. For a lot of ladies who came from villages these are things that they didn’t even have at home.

Life is still hard for the prisoners as the guards treat them horribly. Most of them feel the prisoners should be beaten and verbally abused because of the crimes they have committed. They have gotten this example from the head women’s prison warden who says that the guards should make the prisoners lives hard as punishment for their crimes.

Many of the women’s prisoners have yet to have a trial to convict them; they are waiting for the court to make the time to give them a trial date. We have several prisoners who have been in there for over 3 years waiting for a court date! Two weeks ago a prisoner named Carol was released , she have been in prison for 4 years and when they finally had time to try her case they found her not guilty. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of these women who haven’t been convicting of a crime but have been stuck in prison with no hope.

There are about 6 children living in the women’s prison. If the mother is pregnant when she comes to jail, or has a baby that is still breast feeding the baby stays in the prison. I think it makes the prison a little more cheerful at times to have the adorable babies at times. On Tuesday when we were doing Bible study at the prison I noticed that one of the babies was really sick. I started talking to his mom and she said he had been sick for two weeks, but that the prison doctor wouldn’t come and treat or refer the baby to the hospital.

If they refer a prisoner to the hospital then Calvary Chapel takes them to the hospital. We take a load of prisoners from the men’s and women’s prison every morning to get treated at the hospital, and then we pay for it. We spend close to 4,000 a month on medical care for the prisoners. Hover, for the last 2 weeks there had been no women prisoners going for treatment. The doctor has decided that because he doesn’t have a clinic in the women’s prison he won’t treat them, or refer them so that we can take them for treatment.

On Tuesday I could tell this baby, Derek, was going to die if we did not get him Medical treatment. But the Prison warden and the Doctor were gone and I couldn’t get permission to take the baby to the hospital. On Wednesday I was headed to apply for my work permit, but I asked one of our staff to go the prison to see if she could convince the guards to let her take the baby to the hospital. They would not. So I went yesterday morning and tried again using the argument that the Baby was not a prisoner, so please just let me take the baby to the hospital and the mom could stay at the prison. I spent over an hour being sent to different parts of the prison to get permission to take this baby, praying the whole time. Finally the warden agreed to let me take Derek to the hospital; she even agreed to let the mother come and a guard to watch the mother. The baby was so bad off that he has spent all night on an IV in the hospital. If the baby had been sent when he was first sick he just would have taken some medication and gone home. It breaks my heart that the guards care so little for the lives of these women and their children.

On Wednesday afternoon, Ryan (the youth pastor) and I went to a primary school. It is the first time Ryan has been to teach a bible study at this school, it will become a weekly things so we went just thinking Ryan would teach and I would go with him and try to come up with ideas for the upcoming weeks on how to make the hour we are their fun and knowledgeable for the kids. We were under the impression that we would have about 30 kids. Well we got there to find that a member of the Ugandan Parliament was visiting the school, and they basically wanted to get the kids out of the area he was visiting. So they sent the whole school to us, all 400 kids!! Well we decided that we would break the group up, and we would each teach 200. I was not prepared to teach at all. But, thankfully, our God is faithful. I took the kids through Romans road, and I a lot of them seemed really interested. The last part of our time was interrupted by the Parliament member wanting to address the kids, so didn’t get to really wrap things up, but seeds were planted. I look forward to going back next week and seeing how many kids we have.

Thanks for all your support and prayers. I am really loving being here right now, but it always helps to know there are people back home who are praying for you.

1st email home

Hello Everyone,
I arrived about 2 weeks ago, and it has been a crazy two weeks.

Last week Calvary Chapel Jinja had it’s first ever open-air crusade. It has kept us so busy, planning for it and then actually doing it. We didn’t have a great turn out, but those who came were able to hear the truth of the gospel.

The week before our crusade Jinja had a crusade lead by a lady called “Pastor Emelda”. She is a classic example of the bad teaching that goes on in Uganda. Pastor Emelda owns 5 Hummers. She has divorced her husband and stole her best friend’s husband and claims that God told her to do it. At one point in her crusade, she told all the people in the audience to hold up all of their money from their pockets so that she could bless them. Then when they did she said “Now I put a curse on your money. If you put your money back in your pocket you will be cursed. The only way you can be blessed from that money is if you put it in the offering that is being passed around.” Every one in the audience give her their money, but they came away later saying that “she robbed us.” This is a country that very much believes in the power in witchcraft and curses, and they really felt there was no way that they could keep their money after she cursed it. On one night she took seven offerings!

Pastor Emelda’s crusade is very typical of a crusade in Uganda, the theme is give to God and God is REQUIRED to give to you. Lots of people in Uganda have just traded their witchcraft for a form Christianity, but haven’t really changed. You go to the witch doctor and give him money and he does what you want, you to Jesus and give Him your money and He does what you want. That is the general thinking; there are a lot of people that profess to be Christians but haven’t changed at all.

Pastor Jessie (the pastor of Calvary Jinja), was able to pull lots of great material from Pastor Emelda and use it to show the truth. He talked about how Jesus said to give to the poor, and if you are giving to a pastor who owns 5 Hummers you are not giving to the poor. He talked a lot about the attitude we should have towards giving and how to give in a Godly manner. Our crusade did verse by verse Bible studies and taught straight from the Word. We have already seen fruit from it and I think that seeds have been planted and more fruit is to come.

This e-mail has already gotten really long so I will just do some quick updates on the other things going on.

I haven’t gotten too involved in the things that will normally be my ministry yet as everything was pretty much on hold while we were preparing and putting on the crusade. We teach 2 Bible studies a week at the women’s prison which I have been able to be involved in. I have really enjoyed going to the prison and getting to know the ladies. They are much more happy and cheerful then I expected. Most of the women in the prison are there for murder, it is sometimes hard to connect what they have done with their smiling faces. I am hoping that their smiles are a reflection of a change they have made because of the gospel being preached to them in prison.

As I am getting to know the girls I will be working with I am learning that relationships with them will be a bigger challenge then I originally thought. Most of the staff here describes the girls as snotty arrogant pre-madonnas. They have been exposed to the gospel and good teaching for several years as they have been living here at the church, so I am not sure what more I can do to help change them. We are all praying about the best choices to make to help them.

I have malaria again. It is much better then last time, partly because I caught it right away. As soon as I started showing signs of it Beverly (the pastor’s wife) made me go to the clinic to get tested, so I am already on medicine and should be on the mend.

The week before I arrived in Uganda, Jinja lost 2 missionaries. One was the 16 year old daughter of the Ochoa family; a missionary family who had been here a little over a year but had been called to Uganda and felt it was their home. The Ochoa family had their own ministries they were involved in but also helped run the Sunday school program here at Calvary. Everyone here was very close to them. Talitha Ochoa was very much in love with God and we are all comforted to know that she is in Heaven. The other missionary was a 20-something man named Adam who worked with a church and a Christian owned café that helped raise money for the church. Aaron was killed in a car accident along with a Ugandan man named Moses who was the manager of the Christian café. George who works with us here at Calvary was best fiends with Moses. Needless to say I arrived at a time of great sadness for Calvary Chapel and for the missionary community in Jinja. If you could be keeping everyone in your prayers that would be wonderful.

It has been great to return to Jinja. I always feel so welcome when I come back. Shop owners who I hardly know have seen me in the last couple weeks and had warm welcome backs for me. I love returning to Jinja because it has such a small town feel to it and I am becoming less and less of an outsider. So many of the locals know me and treat me like a local now too. In a lot of ways it has become like home.

Thanks for all your prayers!!

Megan

It starts

I started this to make it easier for people to read my updates in Uganda. I returned to Uganda on Jan. 26th 2007. My first couple blogs will just be reposts of my updates home.