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Monday, February 4, 2013

Kaberamaido Interview

     Bululu has been a great village for me - in Kaberamaido district, where I have been able to share, train in Evangelism Explosion and Children's ministry, and also make great friends.  One of the pastors recently requested that I do another training in Kaberamaido town.  And I was happy to begin exploring that idea.
     The Berean church in town requested that I come and preach first, so that they could get a taste for who I am, then they wanted to interview me and find out a lot of information before they decided to host a three day training.  All of that seemed overwhelming and nail-biting, but at the same time, I was glad that a church was doing some research on the foreigner they were inviting to their community.  Too many times they just accept everything that comes their way, and so I was actually glad to go through the process.
     But preaching!  Yikes, I have never done that before.  Without allowing myself to get worked up, I decided to "teach" during the morning service.  I spoke again about dreams and visions and looked at the life of Joseph.  It's a topic I am still working through, so when I felt God nudging me to share that topic again, I was very peaceful.  What was really awesome was the prayer time the church had for me at the end of the service - praying that God would reveal His amazing plans and purposes for my life!
     I had traveled to Kabermaido with my neighbour boy, as well as too young man from Soroti.  Pius, one of the guys, has always been with me to Bululu, so of course we had to make this journey together.  It's good to have a right hand man.  After church we joined a few leaders for a meeting and then lunch.  The leaders were full of questions:
  • Where have you been trained?
  • Who are you with?
  • Why do you want to teach evangelism?
  • Are you good with children?
I answered those questions with ease and the guys also helped me to add testimonies of God's goodness.  But then the Pastor started questioning me about youth ministry.  He wasn't sure I should be leading workshops on youth ministry (Which, by the way, I never offered to him in the first place.) because he doesn't like the way the Western world raises their youth.  He is under the impression that youth are too independent and under trained.  He is appalled that we kick our youth out at the age of 16, and some as young as 13 - and make them fend for themselves.  Who guides them and teaches them to do what is right?  In Uganda youth stay with their parents until marriage, but even then, another home is often built on the family plot, so that families can remain together.  The Pastor was quite shocked when I tried to defend "my" culture - that we rarely get kicked out, and our parents are always there to guide us.  He couldn't believe that I still call my parents occasionally to ask for advice.  It was a very interesting discussion and quite a cultural experience. 
     The meeting ended though with a huge desire to have this Evangelism Training and a day to learn how to do Children's Ministry.  I have a feeling God is going to do awesome things.
"As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.  On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.  Now the Berean's were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."  Acts 17:10,11.  It was actually refreshing to be examined by this small "Berean" church and I'm glad that they care about what trainings come through their church community.  My only question is: Why did they let me "preach" before having this little interview?

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