Special: Czech / Uganda Report

Okay. I've got to go back a ways here. A number of you are familiar with the fact that, you know, I did some growing up on the farm and even subsequent years spent some time on the farm. Even Randy spent some time on the farm here. And it just so happens that just now, this is a house that I was working on. It's on a 140 acre piece of property that's just been sold as of this last few weeks here. And this property here is an escrow. We'll sell in a couple of weeks.

But that's where I did some growing up and of course we did a lot of cow milking and things of that sort and feeding the chickens and talking to geese and talking like a goose. So, anyway, that sort of background. And then, now you mustn't get the idea that we just stayed there all the time. We did go places. And occasionally did, you know, wander away from the house and the farm. Even that, this water tower where you can see me standing on the top of it, you could see a long ways from there.

So I know a little bit about geography. So anyway, then we also had to make sure Nancy was properly educated before I married her and so we made sure she had all the proper skills and education and that sort of background. Well, that's all enough to say that, you know, even though I spent a fair amount of time on the farm, I do know a few things about the world's geography and all the important places on the earth, right? And so that leads me to the point where we are now, all the important places that I've been here in the last few weeks. And so it goes like this.

About earlier part of this year and then finally zeroing in on March, I had bought tickets for a trip from May 1st to the 17th to go from Denver to London, London to Prague. You go British Airways, they always want you to stop in and say hi in London. And then May 5th, go from Prague to London, and then May 6th, London to Entebbe, which is in Uganda. And then come back May 16th, Entebbe to London, and May 17th, London to Denver.

So that was the original story, and I was going to go there and minister with people who were in contact with Elishka, and I was also going to go minister with people who were in contact with Hassan, and as well as do the wedding. That was the plan. And then, the Friday before I was going to leave, we heard about these sorts of things going on in Uganda. Riots and shootings and police, you know, enforcement and 500 people at a time to the hospital and things like that.

So maybe I better not go. So anyway, I changed my plans. May 1st to May 2nd, I'd be going from Denver to London to Prague and then May 16th and 17th, the reverse of that, and not go to Uganda at all. Then I came to church Sunday, the 1st, and a whole bunch of people said, boy, am I glad you're not going to Uganda. That just sounds terrible. And one person after the next after the next said, boy, that was a good decision. You shouldn't go to Uganda, except for two people, Mike and Roger. Mike and Roger said, Vern, you should go to Uganda. And it turns out that one of the pivotal things was Hassan's fiancee sent me an email which I had forwarded to Mike and Roger and she was very specific. I had better be coming to Uganda.

She wanted me to do that wedding. And when I got there, I found out a little bit more why she was so insistent. I also found out more about the riots, but we'll tell you about that in a minute. So I made changes to my plans and took off from DIA as planned and proceeded as planned. And I spent the night in the plane sleeping. And then as the sun came up, I found myself in London.

And from there, went to Prague. And so as I landed there at the airport at Prague, this is the bus schedule and routes for the part of Prague that I was in. And as I got to the airport, here was Aleska and her friend Martina meeting me at the gate, which was great because I had no idea what I was doing otherwise. So they met me there and they had arranged for a place right near the airport for me to stay. And so we took the transit system. As a matter of fact, that's about all I did that time I was there, is take the transit system.

They arranged for me to stay with Billy and Adrienne Croson. Billy is from Atlanta area and Adrienne is from Oklahoma. They are missionaries with Athletes in Action and stationed there in the Czech Republic. So they looked on the Holly Hills website and saw that we're sponsoring an Athletes in Action missionary and so they were cool with it.

Anyway, I stayed with them. However, I hardly slept there. I was soon going the next day from their house to a bus station called Mustek. And I'm sure it was not a mistake, but it was Mustek. But anyway, from there, I met Elishka, where she took me to about a block or two to where her school was.

And while I was there, What they had me doing was, in each of the English conversation classes throughout the day, telling about what I was doing in ministry in Uganda. Every time. And so I would kind of give an introduction, and then the kids in the high school class, where Eliska teaches, would ask questions about what I was doing in Uganda. And so that was kind of amazing and interesting. For lunch, she had a couple of teachers, fellow Christians, that I went to lunch with and spent some time with them. And then afterwards, I came back and had more questions about what I was doing in Uganda. Then, Eleshka took me to a place that was close to the place I was staying on the same road and the same route And there, I spoke to a group of, oh, perhaps 20 people who were from high school into college age, and maybe a little bit above that, and talked about evolution and creation and what the Bible says and that sort of thing. It's apparently a group that meets regularly.

And so I had some things to present, and then there was quite a bit of question and answer. And then when we said, OK, that's enough, then there was more question than answer. And it went fairly late and so it was pretty good that I was close to where I was going to sleep because eventually I did. I presented to them a number of different things including just kind of the gradations and quality of subject matter for scientific study purposes.

When you get to dealing with origins, you can't repeat it. When you get to dealing with issues of evolution and creation, you can't control the inputs and measure the outputs in a presently observable condition. So anyway, talking about fossils and rocks and all sorts of things like that.

And we're back that night. at Billy and Adrian Croson's place. Now here's something interesting that happened. Because I got in so late and left so early, because Elishka had me very busy, the father there got together with his kids and said, you know that man that's staying with us? How do you know that there really is a man staying with us? You know, have you seen him? And it just so happened that most of the time they never did see me until the very end.

And of course then the joke was blown. But anyway, that was fun. So from there I went back to Elishka's school, but we didn't do the same thing at all. Elishka had me in different classrooms this time. And all day, oh by the way Katka was there, who some of you may remember. Katka stayed with the Cays family for a time, not too long ago.

We taught on church history and God's Word. And we taught on the interpretation, the history of Bible interpretation. And so we went through the material basically that was included in our church history elective here at Holly Hills. And what's interesting is just last night I got some additional emails because she's continuing to tell them about the Bible. And so she wants some more information. So I sent her some of the things we'd produced as a follow-on to this. So what's interesting is it's not just that class, but there's continuing to be follow-on that she's being able to carry on in the class and tell them about the Bible. So we went through some of that material and essentially continued throughout the entire day with that, with different classes and different sections of the same class.

Towards the end of the day, there was one period of time where they had an opportunity to ask just general questions of me. And one of the things that I discovered while I was there is the general perspective among the people of the Czech Republic is atheism. It's my understanding that belief in God is looked upon as somewhere close to UFOs and alien abductions. So one of the questions was, do you believe in God?

And I said, yes, I do. And interesting where things went from there. Now, that evening, we went to Elishka's house. These are her roommates. And Kara, by the way, the one on the right, is getting married in August. But more interesting than that, she hardly has any accent. Why? She lived for 10 months in Fort Collins.

So real interesting. That evening, and these are just kind of some scatterings of different pictures, that evening a group started about 7 o'clock and people continued to dribble in until about 9 o'clock until the room was just packed and there was people standing and real interesting. Many of the people who had been there the prior evening came. One fellow even skipped class in order to be there. from the prior evening came and then other people who had heard about as well. So they continued to dribble in for two hours and until the room just basically we had no room left.

One of the things I start off with is something that I have done on several different occasions here and that is I start off with explaining God and time. The idea that I use the example of the pen That one end of this pen represents creation and then the other end represents the end of the present heavens and earth God's perspective on time is that God sees all of our time as at once in his time before Abraham was born Jesus said I am not I was I am hey God's perspective on time as he sees it all at once and So I explained that to them and then proceeded to explain to them what scripture lays out as this is the rest of the history of the present heavens and earth and then what will follow as the new heavens and earth. So I walked through that with a perspective on God and time. and then continued to have questions and stayed up till practically midnight there answering questions and talking to people and even doing some counseling. And doing counseling is interesting when you have somebody asking the questions in Czech and then interpreting back into English so I can understand it and then giving the answer back.

So anyway, so that went on quite late, which meant I didn't get any sleep again. And so that was Wednesday. And then actually, it was dark. So that's why this picture here, I had to darken it. It was dark and it was late. And when Elishka and I went different directions.

And then I got ready for the next day to head out British Airways again. Of course, they wanted me to go to London first. It's like you've got to do that if you're taking British Airways. So I went to London first and down to Entebbe. The place that I decided to go to, decided not to go, and then decided to go to, yeah, that place. Here we land at the airport at Entebbe.

It's an island in Lake Victoria, excuse me, a peninsula in Lake Victoria. It is the largest natural lake in Africa and it's surrounded on the north by Uganda, on the east by Kenyon, on the south by Tanzania. I was met by Ida who's in the, left-hand part of the picture here, who took me basically back through Kampala and then to Mbale, where I spent the rest of the week. I stayed at their home during the course of the week. Following on in the map, here is Entebbe, which I say is a peninsula in the north part of Lake Victoria. Went through Kampala, And then on the way across the Jinja, we cross the headwaters of the Nile River.

That heads all the way up then to Egypt and pours into the Mediterranean. Past a lot of houses that look like this. And by the way, these aren't separate houses that make up a village. A lot of times, these separate houses are not separate houses but separate rooms for one household. The situation varies, but that oftentimes is the case. So we end up in M'Bale, where I basically spent the rest of the time until I came home. And here is M'Bale. We learn not to say M'Bale. That's women's underwear. Okay.

This is the inside of Morris and Ida's house. What I found from the air photo is that they've done changes and improvements to it, but you have Patrick the gate guard there on the top part, and then as you kind of do a sweep across the front there, that's the way it looks. They have various vehicles constantly going in and out, so the gate guard's busy. Vehicles constantly going in and out. One of the things that I found staying at Morris and Ida's is that there's a river of all kinds of people of all sorts coming through there all the time. It was a real education for me.

Looking down, this is kind of the same position, but looking down to the right, this is the entrance into the house typically used. Right here is an electrical box. Why would I do that? For those of you who have some sort of electrical background, that's what the box looks like. Good luck. Anyway, yeah. And then here is the entrance, which looks like this. And by the way, this isn't a low entrance. This is a low entrance. This is lean over like this, which is a lot of fun when you're carrying luggage. You know, it's like this. Okay, so you go in there and you enter in and there's this courtyard inside there. and often people in it.

The entrance to their home where they live is off to the left of this side of the picture, but they have a rectangular courtyard here and these two guys are pastors. All sorts of pastors coming in and out. Morris and Ida have kind of an open door policy with all the pastors from Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. And there's dozens of them just coming through it all whenever they come through. And they get a place to stop and stay and a place to spend the night if they need to and eat and all that. So real busy. And we'll talk more about these guys.

This is another one of the pastors, a fellow that I had seen quite a bit of on my first visit. This was James Calete, who did speak English, and this young lady here who's smiling, didn't speak English, Scovia. They both were very helpful. It's just I couldn't tell Scovia how helpful she was, right?

I also saw early on from the second day I was there, Hassan, who was of course with us last summer, and the other fellow who most of you have not met. This is Odhiambo Jared. or Jared, that'll work. So anyway, and I saw both of them multiple times, mostly Hassan, but each of them also took turns giving me rides around different places. I went to Hassan's house, or at least with a house that he did have.

The red lines that I have is that's the inside walls of this place where he lives. So a little tiny place and of course the doors are real different. It's one of those things where you open this little hole and then you reach in and you open a latch and so that's what he's doing is reaching in.

Inside there wasn't enough room for me to back up and get any perspective when I took a picture. So what you see there is as far back as I could get. It's tiny and this is towards his bed and that's up towards the ceiling up in the other corner. I just couldn't get any perspective on anything, sorry about that. But at least it gives you an idea that's where his son lived until he got married.

Now, Ida and Morris Oginga were the ones who were hosts. I got to spend quite a bit of time with each of them. Of course, they're real busy too. Lots of stuff going on, people coming in and out of the house for lots of reasons. I told you about the pastors coming and going. I'll tell you about more later. Now, Udhiyambo Jared, who goes by Jared, that's just fine, real interesting, he got real excited in the middle of the week.

He said, my mother's coming to visit and I want to introduce you to her. And the reason he was excited was because he hadn't seen his mother for 10 years. He was raised in this household and basically functionally orphaned by his dad, I think, dying of AIDS, as I understand the story. And mom just couldn't afford much. There were four kids. He's the oldest of four. He's, of course, the son, then you have a daughter, and then a brother. And I met the brother, too, and then another daughter.

Anyway, Jared introduced me to his mother he hadn't seen for 10 years. And she doesn't speak English. So she's brought over to be introduced to me. And I put my hand out to shake hands with her. And she looks like she's in shock. She's just stunned. And I thought, oh, no, I've done something to offend her horribly. How do I fix this? And basically, there wasn't any fixing to be done. The next day, I talked to Jared. I said, I hope I didn't offend your mother. He says, oh, no. You were the first Mzungu white person she'd ever shaken hands with. And she was so excited, she didn't know what to do.

So that's what it was. And then she went back to Kenya, where she lives. OK. This is the inside of the church building in Bali where I taught for two Sundays while I was there and where Hassan and Juliet were married. We'll show some pictures of that later on.

The building has, basically they open the side doors and they open the back door. The windows are all open. And what happened during the wedding ceremony was there wasn't anywhere near enough room. So all the windows and doors had groups of people around them because it was so packed out and overwhelming to the building.

The first Sunday, I taught for the first service there, John 19, 25-30, which ends with, it is finished, and telling the people it is completely paid. And then in the second service, the main service, I taught Romans 6, 1-14. I also sang during each of those services, which is one of those instances. After I sang, Morris told me, he says, they told me that I shouldn't sing. So you'll understand if I don't do that.

So anyway, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8.30 to 1 o'clock, I taught at the School for Pastors there, and I taught the Identification Truths. I went through most of the New Testament passages on the Identification Truths. I taught things abbreviated from what we've been going through in our elective, What God is Doing in the Life of the Believer. And then I also taught on Wednesday about Spiritual Gifts in the Body of Christ.

The students just lapped it up. It was really quite amazing. And there were a few students from the time when I had taught there before, twice two years ago. And what was interesting is that I talked to those students who had been there before. They remembered down to detail what I had taught them from before. Very interesting. I mean, they recited it back, and I was just kind of stunned. So at any rate, apparently it was having an impact, and that's really great. And something else I was interested to find out, because this is a Presbyterian seminary, for what that might imply to you. When I taught them, you have died to the law, what was going to be their reaction?

Several heads nodding, writing, lots of writing. Several heads nodding. Yes, they understand it. And I talked to Morris about that the next morning. And he says, of course. He says, Christ is the end of the law. So now there's some things they don't quite understand, but I was very eager and interested to hear that. I also talked about position and condition, something I went over with them.

One of the approaches that I used with them, because these pastors go to school for one to three years and almost all of them get sent out into one of the villages. During the course of the week, I ran into a number of pastors who had been sent out to villages from the time when I taught before. And one of them had been sent out the week after I was there the last time. So at any rate, and I think I might even have caught a picture with them.

But one of the things that I would tell them is, remember this when you go out into the villages. You remember it, and you tell your people this, too. You tell the people in your churches this, because they need to know it. And they do. What I find is they did, they do. The things I had taught before, they remembered.

And this was during a time, this isn't all the students, but it was just some who were around when somebody said, hey, let's take a picture. And that was my last bit. So at any rate, these are just some of the students who were there on the last day. Now, something else that took place from about Saturday all the way into the day before the wedding was pre-marriage counseling with Hassan and Juliet. This was, I would say for me, one of the most phenomenal learning experiences I could ever imagine.

Several reasons. One, Juliet, the bride, is from a three-wife household. She has over 30 siblings. And while the father is Anglican, by the way, you've got to pay to get baptized. While the father is Anglican, which is I suppose nominally Christian. At least one of the wives is into witchcraft.

And as it turns out, Juliet's mother was of course in favor of this wedding, but the other two wives were not. And were constantly trying to block the wedding from being carried out as Hassan and Juliet wanted. This complicates the marriage counseling immensely. During the course, because I counseled with them also over the phone for several months before, this complicates the thing because I actually had to write letters to Juliet's village elders in order to try to work things out.

They had the idea in the village that because Hassan had been to the United States, he must be fabulously wealthy and didn't need any help or cooperation from them. So I wrote a letter. to the village elders at Juliet's village, and I said, we brought Hasan over here for Bible training. That's all. We didn't train him in any great skills, we didn't give him a whole bunch of money, and we didn't give him a way to make a lot of money when he went back. We taught him how to study the Bible and about what the Bible says. That's all.

So I said, please extend to him your customary cooperation and assistance. And once they read the letter from a Mzungu, right, white guy, then they said, okay, and they were fine with it. But that was just one of the things to get worked out. The marriage counseling is also complicated by the fact not only that she's from a three wife, you know, household, but they're also, they're an oral culture, even though Hasan has been to the university.

That is, what they hear is what they latch onto as the truth. So there were all sorts of things that Hassan had heard in the past that I had to say, no, that's not what the Bible says. That's not what the Bible says. That's not what the Bible says. And it happened several times a day through the course of the week. Because in the oral culture, it's what you hear that, boy, that's real, and you latch onto it in your mind. And then to hear differently is a real reorientation.

Now, the day of the wedding. I walk in for breakfast, and I look, and here's this bride that Ida is getting ready. And I look at her, and I say, that's not Juliet. She said, no, this is one of my several weddings that I'm getting ready for today. And so what there was was just one bride after another coming in for her to help them get ready for the wedding that was to occur that day. And so that was rather astounding.

It explains why when Ida was here and stayed with Nancy and myself in September of 2009, why Ida kept buying up wedding dresses and wedding things. She rents out, because they don't purchase wedding dresses there, she rents out the wedding dresses, and tiaras, and necklaces, and even things to put on the hands, and all that. Meanwhile, that morning, I got a chance to talk to a lot of the pastors who were gathering together for the wedding, who first came to Morris and Ida's.

And let's see, over here, this is Ibrahim Masambu, and I talked to him for quite a while. And he just emailed me just now that I've gotten back and said, would you please come and teach at my church in the village? He also was looking for what other things can you teach me that will be helpful? The other fellow up in this area here, this is Timothy. He is a pastor that I spent some fair amount of time with on the first visit. He's, by the way, making use of the MP3 players that were sent over the first two visits. But he told me when I was first there, he says, I can take all of them you've got, because nobody in my village knows how to read. The only Bible they get is the Bible that I tell them. And this will help me immensely.

In the middle there is Edward and Harriet Mukibe. They, among various tasks, take care of the children's home. There was, at one point in time, a couple of years ago, about 90 children there. There's now about 120 children. These are, in general, children who are orphaned from AIDS. The AIDS rate in Uganda, at one point, was as high as 30%. One in every three Adults had AIDS and so you know a lot of orphans from that now the number is more like about 10% At the bottom where I have this kind of square around the face This was a fellow that I saw a couple of different times at first at Morris and Ida's house But then at Hassan and Juliet's wedding As well and he's going to get married on June 4th, so he was taking lots of notes and And he was one of my students the prior two times. And he was also saying, could you come and teach at my church this next Sunday? So anyway, it was neat to see him several times. And also, I was rejoicing with him over this wedding. Now, the wedding ceremony and the reception.

Here's the quick outline. And I mean quick, because the wedding ceremony wasn't. About noontime, four choirs and musical groups, one after the next, would come up and start this thing. I actually, at noontime, wasn't even there. Juliet called up Morris and said, we need Vern here. Get him here quick. I want to get married. But it wasn't necessarily that I'd be there that fast, because there was the choirs and musical groups. By the way, they also had some other issues that I'll talk about in a minute.

Now, for Hassan and his groomsmen to walk in, which they would do, they had a center aisle, kind of like this, for them to walk in, they had me leading in To God Be the Glory. I sang two, three verses in the chorus, and then Hassan and his groomsmen sat down about here.

Then, there was a Luganda song. I have no idea what they were singing. It sounded nice, but I have no idea what they said. And one of the choirs led that, and then so Juliet and her made of honor, called matron, and the bridesmaids sat about here. And then I come in and do an opening prayer.

Morris gets up and teaches on Ephesians 5, 21 through 33, and my general characterization of it was humorous. People were busting up. It was just, even Juliet was laughing. She just lost control, just laughing like crazy. And so that was, it was interesting to teach on that, but it was mostly humorous. And the reason was because Morris would get up there and he'd do things where he'd kind of try to walk like a girl. Morris, you know, doing that didn't work, but it looked funny. And then he'd go through various scenarios and kind of act it out.

So it was hilarious. Then begins the ceremony. No, no, that's wrong. Then begins the ceremony. Right? Really, really long. More than a dozen pages of ceremony. And the early part of it goes like this. I get up there and as part of the ceremony, I say, if anyone here now can think of any reason why these two should not get married, speak now or forever hold your peace. And after about three or four seconds of quiet, then all sorts of clapping and just celebration that nobody said anything. And then I ask Hassan. I say, Hassan, can you think of any reason why you should not get married? And he says, no, I don't think so. And I ask the same thing of Juliet.

And it goes through like that. Well, I'm giving you a small sampling. The whole ceremony is like that. Every time anything kind of reaches a milestone, everybody screams and roars and sounds like a war hoop. Right? And they're celebrating every little moment of this thing.

And then, here at Holly Hills, we typically have the certificate of marriage signing as a sort of a side thing, back in the back room, off to the side. No. Everybody in the church waits while they come up and they sign. Hassan signs. Juliet signs. I signed. Then I take the certificate and I present it to them.

Oh, boy, the place came apart. You know? You know, just screaming and clapping and stomping. But that wasn't all. Then I said, and now I introduce to you, Mr. Hassan. And Mrs. Juliet. So it goes like this. And then I say, okay, we're not even close to finished. Then they get down and they stand kind of at the head of the aisle.

Here's Hassan, here's Juliet, here's the matron, the maid of honor, and here's the best man. They give the matron and the best man large offering baskets. Then everybody in the church comes up one or two people at a time, and we have a receiving line right there. And everybody, if they would like, puts money into the baskets for Hassan and Juliet.

That took a while. Because not only was the church full, remember I told you there was people gathered around each of the windows and all the exit doors. So anyway, that was going on. So that took a while. And it gave me a chance to go exit out one of the doors and come in the back door and take some pictures, which I had to do by holding the camera up.

So hopefully you can see something. Then there's a recessional. One of the choirs does a recessional. And everybody walks over to a nearby outdoor area where there's a hotel and then begins a reception, which lasts until after 8 o'clock. So this thing is going on for something around eight hours. I didn't get home until almost nine. So anyway, here's some pictures.

Beforehand, the guy up in the upper left corner, that's Amosolo Fred. Amosolo Fred was one of my students, now a pastor. And as soon as I see him, he says, I remember you telling us about the four kinds of love in Ephesians 5. And he says, that's great, you know. And then over in the other upper right-hand corner, you see the guys standing under the tree? They're not just standing talking.

They've got two problems. The wedding is about to begin, and they need the generator to work, and it has no gas. And the guy who knows how to get the cable out of the closet is not there yet. And he's supposed to arrive so that we can get the power from the generator into the inside of the building. So anyway, that was holding things up, which is one of the reasons why they had to keep the choirs going.

OK. And then this is a shot I was able to get off of Juliet while she was standing just before the ceremony. Now, here is Hassan and Juliet while people are coming up one at a time and dropping money in the baskets. So the whole group, everybody from inside, outside, everywhere, all goes through this receiving line. And so there was a whole crowd of people in front of me and I just held up the camera and that's what I was able to get. This is Hassan and Juliet coming out of the back of the church.

So they're there. Then they get swept off for photographs. And then we go to the reception area. This is John Bosco and his friend. Both of them are disabled in various ways, but what they do is they go about singing. And of course, people just voluntarily give them money. The fellow who is missing a leg there lost it in a motorcycle accident. But they go about singing Christian songs and performing.

And then whoever gives them money, that helps them make ends meet. The people who are in view there underneath the canopy is Juliet's family. And the fellow that you see on the left with the white robe is Juliet's dad. That's the one with three wives, right?

He, by the way, caused a lot of trouble during the time we were trying to settle things, where's the wedding going to be, and all that. He caused no trouble at all. And I made to understand that the reason was, they said, look, a Mzungu is coming here, and he spent millions of shillings to get here, and don't you mess with us. And that's one reason why I had to be there, is because they'd threatened him with me. So I don't know what he thought I was going to do, but apparently I was a pretty scary guy.

Okay. This was one of my students who got up and sang next. And basically while Hasan and Juliet were getting their pictures taken, they had one performer after another singing and dancing and doing different things. And this is one of the guys who was one of my students that week. And he got up second there. This is another group from a town called Soroti, to the north, and I actually kind of enjoyed what they were doing. Besides that, I could also understand it. Their song was about that there is no permanent life here. There is no permanent condition. Everything changes here, right? Only God is permanent.

Now, here's Hassan and Juliet entering the reception. I've skipped over several musical groups. In order to bring it to this point, Hassan and Juliet are entering the reception area. Everybody is standing and clapping, including Juliet's father, which really pleased me. And then to follow, these are the groomsmen and the bridesmaids.

Now, as they enter, you know how our typical entry might be something like a slow, like no, that's not how they enter. I'm going to try to imitate it, but I'm going to fail. What they do is more like this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this. And so it's kind of like two steps forward, one step back, and then one off to the side. Kind of. OK. Anyway, that's the way they walked into the church. That's the way they walked out. That's the way they came into the reception.

Here is Hassan feeding Juliet the cake. And by the way, the customary thing, the polite thing to do is for the woman to kneel like this. Many of the older women that I was introduced to first kneeled before they extended their hand. So Juliet is kneeling while Hassan sits.

And they each feed each other cake and then something to drink. And of course, everybody's hooping and hollering and clapping and all the usual, right? You can't tell whether they're having a party or a war. You really, really don't know. Now, the next thing is Hassan and Juliet had gotten presents a month prior to the wedding at their introduction, which is kind of the official engagement. Then they got money gifts after the wedding ceremony. Now they get more gifts. And one of the things that I noticed, all the gifts were wrapped in shiny paper. I didn't find any exceptions, and you can see it there. What was interesting was the gifts that were not wrapped.

They got two brand new hoes, like for, you know, using in a garden. Very nice, well-constructed hoes, you know, so they had that. There was also a hand-carved spoon about this long and several very large aluminum pots, okay, several very large aluminum pots and a very large plastic water jug. So anyway, just as an interesting clue about what they got. Fascinating. I have no idea what's inside the boxes, because we didn't get to see those.

So here's Hassan and Juliet receiving it. By the way, you might notice that they changed in the middle of the reception, went off and changed into some different clothing. And so did the bridesmaids and the groomsmen. Here's Hasan and Juliet seated after a lot of the ceremonies are behind and while kind of the last part of things is going on.

Oh, by the way, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. At one point, Hasan and Juliet presented me with a cake to bring to you. I'm sorry I didn't bring it. I had no idea how I was going to get that to here. especially with all those guys with the customs and everything else. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. But nonetheless, the sentiment was there. They think highly of you and are very glad that you sent me. Now, let me explain here.

This woman who is sitting on the left, It was towards the end of the ceremony and of course various people came up and shook hands. She comes up and gives me this great big long hug and I thought, uh-oh, who is this? And why is this woman giving me a great big long hug? And then she looked at me and she saw the look of wonder and puzzlement on my face and she said, I'm Lugosi.

I said, oh, okay. I'm really glad to know. See, last time she looked like this. That's what I saw over two years ago. So, at any rate, she came up. I had met with her husband Issa. Issa is the Muslim name for Jesus. Her husband Issa. several times during that week. She, however, was not available. Their infant son has been in the hospital with malaria and so that's why she wasn't there, but she did come to this event. Isa and Lugosi, I want to explain what the story is.

When Hassan went back to Uganda, we sent him back with the idea that you can teach these things to people and so find ministries in town and in the village to teach people. And so he would go up and teach in this place, Shisenyo village. And what happened is when he taught the Bible up there, it caused the church split. And some of them said, no, we want to do our charismatic thing where we do all this stuff, and we don't want this Bible. But then there were those, including Issa and Lugosi, there were those who said, no, we want the Bible. And so anyway, these are some who are in that Shisinu village group who want to continue to have us unteach them. And so anyway, that's the connection there. And I was greatly relieved to learn who she was after she gave me a big, long hug. OK. Towards the end of the time there, this is Boas Mungau.

They had a long series of people coming up and speaking. And their way of giving a toast is real different. They don't toast like we do. You basically have speakers come up and a lot of oratory and that sort of thing. But then Boaz particularly noted that I was there, and I'm not sure whether he was just thankful I was there or whether that was to keep Juliet's father, you know, from getting all upset. But at any rate, that was great.

Things were getting towards the end of the session. By the way, there's one white lady that you see there, the Mzungu lady, and she is one, she's actually from Texas, Natalie, and she works and lives there. She was the only other Mzungu there. In talking to the people, this was the first time in any of this group of churches over some lengthy period of time, it was the first time they'd had a Mzungu, a white man, come and lead a wedding ceremony. So it was a first. And they were all very touched by that. They've had white people come in and do different things, but never that. That was a first.

So then the next day, Sunday I taught Galatians 2.20, you in Christ and Christ in you, sang a time or two again, and then we had to leave and head off for Entebbe, which we did. We actually spent the night there because my plane left early the next morning and so they took me out to the airport quite early. And then I came back. It was Ida and Morris and their son Glenn who took me to the airport there. I flew to London, and oh, by the way, Friday I called Hassan. Just, you know, how's it going now that you're married and all that stuff? Remember everything that we talked about? Yeah, okay, yeah. So I wanted to give him a call.

So here's Central Africa. This is Mbali, and he said, yeah, we're in Mombasa. We're up on the Kenyan coast. That's our honeymoon. going to Mombasa. And apparently today, of course, they're about nine hours ahead of us. He's probably headed back home as of this hour. The trip is long enough. It may be that it'll take him a couple of days. But anyway, that's where things are now. As far as I could tell, he was happy. So they're happily married for a week, and as of today, a week and a day. So at any rate, that's the update on them. Now, we don't have lots of time for it, but questions? Yes.

Pardon? Did you eat it? No. It had weed in it. I couldn't eat it. Yeah. Besides that, I found it because it's so warm compared to what I'm used to. I didn't have much of an appetite over there. and especially for appetite for something that would make me very allergic. I did not because the last time I heard from him was April 11th and I'd email him and try different things and I couldn't get a hold of him. So that didn't happen. It was a 24-hour layover on the way back, so I did stay at a place just outside the and I kind of wondered whether it was worth it because it was a little tiny cubicle. I could touch the ceiling everywhere in the room, and then the walls were close. Anyway, no, that didn't happen. Other questions? Yes?

What kind of food? Food that I couldn't eat. what was interesting is is the food was the last thing that happened and essentially they swept me away because they knew I couldn't eat it and Took me back and and got me some food. Basically. It was like some Some you know grain they tend to have a lot of carbohydrates low on meat Carbohydrates would be anything grains fruit You know they they take bananas cook them up, and they they mash them all up, and they call it Motoki They have various kinds of potato-like things that they mash up and those get served. It's basically some grains, potato-like things and some fruits and vegetables. Very little meat is typically what gets offered.

Yes? Which ones? At the entrance? What they do is the doors are often steel doors and for a large door, they'll have the usual entrance door small because that's enough for you to get in and out of and when they have to move large things in and out, then they'll open the big door but it's kind of a hassle. You know, you got to unlock things and then latch things and all that. So, the customary thing there is little door, lean over a lot, you know, watch your head.

Yeah. No, they made other arrangements and those were being made during the week, so I didn't get to see where they had settled, but they actually had found something else and all these arrangements to go to Mombasa were very last minute, which is typical of the African way of doing things. Yes? The counseling time with Hassan and Juliet, which of course I can't get too personal about, but just it was amazing considering the background that she has come from. The polygamous household is by nature abusive. It is legal and accepted for men to beat their wives in Uganda. And when I say wives, I mean literally in plural. The fathers can be very severe, and that's perfectly acceptable.

And so to have her, you know, have the idea that, okay, Hasan is going to be something quite different, and intentionally, and it's by God's design that things be this way. That was something to have her kind of, especially through the week, kind of get an idea about. By the way, part of the last counseling was what Nancy did from the US over the phone with her.

And I obviously wasn't there and didn't hear it. But after that, Juliette, her eyes just sparkled. She just was so excited about her conversation with Nancy. I asked Nancy about it, and Nancy said, well, she didn't say much. It was real interesting, but she was really excited about what Nancy told her, apparently.

So, yes. Not specifically. Elishka had identified two guys who were theology students over there. I met with them, talked to them, and very quickly realized that their theology program was gross. It was really bad. But they didn't realize it. She asked me, did you tell them that? I said, no, usually if I tell people that their theology program is gross, they just get offended and think I'm crazy. So I said, you know, I could follow up with him on it, but generally that's not going to be too helpful. Bottom line is they didn't look like candidates.

I did talk with a number of guys there, but because there was so much focus on Hassan, And the time, you know, making sure that everything got dealt with there. And even a lot of last minute stuff because of Juliet's background and her father and all that. I had to put the focus there to make sure that that worked out. So I didn't identify anyone in particular, although I met a number of guys and we'll follow through and see if we can come up with, you know, an answer to that for at least from Uganda.

While I went over to teach in both places and was very well received, I also felt like of the three trips that I've taken over there, I learned a very great deal on this last trip. Very insightful. But anyway, that's the answer to your question. Yes?

Well, the thing is, because of his time spent with us, because they were just overwhelmed by the investment we made in him. I mean, Boaz Mungau, whose name I mentioned in his picture I showed, he said, do you mean that you spent nine weeks just sitting down teaching him? I said, well, it wasn't just me. I said, we had others who were involved. But yeah, he's wow.

Because of the time we invested in him, they've offered him to be a pastor in one of the village churches. In fact, they've already offered him one, and he said, no, I just got married. But as I talked with them, a possibility is that he could go up and be a pastor at Chisinau Village, which is the village where we've had some contact over time here. So the answer, he's probably going to be a pastor. Yeah. Yes. I think there's a couple of things.

If the Christian men do not have good, you know, teaching and counseling and that kind of thing, they will continue to beat their wives because it is the cultural norm. And I have had to counsel over there with couples, you know, once they become Christians out of either the pagan or the Muslim background, had to counsel them, look, loving your wife means that you don't beat them. And then the question I got the last time I was over there, what do you do with a guy who's got several wives and doesn't want to love all of them? I said, look at this. It says, husbands love your wives. Husbands love your wives. You better love them, all of them, right?

Okay, we've probably blown out the time, so why don't I just close in prayer and we'll call that good, okay? Lord, we do thank you as we look at what's transpired here. We look even for continuing work in the hearts and lives of those. We pray that you would make it apparent what ought to happen next and make that clear. We pray for Hassan and Juliet as they begin their new life in Christ here, now just a little bit over a week old. And we just thank you for what you've done and accomplished. We pray for our time together. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Have a wonderful week and in the weeks ahead. We've got a lot of things happening with people in the body. Drew and Edie, I think this is your last day here before you head to Boise. That's a long walk. Take it easy, OK? Yes? You should also pray for Booker Harris. He's got a head coaching job in California. OK. A head coaching job. Cool. All right. That's great. All right, so you'll be leaving. OK.

So we've got the Conways and Booker leaving here. So big things happening. And matter of fact, in a few weeks, we have it in the bulletin. We have some weddings here in Fort Collins and in Ohio. So let's take a minute to pray for those, okay? Lord, as we look to the big things that are happening here in the weeks ahead, we've got people making short-term trips, but also some big moves.

We pray for Drew and Edie and their kids as they head off to Boise and we entrust them to you. We pray also for Booker as he takes on a great new opportunity there in the San Francisco East Bay. And we just thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you for your love and care. We entrust all these circumstances to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.