What started out as a hunger for food in Uganda has
turned into a hunger for Christ – and could spark a movement that
takes the gospel across the nation.
What started out as a hunger for food in Uganda has
turned into a hunger for Christ – and could spark a movement that
takes the gospel across the nation.
It all began in a refugee camp in the town of Kitgum.
Today, the sound of beating drums and singing drift down the
walking path there, beckoning perons to join a celebration.
Joicemary Anyiri joins the singing as she picks up the pace
on the short walk from her mud home. The barefoot old woman walks with a slight
limp. It does not matter to her – like many of her neighbors, she is on
her way to hear about Jesus.
As the Bible teaching begins, silence falls across the 200
people squeezing under the limited shade. Anyiri concentrates on every word
the teacher speaks, trying to memorize each point so it can be recited later
at home. Her older sister, Doloryina Obol, sits next to her doing the same.
At first glance, Padibe Baptist Church looks like any other.
You would never guess that this group is only months old or that many of its
leaders are even younger in their faith – or that it all started because
of some surplus food.
Southern Baptist International Mission Board hunger relief
reached this small community by providence. Not wanting to waste nine tons of
leftover cornmeal and beans, missionary Jack Frost sent it with Ugandan home
missionaries to 10,000 displaced people staying in the camp outside of Kitgum.
Even though last years drought is long gone, many people
still are hungry and in need of food. Most are in the camp simply for safety
reasons. Back in their villages, danger awaits in the form of dangerous rebels
and raiding parties.
Thus, for safetys sake, nine parishes, encompassing 25
villages, now live on a five-mile stretch of land. There is no room for gardening
or farming. Each house is less than three feet from the next. Gaunt old men
and women walk around the camp watching out for the children, while young men
and women walk four or five miles to nearby villages every day in efforts to
keep a garden and feed their families.
“These people were in desperate need of food. As the relief
help was given, it gave a chance to do some evangelism and a fellowship developed
out of that,” Frost says. “We also had 32 Bibles in the Acholi language
to help the new believers have regular Bible study.”
Ugandan pastors Jasper Sam and Moses Oludot preached the gospel
and handed out the food, purchased with money from the Southern Baptist World
Hunger Fund.
By the end of the service, 60 people had been saved.
“We always have evangelism with relief, and this was an
exceptional response, …” Frost notes. “That is the kind of relief
we strive for, and it is lasting. That is more than food.”
The two Ugandan pastors knew they could not leave the camp
with new believers and no one to disciple them. So, Sam turned over his pastorate
at the Baptist church in Kitgum to a man he had been discipling and began making
the eight-mile trek to and from the camp on his bicycle.
“The people responded. They are ready for Christ,”
Sam says. “The Acholi were always the hardest people to tell the gospel
to because they fight and quarrel and did not want anything to do with the Bible.”
Testimonies reveal many saved from drunkenness, witchcraft,
idol worship and constant fighting. Also, since moving from the village to the
camp, the Acholi have been forced to look out for one another and care about
more than themselves, Anyiri notes. “Before, you did not care for anyone
but your family. Now, when there is a threat of the rebels coming, you grab
all of your neighbors kids or any others standing around and gather them
in your house. Things are changing here.”
Anyiri has changed. Each day, she reads the Bible while sitting
under a shade tree. Others gather to listen.
“I will never stop praising and praising God for what
he has done for me,” she insists. “There has been a lot of painfulness
caused by the rebels, but we still praise and we still pray. God is our only
helper.”
When peace finally reaches the area, such changes and commitments
are what may start a church planting movement, Frost notes. With so many villages
represented in one camp and most villages represented in the Baptist church,
the young believers are being discipled in the Great Commission.
“When there is a time of peace, these people will all
go home, …” Frost notes. “The gospel will be taken to 25 different
villages – all of it started from this one central place.”
It is a sentiment being expressed elsewhere in Uganda –
by other new believers caught up in a gospel movement.
For instance, on the edge of Lake Victoria, shoeless men in
ragged clothes watch as an unfamiliar boat approaches.
Visitors usually are not welcome here.
But with a wave and a shout, the people in this boat identify
themselves – and smiles of joy break out on the faces of the men on shore.
They hop into dugout canoes to meet the small motorboat carrying Southern Baptist
missionaries George and Geraldine Smith. “Pastor, I have all of my verses
here,” one man says excitedly as he points to his head.
This man is among more than 10,000 refugees living on the 50-plus
islands of Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh water lake in the world.
Some of them were banished to the islands as political refugees. Others are
there because they committed crimes or carry a disease such as AIDS or tuberculosis.
Many could leave but have no place to go.
Fifty miles off the Ugandan coast rests the largest island,
known as Bavuma. Distance alone makes it difficult for communication or even
visitors. Only three boats a week – overloaded with charcoal and bananas
– leave the island for Jinja, the closest town. People who want to travel
back and forth climb on top of the loads and help bail water out of the leaky
boat for the entire five-hour ride.
For such reasons, most people prefer simply to forget about
the islands. Not God, though. He is at work changing the hearts and attitudes
of people on the islands, the Smiths say. “God is here, and he is moving,”
George Smith says. “The response of the people is great. They are eager
to listen and learn.”
The Smiths and missionaries Willie and Beulah Scott are heading
up the first concentrated focus on the islands, using a small, second-hand motorboat
provided by Lottie Moon Christmas Offering funds. They started the ministry
from a small Baptist church begun years ago on Bavuma by a retired missionary.
It is the only evangelical church on the islands.
The mud-brick, tin-roofed church now is the base for all evangelism
and outreach programs. A Bible school attracts Christian and non-Christian students
from all over the island. A literacy program was started because many islanders
cannot read or write, and a school for the primary-aged children on the island
is going strong. Plans also are in the works to start sports leagues and teach
some vocational skills.
Ugandan evangelist Stephen Baidu travels to the islands once
a week with Smith. Baidu says even those who do not read are learning the Bible
verses and stories. “One man does not read, but he memorized 20 verses
from the Old and New Testament in one week,” he says. “He was that
eager to learn.”
With nothing to do on the island but fish and drink alcohol,
the Bible school attracts a lot of attention. Indeed, the heart of the dirty,
remote island, which has no electricity or running water, lies in the Bible
classes. People paddle canoes from islands as far as 20 miles away to attend
the three-day sessions. Thirty students – some with Bibles and some without
pen and paper – crowd into a six-foot by 10-foot room to learn more about
Jesus. At night, they sleep outside or on the dirt floor.
The first order of business in each session is turning in homework
and reciting memory verses. Once 20 verses are memorized and recited all at
the same time, a student receives a Bible written in his own language. Many
languages are represented on the island since most of the people are refugees.
Smith says this diversity makes the islands the perfect place
to establish a witness and teach missions to island residents who eventually
will return to the mainland.
“We can win Uganda to the Lord by training these people,”
he says. “The people here on the islands can be the missionaries. They
can go back to their people on the mainland and preach the gospel in their native
language to their families. These people will make the difference in breaking
the vast spiritual darkness in Uganda.”
Baidu agrees, shaking his head in wonder at the island residents
who speak of Christ. Just a year ago, no one spoke of Jesus – only of drinking
and fighting.
“Our hearts are changing,” he says. “Jesus is
here, and he is moving among us. What we need is prayer. More churches cannot
be started here without prayer to back it up.
“But its going to happen,” Baidu affirms. “I
know it.” (BP)
(Search for prayer requests from Uganda at www.imb.org/CompassionNet/countries.asp.
Learn about outreach to people groups in eastern Africa at www.peopleteams.org/EAF.htm.)