Mission Complete

As expected, things got crazy on our final count-down before returning to New Zealand. Time was of-the-essence, as we tried to finish up the Cell Point system while life was dotted with good-bye dinners, departure medicals, winding-down ministry and packing our bags.

Good Bye Dinner with IT & Volunteer Staff
On our last night in Uganda, we went out to dinner with the IT Team, a couple of our fellow volunteers, and our volunteer coordinator. It was great to have a chance to appreciate each other.

We received some really nice going-away gifts. We had so much fun with these guys and we will miss them a lot.

So, How Was Uganda?

Discipleship "Overnight Celebration"
It was hugely satisfying for Jordan to attend some of an all-night worship service, whose audience consisted of the hundreds of people who graduated the discipleship class, including his group. We know we will enjoy lasting relationships from this time.

Cell Point (Trial) Finished!
In the last half-hour of our IT work time, we published the completed, live trial of the Cell Point System.

For us and the IT Team, it was hugely rewarding to see 'our baby' running. We have high hopes for this system saving hours of fuel and pastoral time for Watoto every week.

IT Classes Started at Bbira
Another exciting result of our trip is the kick-start of the IT classes at Bbira children's village. With John keeping the flame burning with this one, we feel privileged to have piloted the launch.

Children's Church
It was wonderful for Julie to be involved with Watoto children's church. We attended an afternoon retreat with the children's ministry team during our last week. They are such a high-quality team. Julie looks forward to receiving a DVD of the Christmas Cantata children's play which she has helped audition, edit and direct.

Overall
We are overwhelmed with how God has used our little visit to achieve so much. We have personally grown heaps through new ministries, like teaching, hospital ministry, enduring difficult situations in an unfamiliar country, and through encountering the Spirit of God in the African people.

We will miss Uganda. It certainly has its up-sides!

Arrival Home

On our first day back, we met our family and came back to Julie's parents' house. They were all ready for us to camp in the back yard, complete with campsite modelled after the recent "occupy" protests!

Now, we get over jetlag and reintegrate into New Zealand life. We look forward to sharing all the experiences and enrichment we have received during our time with Watoto.

You have all done so much for us in supporting us to live in work for Watoto in Uganda.

Thank you!


Here is a collection of our 'sign spotting' photos from the trip (click for the gallery):

Gulu

We spent 4 nights in Gulu, in northern Uganda, a little while ago. Northern Uganda is very beautiful, relatively quiet and the air is clear; it was a welcome change from Kampala.

Our main reason for visiting Gulu, was to witness the work of Watoto's trauma rehabilitation team and their work with the IDP (Internally Displace People) community. The IDP camps were created so the government could control the Acholi people when Joseph Kony was rampaging through the area. There is a lot of bitterness and hurt among these communities. Although the people are now free to leave, many of them stay in or frequently return to the camps. The infrastructure of the camps, including schools and clinics, makes many feel, "this is where life is".

The Watoto trauma team go to these camps and run two-week courses. The first week is about psychoeducation and teaching people how to forgive build their lives again. The second week is only for people who indicated in the first week that they wanted to know Jesus personally and it focuses on developing that relationship further.

One day of our visit, we went up with the trauma team to one of these IDP camps to witness the last day of the second part of the course. The Watoto team gave out Bibles and encouraged them to continue meeting together. The people at this particular camp had been especially eager to have Bibles. They wanted them more than any other material thing, so it was a great privilege to be there when they received them with such excitement ("Ieieieieieieieieieeee!").

The people who had been through both weeks of the course then told stories of how their lives had changed. Then, some of them wanted to sing and dance, so they did.

Afterwards, we got to play with some of the children. Jordan swung them around and Julie showed them pictures of themselves. There were many giggles all around.

Everybody had a great time, which is cool considering we couldn't understand each other's language.

 

While in Gulu, we took the opportunity to explore Watoto's ministries up there. We got to visit the church, the babies home, the children's village and Living Hope, where marginalised women (usually AIDS widows or LRA escapees) are taken in and taught how to make cool stuff to sell, how to read and write and how to responsibly deal with the trauma they have experienced.

Setting off in the evening rain with some fellow volunteers. We were trying to find some boda-bodas to take us out for a last dinner together. Boda-bodas are motorcyle transport. Watoto volunteers are forbidden to use them in the big city but, in Gulu, the roads are quiet, the drivers slower, and boda-bodas are the only public transport! It's a fun way to get around.

 

We are so glad to have been able to go to Gulu and see the things that are happening there. God is certainly doing a great work.

Flocking loud

So, after numerous requests, we have recorded a flock of the goose/megaphone/pig birds for your listening pleasure.

It turns out it was not the marabou storks. We got a photo of one, and to the best of our judgement, the culprit is of the ibis species.

For the most faithful reproduction, turn up your speakers until they distort horribly.

Sideline Headlines Part Two

The Children's Cantata
I (Julie) have been helping to direct the young actors and actresses from Church who will be performing in the Christmas Cantata at the end of the year. It had been quite a fun experience with characters such as “Meat”, “Chicken” and “Vegetables” telling the Christmas story. Alas, we can not stay to see the finished production but I am enjoying the time I have and am looking forward to watching the DVD.

Chlidren's Church

I have also been involved in Children's Church on Sunday mornings. I am usually one of about five facilitators in the 4-7 year olds' class. This is quite a new experience as there are more than 60 children in just that one group! What I do changes from week to week, but it could be telling a story or teaching a memory verse or something like that. Some of the children are afraid of me because I look so different to them but some enjoy the novelty value.

Computer Classes

For the last couple of weeks, we have been producing material and teaching computer classes to young high schoolers in Bbira, one of the Watoto villages. Bbira is a beautiful village.

 

The name means "forest", and there is a forest of tall trees, which give the village its character.

The shady spaces between the trees make a great hangout.

After we showed the students how to open Microsoft Word:
Girl: It's not doing anything.
Julie: That's because it's waiting for you to do something. This is like a piece of paper that you can write on.
Girl: Where's the pencil?
Julie: (pointing to the keyboard) This is the pencil. See? You can write stuff with it.
Girl: Wow! That's cool!

Most of the children there had never really used a computer, so we had to start by teaching them how to use a mouse. It is really fun to see them get so excited by basic computer concepts. The first thing we taught them was how to use Paint. When they started drawing their first lines, the room was filled with giggles and expressions of delight.

John is the IT guy at Bbira (also assisting other villages), and also an ex-teacher.

He is very excited about the IT classes we have been piloting, and he has committed to "carry the torch" to continue the classes. Next year, a proper IT cirriculum will be aquired, exams and all.


Prayer & Praise

• Thank God that we have been able to have such a wide and varied experience of Watoto and its ministries.
• Thank God for a safe trip to Gulu, and for all we saw there (blog incoming!).
• Thank God for all the people's lives in which we've been able to be involved, and the blessings which have gone both ways.

• Pray for John as he takes over the IT classes, that God will really enrich the children's lives, and John's through these classes.
• It's crunch time, organisationally, socially and practically as our return to New Zealand draws near. Please pray for smooth sailing.
• Please pray that the IT team will be thoroughly successful in continuing to develop the Cell Point system as they adjust to us no longer appearing the office each day.

The Source of the River Nile

On Saturday, some friends of ours very kindly took us to see the source of the River Nile. We went out in a boat to visit the place where the Nile comes out of Lake Victoria. It was very beautiful.

 Look! A reptile from the Nile! It's a WILD ANIMAL.

Some of the water for the Nile flows from Lake Victoria and some comes from underground springs.

We saw wild monkeys! Everyone here thinks it's crazy that we hadn't ever seen monkeys outside a zoo, so now we can be in the club.

After that, we ate some fish that was very fresh and tasty, as far as fresh water fish goes. The fish was fried whole and we had to take all the meat off it with mostly fingers. Yum.

By the way, as we write this, we are in Gulu! That's in Northern Uganda, where the conflict happened with Joseph Kony and his rebels. We even saw the school where he grew up. More on that in another post.

Prayer and Praise

• Thank God that as our trip draws near a close, we are feeling like our hopes were fulfilled and we are healthy.
• Please pray that each precious day we have left will be productive, and we will be able to leave the Cell Point in a good place for the pastors to begin trialing it and the IT team to continue developing it.

God is Good

A little story for you, by Julie.

We mentioned in our last post that we have had a problem with bed bugs. We had actually had that problem for probably about 6 weeks before we realised what was going on. By the time we found out where all the itchy bites were coming from, we had endured a fair bit of suffering. We had tried spraying some things, which helped for a little while, but the bugs always came back because that's what bed bugs do. When we found out what they were, how they like to hide in tiny little cracks and crevices, how difficult they are to get rid of and how much blood they suck, we started feeling very discouraged. Bed bugs are like a cross between ticks and headlice. They suck blood like ticks (minus the corkscrew nose) and they breed and spread like headlice (minus the living on your head thing). We were already very tired and we didn't feel like we could handle this.

On the Saturday before last, we had been in church during the morning while I did some Children's Cantata stuff and we really didn't want to go home. We couldn't face it. So, we checked some movie times for the local malls. These malls only show about three or four movies at a time and most of the time, we are not terribly keen on the choices. But on this Saturday, God made sure the movie that we really needed to see in the name of emotional wellbeing, Johnny English: Reborn, was playing. It was such a wonderful breath of fresh air and we laughed the whole way through it.

After the movie, we were lured into an electronics shop with a "3D World by Sony" sign. The 3D wasn't operational, but we did see three T.V. screens showing scenes of New Zealand! Not only that, but they were scenes of Auckland, places we know and fresh and clean ocean. We told the shop attendant that our city was playing on the T.V. and he watched it with us. He was amazed at the lack of dust and we found that rather amazing as well. Among the scenes was a shot of the ferry I used to ride to work every day! There are only about 2 boats that look like that in all of Auckland and one made it to an electronics shop in Uganda. I was so happy to see it, I shouted "That's my ferry!" I knew that God could see us and that he cared. We also knew that, before too long, we would be back in the ocean and there are no bed bugs in the ocean. =)

The final icing on the cake was dinner. There was a grill we had seen before but had never been to and we decided to give it a try. It was part of a butcher's shop, which seemed promising. It was amazing. Definitely the best food we have ever had here. There were many tasty vegetables and the chef knew how to make a dignified well-done steak which is quite rare (haha). I have recently discovered that my one of my biggest, if not my biggest, love language is being fed. If somebody gives me good food then I feel loved and taken care of. I know that this dinner was another gift from God.

The bed bug battle continued, but we found that we could face it a little better than we could before.

So that's my story. Thanks for reading. Your regularly scheduled program will continue shortly.

Sideline Headlines Part One

Hello, everyone! We are glad to finally be updating you. The next two updates should give you an idea of why we have been so busy. Here is part one about what we have been up to, besides our IT work.

Discipleship Class
Discipleship class at Watoto is an intensive small-group-based study of the Christian faith. Attendees spend time learning the essentials as well as unlearning 'toxic religion' they may have picked up along the way. Jordan is a facilitator for one of these groups, meeting once or twice weekly, and keeps in-touch with the guys between.

A couple of TXTs Jordan has received:

"Hi Jordan, good morning! I Just woke up with this big desire to say thank you. Thank you for who u have been to us as a group and to me as an individual. Thank you for being there. God bless you."

"Hey Jordan! Praise God! I really cant thank you enough for today. Thanks for being passionate about the works of God and thanks for ministering. God will bless you so much. I loved the talk and the food also. Thanks again brother. And regards to Julie."

He co-facilitates with the other leader (in the red). Jordan is passionate about helping new believers experience what Jesus says in John 8:32, "the truth will set you free", and these classes have been a great avenue for this.



Jordan does Hospital Ministry

Wow, this is a tough calling. This is a big part of the vision I had for coming to Uganda, and it has definitely impacted me. Going and seeing people in such dire straights, really gives you an appreciation for your circumstances.

I have joined an experienced Ugandan Christian in going to pray for the sick, encourage them and talk about God's love for them.

Eventually, I also lead the Discipleship Class to come and experience this ministry. In the public hospital here, people are lucky to get a bed, and if no friends or family come to look after you, you don't eat. Not to mention medical care may well be insufficient for the (dire) needs.

 It has been very humbling trying to bear a message of hope to people in such circumstances. Nevertheless, we were privileged to see several people give their lives to Christ, and I look forward to hearing of answers to prayers as people are followed up.

Coming up in Part Two...

• Julie has been facilitating in Children's Church and helping prepare for the Children's Cantata at the end of the year.
• We have begun teaching computer classes for young high-schoolers at the Bbira children's village.
• One of our IT team will be taking us to the source of the Nile this weekend!

Please Pray for:

• Wise use of our last month here.
• A swift death (for the bed bugs which have been discovered in our home!). It is really tiring us out keeping these horrid critters at bay. Please pray that the soon-coming fumigation and other measures will be 100% effective.
• The Cell Point website getting operational and in good condition before we leave.

Praise God for:

• The Cell Point system coming together.
• Good people who have helped us get around.
• The amazing experiences we have had!

Amazing things about New Zealand

Amazing Things We Have Learned About New Zealand During Our Time In Uganda:

• In New Zealand, people rarely greet strangers. Often, people pretend not to notice you.

• In New Zealand, bananas and mangos taste more like cardboard!
  
• In New Zealand, children complain a lot about doing household chores!
• In New Zealand, cars only drive on one side of the road, and motorbikes never drive on the footpath!
• In New Zealand, you can chew your food with reckless abandon There are no stones in it!
• In New Zealand, no one ever chants through a megaphone before dawn. If you want a natural wake up call, you need roosters!
• In New Zealand, shops, houses and cars keep their colour! There just isn't enough dust to make them go clay-coloured.

In New Zealand, taxi vans don't have random, nonsensical slogans!

• In New Zealand, even the prime minister can be held accountable for his actions.
• In New Zealand, no one can get away with burning miscellaneous household rubbish and smoking out the neighbourhood. The air is clear in the suburbs all year around!
• In New Zealand, the government employs people especially to stop loud music playing after bedtime. Super loud nightclubs in residential areas would never last.
• In New Zealand, you can make a whole house out of wood! It will last over a hundred years without being eaten.

• In  New Zealand, a bus ticket costs as much as a private hire taxi in Uganda!
• In New Zealand, a family's rent for a week can easily cost as much as 4 1/2 month's wages, for a Ugandan with a decent job. Yet, the New Zealand family still has money left over.
• The eggs in New Zealand are exotic.

• In  New Zealand, there is a coastline! With beaches! Sometimes, you can even swim in fresh water, and drink water out of the tap!
• In New Zealand, electricity is on most of the time, even in the suburbs!
• In New Zealand, people have so much to thank God for, yet most rarely do.
• Wherever you go, anywhere in the world, people are like rice: precious, and 15% broken.

Thank you, everyone, for your ongoing support and prayer. Life is good. Praise God.

Our Job

We hope you are well. For the duration of our stay here, we are part of the Watoto IT team! Let us introduce them to you.

The truth is, they are a multi-talented bunch of highly-motivated, passionate individuals, and it is a pleasure to work with them. We have no idea who the guy in the background is, but we hope he is not too offended if he ever reads our little joke :) .

The goal of the Watoto IT team is creating a seamless information technology experience for all the Watoto Staff.  When they are not spending their hours coding (like us), the guys are often running all around fixing computer problems in Watoto central, where we're based, or the outer districts.

Cell Point - Saving the leaders heaps of time, and revolutionizing the way they keep track of the church!

"On behalf of Watoto ministries, I appreciate Massey Presbyterian Church for sending Jordan and Julie Morris who are full of ideas and have tremendous skill sets and have contributed  their skills and time. With their help, I have been able to learn and advance my skills in software development without paying any fees, and they are significantly contributing to the Watoto ministries by modifying and building the Watoto cell point system which is aimed to be used by all the Watoto churches as it expands throughout Africa. They are my inspiration and by the time they leave I want to be like them and they will have changed our story."
- Dennis, Watoto IT

Cell point is web-based system designed to help organise Watoto Church. Getting it off the ground is our biggest job.


Watoto is a cell-based church. That means most of the church members (about 98%) attend small groups called 'cells' in the middle of the week.

Each cell studies the Bible and prays together. The cells are like families and the people in them grow really close to each other. A lot of what Watoto does is based around this concept.

How do you organise a church like this?

The old (current) way:

1. Cell leaders have to fill in paper reports, saying what the topic of the cell was, who attended, who visited and recording any new members.
2. These reports are delivered to the center of each district by the cell leaders.
3. The district leaders compile the reports, and deliver them (often with long road trips), to Watoto central (Kampala).
4. The cell administrator spends long hours of data entry and producing reports to see how the church is doing and keep track of members.

The Cell Point way:

1. Cell leaders log on to the Web and enter their reports.
2. The cell administrator logs on and presses the 'church report' button.

This new system is about to become critical, as the church is just now expanding to South Africa and beyond!


Cell Point now and beyond:
As soon as the core features of Cell Point are ready, we will begin integrating other databases into it. It will become the hub for human resource management, member tracking and project reporting for Watoto Church. So, it is critical that the foundations are built well.

Cell Point was started by Dennis in the IT Department. With the level of expertise he had and working mostly alone, he could only take it so far. We have been able to future-proof the structure, fix up various issues and add features that Dennis didn't know how to add.

One of our goals is to prepare Dennis to pilot Cell Point into the future. He has been very patient with us as we changed a lot of the structure of the program he wrote, and he is picking up new techniques quickly.

Other Work
Meanwhile, we have been making pathways into other ministries. It has taken a bit of time to make the right contacts, but things are coming together.

These activities include:

• Hospital ministry.
• Discipleship classes.
• Teaching early-highschool classes computer skills.
• Sunday school.

There is too much to go into on this blog, but look out for more details soon!


Prayer and Praise

• Praise God that He has brought us here at this key moment for Cell Point to find its feet.
• Praise God that it is written in our favourite programming language, and many things we learned at university and through our old jobs are directly applicable
• Thank  you for praying for our productivity, things are going well, and we are so excited to be here, doing it!
• Pray that Cell Point will reach completion soon, so we have more time to help with integration and training.
• Pray that God will give us strength and courage as we branch into new areas of ministry.
• Please pray for Hope, a very prematurely-born baby cared for in one of the Watoto baby homes, who has miraculously pulled through to her 5th week, but has been losing weight. She weighs about 600 grams.

Watoto Church

While we are in Uganda, we are working with Watoto Church. The people there are committed to being Jesus' hands and feet in the lives of everyone in their city, country, continent and world and are a real inspiration. Through them, Jesus renews the lives of destitute women, abandoned and mistreated children, prisoners, sick people and even 'normal' people. =)

There are five church buildings in Kampala, one in Gulu, one soon-to-be in Cape Town, South Africa and one a-bit-later-to-be in Southern Sudan.

The following two pictures are of Watoto Church Central, where we work.

This is the view from the roof of Watoto Church Central showing part of downtown Kampala.

This is Watoto Church West, also in Kampala, where we went for a special Festival of Hope celebration. The Festival of Hope marks the birthday of Watoto Church and celebrates what God has been doing and will do in their communities.

The other day, we drove out to see two of the children's villages that Watoto runs. Along the way, the car had to slide, struggle and climb through a series of wet, muddy ditches in the road. The car barely made it. It was great fun!

This man is building a classroom at Suubi village. 'Suubi' means 'hope' in Luganda and it is the largest children's village that Watoto runs.

It is so beautiful there, and the air is so clean. It feels like the safest, happiest place in the world. Walking through the village brought Julie back to her childhood and she felt very much like playing marbles.

These villages house orphaned children (up to 8 in a house), house mothers, pastors (one per village) and teachers. They also have their own schools and a clinic. At lease one of the villages provides fresh water to the community outside the village.

On Thursday, we saw the very first show of the new Watoto Children's Choir production, "Beautiful Africa". Many of the children from the villages belong to choirs that tour the world telling people how Jesus has changed their lives and encouraging them to get behind the Watoto vision.

All the songs and dances in Beautiful Africa are completely original and are very good. We were blown away! The children obviously love what they do. For weeks, we had been hearing one line from the opening song repeated over and over again as the choir rehearsed. We weren't sure if we would like hearing the whole song, but when we finally heard it, it was amazing. What a relief! =) Seriously, though, if the Watoto Children's choir ever comes to your town performing Beautiful Africa, you HAVE to go.

Rain

Our new friends in the IT department were telling us some interesting things about rain.

Apparently, when it rains, everybody sleeps in. When they were in primary school, they would be caned for being the tiniest bit late, but when it rained, they could come two hours late, tell the teacher "It rained" and get off scott free! Mothers might say to their children, "Where are you going? It rained!" Sometimes, bosses don't even show up at work because it rained the night before.

They also said that the people in the villages use firewood to cook their food, so if the wood is wet, it seriously disrupts their eating. It makes sense, then, that if rain during the night causes you to skip breakfast, you won't want to go anywhere, but we can't think of any reason why everyone else would find it so disruptive. It gave us a good laugh.

Here is a better picture of the humongous birds. Good ol' 12x optical zoom.

Welcome Home

Driving from the airport to the Watoto guest house revealed a mixed landscape of greenery, dirt roads, and tarmac roads which are so dusty they look like dirt roads!

Most things have a layer of red dust on them.

We stopped at our local 'supermarket' on the way in. We would call it a very cluttered superette. Anyway, we were able to find the basic supplies, and went on to our new home.

The below, or at least one room of it, is our home. It is a nice big solid place, located in relatively well-to-do spot in an elevated area (but still a mixture of nice houses and slum). It is all gated and barred so we feel pretty safe in there.

It is one of two main houses in Kampala hosting a number of Watoto volunteers. There were 3 other volunteers in the house when we arrived, two Ozzies and a Chinese student from the States.

These were great people to meet, but in the last few days they have all left. Another girl (an American Missionary Kid from Italy) arrived yesterday and apparently there are more guests incoming. There is also a grounds keeper who lives on the property and keeps an eye on the place.

Because of power rationing, electricity is only on half of the time. On any particular day you never know if you will have power for all, half or none of the day. It makes things like using the washing machine a gamble. Thankfully, there is a gas stove.

Apparently we are about 20 minutes walk from lake Victoria where there is a market, but we have yet to explore that far. The occasional roosters we can hear in the neighbourhood are completely redundant for wake-up calls. There are huge, ugly, loud, wild birds with dangly necks which hurtle from place to place in the morning. They sound like geese with megaphones being attacked by pigs!

This is the best picture we have got of the birds so far, taken from a distance with a cellphone.

We have started IT work now, and seen the Babies' Home. More on them later.

Prayer points:

• Thank God it looks like we will fit right in to our roles.
• Pray for our health as the in the last 24 hours we have had the unwelcome interruption of some travel-belly.