Geelong to Uganda

Geelong to Uganda
Google image of trip from Geelong (my home) in Australia to Karamoja, Uganda!

Tuesday 8 May 2012

My time to story: Sitting under a tree relaxing with some Karamojans


2/05/12

Wednesday the 2nd May was a great day. Miriam and I, with Joshua (a local guy and friend who has worked with KACHEP for most of its time, with animal work, agroforestry work and evangelism work, plus translates for us) and Olum (local animal health worker and traditional healer) drove down to Lolachat, where we would be doing the spraying that day. Summer had malaria (not a great part of this story) and so had to stay home, sick in bed :(
Usually each Wednesday spraying consists of three parts; tick-spraying cattle, sheep and goats, vet treatments and a Bible story at the end. With Summer not there she asked if I would like to tell the story. I jumped at the opportunity and I told the story of the Lost Son (Luke 15:11-32). I love this story for what it tells us of both God and humanity in the characters of the father and the sons. I feel it's applicable to all ears that may hear it because everyone rebels against God, whether they live in Aus or here in K'jong, just like the younger son in the story rebels against his father. Just like in the story, as soon as we ask for forgiveness and turn away from living life our own way, God forgives. He loves us so much, he is waiting for this, in fact! He wants us to come back into relationship with him just like the father in the story waited for his son to come home.
The people were very interactive with the story, in the usual Karamojong way and although I wish I could be telling the story in their language without needing a translator, I was also glad to have Joshua there. He often gets really excited about acting stories out and so when the part of the story came where the son returns home he got up and acted out the father looking out across the land and seeing the son and then racing out to greet him, ha ha he is really good value for that! Even as an older man he still gets youthfully excited when it comes to telling people about God.
I really loved sitting around with the people, sharing with them and then listening to their thoughts on it afterwards. It just feels so natural to sit under a tree here and talk about God together, I may look really different to them but somehow they accepted me, listened to the story and were even interested to know more. Afterwards the conversation took a really cool turn into explaining how it is that God can forgive us, like the father does in the story. How is it that God can forgive everyone's sins, every wrong thing done against him, and all we have to do is ask for our record of wrongs to be metaphorically wiped clean? What a great question and segue into talking about Jesus. The Karamojans understand the idea of sacrifice probably better than we do the first time we hear it because, in many ways the people here live like they are in the pages of the old testament. When wrong is done, a price must be paid, blood of an animal is shed, for justice, they “get” that, it's how life is here. Like us they may not understand how it could be that God could love us that much to send his son to take on the weight of such a sacrifice, all the sins of the world paid, once for all but they can believe. Jesus died that death so we don't have to.
Afterward we prayed to our powerful God for anything that was on their hearts. A lot of the people there had lost cattle to 'enemies' recently and this is a massive blow to them, their livelihoods, their sustainability and even their ability to provide for their families. I feel so sad for them I can't even put it into words. Some of them have people come and attack their villages and homes every week. I cannot imagine how that must feel for them; that insecurity and worry. But the crazy thing is when I talk to them about it they often repeat 'mam nache, iyey akutch' to me, 'God is there, we do not worry', the faith of those who believe out here is such an encouragement to me. It is true God is here, God is in every situation and God takes on our worries and troubles. I also asked Joshua to pray for Summer, who is really feeling horrible. Turns out malaria sucks. Thank God he has given the world an effective and relatively pain free treatment for it. If she had brucellosis (another common disease out here) she would have to have 5ml of antibiotic injected into her thigh muscle daily for 14 days! There's a silver lining for everything.

Later in the afternoon we returned home and got stuck into some language learning, it is fun to be able to say more and more to the people around you each week. You really take language for granted when you are back home and can speak to everyone easily.

Since writing the above, Summer has finished her malaria treatment and apart from stomach upsets and remaining fatigue (malaria destroys red blood cells= iron depletion= muscle weakness), she has recovered :) PTL

All my love, Mel.

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