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It is now March and the rainy season is a bit late. We are patiently waiting for the rains to come, and we have high hopes, for Emily and I have planted our garden in our yard. Each season our garden seems to get a bit bigger in congruence with our hopes as Emily and I gain more experience in this endeavor. This season we have planted tomatoes, onions, cilantro, spinach, carrots, and a taste of home with a bed of jalapeno peppers. We also have a bunch of bananas that should be ready this month and guava that are ripening on the tree outside our bedroom window. We are not the only ones excited about the production of our garden, unfortunately. There is a family of about twenty vervet monkeys that has recently discovered the bounty of plot 36 Kiira Road. Apparently, they make a daily peregrination from the banks of the Nile about half a kilometer into our residential area, where our compound is a prime stop. At first this was a blithe novelty to see them jump from tree to tree. However, the novelty has worn off and we are now at war to keep them from destroying everything that we have planted.
One aspect that we love about having a garden is that it tunes our senses to the realities that determine the situation for the families with whom we work. Over 90% of the families with whom we are working are farmers, depending on the balance of rain and sunshine to nurture the planted seeds in the cultivated soil to the production of a meal that will sustain them. All of them are waiting with higher expectations than ours for the coming rainy season. Most of them have problems with monkeys as well.
We continue to consider it pure blessing that God has allowed us to participate in the growing Church of Busoga. In the last year we have watched a number of young leaders grow in confidence and faithfulness as they have assumed roles in preaching, ministering, and leading different projects for the sake of sharing Gospel with their respective communities. We have many leaders, both men and women, who continue to study Bible and Ministry at Busoga Bible School. There are also many who are meeting monthly with other church leaders in clusters of nearby churches to discuss ministry ideas and to share problems. Many of the churches in Busoga are involved with the Mvule Project, which has planted thousands of trees in Busoga and is at the forefront of the community development and reforestation conversation. Our teammates Bobby Garner and Abraham Mulongo have been working diligently to share the good news from the Word of God through this project. Ronald Bwana and I have been attempting to express the good news of Christ through the church in a similar way through clean water development. We have now completed 8 projects since the inception of Water Source Ministry in 2007 and we have a well that should be finished this month in Lulonda Village. The well in Lulonda should serve more than 100 families. We are thankful that these projects give us the opportunity to share the Word of God with many in the community that would not come to church otherwise, and we pray that God will use the water and the lessons taught to bring more and more life to this place. Since returning from Furlough, Mark Manry has been working diligently in the town ministry with several of the Source Cafe employees and the Jinja Church minister, Richard Bazonoona. He is also carrying the task of developing the organizational structures that are needed to maintain the Source Café and the projects that are working out of the Source such as the Mvule and Water Projects. Lori has been home schooling her family as well as ministering to many from the Jinja community that are present at their home daily. Candice Garner, has clocked countless hours getting our library at the Source in working order. She has spearheaded the project of renovating the library by removing outdated books, organizing the newer books, and cataloging everything that is now in the Source Library. It looks like we will be having the Source Library grand re-opening any time now. This week Emily is in Kenya at a nursing conference that will allow her to keep her license up to date. It is a comfort to all of us to have a nurse on the team, and it seems that Em is constantly using her training as she helps people with basic health education concerning hygiene and breast-feeding as well as problems that range from minor burns and sickness to AIDS and malaria. Ben and Kym Langford have been on furlough and will be returning in a week. We are anxious to get them back here with us, though we are also thankful for the blessings that they have enjoyed while in the US.
There always seems to be a lot happening around, which is one of the blessings of this team. There are times where I feel completely unqualified for a particular task that arises, and these are the times where I see Mark, Candice, or Bobby use their gifts in an amazingly complementary manner. Even after 4 ½ years there is much that I do not understand about the culture here, and I am constantly amazed and encouraged as I witness local leaders such as Ida Bazonoona, Ronald Bwana and James Okumu make biblical applications to situations here that are prophetic and life-perpetuating. And it is for this that we praise God for the work that is being done in and around us. We thank God for the delicate balance of sunshine and rain, for the cultivation that has taken place in the Busoga soil. We pray for growth, for fruit and for a bountiful harvest that will sustain the life of the church here forevermore. We live through your prayers and we ask for your continued partnership in this prayer, that the Kingdom of God will come and remain in Busoga.
You can keep up with us through family websites and blogs we more frequently update - Links are located under the Team Journal menu heading on the left. The Garners keep the most consistently updated blog on the team which can be found at http://bobandcan.wordpress.com. The Manry's maintain a family website with a some videos at: www.manryfamily.com. If you wish to see pictures of our life and ministry in Uganda please visit our blog at www.boglepics.blogspot.com or join us on facebook. Warning: please be prepared to see many, many pictures of our son, Adam. |
