EYO and KAPECHORWA

Kapechesombe village in Kapechorwa District Uganda located on the slopes of Mt. Elgon.  That is where I, Geoff spent 6 days on a mission with 37 young people and 4 other staff members last week.  It is hard to summarize the experience but I want to give you a glimpse of what we saw and experienced.

We departed Kasana Tuesday morning at 5am for the 400KM journey in 4 vehicles, immediately 1 of the taxis we had hired broke down as we reached Luweero (about 18 km from home) which required a quick change into a new vehicle.  Praise God that one came along in less than 5 minutes.  As we neared our destination we were blessed to stop and spend a few minutes at Sipi Falls, a popular tourist site at Mt. Elgon.  The youth many of whom have never gone very far from home were amazed at God’s beauty in the lush rain forest and the series of majestic falls of which the highest one falls over 300ft.  Mt. Elgon has many rivers and falls as you would expect a mountain in a rain forest to have.  

After a 15 minutes of exploring we were back on our way for the last hour of our trip.  As we passed through Kapecorwa town we left the paved road and made the last 5KM of our journey on a dirt road that was far from what you would call easily passable.  With a constant incline the road was filled with ruts, potholes and the look of trouble when it rains.  Finally at 3pm we reached our destination, the village of Kapechesombe.  We were greeted with stares and questions as to why we had come.  The village was very suspicious of outsiders and were not sure why we were there as they struggle with deep division, gripping fear and insecurity.  After having a simple lunch of milk tea and boiled potatoes we began to set up our camp site.  We slept at a primary school using the classes as bedrooms all sleeping on mats on the cement floor.  

Our program contained daily service ministry like digging in peoples gardens or clearing the town of trash.  This is always a blessing and a part of all our outreaches. People are thankful for our willingness to serve, creating an open door for a friendship that allows receptivity to our ministry.  We then would travel from house to house sharing with people the good news that Jesus brought, encouraging them, praying for them and inviting them to our evening open air crusades.  

We held these crusades daily from 4 to 8 p.m. with praise music, dancing, dramas, testimonies, preaching and even showed the Jesus film one night and the passion of Christ another.  Most of the preaching was done by our youth, but I took the last night of the crusade to call people from drinking from earthy cisterns to the Living Water that Jesus promises will satisfy our thirst like no other. 

Additionally, we held seminars on two days where we addressed issues that men, women and youth face.  We discussed issues revolving around our purpose as men and women and the fact that God has a plan for each one of us.  As we addressed the role of husbands and wives in the marriage we taught and encouraged them in the Biblical model.  We found that the Sebei culture (the tribe there) has really struggled in that area.  The wives are treated as servants or slaves while the men are absent from the home.  Even the idea of spending time talking to your children is foreign to them.  They have no relationship whatsoever and the effects of such practice have proved to be crippling to the hearts of the women and children.  The awesome thing was the people were hungry for truth.  Throughout our time there I was continually sought out for questions and further discussion on the topics we taught.  Challenging the men to lead their families, not just be the male figure head, but knowing, loving and spending time with them.

One of the things I love most about these outreaches is the time I get to spend with the youth from our ministry.  Six days of relational time moving together from morning to evening gives me the chance to deepen my relationships with the kids God has called us to.  Even the sleeping accommodations, which were primitive at best provided opportunity to draw closer.  

No outreach can be complete without being stuck in the mud at least once, and the first night our truck got stuck on the way from town and required 10 of us to walk 2 KM in the rain to push it out.  Cold and muddy we were successful and greeted with shouts of joy as we returned at 10pm.  The greatest challenge we faced was the weather as it constantly rained and the temps made us think we were in the Colorado mountains rather than Africa.  As I told you the road reaching the village was poor, any rain we received made the road impassable without a 4x4 until the sun dried it out.  On our last day we prayed intensely for sun as we needed it for the road to be passbible for the taxis we were using, due to the taxi schedule our plans were to leave at 1am and drive thru the night.  God gave us the sun we needed, he is faithful, but the amazing thing is that as we left on the road at 1:30am just as we reached the good road the rain began to fall.  God miraculously held back the rains until the perfect time and when we were safely down He opened the heavens and heavy rain began to fall.