Sustainability:

The real mark of successful mission practice is not so much what can be achieved with your involvement, but what can be achieved after your involvement.  Over two months since we left Uganda it was a delight to hear by email from Pastor Alfonse that the Skills Centre re-opened today for the start of the second 8-month courses in carpentry & business skills and tailoring & business skills, and that there was a good turnout (the first courses finished at the end of July).

It's also been great to hear that the vegetables we planted in our garden before we left have been harvested to feed the children at Daycare, and that there was such a bumper crop from the banana and paw-paw trees planted by Graeme and Jenny Riddell (BMS missionaries who lived in our house before us), that they fed the children in Daycare and at Alpha School, and Alfonse's family!

The building of a row of shops for rent at Kasese Central Baptist Church (KCBC), which began in April with members of St Andrew's Street Baptist Church and KCBC breaking sweat alongside each digging foundation trenches has also progressed.  The walls are now standing up to ringbeam level.

Prayer Requests:

• Give thanks for the hard work of Pastor Alfonse, Pastor Alex, Isaiah and other members of KBAC-DC for managing the skills centre and Daycare, and doing all the procurement, recruiting, accounting, and other tasks required to finish the first courses and start the second courses.
• That the new students will work with enthusiasm and that the staff will inspire them to transform their lives in every sense.
• For protection of project assets, staff and students from theft, violence, fire, flooding or ill-health - all of which are prevalent in Acholi Quarter.
• For the shop-building project at KCBC, which, when completed, will give the church much-needed income.
• Give thanks that baby Jonah (4 weeks) and Bethan are both doing very well, and that we are on track to return to Uganda on 11 October.

the fourth mzungu...

arrived last night at 11pm!

We are delighted to have been blessed with another boy, Jonah Benjamin Shrubsole.  Birthweight 7 lb 10oz (which is exactly the same as Sam was).

Bethan went into labour naturally on Sunday night at 1 week overdue and continued in early stages of labour both at home and in hospital for 48hours.  She was induced and put on an epidural to speed things up as there were a number of signs of possible distress to baby.  Then late last night the hospital decided to go for a c-section to get baby out, and prevent further risk to baby.  Although this sounds similar to Sam's birth it was all much calmer and we are very grateful to the excellent staff at the Rosie hospital in Cambridge who did everything they could for us with calm professionalism and real care.  Both Bethan and Jonah are doing well, and we thank everyone for their prayers and good wishes.  I'm off to hospital now to see them.  Please see picture gallery for photos.

Home Assignment

It’s still rainy season, but the temperatures have dropped steeply – which may be because we’re now in South Wales and not south-west Uganda!

We arrived back in the UK on 30 May after a busy final week of finishing off various bits of work, re-packing all our belongings for travel/secure storage, and preaching at our church on the final Sunday.   The week was made more challenging by a 36 hour power-cut and all three of us suffering from a D&V bug at three day intervals – with Bethan the last to be afflicted on the day that we got an hour-late and hair-raisingly fast taxi ride to Entebbe and then flew back to London Heathrow.  We were quite relieved when we got back to my Dad’s house in Buckinghamshire!

Our first week back in the UK was also pretty busy with medicals in London, speaking at our home church in Cambridge, briefings at BMS HQ in Didcot and visiting both sets of parents in Bucks and Herts.  It was lovely to be back in time for the Jubilee, to enjoy the festivities – especially all the fine food – and to see Britain at its best!

We will be back in the UK for four months, based at our home in Cambridge, and should return to Kasese in early October.  Our second child is due in the first half of July, so most of July and August will be holiday/parental leave.  June and September will be spent visiting some of the many churches who support BMS, without whom it would be impossible for us to live and work in Uganda.   We’ve just completed our first link visits to two different churches in Caerphilly in South Wales – not far from where I was born in Llanishen, Cardiff.   Despite the rain and cold we’ve enjoyed a very warm welcome here from our Welsh churches and it was a privilege to be able to share some of our experiences with them, to worship together in English, and to put friendly faces to the names of people who’ve corresponded with us in Uganda.  The community fruit and vegetable garden at Bethel Baptist Church, Penyrheol, which was supported by a BMS Eco-fund grant, is a reminder that although there are obvious differences between the needs of communities in Uganda and the UK, and the ways in which churches can Minister to them, there is also much that they have in common.

For those who are interested the remainder of our Link church programme is as follows:

16^th/17^th June – Pantygwdr and Mumbles Baptist Churches, Swansea.

23/24^th June – Llanelli Baptist Churches.

1^st July – Earl’s Hall Baptist Church, Southend.

1^st/2^nd September – Markyate Baptist Church, St Albans.

8^th/9^th September – Nottingham Baptist Churches.

15th/16th September - Haddenham & Little Kimble Baptist Churches.

30 September – St Andrew’s St Baptist Church, Cambridge (our home church).

Obviously we are thrilled to have the opportunity to be able to spend quality time with family and friends, and particularly for Sam – and the new arrival – to spend time with grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins.  We love Uganda, it is now our home and there are close friends there who we will miss, but here is an A-Z of things we will really appreciate about this time in the UK:

Anonymity in public.

BBC Television.
Cheese.
Direct-debits instead of spending hours in a bank.
Electricity 24/7.
Family & friends.
Going to a pub.
Hot & cold clean water on tap.
Immunity/Isolation from tropical diseases or infections.
Jealousy will not be aimed at us.
Kelloggs cereals.
Living in our own house.
Meat! – especially sausages & bacon.
No mosquitos, bednets or DEET spray.
Orderly queues in shops & traffic jams.
Punctuality (well, up to a point...)
Quiet nights.
Roads without large potholes or excessive speed-bumps.
Sea, especially the beaches of South Wales (if the rain stops...)
The National Health Service.
Understanding conversations without translation.
Visiting different places.
Worship in English.
Xtra help with childcare/babysitting.
Yes meaning yes and no meaning no, without ambiguity.
Zebra crossings where drivers actually stop.

Prayer Requests:

·         For a safe delivery of a healthy baby in July.

·         That our link-church visits will be successful and bring glory to God.

·         For our Ugandan colleagues, especially the project staff and the members of Kasese Baptist Association of Churches – Development Committee (KBAC-DC) as they manage the skills training and daycare projects independently.

Bride-Price

When you spend time living in another very different culture there will inevitably be things that you admire, things that you dislike, and some things that you just don’t really understand.  In the last month we have been confronting the traditions and practices surrounding marriage in Uganda, and particularly, Bride-price.  The payment of dowries is found throughout the world: in India the practice of the bride’s family paying a dowry to the groom is widely believed to be responsible for tens-of-thousands of abortions of female foetuses each year, and a marked preference for having sons.  Paying dowries was also common in Europe until relatively recently, in Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice” Mr Bennett quips that he wished he’d saved more of a fortune with which to “bribe worthless young men to marry my daughters”. 
The East-African system is the other way around.  The groom pays the parents of the bride a dowry – or Bride-price – in order to marry their daughter.  This at least has the advantage that families want both daughters and sons, and there is a financial incentive to educate daughters as it increases their likely bride-price.  This African system is widespread and ancient, indeed it is Biblical.  In 1 Samuel 18, the young and poor David has to pay bride-price to King Saul in order to marry his daughter Michal.  However, just because it is widespread and ancient doesn’t necessarily mean that it is right.
In Uganda the customs surrounding marriage are complicated by the over-lap – and sometimes mismatch – between the laws in the very recent constitution, the teachings and practices of Christianity and Islam, and the traditional practices of each tribal group - which are enshrined in customary law.  Here in mountainous south-west Uganda a Bakhongo groom will usually pay his in-laws a hoe, a blanket, twelve goats, some sugar to sweeten the mother-in-law, and some other gifts which the in-laws may demand.  For cattle-herding people such as the northern Acholi, the price may be measured in cows rather than goats.  The Bride-price is negotiated by various Uncles and Aunts on behalf of the two families at a ceremony known as “Introductions”, which is legally recognised as a customary marriage.  Following payment the bride is “given away” which may happen at the same time or on another occasion.  The significant cost of hosting these celebrations, in addition to finding the hefty bride-price, means that a long period of time may then pass before a religious church/mosque wedding can take place, in order that the groom can find the money required – and there is no such thing as a small wedding in Uganda because every relative and member of the community must be invited, seated, fed, and entertained.  It is common that the bride and groom will start living together following introductions while they save for the church/mosque wedding, although this is sometimes frowned upon. 
Why I am I telling you all this? – Because it’s stuff that we had to learn about very quickly when my closest local friend and colleague welcomed me into his new house that he’d finally finished building for himself, his wife and their 2 year-old daughter, and then burst into tears as he explained that his wife had gone to visit her father – a Police Inspector – who had then detained her at home, and was refusing to release her, or even to let her see him or their daughter, until he had received full payment of the outstanding bride-price.  Having spent every last shilling that he had putting windows and doors on the house he had built them, Isaiah was distraught and ended up in hospital one night after some kind of break-down caused by stress.  Even a doctor’s note requesting that the couple be allowed to see each other for the sake of his health would not move the father-in-law.  Being a European, my first reaction was that this problem was essentially about money, so we mobilised some funds to make a significant contribution towards the twelve goats (some of which are often paid in equivalent cash value).  Being a Christian, my other reaction was that we should start praying about this issue, encourage him and others to pray about it, and counsel him that God probably had no intention of allowing their little girl to be permanently separated from both her parents and that he should not lose hope.  It soon became apparent however, that this situation was more complex.  The father-in-law is a Muslim and was apparently complaining that he didn’t want his daughter marrying a Christian.  It also transpired that Rose was legally a Minor (under 18) when she and Isaiah had their daughter Trust and had not completed secondary school - neither of which is unusual in rural Uganda.  The father-in-law was now therefore trying to send her off to a boarding school in another District.  At this point we sought advice – we got legal advice from the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Fraternity, whose office is in our compound, and Pastor Alfonse spent a whole day with the Imam and Elders of the father-in-law’s mosque learning about the Muslim perspective on issues of marriage, bride-price, parenthood etc.  While all this was going on we were seeing Isaiah daily trying to encourage him, and to dispel unhelpful rumours that another groom had been found who would pay more, or unhelpful suggestions that he should “just find another wife”.  Even once the bride-price had been assembled, the father-in-law was refusing to meet with Isaiah to discuss payment.  Meanwhile other family members were being spoken to and it became apparent that the actions of the father-in-law were unpopular with his own family, unacceptable to the Elders of his mosque, and had no legal justification.  Matters came to a head on the day when Rose was due to go off to boarding school and she refused.  To Europeans it might seem obvious that a twenty-year old should make their own decisions, but defying your father in this culture is a big deal. At this point further family negotiations yielded a result that the Bride price would be paid and accepted, Rose would return to Isaiah and their daughter, and they would make their own plans to complete her education.
Nothing in Uganda is quite that simple however, so once five actual goats and the cash value of the remainder had been raised Isaiah then needed to find three crates of sodas, ten litres of paraffin, a carton of matchboxes, a box of soap and a sack of packets of salt, to take as gifts.  The family managed to get the money for these, and I drove him around town collecting them.  He also needed a suit, which allowed me to find a good-use for the linen suit I had bought in Oxfam before coming here which is slightly too small for me, but fits Isaiah perfectly!  On Saturday morning we headed off to the family village with six people and all the other strange gifts in our car and a battered old hire car following behind with another two people and five goats in it.  Inevitably the tarmac road gave way to a murram road, which gave way to a dirt track, then a narrower dirt-track and finally some kind of bumpy muddy and insanely narrow footpath.  Finally we pulled into a clearing, stopped and unloaded the vehicles.  I was confused as we stood around under some trees, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  The family members and pastors were gathered having a hushed conversation, mostly in Lukhongo, that seemed like some kind of pre-battle briefing.  I caught the local word for goats and then “sodas” and a dramatic “cash-down” with a flourish.  If someone approached they would immediately fall silent – not wishing their plans to be overheard.  Finally someone from Rose’s family arrived and formally invited us to proceed onto their land and into their home.  The discussion had been planning how to present the bride-price and gifts in the right way to ensure acceptance.  We were then herded into the father-in-law’s house, ushered into seats – and then left on our own while furtive conversation and sounds of food preparation could be heard on the other side of a curtain.  Finally the father-in-law came in and everyone greeted everyone with lots of smiles and salutation and no mention of the disturbing events of the last month.  At this point I had to leave as I had other engagements and the day was already a few hours behind schedule.  I brought Isaiah back with me as although it is the groom who has to bankrupt himself finding the brideprice and all the other gifts, he is not actually directly involved in the bizarre ceremony of payment.  Suffice to say that Rose was allowed to come home the following day and Isaiah, Rose and Trust are now back together, living happily in their own home – and planning and saving for the inevitably expensive extravaganza of a church wedding in October or November.
At this point you might be asking why did the father-in-law formally accept Isaiah as his son at Introductions three years ago if he had always wanted Rose to marry a Muslim, or to first finish school? – We don’t know.  You might be asking why had Isaiah taken three years to find twelve goats when Uganda seems to be full of goats? – He is a committed Christian who works hard for two charities with no regular salary (now partially rectified), and had prioritised the few resources that he had on putting a roof over their heads rather than paying off his father-in-law.  You might also ask, why did anyone care what the father-in-law thought when the Constitution of Uganda permits anyone over 18 to marry whom they choose, live where they choose and practice whatever religion they chose? – Firstly, the law only permits a church marriage with written consent of the bride’s father, and custom dictates that the Bride’s father won’t give this permission unless he has received full bride-price.  Secondly, Ugandan Police Inspectors are powerful men and not to be crossed.
I apologise for this article being so long, but some issues are so complicated they need a lot of words.  What have we learnt from this, apart from a lot of strange facts about marriage practices here?  A little money goes a long way here, but money alone is not enough.  Influence was required, and that had to be sought patiently by involving as many parties as possible and gaining as full an understanding as possible of the different issues and perspectives involved.  Hope and consistent encouragement were also essential for getting a young man through a very distressing situation.  We Europeans love to find practical solutions to every problem we come across, but there’s also a lot to be said for faith and for persistent prayer, when addressing seemingly intractable problems.

Prayer Request:

Please give thanks that Isaiah and Rose and Trust are now re-united, and in a way that has repaired good relations with both families.

This long case-study is not uncommon.  Throughout this region there are young men struggling to afford to marry the women they love, and young women frustrated that they are being literally traded for cattle – which can also create problems if they don’t produce a return on that investment in the form of children.  Please pray for all those affected by this practice and for the church as it struggles to reconcile Christian principles of marriage with ancient cultural traditions.

Many hands make light work!

Have you ever created multiple tropical-fruit gardens with goat-proof fences?  Have you ever dug the foundations for a row of shops?  Have you ever run a sports day for a hundred African children?  Have you ever bought, killed, prepared and cooked a cockerel for important guests?  Have you ever stood on a hilltop public roadside and watched over forty elephants lumbering through the bush all around you?

Only two weeks ago most members of St Andrew’s St Baptist Church Cambridge would have answered “no” to these questions.  Yet in the last fortnight an intrepid team of six from our home church have done all these things – and more, whilst visiting us here in Kasese.

The team of six included our Minister Rev Dave Morris, his wife Judy (a retired PE-teacher) and their daughter Helen (a Master’s graduate of Theology); Andrew Thomason (a Cambridge Mathematician), his wife Chris (a physiotherapist), and Lynette Ongeri (a pharmacologist).   More important than their diverse ages and professional backgrounds, however, were the things they had in common:  all committed Christians with a genuine love for their Ugandan brothers and sisters in Christ, all prepared to work hard in a difficult climate and to learn new skills from others, and always (well, mostly!) prepared to see the funny side of different situations and to suspend English conceptions of timing, hygiene, or health & safety, and go with the flow of life in Kasese.

The visit started with a quick Swahili lesson from our teacher, leading to the creation of an amusing new dialect – Yorkshire Swahili!  Following some familiarisation around town the team got stuck into work and re-planted the fruit garden at Alpha School – which worked well as the delayed rains have meant that April is planting season here.  The first weekend provided the opportunity to take our visitors to Queen Elizabeth National Park where they particularly enjoyed seeing hippos from the car, on a boat-trip and even right outside our hostel.  The highlight however, was on our drive home, when, puzzled that we’d seen no elephants inside the park, we pulled off the main road to a small viewing pavilion to get a good view over Lake George and spotted five different groups of elephants lumbering through the bush and converging for what looked like a grand elephant conference!  With the light gently fading over the mountains and the evening peace only disturbed by the chatter of birds and the odd trumpeting elephant it was a serene half-hour that we will all treasure.

Sunday saw us all worshipping together at Kasese Central Baptist Church (KCBC).  Although heavy rain delayed the service by 1.5hrs it did not dampen the warmth of the welcome our visitors received, or the liveliness of the singing.  Our Cambridge church had hand-crafted a wooden cross from their old pews and a banner with the 2012 church text (Ephesians 6:14-15), which Rev Dave Morris presented at the start of his sermon.  We often struggle with church here, juggling supervising Sam with trying to discern meaning from a stream of Swahili, but on this Sunday, so soon after Easter, we were reminded of the power of the worldwide fellowship of Christ’s church, and that his enduring love knows no boundaries of race or culture. 

Anyone who has heard any of Dave Morris’ excellent sermons will know that golf is often alluded to, so we were glad that some friends offered him and Judy the opportunity to have a game on Kilembe Mines Golf course – with the Rwenzori mountains towering above them and pigs and goats grazing around them it must have been an unusual game!

The real hard work started on Monday with the team and members of the church creating six small fruit gardens from scratch at KCBC, which will be given to six families from the church to look after.  Each small garden is 5-foot square and comprises a banana stem and a papaya seedling, complete with compost and mulch, all taken from our own garden.  Most of the labour was then in fencing the six plots with pole, reed and string fencing to keep out goats.  With so many people working together as a team – digging holes, chopping reeds, treating poles with used-oil, gathering stones and tying hundreds of knots, it was finished by Tuesday afternoon.  By now the team were adjusting to the climate, bonding well with the local church and also managing to produce excellent evening meals from produce they bought each day in the market.  Therefore on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning (after an early start for Women’s prayer-meeting) we stepped up a gear and helped the church dig out the foundation trenches for a row of five small shops-to-rent which should provide much needed income for the church.  It soon became obvious that the best way to work was in pairs with one breaking soil with a hoe and the other shovelling it out with a spade, which enabled some great conversations and lively banter between locals and visitors!  Nonetheless, trench-digging under an African sun is exhausting work so we were quite relieved that torrential rain prevented further work on Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday saw Judy take centre-stage and use her years of PE-teaching experience to run a sports-day at Alpha School.  Much fun was had by all with balloons and balls seemingly all over the place and it was great to see the young, underpaid and often under-enthused teachers really getting into it and goading their teams to “be serious” and “run faster”.  In the afternoon the team witnessed some local building as Alfonse demonstrated the principles of brick-laying Kasese-style in the corners of the foundations.  Thursday evening saw the team presented with the instructions for their “team challenge” on Friday – to host Alfonse and Alice for a proper Ugandan feast.

Friday started early with me helping Andrew to purchase, kill, pluck and prepare the biggest cockerel we could find in Kasese market – a challenge which he rose to admirably, having honed his chopping skills on hundreds of reeds.  Bethan then took the team off to Kiburara bible college, where Dave and Helen taught the first and second year trainee pastors.  On their return the kitchen become a flurry of activity with Chris and Lynette doing an excellent job of leading the chopping of many vegetables, and boiling/frying of beans, cabbage, rice and chicken stew, while Bethan taught David how to make steamed matoke.  Somehow as well as these five main dishes the team also produced some amazing chocolate brownie.  We enjoyed a good feast and it was a joy for us to eat in our own home without slaving over the cooking ourselves.  More importantly it was lovely to be able to host Alice and Alfonse and to collectively thank them for being the inspirational leaders and great friends that they always are to whoever they meet.  There was laughter all-round and serious speculation that Andrew and Alfonse might actually be brothers!

The final weekend brought the long journey back to Kampala, but before the team headed for the airport they were able to experience the massive contrasts between city and provincial living.  We enjoyed playing pool, eating pizza, worshipping in English, and witnessing the magnificent display of traditional dancing at the Ndere Cultural centre; but it was also pleasing to hear from the team that those will be the experiences soonest forgotten, while memories of the fellowship, warmth, sincerity and good humour of the people of Kasese, and in particular Alfonse and his family, will stay with them for ever.  

Thank you to St Andrew’s Street Baptist  Church Cambridge for being such a supportive home church; for all your hard-work and fun and laughter – and for playing with Sam, cooking, washing-up and bringing us cheese and chocolate.  We look forward to being with you all again soon back in Cambridge!

Prayer Requests:

Thanks that the church visit was so successful and that everyone got home safely and in good health.

Thanks that as brothers and sisters in Christ we are all part of one body – his church – and for the fellowship and love that can bring to people everywhere.

That the relationship between St A’s and KCBC will continue to be a positive one which provides benefit to both churches and glory to God.

For Pastor Alfonse as he juggles the many demands of his job on a negligible income, for his health and for his family.