Pastor Victor, Pastor Young and I arrived in Uganda safely on Tuesday morning. As soon as we walked out of the airport, we were greeted by David Ofumbi. It was great seeing him again. The last time we saw him was at the AMI Leadership Summit in May. I think he was a bit shocked and could not readily recognize me because of my new clean cut hair style 🙂
We are having our pastor’s conference at a university. In fact we are staying in students’ dorm rooms. The people were saying this university is the 2nd best university in Uganda. It is refreshing to see college-age students walking around. It is just another reminder of the importance of the college ministry globally.
We had our first three sessions on Tuesday. In the first session we had all the pastors go around and share about their life and their ministry. I realized that we have no problem talking about ourselves 🙂 … the session went on for close to 3 hours! Then we took a tea break (yes, the influence of the British). Afterwards, we had our 2nd session where the AMI TLT shared from our hearts about the various things that God is doing in our individual churches.
Then, we broke off for dinner and had a great time of fellowship. I was sitting next to two pastors who gave me a history lesson on Uganda, especially during the reign of the cruel dictator, Idi Amin. They also gave me a cultural lesson on why all of these pastors greeted the whole group by saying, “Hello my name is ____ and I am a husband of ONE wife.” I guess they still practice polygamy here!
There were also some good insights to the situation of Uganda over the last 10 years. I will not forget one particular comment made by one of the pastors. He said that Uganda will play an important role in challenging Islam in the continent of Africa.
If you look at a geographical map, you will notice that the northern part of Africa is dominated by Islam, but Uganda is the cut off point. If Islam goes beyond Uganda then it will easily enter into the other African nations. This is why he has a burden to go to the northern part of Uganda and minister to the people near Sudan and even reach out to the people in Darfur. We need to pray that the Christians in Uganda hold their stance and stay strong.
We finished off the day with Pastor Young preaching from the Word. Then we spent some time praying. It was a good time to seek the Lord. We decided to all retire for bed early and wake up early in the morning.
As I went into my dorm room, I was greeted by a salamander and various other delightful insects! Hmm… you got to love the country life. But for a city boy like me, I’m like a fish out of water 🙂
Pastor Vic is laying down the foundation for the apostolic paradigm
My salamander roommate