Iron box

My solar power system does not produce the watts necessary to run an electric iron.  Electric irons are available in country but not in Koboko.  Very few have electric power in Koboko and many of us that do are on solar power systems that would not support high wattage items. 

It is possible to get clothes ironed, it is just done with an iron box and charcoal.

Iron box

Hospital ministry

The prison ministry team prayer ministry at the hospital is dependent on a couple of factors.  The hospital administration needs to be at the hospital.  They are frequently away for meetings, leaving the hospital in the care of the nursing staff.  We thought we had an agreement for the prayer ministry at the hospital for the 20^th of April.  Since setting it up, meetings came up and all of the administration was away.  We decided to try again in a week.

The day before our new date, a member of the Truth is Light board was at the hospital because he had been asked to help transport someone to the hospital.  He learned the senior nurse would be away on the 27^th of April; however, the administrator would be there.  We thought we were set.  Wrong.  All but two members of the prison ministry team had conflicts on the 27^th and the two that were available are not strong translators between languages.  As a result we were unable to hold the prayer ministry on the 27^th.

National power company

In January I blogged about the national power grid being extended to Koboko.  Earlier this month I blogged about the (in)stability of the national power grid.  This week I learned that the people working on installing the poles have stopped working.  It seems the national power company has not paid them in two months, so they stopped work.  Now I hear that the workers have returned to Kampala (the other end of the country).  Looks like I do not need to consider whether to connect, or to stay on solar, or to find a way of doing both.

House – yard

I have been in the house for just over a year now.  I took pictures shortly after moving in so I could share what my Uganda house was like.  They also help me to see the change in one year.  Here are the last year and this year pictures of my yard and garden.

house – yard 15 April 2020

house – yard 27 April 2021

It helps me to see the bushes really did grow in a year and the lawn is filling in.

Weather

The weather has changed.  It is comfortable to slightly cool.  Also the rain returned this week.  The rain (and the clouds) help break the heat.

It rained Friday morning, 2 to 2:30 a.m.  It did not fill my water tank, but it certainly helped.  It rained Sunday morning, 4:00 to 6:00 a.m. plus following drizzle.  That one did fill the water tank.

Today I was in Mugujai preparing to come home when the pastor suggested that we turn back to the house.  It was just a light rain at that moment and the wind was coming from the north (South Sudan).  They do not receive rain from South Sudan.  Frequently it will rain on one side of the border (less than a kilometer to the north) and not on the other because the weather moves east – west.  The wind changed, coming out of the east and we had significant rain for the next hour and a half.  It was good to be back at the house where I teach computer skills in Mugujai instead of standing at the side of the road waiting for a public car.  I am also grateful that pastor Amos knows how to read the weather in Mugujai and was not fooled by the wind from the north like I was.

Smallmark

When I visited Uganda in 2017, I visited several churches including the Charismatic Episcopal Church of South Sudan located in Koboko.  The Charismatic Episcopal Church of South Sudan is part of the Anglican Communion.  Their normal area is South Sudan with the Church of Uganda being the member of the Anglican Communion in Uganda.  The Charismatic Episcopal Church has many refugees in Uganda and some of them organized as church communities.  In late 2017 or early 2018 some of these new church communities broke away from ECS (the Charismatic Episcopal Church of South Sudan) forming the Free Charismatic Church.  (Was it all the refugee churches? Most? Just a small portion?  I do not know the percentage, but I do know the Free Charismatic Church organized themselves into seven dioceses.)

This first two pictures were taken during my 2017 visit.  They were early in the process of building St. John’s, raising money as they went.

Looking forward (picture taken in 2017)

Looking at the nave (picture taken in 2017)

Today (25 April 2021) the youth ministry was doing an outreach in Smallmark and I went with them.  It turns out to be the same place, but the name ‘Smallmark’ was not in use in 2017.  St. John’s Smallmark does not have a youth program yet, so they asked the Truth is Light youth ministry to come and show their youth what is possible and to encourage the parish to organize a youth program.

Peter (Truth is Light youth program leader) with local church leaders

Truth is Light youth ministry praise team

Archbishop Hakim was present (standing near the wall on the left side of the picture). Diocesan Bishop Banga (just out of the picture on the left; however, he is visible in the previous picture) was also there.

Flash drive

I figured out why I could not get the computer skills files to load on the loaner computer.  They loaded, or at least some of them did, but they were corrupted.  I bought two, one to use, one to have ready for the next need, flash drives (memory sticks) when I was in Entebbe.  I used one to make a master copy of the computer skills files that could be used for loading, updating, or fixing the computer skills files on a computer when I go somewhere, and they have their own computer.  (This is the situation when I teach computers at H4RI [Hope for Restoration Initiative] in Entebbe.)  It turns out that the new flash drive was bad straight from the package.  Just a sign of the quality of material available here.

Each time I looked at the directory of the flash, a different amount of memory was already used and a random selection of the files I had loaded were available.  Also the files were unusable because the memory of the flash drive was bad.

Fortunately, the other flash drive I had bought works fine.  I made a new computer skills master on that flash and was able to load good files onto the loaner computer.

School

The schools in Uganda are in the process of opening.  The grades that end with national exams (P7, S4, S6) were the first to return.  (P for primary, S for secondary.  Uganda does not have a junior high / middle school level.)  The exams are finished, and those students are now awaiting their results.  A few months ago the pre-candidate classes (P6, S3, S5) could return.  A few weeks ago P4 and S1 resumed.  The rest of the grades will have to wait until the new school year begins in June.  The school year has been revised because of CoVid and the difficulties of starting mid-school year.  The school year used to have three terms, with the first one beginning in February and the last one ending in December.  That has changed and I do not have (I am not sure anyone has) all the details on the new plan.  I think it is still being worked out.

As I understand it the grade levels are:

N1 (nursery 1 or preschool)

N2

N3 (this might approximate kindergarten; I really do not know)

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

P6

P7 (national exam determines if they can move on)

S1

S2

S3

S4 (national exam determines if they can move on) (approximates Senior in high school)

S5

S6 (national exam) (approximates Junior College)

Sunday attendance

I was invited to preach at the Charismatic Church in Mugujai for the 3^rd Sunday of Easter 2021.  On the 3^rd Sunday of Easter 2020 I was preaching on the radio on behalf of the prison ministry team.  Now, 51 weeks later (Easter was a week earlier this year) the lock down has been eased and the churches are open.  I was invited by Bishop Moses who is standing in front of the church door in this January picture.  The inside picture is also from January.  Sorry, I did not get any pictures of me preaching on April 18^th.  They want me to come again.  Maybe I will get pictures then. 

I am told attendance was down because the monthly food distribution is occurring in the refugee camps.  Some (many) of those who stay along the border (so they can reach their farms in South Sudan) are registered in the refugee camps, so they go to the camps when there is a food distribution.  As a result there were only 105 people in this small church building last Sunday.

Land

Bishop Moses has been involved in our efforts to secure land for the agriculture ministry.  Both Bishop Moses and Livingstone are based in Mugujai.  Livingstone is our agriculture missionary from Kenya.  He has been using agriculture to raise food stuffs that we consume for our meals during our seminars.  He also models farming techniques and mentors those seeking to learn the skills.  Unfortunately, the land that was originally rented to him was taken back.

Since then he has made good relations with a landowner who has agreed to sell land to Livingstone.  Bishop Moses has been helping negotiate the sell. This is land on the Ugandan side of the border.

Bishop Moses tells me land is plentiful in South Sudan and no one worries about ownership.  If you want to farm a piece of land, then farm it.  If it is in use people move to another plot when looking for their own plot to farm.  However, rebels raid the farms in South Sudan and take what they want, so there are risks too.