September 26, 2011

• Going to the theater

  Lately, it is uncommon for us to attend our own church.  As I wrote last week, we were visiting a church in Kampala where we were asked to speak to the youth (i.e. preach).  Yesterday, we were invited to a community where we are planning to build a school.  It is in Kasawo, about an hour and fifteen minutes northwest of Kampala, the site of Edusabo Community Junior School.  Let me first say that it was a treat to go there!

  This church is home to what I can only estimate as about 300 church members.  For Uganda, that is crazy, especially in a village!  Thankfully, we traveled with our pastor so he was asked to preach rather than us.  Our purpose was two part, we were to ask the community to support the school that is being built and show a film.  The school here, has some construction that has taken place due to funds received from the community already.  However, that was depleted pretty quickly, so now you see a skeleton of a building with some rickety rooms built within it to hold classes.  The school is home to over four hundred students!  And the classrooms would not be equivalent to a barn in the US.  Americans would not find their horses safe in such structures, let alone their children.  Needless to say, we are fervently trying to get teams here and continue the construction of the school that has such great potential.  Please pray for this school, their students, and the teachers.

  The second reason we were there was because there is a projector at our disposal to show Christian films to communities that will receive it.  This was our first time doing this.  So we went in skeptical, but excited.  The skepticism was due to the fact that we rely on some technological advances to successfully pull this off.  That is that the sound system can connect to our laptop and that there is POWER to run the projector.  Two things that are not concerns where we come from.  So we brought an insurance policy, two movies.  Our original intent was to show the Jesus Movie.  However, with the chance that the sound system would not connect we brought the dubbed Passion of Christ film.  Well, my suspicion was a reality, so we talked and figured that the Passion of Christ was our only option.  Of course, we were a little leery due to the graphic nature of the film.  But we explained it to the crowd and continued.

  Thankfully, we had some unexpected resource available to us... a professor from Makrere University.  He and his accomplice translated the movie and explained some of the scenes in the chance that someone did not know the context of the movie.  It was a huge success!  I counted the number of viewers at one point and there were about 140 people.  However, as that was just in the beginning, the number went way up as people came in from the community.  In fact, Liz and I saw at least one Muslim child outside the church watching without entering.  I tried to invite him in, but he was scared.  I hope that he could get some sort of understanding of the great sacrifice made for him.  However, all in all, it was a great experience.  We were truly blessed to have been there.  We are anxious to do it again... anywhere!

  The way it looks today, Monday, we may go back to our church this week.  I know they miss the kids... you never know about Liz and I!

  On a side subject, Liz and I have been contemplating the idea of acquiring a vehicle.  We feel limited in our ability to serve and incorporate our family in the service.  It has only recently become a problem as we are getting more intimate with the school projects.  Having the family able to go to the places where we serve inspires the community even more.  When the villagers see a few crazy white kids they are interested.  It is a great lure!  Then we explain why we are there and suggest support.  It is a good tactic!  Well anyway, taking public transportation to all of these villages becomes expensive with 6 family members and a nanny.  And as you can imagine, it is not necessarily the safest when our visits extend into the evening.  Anyway, we are curious if there are people that would help us with this.  We are praying about it, it is a tough decision.  We want to be good stewards of the money we have been blessed with, and that we are SOOO thankful for.  So we want your feedback.  Shoot us an email or let us know in some way what you think.  Also, please pray for us as we consider this.  It is a huge part of our ministry that we make ample use of what we have been blessed with.

  We look forward to hearing from you!

  Serving Christ with you,

  Chad Neeley

  Construction Coordinator - WWCS Uganda/USA

  • 12:37 pm
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