Uganda Update 1

Pastor James Sapp and I are in Uganda right now, conducting a conference for pastors and their wives near Jinja, the second largest city. This is my fifth trip to Uganda and the third for James. We arrived late Sunday night Uganda time and began our work the next day.

Last time, we taught through the letter of First Thessalonians to a group that included pastors and lay leaders. Since we only have pastors and wives this time, we are more focused on sharin g with pastors.

The kinds of messages we have delivered have been a mixture of both practical and doctrinal issues:

• The Call to Being a Pastor
• How to Read and Study the Bible
• Developing Leaders in the Church
• A Description of a Healthy Church
• A Description of a Healthy Christian
• The Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
• The Great Commission: Multiplying Believers and Churches
• Salvation
• Marriage
• Family
• The Tasks of a Pastor
• How to Preach a Sermon
• How to Comfort in Times of Grief
• A Christian Funeral

We have had a great time so far and been well received--181 pastors and wives have signed the attendance sheet so far--but we are not using microphones this year, and with a full tent and rain some afternoons, my voice is beginning to weaken a bit.

We are about to go out for our Friday conference. We will each preach only once today and then answer questions in the afternoon. Today I will be speaking about Stewardship, which is a much needed topic. James will speak about the role of the pastor in the community.

This afternoon's Q and A will be interesting, to say the least. We have already received the questions and they have a lot about marriage and divorce and polygamy and "family planning," so it is going to be a really hard time trying to go through all these kinds of things--even more difficult when you have to have things translated for most of the people. One pastor wants to know if he can divorce his wife because she hasn't provided him any children! There are other questions more concerning pastoring itself, of course.

Tomorrow (Saturday) will be our last day for the conference, and we will speak about how the gospel can change Uganda and close with a message on the pastor's heart.

On Sunday we will preach in some area churches.

It is good to hear the comments of those who are attending. They are very grateful for our presence and our teaching--and for the generosity of the church for sending us and providing food and other things for them while they are here.

Please continue to pray for us. We are scheduled to be back next Wednesdat, January 23.

God bless,

Fred