Crosslinks MP Smith

As I write this Gwyn and Joshua have travelled to the UK to be with family while David, her father, has been due to undergo very serious heart surgery. Since Gwyn returned, David’s condition has improved remarkably and the medical team have said this has been “nothing short of a miracle”. They will still need to repeat the surgery they did in August to replace his aortic valve, which is made complex by David’s allergy to the drug that is always used for these operations. They have delayed surgery in order to make detailed preparations, which we expect to now take place just before Christmas. Seeing that Gwyn is in her final stages of pregnancy (due mid Feb) she will remain in the UK for the birth and I will join her and Joshua at the end of January. While these few months will be very different to what we had expected, I’m thankful that these challenges are not dampening our spirits even though we miss being together as a family very much. We appreciate your prayers as well as hearing how things are going with you – so please keep those e-mails coming!

Christmas in Uganda

As the sun shines brightly here in Kampala it is hard to imagine that Christmas approaches! A Ugandan Christmas is not without the last minute shopping, stocking-up with food to host family and friends, and buying small presents for children and spouses. The price of transport up country is doubled in the spirit of seasonal exploitation, yet it is still a far cry from the wintry commerce of the UK. Many people return to the village where elder family members reside with their extended family; one Ugandan artist we’re working with commented, “That is our Bethlehem.” In most homes bananas will be boiled in their banana leaves, a food called Matoke, and this will be one of the delicacies prepared the night before Christmas day (as far as I can make out Matoke seems to enjoy the same status here as Christmas pudding does in the UK).

The AMG Child Development Centres are having Christmas parties, which are often 4-6 hour-long events made up of songs, presentations, speeches, eating, and a final present-giving. Most of the parents or guardians come and it is a good opportunity for them to hear about Jesus Christ from the guest of honour. Presents are then handed out in the form of a blanket, a foam mattress, or a bag of rice. The children and their parents/guardians will remember these occasions for some time. It is has been a reminder to me of the impact that AMG has in the lives of these children and their families, for which I thank God increasingly.

We are probably at the most exciting yet crucial stage of training Bible teachers of children across the AMG programmes. Having interviewed, appointed and commissioned more volunteer teachers, we now have over 50 teachers to train before the start of our new curriculum in February 2008.

Reuben gave Dan Masiko (AMG programme co-ordinator) and me the task of rejuvenating the process of recruitment, orientation, and appointment of volunteer teachers. This gave us the opportunity to be more rigorous in deciding who is appointed to this role, looking to their quality of Christian commitment and experience of teaching children the Bible. We held a commissioning service on the 18^th October which was truly an encouraging and sobering occasion for staff and volunteer teachers alike. Anyone wishing to read the wording of the service should e-mail me and I’ll willingly send the document. We will commission two more teachers in January 2008 on the first morning of the training week, along with the person we appoint as my assistant.

On the 19^th December we will be interviewing nine applicants for the full-time job of Assistant Trainer and Curriculum Co-ordinator at AMG. This position starts in January 2008 and has much potential for passing on the fledgling training work to a Ugandan in two years time. We desire to appoint someone who has experience in children’s and youth ministry, who is humble to learn good Bible-teaching practices, who understands the need for discipleship, and who will be good at training adults in the future. Most of all, we are looking for someone who is committed to training themselves for godliness, by God’s grace; and so we are looking for a mature Christian. So please continue to pray for the Lord to provide AMG with the right person for this position.

Getting from a Bible text to a teaching session for children is a taxing task wherever you are in the world. This is why it has been important to test out a seven-step process of preparing Bible lessons for children that we have adapted from Ramesh Richard’s homiletic method called ‘Scripture Sculpture’. The drive of the training is for the teacher to resolve to be faithful to the message of Scripture, effective in communicating that message to children, and relevant in exposing the significance of God’s word for modern-day Ugandan living. Thankfully, this training was extremely well received during a 4-day intensive training of the AMG’s Kampala staff. It has also given me opportunity to notice glaring omissions as well as areas for improvement!

Praise God that there exists a deep desire to be faithful to what the Bible text says as opposed to what we might want to say; give thanks with us that the Kampala staff are now equipped to be group leaders in January when we plan provide training for all AMG teachers of children.

This project is the foundation from which the newly trained teachers will build Scripture lessons. It is an ambitious project which requires on-going assessment and continual adjustment. The first three terms (1 year) introduce the children to the God of the Bible, who we are in relation to God, and covers an overview of God’s saving purposes as it culminates in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Please pray for wisdom in making the curriculum appropriate for the East African context and in differentiating the curriculum according to the age, language, and educational stage of the children in the AMG development programmes.

KEST continues to go through a challenging time as we seek to recover from a drop in student numbers in September. With the right publicity and recruitment strategies this could be turned round in time for the start of the next academic year. Please pray for the collage faculty to persevere and for the principal and board to discern appropriate strategies for growth.

It has to be said that I have benefited as much from teaching this course as the students say they have benefited from attending the course! The aim of the course was for the student to demonstrate ability to contemporise the main proposition of a biblical text, derived from proper methods of interpretation, through effective means of communication in order to inform the mind, instruct the heart, and influence behaviour towards godliness. All the students were moved on in their understanding and ability, some more than others! I was glad that students retained an appropriately African means of communicating God’s word while using the expository tools they were learning. We hope to continue the learning process by meeting as an informal preaching group next semester.

After seven years of holding annual expository preaching conferences, Langham Preaching and KEST are looking to move to regional initiatives for training Bible-teachers and preachers of God’s word in their local church settings. This initiative is being made in partnership with a Baptist pastor, called Julius Twongyeirwe, who is an old acquaintance of mine from our days on the Cornhill Training Course in London. This is a good progression; please pray for a grass-roots movement to grow up from this.

With Gwyn returning to the UK this had raised concern over whether the nursery would be able to continue. Praise God that in the process of recruiting volunteer teachers for AMG we came across a Ugandan lady, called Grace, who is a trained nursery teacher. With Grace joining the staff, the nursery is now well-placed to keep running. Please give thanks that Grace will be able to lead Harriet and Prossy in continuing the nursery in Gwyn’s absence.

There is still much to get ready. Invitations will be going out next week and fliers sent round the churches of Kampala. A strategy booklet for starting / running men’s meetings in the local church and a resource for reading the Bible 1-1 with men are also going to print before Christmas. Please pray for Steve as he prepares to preach at the launch, also for Chris Yikii as he prepares to present the vision of Titus Group to the churches in Kampala. Chris is proving to be the right man to take on the overall leadership of The Titus Group from Steve in 2008. As momentum builds, the challenge will be to preserve the quality of what we do in the bible study groups and remain committed to individuals. The priority will be to resource well those attending so that they can carry out similar ministries in their own churches.

I have been meeting with Douda again recently and it turns out that 30 members of his family now wish to follow Christ, praise God! His friend Jones, who has been a Christian for some time, has been asked to lead a church-plant in their village. Up until now there has been no church meeting there. We want to help Jones and another pastor, called Bob, from the neighbouring village to receive some training at KEST. Please pray that there will be enough funds to pay for their course fees.

We have been writing short stories from Proverbs for children, set in an imaginary Ugandan village called Bulomwa. Each book is designed for African children and their families to share in the excitement of learning to read as well as in learning what it means to live wisely in God’s world. Having found an excellent Uganda illustrator who has a faith in Christ the next stage is to approach a publishing house in Kampala. Please pray for the project’s progress and for these books to promote Christian family life.

Smith, Steve and Gwyn - Uganda