Cast of Characters and a Surprise: Trip #9

Sunday, May 8

This is a bit different than posts I have written for past trips, as I am writing for churches in New Richmond, Somerset, Baldwin, River Falls and Hudson, rather than the usual Hudson only. I’m Larry Szyman one of the pastors of Faith Community Church-Hudson (FCCH) and this is my seventh trip to Uganda regarding our current cohort of trainees, and my fourteenth trip to this nation. My writings will be a combination travelogue, history lesson, humor (at least in my mind) and whatever else may come to mind.

I am writing to y’all because this is The Final Journey for our group to Uganda. We all contributed to make this happen and I wanted to make sure you had a front row seat to all that goes on in this trip. 

I am currently sitting in the plane on my eight-hour flight to Amsterdam and we have already had a setback. Our plan for the team on this trip to Gulu, Uganda includes Mike Evans who works for Training Leaders International (TLI), which provides the curriculum that we will be teaching from. Mike is the former Lead Pastor of Faith Community Church of New Richmond (FCCNR) (which I affectionately refer to as THE Faith Community) and a dear friend. He has been a central part of these trips to Gulu and is a wise and gifted teacher. 

Also coming on this trip from TLI is Joel Dougherty, who is the curriculum director. He is going to monitor our teaching as our course for this trip is the capstone course “Doing the Ministry of the Word”. This course summarizes courses one through eight and seeks to apply them in such a way that it transfers to the ministries of our forty pastors who have been taking the training. Usually, TLI only sends one person to hold our hands, but this course has not been field tested yet, so we are the guinea pigs. TLI’s vision includes helping pastors serving in under resourced places to understand and communicate God’s word faithfully. Our brothers in northern Uganda are godly, teachable, humble and under resourced. We come to help equip them to be more effective in their respective ministry throughout Uganda representing eight different people groups. It’s not that we’re smarter-we are simply better resourced. It’s an incredible experience. I’m grateful there will be two TLI guys to answer all my questions before I teach!

Now for the disappointment: Stu Dix. Let me rephrase that. Stu Dix is a disappointment. Never mind. Stu is a dear brother and along with Mike we have been planning teaching this final course together so that we could share it together and share in the graduation of this cohort. Sadly, Stu tested positive for COVID and could not come. This means there will be a humor reduction of about 70% in his absence. I have so come to appreciate Stu, and along with Mike we have experienced some riches that I have had with few others. Stu has done an outstanding job as he has served in Uganda, and his learning group really loves him. They will be bummed he is not with us. I am bummed and am grieving his absence: for his sake, his learning groups sake, for my sake. This means that Joel will be not merely observing but doing some teaching. Apparently, God had our back on this one. 

Then there’s me. You’ll learn about me and my many quirks as these posts come. I plan on 10-15 of them for the entire trip. So that’s our cast of characters.

Now for the surprise. I sit down at my seat (I always seek out a left side aisle seat), look to my left and there is Andrew Riedel. Andrew is the Meghan loving, Judah raising, bass thumping player for FCCH. It’s one thing to be on the same flight with someone you know to Amsterdam, but to sit right across the aisle. The selfie is proof. He is on a work-related trip to Germany. 

That’s it for post #1. I hope to help you understand what is taking place and how you have played a part in the strengthening and starting of churches in Africa.

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life