Jake Pierson

For those of you who continued to be gripped by my travelogue, you will remember our ride from the airport to the safari and then to Abaana’s Hope, where our trainings were held. We had a rookie driver named Rodgers (no relation to Aaron). He was slow, unsure of himself, and spoke in such a quiet manner we ended up guessing at what he was saying. 

 If Rodgers was an 8th round draft pick from UW-Platteville, today’s driver, Otim (oh-team) was a Heisman trophy winning #1 pick in the Ugandan driver draft. He has made the trip from Abaana’s Hope to Entebbe at least 50 times, speaks loudly and clearly, and doesn’t make a stop where he does not seem to know somebody. He should run for mayor.  

 He is also an aggressively safe driver. That might seem oxymoronic, but to be slow and indecisive is to make all trips much, much longer. Suzanne, one of the missionaries at Abaana’s Hope, calls driving in Uganda one giant game of chicken! I can verify it is an apt description.  

 It is Sunday afternoon and we are on our way to the Entebbe Airport. We have seen two very intriguing matters, one planned, the other not. The one that was planned is a Ugandan version of a drive-through restaurant. Otim pulled over to the side of the road in a town and soon had a half dozen people suggesting what he might want to buy for him and his three travel companions (Tim Prince, Gar Christenson and me). He chose chicken on a stick, pork on a stick and cooked bananas. The various people gave Otim the specifics, he passed them to us and he paid for them. Then we were back on the road. The first picture is of our food, cooked outside over a grill. 

 The second thing we saw was a pilgrimage undertaken by several Catholic Diocese’ in northern Uganda. They are walking (yes, that kind of walking where one foot goes in front of another again and again and again) from the area we are staying into Kampala, the capital city. It is roughly a 175-mile trip (did I mention by foot?). We have been driving five hours and forty five minutes and still would have another hour or so to make it to Kampala.  

The picture is taken of them crossing the Nile River (yes, that Nile). The water is so rough here that if baby Moses was set in a basket in this body of water, he would have moved like a water park slide at Wisconsin Dells. 

Gar has been in the front seat asking questions and being educated by Otim. The different modes of transportation here are amazing. You will see an occasional motorcycle (most of them around 175 CC’s) with four people on it. Riders on the back hold poles five feet long horizontally and/or vertically. Others with live chickens hanging by their feet from the handlebars. I am amazed at how few accidents there are. There are trucks with cattle crammed together and people sitting on railings that keep the cattle inside. I just saw a guy on a 175 with a metal bedframe on the back driving through town. Just when you think you’ve seen everything you see another level of creativity…and danger. I-94, even with its delay, isn’t looking too bad right now.  

 Back at Abaana’s Hope, training continues and the second cohort begins their training on understanding and communicating the gospels tomorrow. This cohort will be taught by gifted Africans previously trained by us. The church of northern Uganda, South Sudan and Congo is moving on to greater health!  

Pickleball hit Gulu this week! Well…Cwero (pronounced Chweroh) actually, which is forty minutes north of Gulu. In past trips, I noticed a decent-sized basketball slab and I enjoyed playing, but there were very few takers. I decided to see if I could make pickleball happen here. I ordered a net, four paddles and balls, a line-striping machine and some spray paint. A chalk line and a tape measure gave me everything I needed. A friend came forward and gave me two hockey bags, with enough room to fit everything in. A friend from FCC laid out a drawing and we were good to go…almost. 

 Spray paint cannot be transported on a plane, understandably so. Undeterred from bringing pickleball joy to Cwero, I sent an email to our friends here and asked if he could get spray paint and he said no problem. Two days later, I remembered that they are special “inverted” cans, the kind used for baseball diamonds. I let him know and He returned with the news that Uganda apparently did not have such cans. Will said “no worry” as they could find people to paint the lines. The line machine would stay home, but FCC has already found it useful. We’ve already painted some parking spots on the grass and will use if for FaithWorks. 

 When we arrived last Friday, Mr. Prince got to work. Using his keen geometry skills (he participated in competitions as a kid), he used the chalk line and laid out the court with precision. He also assessed that there was mildew on the court and the paint would not hold like he would like. So, he busted out the bleach and got started on his sunburn, cleaning a path for paint. Three hours later, two men were painting the lines and the courts have been getting regular use. The American kids who live here have been active and a few Ugandans have joined us as well. 

 We Midwesterners have run up a body count of sorts. On the second night of play, Mike Evans accelerated toward the ball, only to engage the net and fall forward. No broken bones, but a little “road rash”. Mike hasn’t played since. Two nights later, Gar did something quite similar, only he showed ballet-like ability to catch himself only to have a shot of pain go up his hamstring. Pulled hammy. He told me that if he were to try to play again, I should physically assault him. The same night Gar got banged up, I went to bed in good shape, only to wake up walking funny the next day. I felt pretty good yesterday and almost normal today…I might jump back in tomorrow.  

 We see this simple investment serving dozens of families and friends very soon. The families here can have some dead time and part of pickleball is that many can play at a base level without too much difficulty. For me, it provides a mental respite when your mind is busy teaching all day or trying to understand African accents. Looking forward to it. 

It’s Monday night and we have our first day under our belts. It is always good to make our way down to the PTC (Pastoral Training Center) to the smiles and hugs and greetings of our Ugandan brothers on Monday morning. We all met at the PTC, sang a song, prayed a prayer and I introduced Tim Prince and Gar Christenson. They clapped for Tim when I told them he would be preaching at our Wednesday evening gathering and for Gar when I told them there would be free eye exams and free glasses for those who need them. Gar saw 31 pastors and roughly half of them needed glass. It was fun to see them come back to their class with their glasses on ready to go. 

 We broke into three classes, one led by Mike Evans, one by Stu Dix and the other by me. I was in a new place, meeting in the library of the school that is on site here. The first session went fairly well. Mondays tend to be lower energy as many of our pastors have church on Sunday morning and then travel (some 5 hours or so) in some less than desirable vehicles. But we had a good start. 

 I have two Lead Trainers (TA’s of sort) who are being prepped to teach the coursework in our absence when this cohort is done in January 2026. As such, they are each teaching two lessons under our supervision and with our feedback to help them prepare for their future. My Lead Trainers (LT) are Vincent and Moses. Moses was not at our preparation meeting on Saturday where we met with the LTs and went over the material they would be teaching. During the break, I asked him if he was ready to go with lesson two. And his reply was, “I have lesson three”. Vincent said, “You have two and six, I have four and eight.” Moses’ face betrayed anxiety, with the thought of leading a class that he hadn’t prepped for at all. I told him I would cover the class. Now the mild anxiety was all mine! I have taught the material before and quickly looked things over. The class started twenty minutes later, and I would give myself a B-. I gave the first one a B+, so it turned out fine. As a result, tomorrow will be a piece of cake. 

 My other point of interest was during the end-of-the-day quiz covering the material of the day (the picture is Vincent and Moses handing out the quiz). The quiz should take about five minutes to complete. They get passed out and when one completes it, they hand it to an LT and leave for the day. Ten minutes into it, there were five of my thirteen still laboring over the quiz. I gave them five minutes to complete them. At the one-minute warning, three got up and handed in their quiz. When time was up, I waited another half a minute and I asked them to hand in the quiz to the LT. After thirty seconds of no response, I walked up to them, took their quizzes, and handed them in for them. That’s it for instruction on day one.

Having Gar Christenson with us on this trip has been helpful and an absolute gift. He has been fun to get to know and a great storyteller. He has reminded me of the wonder of the people all around us on the trip. In some ways, I have gotten used to the amazing things going on all around us. A new set of eyes is always instructive.  

The official reason he is here is to offer eye exams (He’s Dr. Christenson, my eye doc), glasses, medicine and a few procedures for the pastors we serve, and the staff that serve at the compound here. Health care, on a number of levels, is hard to come by here. Many simply do without. Today he started giving exams and has already put smiles on some faces as they donned their new glasses.  

He has been engaging with all he meets, especially the kids. His faith, servanthood and good nature have been on full display and making this trip better regularly. 

Having arrived Wednesday evening, we stayed in a guest house and sought to get some sleep. The idea was to get up for a 6:30 Thursday breakfast and to hit the road for the 6-7 hour trip across country. Our driver’s name is Rodgers (no relation to Aaron, though I’m sure he wishes he was) who I misunderstood to be Ridges and called him that until the last three hours of his time with us. He is a young man with big glasses, he spoke in a very gentle manner and was often hard to understand.

We had Tim Prince sit in the front seat next to Rodgers so that he could experience the differences and some of the thrill/fear of driving in Uganda. Gar (who had previously experienced serving in Senegal, sat in the second row with Mike Evans. Mike can get car sick and we wanted Gar to see better. Stu and I brought up the rear.

One of the highlights of working with the people of Abaana’s Hope, the organization here on the ground, is how easy they have made it for us. We have had excellent drivers who were not only skilled, but knew their way around and paid all the bills. They, in turn, would hand them over to Abaana’s Hope, who would send us one bill to cover our expenses. They have been incredible to work with.

Turns out Rodgers didn’t know exactly where he was going. Having made this cross-country trip a number of times, we have a general sense of where we are going. Rodgers was slow and tentative in his approach. When we asked questions, his answers were so soft that Mr. Prince had to interpret (Rodgers spoke English). When we would request a bathroom break (like in the States, gas stations are the normal stopping place), he seemed to acknowledge the request and would drive by a couple more before stopping, only to have us sprint to the toilets.

There was a general uneasiness with the uncertainty with which he drove. We were to drive to Murchison Falls National Park, find our lodging there, rest a few hours and go on a Safari. We usually do this for someone who is coming to Africa for the first time. We asked Rodgers how much time till we arrived and it sounded like we would get there around 2 pm, seven hours after departure. We could get a couple of hours rest before our 4 pm safari.

It was fun narrating for Tim and Gar what was going on in the Entebbe area as we took off. The roads in this area have improved so much in the ten years we have been making our way to Uganda. We made pit stops, had a bite to eat and hit the road. 2 pm came and we knew we were a way out from our destination. He said we would get to Murchison in an hour. When we arrived and paid our fee at 3 pm, he told us it would be 1.5 hours till we got to the lodge we were staying at (the timing for the safari wasn’t looking good). This is a huge National Park! As we made our way toward the lodge we started seeing signs which were not all that clear. You could sense our driver’s uncertainty, but he never verbalized any concern. Being in a different culture, it’s not always clear if you should ask/question someone in this case.

I failed to mention that at the four-hour mark in our driving we started to have a challenge. It was in the upper 80’s and sunny, with six people and a lot of luggage (we brought eye exam equipment and 200+ pairs of glasses).  It was cozy, but not obnoxiously so. We had decent air conditioning so the drive was fairly comfortable, until HEAT started coming up under our feet. We mentioned the concern to Rodgers, who pushed a few buttons up front, but no improvement…it was getting warm. Our upper bodies felt fine, while our feet were hot. The rest of our trip was marked by this discomfort.

We were already 8 hours into the 6-7 hour trip when he came to a sign (I’ll admit not a very clear one) for our lodge. As he chose to go on a dirt road, leaving the pavement, I said something like “Hey Ridges (remember I had misunderstood his name-and he never corrected us-not in this culture), are you sure your headed the right way?” He looked back at me, but did not respond otherwise. He kept driving. My uncertainty and frustration were rising with the temperature on my feet. As we continued down this path, the roads got a little dicey. We would slip on occasion from the recent rain falls and I was getting a bit anxious. I later discerned my emotion as anger because we had an apparently substandard driver, who couldn’t figure out the controls on his nice Toyota van (neither could we), and was apparently driving us down a safari road (in my opinion) rather than getting us to the lodge which we were now about two hours late getting to.

About ten minutes into this new road, I asked the question again and Rodgers just kept driving, occasionally slipping on this dirt road which seemed to be growing increasingly rustic as we went. Ten minutes later, we slid to a stop and I said “Ridges, I think we need to turn around!” He relented and we slipped and slid our way back over the dirt road, until we arrived at the black top and went the way the rest of us thought we should got and fifteen minutes later made it to the lodge at 5 pm, completing our 6-7 hour trip in a mere ten hours!

Fortunately, we were the only ones doing the sunset safari, so our patient driver was waiting. I was really looking forward to Tim and Gar seeing this, but I was less than excited to another 2-3 hours in a vehicle-even if we would see exotic animals. First world problems in a third world country.

Larry Szyman

Campus and Community Pastor