Home, Sweet, Frozen Home and Cherished Partnerships (Friday): Trip #7

There is something sweet about the gift of returning home to the familiar, to the beloved. But nothing as sweet as Carol’s face, friendship, and partnership. Though we have both grown accustomed to the times I am away, she remains an anchor for my life. Nearly forty-two years she has been a model of love, faithfulness, and a whole lot of fun.

On this my last post of our seventh course, I am quite aware of the many partners that are part of this equation by which the church in northern Uganda is being equipped and entrusted for a new season of fruitfulness, God willing. 

Four Corners Ministry (FCM), headquartered in Alabama has a presence in the Gulu area that is significant. The Pastoral Training Center lead by my now friend Kris Mobbs is the reason (humanly speaking) that we had and have confidence that our efforts will result in new churches planted and existing churches strengthened. They have recruited, housed, fed our forty trainees and provide excellent logistical support from the time we land in Entebbe until its wheels up for our return to MSP. 

The six Ugandan based Lead Trainers have been serving in a significant fashion since the beginning of this endeavor. They have served as TA’s and mentees as those who will carry the work forward (again, God willing) with a new cohort of all Ugandan trainers in January of 2023. Not all six of them will become teachers, but they have served this cohort well and have capacity to move forward. The pastors look at me amazed when I tell them that they are smarter than I am. After all, I am the teacher and do seem to have quite a few answers for their questions. I am not smarter, but I am better resourced. I’ve been given the privilege of a three-year graduate degree and thirty-six years of full time experience. In my teaching them, my less resourced brothers are operating in their second, third or fourth language. I’m humbled by their capacities, their hunger, their hearts. 

Training Leaders International (TLI) has provided a robust, challenging and helpful curriculum that is being used to help pastors better understand and communicate the various genres of Scripture. It is amazing to see the scope and sequence, the cohesion of the seven courses we have taught so far. This Minneapolis based ministry is committed to making the global church more effective as they seek to equip the 80% of pastors in poorer contexts who have no formal training. My dear friend Mike Evans is supported by FCC’s budget and shepherds our relationship with TLI, providing the ongoing support we need to be most helpful. Josh Montague, in the picture that accompanies this post, was this trip’s TLI representative and has talked me into my first BWCA trip this summer.

The St. Croix Valley LEAD Team (SCVLT) of churches in Somerset, New Richmond, Baldwin, River Falls and FCC Hudson have provided teacher/trainers who have made the seven trips to Gulu. These churches have provided the funds to make all this possible. We have been able to bring some goodies (M & M’s etc.) for our Four Corners friends and two books each trip for the Lead Trainers, helping them to develop a solid library for their future ministry. Our little network has allowed pastors time away from the home front to allow gospel expansion to take place. The partnership the SCVLT with have with TLI is unique in their ministry and they both celebrate our approach and hope for others to operate similarly. I am grateful for our sister churches.

Faith Community of Hudson. Much has been given FCC and you have given much. FCC has provided the greatest amount of funding for the SCVLT churches. The staff you support provides critical roles in putting curricular materials in place for each course, resulting in a quality that our Ugandan pastors have never experienced before. The posting of my journaling on FCC’s website. Allowing me to be gone two to three times a year for nearly two weeks. Tom and Becky Karl and Jason and Debbie Schoonover who see that my leadership in the hospitality ministry on the weekends are covered with excellence (Jason even waved to me during the preservice streaming last weekend). There is a small army that is making this all happen from Alabama, Uganda, Minneapolis, the St. Croix Valley including Hudson. All of this so that more and better churches, more and better disciples of Jesus are garnered for the glory of God and the eight people groups that we are training.

Faith Community, I thank God for you. I am humbled to be supported by you for thirty plus years in our partnership in the gospel. I love you and am loved by you. I will not be making the March trip, but in May we will be going for trip number nine, which will include the graduation of the first cohort. Who knows what is next? God does!

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life