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.