Uganda Trip 11

(January 12)

I’m sitting with Stu and Mike in the Amsterdam airport during our six-hour layover here. I’m anxious to land at MSP at 4 pm on Saturday, see Carol, get cleaned up, try to stay up till 9 pm. I hope I get a good night’s sleep before gathering with you all at FCC on Sunday morning. I anticipate dosing in and out of consciousness on Sunday, watching football playoffs.

We ended our classes this week well. Our students were engaged and worked hard at grasping how to handle the interpretation and communication of Old Testament Narrative and Law. I found our work on the law most helpful as we sought to see the law in light of God’s character and how Christ fulfilled the law before we move on to application.

Application…that is often the struggle. I notice it in my small group when we go through the FCC sermon and conversation guide. We find it easy to make observations, but how does it apply today, or to put it another way, “So what?”. Most of the troubles we have in the church is not failing to know the Bible, it has to do with failing to appropriately apply the Bible. 

There are some really incredible leaders that we are working with who are sharing leadership with us, and they seem prepared to take over our function. Then it will be all theirs, as it should be. As a matter of fact, we have identified two men that we think could be sent to other countries.

The goal of an enduring movement of gospel-centered, Bible-saturated, African lead churches seems within reach. I look forward to our next trip in May. I also look forward to being back at FCC soon!

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life

(Wednesday, Jan 10)

Time for a little honesty here (not that I’ve lied in the past). Some of these trips are a bit more challenging than others-this is one of the more challenging ones. I can’t put a finger on it, but I’ve been very aware of how much time until I get to come back to Hudson (right now it’s 3 am local time, about 31 hours till we start our cross-country drive to an airport). Sleep is really strange, and I FaceTimed Carol and sent a few texts during this time frame.

There has been a lot of “this many days ‘til I go home” this trip. It means a few things. This travel can be difficult and sometimes I simply want life to be easier. I not only have 31 hours left, but approximately two years and thirty-one hours! This is the third course of nine that we will offer our Ugandan friends in the church. The plan is as follows:

May 2024–The Gospels (Mark)

Oct 2024–Poetry (Psalms and Proverbs)

Jan 2025–Epistles (Ephesians)

May 2025–Prophecy (Isaiah)

Oct 2025–Apocalyptic (Revelation)

Jan 2026–Summary-doing the ministry of the Word

I’m feeling pretty fresh right now at 3 am, the challenge is how will I feel at 8 am, when it is time to teach?

So, I struggle some. But it’s very important you hear the following: what I am doing is a privilege of the highest order. While some of these trips are difficult, I am joyfully committed to continuing them. I am not ripped off in what I am doing: multiple eight-hour flights and jet lag on a 65-year-old body is not fun, but I will, God willing do all the trips above.

To work with these (mostly) young pastors and church leaders, to hear their stories and see their hunger is a gift. To be able to help them be more effective as most of them have had zero formal training as they lead their flock is important. So, while I count the days until I get back to Hudson, it’s not too long before I start counting the days until I get back to Uganda!

I am keenly and gratefully aware of my partnership with you, FCC! First of all, you pay for my trips. Secondly, when I FaceTime Carol and she tells me about a leak in the dishwasher, I text one of FCC’s handymen and he responds that he will call Carol and get on it. I am far away, but I am far from alone. Thank you for supporting me as together we build up the church in Uganda.

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life

Today we started our five days in the classroom. I was fairly concerned about my capacities as my jet lag has been really bad this trip. Last night I probably got 2 ½ hours of sleep, and I was afraid my body was going to decide it was tired when I was teaching, and I’d be incoherent. Thankfully, that was not the case and my energy level was solid.

Our subject matter for this round is Understanding and Communicating the genres of narrative and law in the Scripture, using Genesis and Exodus. It is good to be reunited with the cohort, and my learning group in particular. It will be fun to see that even though they are quite familiar with the stories (narratives) in Genesis, how that knowledge can deepen as we give them tools for greater understanding and application.

Our vision is to establish an abiding network of Gospel-Centered, Bible-Saturated, African-led churches. This means the leaders in my group (from Uganda, South Sudan, and the Congo) need to be equipped not only to understand but multiply leaders. This means sharing the teaching duties with what we call Lead Trainers, those who took the courses in a previous cohort and set themselves apart. Vincent (pictured) did a really solid job. Stu Dix suggested I take his phone, record him teaching, send him home to view it, and do a self-evaluation. Tomorrow we will go over his evaluation and I will give him mine.

The temp was 102 today. The rest of the week looks a bit better, with highs topping out at 96. Whenever we are in our quarters, we each have a fan on us. It’s been cooling off enough at night that I haven’t sweat myself to sleep–yet.

It’s an honor to work with these eager leaders.

Pray that I get some sleep, please!

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life

Today’s thoughts will come from yesterday (Thursday, Jan 4). At 9 am, Mike Evans and a few local guys headed to a town called Kitgum (a 45-minute drive), while Stu Dix and I headed to the Adjumani district (one hour and 45 minutes), an area currently hosting 440,000 displaced people in 18 settlements (or neighborhoods). When we think of a refugee, we think of a person passing through on their way to a preferred place. The average length of stay for a refugee is close to 20 years! Churches are needed in this environment. Is it possible that a Gospel-Inspired Life can be experienced in this setting? Our pastors say “yes”!

A number of the pastors we are working with serve in Adjumani. We met with three such men – Joseph, Francis, and Godfrey – for lunch and to visit their churches. Joseph is Ugandan and has lived in the Adjumani district his entire life. Francis and Godfrey are both South Sudanese and fled to Uganda in the last decade. Francis and Godfrey have planted churches among the displaced of Adjumani, with most of their parishioners being South Sudanese people who have fled their homeland due to war and persecution. They hope to return home someday but aren’t confident it will be any time soon.

I was reminded of where I was throughout the day. First of all, lunch took over an hour to get to our tables. This gave us time to talk about life and ministry. It was strange as this group was not as talkative as I’m used to. They all have excellent English. I’m sorry to report some of them are as wrapped up with their phones as Americans. Secondly, when we were leaving the restaurant, one guy asked us to stay put as he ran a five-minute errand that became 45 minutes. We then visited the sights of each of their churches. The people meet weekly in facilities that are far from complete (see picture of Godfrey in his church), but they belong to God and each other and are finding that sufficient. Stu said a prayer for each pastor and church and we headed home.

It was a long day, with a lot of time in the car. We got home at 7:45 pm. The first 1/3 of the road back home was as good as any in our area–I may have caught a nap. The other 2/3-not so much. There were a few potholes that were six feet wide by three feet across and two feet deep-would put ours to shame. They do not blame the thaw/heat cycle for their potholes.

The temps are in the low 90s and the a/c unit in the car did a nice job of cooling us off. It is cooling off to the 60s at night, making things quite comfortable. The forecast is looking better as well, the forecasted highs of 105 for next week are down to 101–I feel cooler already!

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life

The transition from Amsterdam to Nairobi was a bit more sedate, other than the fact that Mike, Stu, and I were sitting side by side in a rather smallish (compared to what we’re used to) KLM airplane. When I say compared to what we’re used to-we always fly economy. Once we landed in Nairobi, the fun began. MSP would not give us a boarding pass for our last leg of the journey, which was from Nairobi to Entebbe, Uganda. We assume it was because they don’t have a partnership with Kenya Air, like they do with KLM. Once we landed, we had to find where we could get our boarding passes.

First, we had to go through security. The lines were rather long, and they tended to merge as you approached the Kenyan equivalent of the TSA. It was a little hectic, but I got all my stuff in those little bins, putting my watch in last. After getting my stuff back, I went through the process (always a bit stressful) of putting electronics back in, putting shoes back on (no TSA pre-check!), and getting out of the way for others.

I got everything put on and away, and about 25 yards down the hall, I thought “Where is my watch?”

You know, my first Apple watch and the big outlay that it is.

You know, the Larry’s Christmas gift Apple watch.

I turned in a hurry and got back to the station I went through. Thankfully, the line was a trickle at this point (one of the advantages of landing late at night). I told the man I didn’t get my watch back. He asked me to look through my backpack-nope. He got a couple of those plastic bins and asked me to take absolutely everything out. When you are leaving the US for a couple of weeks, it’s a lot. Still nothing. He took the backpack and and put it through the scanner again-nope. I was a little miffed at this point, as I was asked and put the watch in a bin in full view of an employee, put it through the scanner, took my items over to a table, and never saw it. It also crossed my mind that it may have been stolen-but I wasn’t about to accuse someone. I’m on the floor, once again, going through things, all in vain. Frustrating.

The man I was talking to got a supervisor. I told him what took place. He talked to other workers and wondered if the watch got lost in the scanner. I thought one woman was going to crawl in the scanner when the supervisor said, “What is this?” The watch had fallen out of the bin and was stuck between two of the rollers that the plastic bins slide on. After expressing thanks, we were off to secure boarding passes.

Things were quiet as our flight was at 12:55 am. We got in yet another line without about 15 people in front of us. A half-hour later, there were 14 people in front of us. With about an hour and ten minutes before departure, things did not look good.

When I think of the inefficiencies we were experiencing, I thought about a discussion we had with a young lady from the Boston area who came home for her sister’s wedding and was about to head home. I often ask people from a different culture who have moved to the US, what they like most and least about the US. She was quick to say how we are so efficient. Our processes are very sound, and most things happen like they should in this realm (she had an MBA, by the way). She really appreciated it. When asked what she would like to see different was that Americans can seem a bit robotic as they go through life. As we talked more, it seems to be a shadow side of our strength in efficiency.  We don’t take the time to linger with one another because we are so busy.

Back to our line. Everyone who engaged the airline people were animated as they made their case for their problem. The biggest challenge for a number was a plane to Bangkok that had problems and there was no alternative for them. A supervisor approached Mike, asked what the problem was, and told him to go to the front of the line. Five minutes later, we had three fresh boarding passes and made it to the gate in plenty of time. Our last flight was about an hour and fifteen minutes, and we got through customs quickly.  We stepped outside where Otim was ready to start our cross-county trip to Gulu starting at 2 am.

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life

Today I start with a long post. It’s 3:30 am and we have arrived in Uganda. Otim (oh team), our usual driver, was at the Entebbe airport when we arrived. We are now in a rainy trip across the country.

We started our journey at a restaurant at MSP arriving there at 4 pm on New Year’s Day. We got to watch the first half of the Michigan game against Alabama. “We” are 1) Mike Evans, planter of Faith Community, New Richmond, and current Site Trainer of Training Leaders International (TLI). TLI provides the curriculum that we use to train the pastors we are in Uganda to serve. 2) Stu Dix, the planter of The Village Church of Baldwin and a summertime employee of Glacier National Park (along with his wife Cheryl and daughter Sarah are park ranger there) and 3) yours truly. We have made this trip about twelve times together and the privilege of doing the work we do and doing it with friends of mine is a great, great gift.

As we load the plane, I get an aisle seat next to an elderly man (which is really saying something for me to call someone elderly). I’m always on the lookout for the chance to move to another seat where there are two or more empty seats together. Mike and Stu are in the same row and have the outside two aisle seats with two empty seats between them. I turn and look at the row behind them-I struck gold! All four seats were empty with the plane nearly full. I slide over into the aisle seat in that row and the man next to me gives me a thumbs up. I’m “feeling it.’’

A few minutes later my gold disappears…quickly. A family of seven comes in with dad dragging a toddler by the arm, a mom seeking to comfort an infant, and two boys and a girl in the 6-10 age range. Their seats were in three different rows and the kids had carry-ons with no idea what to do with them. I helped them get things in the overhead bin and find their rightful seats. The children were understandably excited as they were on their first plane ride. They were in for a long day as they were headed to Nairobi, Kenya.

Everyone got buckled in and announcements were made, and we were off on time. About 15 minutes into the flight the ten-year-old boy taps my arm. Could I help him get a movie going (his parents were preoccupied with the little ones)? I finally settled in and got a movie going and about a ½ hour into the movie the man next to me taps me and points out that his screen is not functioning very well. I tell him I don’t know what to do, but I will ask a flight attendant to reset his screen. I get the attention of the first one that walks by and mention the need and she said she would address it.

Back to my movie (another tap) and the youngster wants to know how much longer it’s going to be. Up to this point, we have not gone an hour into the 8:20 trip to Amsterdam, with a matching trip to Nairobi. I show him how he can track the flight on his screen. I would say we had close to a dozen of these encounters throughout the flight. The two boys were sitting in the row behind Stu and Mike. They had contests seeing who could flip the fold down trays the quickest back into their closed position. They were having a blast. Stu and Mike, as they would get a slight push from the row behind them, not so much.

The last ½ hour was especially noteworthy. The younger of the two boys behind Mike and Stu wanted to know why the picture of the plane on the flight tracker wasn’t pointing down if we were going to land pretty soon. I introduced him to the elevation tracker, and he would report the descending numbers out loud for the neighbors. We were now in the tray tables up, arms rests down and seats in the upright position phase of the flight. The older one decided this was a good time to do two things: to push the button that called flight attendants and to unbuckle his seat belt and stand up. I encouraged him to stop and was joined by a flight attendant who was trying to get her section under control and safe. We landed and as I left one flight attendant thanked me three times for helping with the kids.

I don’t start doing “God’s work” when I land in Uganda. Ministry is a way of life and God uses the journey as much as the destination. Even though there is a time for rest, a time to pull away, a time to attend to self, God is not to be boxed into our lives, but the driving force in our life. This approach more accurately reflects a gospel-inspired life.

One big surprise during the flight to Amsterdam was that Jay (son of Brian and Jen Crim) and Emma (daughter of Carl and Julie Gaede of Tutapona fame) Crim approached me while we were in flight. When we unloaded, we chatted a bit in Amsterdam airport (they are working with Tutapona in eastern Europe working with refugees). These young marrieds are experiencing joys and pains that are unique for Americans. What a treat to see them! The picture is of Jay, Emma and us.

This is getting awfully long. I think I’ll wrap it up for today and pick things up in Nairobi in my next post.

Larry Szyman

Pastor for Missional Life