africraigs

I’m back in my other life.

I know that because my body is bouncing and jostling while I drive our almost-vintage 4WD Toyota Prado on one of the countless pastel-yellow ribbon dirt roads criss-crossing this crazy continent of Africa.

It is rainy season here and I am highly cognisant that there is a risk the car will slip and slide into a big dirty tea-coloured puddle and get caught in the slimy mud that affords limited grip.

Curious and excited children run barefoot towards the road chanting ‘Mundu, How are you’ over and over again. A baby peers round from behind her older sister’s back and starts howling.

I pass compounds surrounding homesteads planted with the long, skinny stems and serrated leaves of the paw-paw tree pregnant with her large fruits. There are the enormous verdant leaves of the ubiquitous banana plant and beneath these canopies the small weedy plants used for green vegetables growing irregularly.

A stubborn bedraggled goat is roughly tied to a stubby bush and a rooster ruffles it feathers, cranes its neck and proudly gives its best call.

After being in the UK for an unexpectedly long time, returning to Arua has been a rich mix of re-connections with old, familiar friends and also an instant reminder of the brokenness that gives us the vision to have set up home deep in the African countryside.

The incredible sight of the milky way arches overhead as I lean against the wall and catch up with my security guard who tells me the horrendous story of his 3 year-old niece being attacked with a machete knife, slicing her head open and killing her. It happened a week previously and John tells me he thinks there was a sacrificial witchcraft element involved.

‘Things are not easy’ people tell me as they explain about their lives and the struggles they are facing. Funerals, sickness and exhausting poverty are an everyday reality for people and survival is the aim of life, just simply getting by if possible. As my friend told me, the innumerable challenges people face make people give up and turn to addictions or even to go mad, but for him, he has to focus on being strong and getting on.

One of the card makers in the project that Emma oversees grasps my hand and tells me he has missed me and says he is off to a funeral in the village as his cousin was killed when a mob set upon him. Another man’s older relative has been knocked and killed by a speeding car on the road to the South Sudan border.

The easy smiles and laughter often belie the incredible hardship of life here and the resilience of people who ‘get on with it’. The lives of countless South Sudanese refugees all around us are a strong testament to this. People often reference God after they tell you about their difficulties reminding themselves of their continued hope in the inexplicable darkness.

Visiting our 13 sponsored Cheka children was one highlight of my time in Arua. where this hope is being brought through supporting kids to access school who would otherwise not be able to. Our small local team have a big heart and vision to care for the most vulnerable children in their communities who are orphaned by AIDS like Joseph or exist in heart-rending poverty like little Pasca. We followed up with Princess Lenia who is one of 10 children, whose dad died last year and whose brother was electrocuted when playing with exposed cables on the road and has since had his arms amputated. I felt it a huge privilege to be able to play a small part in supporting these kids. It is definitely what helps give me purpose in life and for what I believe the message of Jesus Christ is all about. This is a project I hope to focus on while in the UK by starting a UK charity with friends (and my dad!) as board members and starting a website (chekachild.com - not much on there yet, though!).
Squalid conditions some of the children live in Joseph Pasca Princess Lenia
As we approach Christmastime, we want to share the hopeful Christmas message to our sponsored children and other desperately needy children and their families whom we profiled. This will be through providing gifts in the form of basic necessities that people greatly appreciate: a long bar of blue soap used for everything from washing clothes to washing the floor, rice and sugar. If anyone feels a burden to help out in this regard through giving something financially, please be in touch and we can encourage these kids with a little bit of light.

I was amazed to see the road between the swankiest hotel in Arua, Golden Courts (which is supposedly owned by Idi Amin’s remaining family!) that runs towards the President’s Arua residence, being re-surfaced for the 3rd time last year.

It is a road I know well as I like to run up it because it is wide and quiet and is adjacent to the green grass (or dry-season yellow just now) of the colonial-built Arua golf course. The well-maintained golf course with its large purple-flowering jacaranda trees is a refreshing sight contrasting with the haphazard and chaotic nature of other parts of Arua.

The other time, I noticed that the smoothness of the tarmac lasted a week until the heavy tropical rain came and showed the shabby work of the road workers for what it was. The tarmac was only a few millimetres thick, a thin layer on top of the pastel coloured marram.

This time, the same thing happened. The tarmac on the road lasted a short time before potholes began to appear. The road looked good for less than a month reminding me of how some new, shiny items I’ve bought disappoint because they are shoddily made.

In the past month, 2 senior officials from Arua have been arrested on suspicion of misappropriating 436 million Uganda Shillings or £90,000 that were designated for road construction in Arua. (https://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Arua-officials-charged-corruption/688334-4991822-qmj2t9/index.html)

Hopefully justice can be served on these men and others that were involved.

The organisation Transparency International notes that corruption in Uganda is endemic in all sectors of society, with giving Uganda a score of 149 out of 180 countries.

The story of this road shows just how destructive corruption is as the roads that were meant to be completed are just as bad or worse now than they were before. Public money that should be used to improve the lives of ordinary Ugandans is being ‘eaten’ by big people trusted with its investment. And this in one of the poorest countries in the world. It is especially sad when so many people desperate for school fees, medical care or clothes should be betrayed by the people meant to help. It is sad when medicines are stolen from hospitals, when money for education is ‘diverted’ and money for refugees disappears.

Corruption angers me because it undermines development. More than that, corruption undermines society.

Our vision for Uganda is to see a society developing and progressing with good, godly values to produce an honest, hard-working and creative society so that people see betterment in their situations. Corruption is one obvious manifestation of human brokenness that really makes life worse.

Last week, I was part of a 3-day training in community development provided by Baptist missionaries from the US. I have always liked the concept of ‘community development’ and especially the idea of transformational development where wholistic positive change takes place in peoples’ lives. I figured the training could help give me more ideas for the work I am trying to do in Arua.

I found the course very helpful in providing some practical skills in how to understand and ask questions about a community and how it is doing. As well as other tools, the trainers described the Problem Tree, Vision mapping and Resource analysis.

To look at these tools, we often split into groups to think about them practically over the few days we had together. I was in a group of mainly Ugandans which helped me really understand the issues on the ground.

The Problem Tree helps a community look at one problem and consider the causes and effects - or the roots and the fruits of the problem. As a group, we looked at the problem of drugs and alcohol, a big issue for the community. Here is a look at our problem tree.

As we discussed the issue of drug and alcohol use, I felt a greater and greater sense of heaviness and sadness. There are so many problems in the communities we live amongst. Material poverty, family instability, lack of jobs, mental health problems, trauma and other causes increase the risk of drug and alcohol abuse. The effects are sicknesses, early death, child neglect, increased hopelessness, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy amongst others.

As we discussed these problems and went into the field to speak to groups of people, it is hard not to be overwhelmed.

One of the participants in the training talked of a ‘depressed society’ where so many people are struggling with many burdens. There is a hopelessness and heaviness that hangs over many people.

Working in the society where there are so many problems, we also start to take on a sense of hopelessness and burden. It is known that there is a risk for workers in difficult situations to get burn-out and to take on the similar poverty mindset that keeps people trapped in their own mindsets.

As ‘change agents’ in this society, we need to keep ourselves healthy to bring the vision of hope and inspiration for a people in great need.

Ironically, one way we are reminded of Christmas in Arua is because of the increase in insecurity as people feel the pressure to buy meat or chicken and new clothes for their families. This week this has brought us an armed robbery, a revenge killing and a police crackdown with gun battles in the forest. However, we believe that Jesus came to bring light to darkest places. As Isaiah says,

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Community Development is about change for the better, something we all long for! I hope that we all get encouraged by the Christmas story of hope despite all the darkness and discouragement around!

The Anglican Church of Uganda recently celebrated a big milestone of 100 year anniversary in the West Nile region. 100 years ago, the West Nile region just been returned to British rule after been part of the notorious Belgian Congo with the regime’s brutal treatment of people for ivory and rubber. In this area, elephants had been hunted for ivory and slaves were captured by Arabs coming down from the north. The mighty Nile river runs alongside the Eastern borders while the land rises towards the west along the hilly Congo border.

Man Wearing his Special Centenary Shirt

The Lugbara Bible

Jacob at the Centenary Celebrations

With my friend Stephen. I wanted to celebrate the Scottish influence in West Nile too...! And got interviewed on radio because of it!

In that year, 1918, a missionary couple called Frank and Edith Gardner arrived in West Nile, entering from Congo through an area called Vurra. Frank’s brother Alfred accompanied them.

The Gardner Family in Later Years

Frank Gardner Looking Like a Typical Missionary...

The Gardners were ordinary people. Frank was a railway engineer and son of a postman from Chipping Norton. Edith was a butcher’s daughter and shop assistant. They had a new baby, although they had also left a toddler aged 3 in England. Edith Jr was 11 when they next saw her! This seems like a cruel thing in our eyes these days, but during the precarious time during World War 1, they were concerned for the toddler’s safety traveling by ship.

Initially, they came as a couple to Africa to work with a mission agency started by the renown CT Studd in Belgian Congo, but after 2 years there were disagreements with him and they transferred to Africa Inland Mission (AIM).

AIM had been asked by the British District Commissioner to help to distribute food to deal with a severe famine in West Nile and this is what initially led the new AIM recruits to the region.

Arua in 1918

The Gardners had a difficult time in their fledgling work. Edith struggled being constantly watched and peered at by the local people. Neighbours would also fill in the wells they dug for getting clean water. Since there had been a famine, there was little food to eat.

The Gardner's Home, Arua, Painted in Watercolour

During that first year, the Gardners succumbed to Spanish Flu, a pandemic of sickness killing people around the world. Edith nearly died. Frank had already been ill with malaria and black-water fever several times but fell sick again. He too nearly died. The family were advised to move to an area with a healthier climate and so went to work at Kijabe, at the AIM station in the mountains of Kenya.

The Gardners had only been in West Nile from June 1918 till February 1919, eight short and difficult months.

However, as the book written to commemorate the church’s history, ‘Celebrating Our Centenary’ mentions, ‘Christianity has made a greater impact [in the West Nile] than in other parts of Northern Uganda’.

Despite the inconspicuous and frustrating start which must have seemed like failure to the Gardners, the church grew. Today, 90% of the Lugbara people the Gardners settled amongst are Christian according to The Joshua Project ( https://joshuaproject.net/) and the church has hundreds of thousands of adherents.

As one of the descendants of Frank and Edith says:

When I heard the Gardner’s story, it touched and encouraged me.

Emma and I are ordinary people that left ‘normal’ jobs in the UK but we can often struggle with living and working cross- culturally. We can feel irritated when a simple jog can turn into being a comical spectacle, or different cultural differences in parenting or education can gain unwanted comments… We can relate to health and sickness scares: insect bites, malaria, high fevers, a broken bone, and how the physical can quickly affect our emotional and spiritual outlook. We’ve sometimes looked at our work, our projects, our failings, and wondered whether we’re making any difference and whether we should pack up and go home, especially since what we are doing is such a backwards move in a career sense. When we hear stories of missionary heroes, they seem so incredible that we can’t relate to them, yet the Gardners seem so normal, so human, so ordinary, and their trials so real and understandable.

And yet, like the story of the Gardners, there is change because of the small seeds they sowed.

We, too, are hoping and praying for God to work through us in our vision to see transformation in peoples’ lives through God’s love and hope.

• That through the income generating card project, people will see that God can use someone’s hard work, skills and creativity to help them support their families.

• That through the Hibiscus tea project, people can see that Africa and their people are rich and the poverty mentality people often hide behind can be challenged.

• That through the Lifeskills teaching, people can see that God can provide us with wisdom to live effectively in all areas of life to God’s glory.

• That through the sponsorship project, Cheka Child, vulnerable children who would not have otherwise had much hope and even less opportunities, can be given a hope and a future.

The story of the church’s beginnings in West Nile are an encouragement to any ‘small’ people out there like Gideon in the Bible, wee Zacchaeus, or us…

If anyone is interested, here is a link to a video of the Frank and Edith Gardner story done recently:

We have recently come back from an incredible 2 week holiday to Cape Town. The long- awaited holiday is an attempt to keep ourselves ‘sustainable’ by taking time to rest and take a break from life in Uganda.

Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen with panoramic views of spectacular mountains, shimmering turquoise-coloured sea and expanses of white beaches. There is so much to see and do and the 2 weeks weren’t enough, although we managed to hike up Table Mountain, horse-ride, see the Boulder Beach penguins, visit the Aquarium, visit a Winery have a surfing lesson and so many more things. The kids loved it and so did we...

Surfing Lesson on Muizenburg Beach

Muizenburg Beach Huts

Signal Hill with Table Mountain in the Background

The Boomslang, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Aquarium

Bird's Nests, Company Gardens

African Penguins

Spier Winery

Big Swing at Spier

Aerial Rope Course

Asher Loved the Aerial Ropes Course

Having grown up in DR Congo and living in East Africa, I have always said that South Africa is not the real Africa. Mostly, I mean that it is so much more ‘developed’ than many other parts of Africa that I visited. It’s GDP has been the highest in Africa, it has beautifully smooth roads, a well-developed railway network, industries and seems well organised. It’s nice to be able to drink from the taps too!

Being on holiday, I still couldn’t help myself trying to get under the skin of what is going on in South Africa and understand the culture better (although Em told me not to think too much…!)

As everyone is so aware, South Africa has had a turbulent history and it strange to think that it was so recent. It was strange to visit Robben Island with Amelie and have one of the ex-political prisoners called ‘Vusumzi Mcongo’ talk to us about his experiences. He encouraged the roomful of tourists to also visit a township to understand that not a lot has changed since the apartheid era and share this with the outside world.

Sign at District 6 Museum

Nelson Mandela's Prison Cell

Vusumzi Mcongo

Robben Island

Since Apartheid, South Africa is now known as the ‘Rainbow Nation’ where people of all colours and races are supposedly equal and welcome, but being in Cape Town, it felt to me that a lot still had to change.

South African Multicoloured Flag

Driving from our lovely Airbnb family home by a lake to Cape Town central, we pass the security guys protecting the neighbourhood. We pass black guys waiting at the roadside looking for work and money. We pass through a township with signs saying ‘smash and grab hotspot’. Big electric fences with the ‘tic-tic’ noise are common sights. Locals tell you to be very careful with your bags at beaches, in town or on tourist areas like Table Mountain. Beaches like stunning Noordhoek beach that we visited were targets where people had recently been killed and the same fate had befallen walkers in the hills around Muizenburg where we were staying. In the early morning, our taxi wouldn’t stop at red lights for fear of smash and grab thieving.

Signs Warning about Crime

Noordhoek Beach

Iconic and Beautiful Table Mountain

It was strange taking the train into town to pick up our hired car. On the whole 45 minutes, I was the only white person. I had been advised by friends that public transport is generally not safe, but being from the UK where everyone takes the train, it was weird how segregated parts of life in Cape Town are. As I was sitting on the train, I was reading about a young guy that had been killed riding the same route I was in January after fleeing from attempted thieves. I also witnessed a thief pelting out the station at great speed and another suspect being apprehended by station guards. An exciting way to travel, anyway!

To me, a passer-by in Cape Town, it feels like there are still 2 South Africas, with the divide still being a colour one, but more so an economic one. I am sure that those who lived through the apartheid era will tell me that the changes to South Africa up till now have been momentous, but to many blacks living in South Africa, I wonder what that change has been.

One of the most memorable occasions for our family was seeing a concert of the Origin choir organised by Colin Peckham whom I knew from our previous life in Edinburgh. Incredibly, since many of the band and choir had come from Edinburgh, some of our friends were there too! It was very strange seeing old friends in a completely different context.

The concert was in Mitchell’s Plain, an area featured on CNN for being one of the most dangerous places in the world. During the evening, the pastor explained how he had to live with being held at gun-point on several occasions and how he would often be burying gang members. However, he said that things were changing because people were starting to get serious about church. Social changes were happening and transformation was taking place. After the concert, it was humbling to see about 15 people give their lives to Jesus (no guys, only women!).

Origin Choir

Great Mates from Edinburgh in Origin Choir

What I witnessed in South Africa made me consider again what true development is like. Emma and I talked about whether we would want to ever live in South Africa with its incredible beauty and natural resources and both of us were not sure. Although on one hand, there is so much material richness as seen in the beautiful yachts at the V and A waterfront, expensive cars (there were so many shiny cars on the road) and expansive malls and stunning wine estates, there is a terrible feeling of social poverty. Although South Africa is one of the most developed African nations, it wouldn’t be an easy place to live because of the social poverty and brokenness obvious almost everywhere we looked.

V and A Waterfront

Uganda would like to become ‘developed’ and reach higher standards. This current administration, ‘aims at transforming Uganda from a predominantly peasant and low income country to a competitive upper middle income country’ by 2040 in a project called Vision 2040 with a per capita income at $9500 from the current $615. There are plans to develop industries, the railway, modernise agriculture and increase energy production amongst others. I believe a nation needs a vision for material development, but seeing a country like South Africa also reminds me of the greater need for wholistic development.

Uganda Vision 2040

Our dream for Uganda and what we work for here is summed up in Bryant L Myers’ book ‘Walking with the Poor’ in describing transformational development:

“The kingdom vision for the better human future is summarised by the idea of shalom: just, peaceful, harmonious and enjoyable relationships with each other, ourselves, our environment and God.”

Bryant L Myers Model of Transformational Development Illustrating Wholesome Relationships

Although a higher GDP per capita is important for a materially poor nation, the example of South Africa shows that for good, true and transformational development, it needs to be about much more.

Transformational Development Brings Change to the Whole of Society as God's Values Transforms People's Lives