Richard

Many of you follow our blog and see all the “fun” we are having. Then, inevitably we get the question, “what about ministry?” Put the blame on the bald headed man. It’s entirely my fault. Jill spends so much time just trying to keep all of you up to date on life and it’s my responsibility to get the ministry notes on here. It’s not that there aren’t things to write about. In fact, the real issue is trying to determine what to share. Ministry here has been so diverse. We came here to do “Business As Missions,” and while in a sense, we are doing just that, there is so much more. Even though we are full term with AIM, we are short term here in Uganda. What that has meant is becoming the jack of all trades – sound familiar dad? So we get a little bit of business, with a little bit of agriculture, with a little bit of budgets, with a little bit of theological education…..and with hopefully a whole lot of discipleship along the way!

So, in light of that let me share with you a story. A great friend of mine from college touched base the other day and asked how things were going. I then proceeded to tell him in a 3 page email some of the stories of life here and the great needs that we have. That got me thinking about what ya’ll back home would like to hear about life and what would translate the best into American culture that many of you could understand.

You have heard us mention Richard (our guard) in many of our posts.

Richard is 37 years old. He has 8 children. Four of those children live with their mother in the village about 5 hours away. Four of the kids live on the compound with us. In this story I want to just focus on Richard.

Richard is stationed here. He is in the Ugandan army. I’ve tried to figure out his rank, but it seems that ranks don’t mean a lot or hold a lot of weight unless you are very high up. The question gets ignored basically – but if I find out, I’ll post it here. The Hollenbeck’s house is owned by a Brigadier General in the Uganda army. In fact, as Richard tells it, there were seven men that went with President Musevini into the bush before he overthrew Obote and came in to power. Our landlord is one of those seven men. Because of his rank, he is allowed to station a soldier here to guard his compound. That is how Richard came to live here. He has been stationed here for 9 years. He was even reassigned once, but the Brigadier General called the barracks where he was and asked specifically for him again. That says a lot about Richard’s loyalty and trustworthiness. It has certainly made our stay here a little less anxiety filled – it helps when your guard is one of only a handful of people in the entire city that have a gun (legally) - an AK47 at that Pastor Bruce!

I digress……about two months ago, I noticed that Richard would spend quite a large number of afternoons sitting under a tree or on his front porch reading his Bible. Come to find out, he only learned to read about a year ago. Right before Christmas I mentioned to Jill that I felt like I needed to start trying to spend some time with Richard and see if I could answer any questions for him. I asked Justus (the young man who works with us on the farm) to see if he could find out if Richard would be interested in that. See, over here, many Ugandans will tell you “yes” even if they don’t mean it, because they don’t want to offend you. I wanted to make sure that Richard really wanted to do this. I asked Justus about it right before we left for conference in January and he said Richard was really excited and wanted to know when we could start.

So, last Saturday we sat under the trees before milking time and just chatted about life. We talked about Richard’s life, his past, his walk with God, and questions that he has about God. Here’s what I learned…

…Richard has 8 kids – prior to our talk, I only knew of 7.

…Richard became “born again” between 12-17. He doesn’t know the exact age, because exact birthdays here are unknown. For example, James came back from the village after Christmas and announced he was 16 – he left as a 14 year old – seems they found his baptism card in the village.

…Richard used to travel all around Nkokongeru and the surrounding areas where we live sharing the gospel as a teenager. You should have seen the seriousness on his face as he shared about how he used to preach to all the sinners around here.

...Richard is still learning to read, so even finding books of the Bible is hard for him. He writes down references while he is at church and then goes and looks them up on his own. He said sometimes it takes him several days to find the book the preacher mentioned.

There is so much more…..like the fact that there is always a dilemma between going to church and being a soldier. I’ll try to explain that one some other time. But the neat thing is that he gave me three things he wants to know more about….Creation, Assurance of Salvation and Baptism! I am so excited and feel so honored that I get to pour into his life this way. Each Saturday, I have committed to sitting with him and Justus (as our interpreter) and digging into God’s Word together. Please pray for these times! We will be meeting at 4pm our time, which is about 7am Saturday morning back home. So, if you are up at that time, please say a quick prayer that God will give me clarity and will open Richard’s eyes to His Word.

Here he is with his two oldest sons: James (now 16) and Robert and Dara and Dade.