Latest developments

I've been here in Kampala for over two months now, and just like every other African place I have lived in or visited, I'm hooked.

The ministry is nothing short of fantastic. I feel pretty good about it, considering that my monthly return visit total has gone from 1 (in the U.S.) to 25 here. Also, I started my first Bible study earlier this month! People here hang on every word you read from the Bible. One girl that my partner was preaching to even wrote the scripture on her hand! So I decided, why not just get to the point and offer a Bible study on the first call? That approach seems to work well. The only challenge is getting the potential students to show up for appointments. Patience is required!

Everyone here speaks English, some better than others, but since Luganda is also a major language in the capital, you need to determine whether someone prefers one language over the other. After a few visits, you can usually tell which it is. For example, my barber (10000 UGX = $2.70 for haircut) speaks decent English, and I started in the English brochure with him, but after I sent him the Luganda brochure, which he requested for some of his friends, he got very excited. So this tells me that Luganda would be a better choice for him.

There is a Chinese-American brother named Richard from Texas who made me some laminated cards showing the front and back page of the Enjoy Life Forever! brochure in English, French, and Chinese. I can just pull out one of these cards ask the question, read the scriptures shown, and then offer the study.

Speaking of French, there is a certain neighborhood that has these people (mostly students) from the Comoros Islands. Though they have their own language, many of them also speak French. And in the English congregation there are publishers from Rwanda, DR Congo, and Burundi.

Earlier this month the government put out a directive that attendees at public gatherings must now show proof of vaccination and wear a mask. The branch in response communicated with the congregations to advise them to hold all congregation meetings by Zoom until further notice. So with one day notice, we went to Zoom on December 4, which happened to be the day I was to give a last-minute public talk, so it was easier (in a sense), except that my Internet cut twice during the talk. And the practice for a speaker here is to turn on the camera for the first five minutes of the talk--I suppose so everyone can see who you really are and that you're dressed for the part--then turn it off for the remainder. Of course, the audience doesn't turn on their cameras at all, except after the meeting. So audience contact is not an issue! Neither is wearing shoes!

We were on Zoom for the midweek meeting also, but the branch--apparently after giving the matter some consideration--has now directed us to hold meetings at the Kingdom Hall again, making sure that only vaccinated and masked individuals attend.

Since the beginning of November, we have been holding a Chinese language class over Zoom. For our first session, 41 attended--mostly from Kampala Central English Congregation, but some from surrounding congregations--but by the end of December, we are down to only 15 students! (Not that surprising, actually.) These are the serious ones!

Richard, the brother I mentioned earlier, had been helping me with the class over Zoom, but in mid-December he came to Kampala and has been endeavoring to find Chinese people here to preach to, in addition to providing language help to the local brothers and sisters in the Chinese class. We are planning to travel to Kigali, Rwanda, for 11 days so that I can see my old friends there, especially those who were in the Chinese congregation (now dissolved). Then, Richard goes back to the U.S., and I fly to Belgium to visit my friend Jacques and then return to Uganda, getting a new visa for 3 months.

Never a dull moment!