Dear friends,
I got a couple of responses to my email about Jagwe Moses moving the children away. Just to clarify, the children are no longer at the facilities provided by Stephen Lunagula at St. John Chrysostom School, nor are they nearby, within walking distance to the school.
They are moved far away somewhere. I don’t know where they are. But I believe they are in or near Moses' home village, where his parents live, and where he owns a couple small tracts of farming land. This location is about a 1.5 hour drive away from St. John C School, closer to the city of Jinja where Moses has an apartment.
I pray that the children will be okay. I’ve counted about five people who donate directly to Moses. And he may have other folks donating who I don’t know about. It costs about $100 per month to rent a facility which is large enough for all the children, so that is an added expense he will have. I’m assuming that these folks will be stepping up their donations, and one of them has told me he is also going to receive funds through PayPal and fundraise.
Some of the children may have relatives they can go back to if push comes to shove, a grandparent or aunt or uncle. And a few may even be able to go back to a parent, if they have not lost both parents. But I just don’t know how many of the children have that safety net.
When I was first starting to help care for orphans in 2014, I learned that a better term for the children cared for by orphanages is “orphans and vulnerable children.” I knew that not all were completely orphaned. So this is a phrase I used on my website and sometimes in other writings.
One of the things that convinced me of the children’s need for care is that I almost never heard about any relatives visiting the children when I asked about it, and I asked both Moses and, later, Stephen, after the children moved to St John C school. And of course there was the way in which they seemed to latch on to me during my visit and regard me as their new parent!
I will never forget how a group of little children stood and knelt around me as I was sitting outside the dormitory during my trip this year, laughing and smiling lovingly. Of course they were always crowding around, sometimes even taking my hand and directing me where to go. On this occasion, little Tibewolwa Rehema felt my leg hair and for some reason this was the funniest thing in the world to her and so she kept feeling the calf of my leg and giggling and laughing sweetly and gazing at me. It was experiences like these, also hearing them sing for me, that so bonded me with these children that I truly believed they would be mine (primarily) to care for until they grew up. But now I believe I was mistaken.
I also received this question:
“If I gather correctly, it's actually the school you've been supporting all along, and Moses was a concentrated area of need?”
No, I started with a totally different orphanage in the fall of 2014. Then I started communicating with David Masingano in, I believe, April of 2015 and Jagwe Moses in July of 2015. So it’s been three and a half years that Moses and I worked together. Only in the last year and four months (since September 2017) have I been in contact with Lunagula Stephen of St. John Chrysostom School.
To tell more of the story, my connection to these orphanage directors in Uganda began during a time when I didn’t know where to go to church. I actually was totally disillusioned and discouraged about church. Then one time I prayed earnestly about it and received peace that God would guide me. Not too long later, at roughly the same time that I friended Moses, I received calls from a couple of friends telling me to visit a certain monastery here in Northern California. But I first looked up to see if this same church of the monks was in Uganda and, sure enough, it was.
I then read the story of how this particular church got started in Uganda, through two native Ugandan seminary students who were confused by the multiple churches and conflicting doctrines already in Uganda by that time in 1919. This was not unlike my story. Yet these men kept searching, in books and then by sending letters, and eventually found what they believe is the original Church and later journeyed to Alexandria, Egypt, to study and be ordained. Thus, this church was started without missionaries, at least without any ordained by itself, though the work of various preachers and missionaries of other churches certainly paved the way culturally for these first converts.
This was a new way of thinking for me—the idea that we do not attempt to re-create the historic church as we understand it should be, but to connect ourselves to the original Church, which still exists, thus establishing continuity between ourselves and the Apostles and Christ.
So, in part because of the testimony of the Ugandans, I visited the monastery and spoke with a monk, asking him what I should do about the orphanage directors and orphans, who were dependent on my financial and administrative support. He encouraged me and said I should do what was in my power to ensure the safety and provision of the children.
His response gave me the peace I was looking for and so I began attending one of these churches, learning about it with interest, and was there for about eight months already when when I made my first trip to Uganda in 2016.
I had many purposes in visiting. Mainly I wanted to see my orphans, because I was already so invested in caring for them. But certainly one purpose was that I longed to connect with the orphanage directors and children on a deeper level of shared teachings, to share with them about my Church.
I sat down at a table with Moses and a teacher and two pastors, who all had an interest in the orphan ministry. And I told them all that I believe this church I have found is the true way and the true Church, the only way of unity for all Christians. I reiterated it also to Moses in private. He seemed uncomfortable about it, but he didn't reject what I was saying and we both knew he wasn’t going to refuse my help at that time.
In fact the needs got much greater as the result of my visit, because one lady who had previously donated for rent for the children vanished on Facebook after she realized that I had visited Uganda. And another donor dropped away soon thereafter.
Moses and the pastors were asking me to support the children's schooling there in Kasambira town, which I agreed to do as the Lord gave me the ability. And I did do that through the end of the 2017 year. But already by October of 2017, I had made contact with Stephen, though Moses’ own instrumentality, who had a big school in the country, St. John Chrysostom School, with plenty of room for the children and it seemed a wonderful place for them.
Moses himself set up Stephen with Facebook messenger so that Stephen and I could communicate directly. And Moses said he said he liked a lot of things about the St. John Chrysostom School facilities. But at the last minute he refused to move the children. I then said that I was not going to send money for schooling anywhere else (though I would continue to help with basic needs as long as necessary) and so he realized that if he chose a different path he would soon have to find a new person to help with fundraising.
Thus, I didn't force Moses to come to St. John C school. He was free over the course of two years after my first visit to refuse my help and seek other help, but he did not do so. And he said that he got counsel from various people he knew and they all told him to stick with me since we had been working together for over two and one half years at that point in January of 2018.
So that was the somewhat shaky foundation we had going into this last school year. Shaky because I can’t say for sure that Moses moved the children for any reason other than ensuring their education for the 2018 school year. Nevertheless, I had been very hopeful for Moses’ long-term cooperation and the children’s future at St. John Chrysostom School, as was Stephen. As evidence of this, Stephen had even offered Moses the top administrative position at the school, but Moses was not interested.
I explained to Moses and the older boys, who asked about it, that I did not expect them to be converted to my church merely because I was helping with their schooling. I told them a story from my own experience to illustrate this, because I was very insistent that they be baptized only if they truly believed in the Church and not just in any man, such as myself or Stephen. I believe this line of reasoning was very favorable to them and for a while it seemed that they would be keenly interested in and participating in the church. But then these older boys were transferred to a different boarding school, payed for by another supporter of Moses.
Although it certainly is a great sadness to lose my relationship with Moses and all these children, I feel that I can at least be happy that I gave Moses the necessary support and freedom to choose to follow me into my church if he wanted to. I had become so interconnected with these orphanage directors, including Moses, financially, and in our public communication, like brothers, that I wanted to help them to the end. It just so happened that the end came much sooner than I thought.
But I trust they are all in God’s hands. Lord Jesus protect them! And of course I hope Moses will even reconsider and bring back the children. Stephen is also ready to to receive them. One way or another, there will always be room for these children at St. John Chrysostom School.
You may notice that I have not been using the name of my church, though you may have seen it in various documents sent by Stephen Lunagula. This is because I have been wanting you to ask me about it! The important thing is not what name people know it by, but what it is. I want to ask each of you, could this be the pathway to unity for all Christians, wherein we can stand together against the world, the flesh, and the devil? Jesus Himself prayed for the unity of all his followers!
“That they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:21.
Does the whole world now believe that God has sent his Son? No. Not yet. No one needs our unity more than these orphans and vulnerable children in Uganda and our own children here in these secular United States, because when we stand together its not so difficult to shelter and care for the children. Seeking unity makes our way easier.
I understand that most of you have your own churches, which are dear to you, for both your loved ones there and your customs, and I’m very grateful that you gave Moses and I and the children the gracious help that you gave. I count your help as being from Christ himself! I’m thankful for our cooperation and hope it can continue.
But, even if no one will join me, I believe I must now build on what I believe is the “city which hath foundations” (Heb. 11:10), not the ever shifting sands. I believe Christ preserves his Word and blesses all those who follow it in faith, but I believe He also preserves his Church, which is His Body. As Jesus said to us in this verse below: “Do not go away."
And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them. For just like the lighting, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation… (Luke 17:22-25)
I believe what Jesus was saying is simply that we must not leave the Church that he started.
“The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!' or, ‘There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Luke 17:21.
The way I read this is: One cannot make a list of objectives, strategies, methods, or standards, etc., and get everyone to agree to it and call this the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God consists of keeping unity, both with our contemporary brothers and sisters and with those who came before us. This is the victory, which we are seeking!
So I beg you to investigate the beliefs and claims of what is now my Church. (I was baptized in October of last year, 2017.) I am speaking of churches that are generally known as Eastern Orthodox.
Blessings in Jesus,
Martin Becktell