Dear Friends,
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones. My wife and I and the children just got back from visiting my wife's side of the family, the Moody’s, in Lolita, CA — a very blessed time!
And here are my children, Edith and Oliver, getting a Christmas tree in Lassen National Forest:
Chopping it down:
Sledding at Eskimo Hill, near the Lassen National Park north entrance, on Friday:
You may have noticed I’ve been taking a break from sending any emails lately. In fact the latest news is that Jagwe Moses removed all the children from St. John Chrysostom school on Monday, December 10th. So I’ve just been taking my time and talking with the school dean, Stephen Lunagula, and with several supporters whose auto-donations happened to come in over the last two weeks or who happened to message me during that time.
Here’s the empty dormitory when they had just left:
It’s difficult for me to know what to say to everyone at this juncture. Feel free to call me (530-945-4338) or email back or message me if you want to talk about it. But Moses departure may be due to him having enough support now to take care of the children without my fundraising help through 1savior.org, and without the facilities and schooling offered by Stephen, at St. John Chrysostom School. So, as far as I know, they are all back near Moses’ home village of Kagera Kidyope. Please pray for them.
Thank you very, very much, each and everyone of you, who donated to help the children while they were with us! I believe it was God’s mercy and kindness extended through your hands. Glory to God!
A new beginning?
Just this last week, I took the step of cancelling all the automatically reoccurring monthly donations. This is not because there are no more needs. In fact there are many needs right now at St. John Chrysostom School and I do not want to lose the support of those who have been faithfully donating, but I think the right thing to do now is to allow for a total reset—to begin again.
I personally will be continuing on with Stephen Lunagula, a dear man who is one of my father's in Christ. And I hope to encourage you all to continue with me as well. I have a relationship with him that is not based on any particular task that we may be involved with, but simply on our shared faith in Christ and His kingdom. So this gives us the ability to take things at a pace not dictated by either one of us, but by Christ, which is easier.
Our cooperation together is not based on fear. Christ has already won our salvation. But it can only be based on our love for God and God’s love for us.
Here’s a recent photo he sent me. These are his grandchildren!
I don’t know whether the black cassock and funny hat may make him seem less relatable, less approachable, but I hope to remedy that by sharing more about him and his family, and even the reason for the black clothing, as time goes on. I’ve been communicating with him for over one year now and we talk about a lot of things and the content of our conversations has far exceeded my ability to write coherent news updates.
What will your donations support?
In February I started sending $200 per month to Stephen, (during months in which school was in session), designated for helping with teacher salaries. This was in part a payment of tuition to cover Moses' children while at St. John Chrysostom School, but it was also a strategic contribution to the school, allowing Stephen to provide more stable pay to teachers and prevent turnover during the year. The total number of students at the primary school rose from about 136 at the end of 2017, before the support, to 174 at the end of 2018. Stephen has been very accountable with this money and has accomplished a lot with it, so to remove this funding at this time is not something I would want to do.
Recently I raised the contribution to $250, which is just over 900,000 shillings and father and I settled on the idea of using the money to provide a base pay of 100,000 shillings each ($28/month) to nine teachers at the primary school.
These teachers are then responsible for helping to both collect tuition and recruit more students in order to supplement their pay, but at least part of their pay is guaranteed!
So this is one need that your continued support will meet—seed money for education for the children of struggling subsistence farmers in rural Uganda.
And let me just say that I think “subsistence farming" is not a way of life that should be viewed as backward. The term "subsistence farmer" can have a pejorative connotation. But really what we are talking about are people who live on the land and on the fruit of the land, according to its rhythms, which can be a truly wonderful way of life. Really, I think it's the life we were all created for. In fact it’s my strong desire that part of the mission of 1savior.org would be to protect and enhance this way of life and the closeness to nature and respect for nature that is its endowment. (We can do this is through listening to the locals and learning from them and also connecting them to other people in Uganda who offer ecologically regenerative farming solutions. For example, Uganda has a Permaculture Research Institute, which offers a Permaculture Design Course once per year.)
It’s particularly interesting how important it is for children to have a connection to the natural world. In fact, I just got a book for Christmas about this topic:
Stephen, is also aware of the benefits of living close to the land, particularly for children. And he has spoken to me about the importance of encouraging the informal education of children at home—including what children can learn from farming with their parents. But of course, formal education is more important than ever given the too small portions of land (or no land at all) inherited by many children.
Housing on-site for Stephen and his family and teachers
Another immediate need that your donations can support is the finishing of the three-room-house (which is being expanded into six rooms at the request of the secondary school headmaster who contributed some of his own budget for the purpose). This is where Stephen and his wife would like to take up residence as soon as possible.
Currently we need just about $1200 to finish the roof, mostly for the expense of 54 iron sheets at $18 each, but more than that is needed to add steel doors and windows and concrete plaster.
Here are the latest photos:
Stephen’s wife, Elizabeth, anticipating her new home:
Orphans?
Will the focus of this ministry remain on taking care of orphans? We are certainly not opposed to taking care of any orphans who may need our care! As Fr. Stephen has told me, he can't ignore any child who has no one else to care for him or her. However I am considering whether our public ministry, which I am helping to facilitate through this website, could have a different central focus.
In just 2014, Stephen was taking care of over 20 orphans. But due to the complete loss of the funding he had been receiving from an organization in Greece, these children had to be given to various families to take care of. I was keenly interested in this and asked him what became of these children. He said that, due to the general poverty of the families, and the vulnerable, marginal status of these children as orphans, and the sheer numbers of children in Uganda, half the population being under the age of 16, two of them have since died from treatable diseases and most of them are without schooling. However, they do have families who are taking care of them. Family life is a provision that should not be underestimated. Psalm 68:6 says, "God setteth the solitary in families." I don't think I can justify taking a child away from a family in order to give him or her schooling. And if we were to select some children to assist with schooling, why should their status as orphans be our only consideration?
Mbago
You may remember that an opportunity came up to help the developmentally disabled young water-carrier, Mbago, to see a doctor about his bloodied, raw-looking lips.
Well, when Stephen would try to visit him and his mother, he would hide in a corn field. (Stephen’s son Phoola had previously been the one to take him to the clinic.) But finally on Thursday, December 6th, Mbago consented to be taken to the doctor who diagnosed him as having a kind of fungal infection from eating food that had gone bad. He cleaned up his lips and prescribed some medication for one month and Mbago’s mother agreed to help him take it.
Mbago was calm when the doctor was cleaning up his lips. He handled it well.
When I’ve been sad lately about the 33 children who just left St. John Chrysostom school, I think about Mbago’s cleaned up lips and it gives me hope. I trust God will provide a permanent solution for his lips.
I suggested to Stephen that he also keep an eye out for small jobs around the mission that Mbago can help with in addition to his water carrying for villagers. Stephen replied that he doesn’t know what he would be able to do besides carrying water, but he agreed to keep it in mind. He said Mbago doesn’t accept any payment other than a silver coin. And if he is given any paper currency he cries and cries until someone replaces it with a silver coin.
Children’s Day
I received the above photos of Mbago almost three weeks ago and then just on Christmas day I received the following photos of him participating in a special gathering after church on Sunday, December 23rd, entitled “Children’s day:”
For this gathering, my father, Stephen, packed Mbago and about 18 small children from St. John Chrysostom School into his van and drove them from Nakyaka village to St. James the Just Church in Nawango village. I know that he drives slowly and carefully on the mostly deserted county roads when he has such precious cargo.
Mbago is in the photo below standing next to Stephen the striped shirt.
Stephen reports he and Mbago are friends now. Mbago is not afraid of him any more.
Mbago is in the far left of this photo above, in the doorway of the church. When invited to attend Children’s Day, Mbago first asked his mother, who gave him permission.
I received $100 (two donations of $50) in online donations since those reported in the last email on December 5th. The money was sent to aid with Children’s Day, providing food, as well as transportation. Many, many people were in attendance, including a party from an unaffiliated local charismatic church, who were curious about my father, Stephen, and his flock.
Please take an opportunity, now at this juncture, to look at Stephen Lunagula’s resume. He sent this to me in February and it was a pleasant surprise to receive it.
Particularly notable is his age and experience. But from my perspective, what is most important is that he is a spiritual father. And by that I mean not only that he is an official elder/presbyter in my global church community and so has achieved a position of authority through merit, but also I mean that the way in which I found him and the other elders in my new church community gave me evidence of their authentic spiritual eldership to me. I went to them (including Stephen) looking for answers, practical guidance, resources and encouragement, prior to bing baptized, and I was not disappointed.
So please help me to finish the housing for him to live in with his family on-site at St. John Chrysostom School as soon as possible! Please give whatever amount you can, $25, $50, $100 or more at 1savior.org!
And please pray for us!
Blessings in Jesus,
Martin