The adventure continues

So the adventure continues. I have to say I was a bit surprised this week when Medair asked me to take over as the acting Country Director of the Congo programme. OK its only for 2 weeks but is still a big deal. You have to be fleixbile in this line work, no doubt about that. My move to Dungu has been put back by two weeks. Anyway, i was greatly blessed to recieve this message from Lynn, one of the pastors at my church back home in Manchester. Enjoy!

I am part of the “Fellowship of the unashamed”

I have Holy Spirit Power.
The die has been cast.
I’ve stepped over the line.
The decision has been made.
I am a disciple of His.
I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still.

My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure.

I am finished and done with low-living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colourless dreams, tame visions, mundane talking, miserly giving and dwarfed goals!

I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits or popularity

I don’t have to be right, first, top, recognised, praised, regarded or rewarded.

I now live by presence, lean by faith, love by patience, lift by prayer and labour by power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear.

I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, diluted or delayed.

I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won’t give up, shut up, let up or burn up till I have preached up, prayed up, paid up, stored up and stayed up for the cause of Christ

I am a disciple of Jesus, I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know and work till He stops.

And when He comes to get His own. He’ll have no problems recognising me. My colours will be clear

Switzerland

So last week i was back in Europe for the first time in 5 months. I was attending the Medair logistics conference in Lac Neuchatel, close to lausanne. It was a great week, a fantastic opportunity to co-ordinate with the people who work in the other Medair country programmes, to generate ideas, see where we can do better and to plan for the future. Some photos from the week below.

The beautiful Geneva

Dungu

Sorry i have not updated my blog for some time. Its been a little busy. I took over as temporary base manager In Isiro fir a while. That coincided with demonstrations and security concerns arising in the town. The civil population decided that they were going to introuduce a `ville mort` in protest at the state of the roads in Isiro. A `ville mort` is when the local population forces the town to completely close down for 3 days.

The roads in and around Isiro are all in a dreadful state, and there is now no possible way to access Isiro by vehicle. This all despite election promises from Kabila in 2006 to improve the infrastructure. All to predictable! And of course the demonstrations turned violent, 2 people killed, looting, gunfire very close to our base. We had begun preparations to evacuate. The military and police finally brought the situation under control.

The other big news is that i will be leaving Isiro at the beginning of November. I will be taking up the position of base support manager in Dungu. You can see on the map above where Dungu is, in far North Eastern Congo. The LRA crisis touches the Northen edge of town, there are 500,000 IDP`s in the area. I will be taking over the role as Base Support manager, responsible for logistics, finance, admin, security and some donor relations. It will be a challenging environment, more basic living conditions, more insecure, just myself and 1 other expat, our medical co-ordinator. It promises to be be an interesting few months.

Reflections

My time in Uganda gave me the opportunity to reflect on my first 3 months in the Congo. It gave me the opportunity to answer some questions God was prompting me to answer. Tough questions, not easy questions. And while some questions are trivial matters with answers that have little impact in our lives, the really tough questions of life are different. We need to have an answer for those kinds of questions and we need to have the right answer because we are going to be charting our lives by them.

How do you know you are following God’s will for your life? How do you make decisions in a godly manner and then be happy with those decisions and not continue to second-guess yourself? Basically, am I on the right track? Am I in the right place? In Gods eyes.

These are questions many of us have probably asked ourselves. I know that I have asked them of myself many times and continue to do so. I felt God especially prompting me to reflect on these thoughts?

Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered, and endured, because he trusted in his Father’s wisdom, love, and word. He began learning obedience as a child in his home in Nazareth Remember, in Luke 2:51 after his parents found him , it says: “He went down with them then, and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.” He didn’t learn it through punishment as we often do, he learned it through knowing and experiencing that perfect obedience brought him perfect peace and union with the Father, even when what he had to go through was painful. He learned it through love. In the Gospel of John we have Jesus’ own words on his life in obedience to the Father.

In John 15:10-16 of Jesus’ last discourse, Jesus instructs his disciples and us: You will live in my love if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and live in his love. All this I tell you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if You do what I command you. I no longer speak of you as slaves, for a slave does not know what his master is about. Instead, I call you friends, since I have made known to you all that I heard from my Father.” The blessing of obedience is complete joy in friendship with Jesus.

Obedience frees us for friendship, intimacy and union with God through Christ. Obedience makes us citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven where God’s will is done perfectly and therein lies all our joy and peace, our bliss, the beatitude of God.

I have to say, that right now, i feel a real closeness, intimacy in my relationship with God. A realm sense of peace. Its no secret I was very frustrated for my last 6 months at home, especially in my walk with Jesus. I didnt feel like I was in the right place, now I do. I looked around me and felt other people were growing in their faith but I was not. The decison to obey the Jesus and obey his commands has given me that sense of peace in my walk with him right now. I am confident I am in the place, on the right track. For now, anyway!!!

Kampala Riots

Im back in the Congo, in Bunia right now and travelling on to Isiro tomorrow. It was an eventful R&R, not always restful. At the end of our trip to Murchison National Park, we were involved in a road accident. Thankfully, nobody was injured but we rolled the car and the vehicle completely overturned. Of course, then comes the hassle of trying to sort all this out. For my dad, who was visiting and on his first trip to Africa, it is an experience that he is unlikeley to ever forget. The enduring image for me was sitting in a police staion in Northern Uganda for several hours, trying to report the incident to a policeman who seemed much more interested in talking about Premiership football and Manchester United. Of course, we needed the police report for insurance purposes.

Then on to Kampala and a much more serious discussion point. Last Thursday, riots erupted in central Kampala, leaving myself and my colleague Melanie in the Medair team house unable to leave for a couple of days. Evidently, we had enough food and water. People from the Buganda tribe had started to riot because the government had prevented their traditonal King from holding a rally. When Ugandan TV started to show pictures of what was happening on Thursday, we started to realise how serious things were getting. By Thursday afternoon, the protesters were engaged in running battles with the police and military, who were responding by firing indiscriminately into the crowds, beating people up, conducting house to house enquiries. By Saturday afternoon, the military seemed to have taken control of the city.

Tribial conflict always seems to be lurking just beneath the surface in this part of the world. Maybe the use of the word `tribal` is a little simplistic on my part, but many of the recent problems in Central Africa, whether Congo, Rwanda or somewhere else, do seem to have been split along these lines.

Uganda has a deeply unpopular president in Yoweri Musiveni, and with an elction scheduled for 2011 it will be interesting to see how things develop. For more info on the riots, Id suggest reading either the New Vision or Independent newspapers.

http://www.independent.co.ug/
http://www.newvision.co.ug/

Murchison, Uganda

A less serious post from me, to reflect my mood on R&R. I have posted some photo highlights of my trip to Murchison National Park in Uganda. Enjoy!!! My dad came all the way to visit me from good old Manchester, and we had great fun exploring the park and this part of Africa. An experience that will stay with both of us for a long time!

Field Trip

Im back in Kampala...relaxing and reflecting on the first 3 months in the Congo. This time last week I was in the middle of my first field trip, which proved to be very eventful. Myself and Karin visted the town of Wamba, about 2ookm North of Isiro, to visit some Medair projects going on in that area. The roads were terrible, the car broke down, we got stuck and even managed to visit some Pygmy villages. This is where Medair's programmes have become a bit blurred between emergency and development programmes. We have constructed some health centres, helped to provide some medical kit and trained some of the medical staff. Wamba is not an insecure area, but is desperately poor.


The road from Isiro to Wamba. Not exactly the M1. Its about 200km. It took us 11 hours.

Crossing the Poko river. North Eastern Congo.

A pygmy village. About 20km north of Wamba. There are about 50,000 Pygmies living in the forest that surrounds Wamba. They try to live their traditional lives as much as possible, but they are extremely poor, their tribes have been ravaged by illnesses such as leprosy and terbuculosis. They are a forgotten people, ignored by the government, reached only by a few NGO`s, missionaries and some inspirational individuals.

Im at the back of this picture with 2 friends, Dr.Jose and Fr.Justin, a Catholic priest. Both reach out to the Pygmy community, with pastoral and medical care. Some of the health centres have even built small huts for the Pygmies, as they feel uncomfortable inside the normal hospital strutures. Its small acts of community like this that really give me hope for the Congo. Individuals reaching out in love to transform lives. Amazing.


The Pygmies still hunt with the bow and arrow, poisonned lethally at the tip. This picture was also supposed to give you some idea of their size. The health centre in Wamba, built by Medair.

Inevitably we got stuck on the way back home. It looks more like a river than a road.