Joel and I paired up for our task of preaching to people in their homes. I was already hot and tired, and home visits are exhausting in every sense of the word. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. They take every once of everything I have in me, and a lot of what God gives me to get through it well.
Pastor George was to be our translator for these 90 minutes (a span of time that at the start our stay in Uganda would have seen us in 8-10 homes). Today, we were in the village of Nambo, about a 20 minute drive from where we are staying. This is a community so small that the ‘General Store’ doesn’t even carry bottled water!
We started down the road, heading for homes that were at the edge of the village proper. Pastor George stopped us and said “We shall go here, okay?”
We saw a hut next to one of the stores, and wrongly assuming it to be a home, we agreed. The Lord had sent us right into the equivalent of a Ugandan bar; this was about the last place I ever expected to preaching!
There were six or eight men, sitting against the walls of the hut on benches, and in the center of the hut sat a small clay pot. It was filled with a thick, viscous liquid, and each man had a three to five foot wooden ‘straw’ from their mouths to the hoppy, yeasty smelling stuff.
As Joel and I were introduced to the men, we made an unspoken agreement to not discuss the elephant in the room. Namely the fact that these men were visibly inebriated, and it was barely noon.
After a few minutes of chatting with the men, one of the more sober men, began to thank us (in English no less) for being gracious enough to come talk to them and share the love of Christ. We preached our message and then asked for questions. This is usually the part of home visits where people go silent. ‘Crickets’ as my team-mate Melissa would say.
But today was different. Perhaps because men the world over are the same, and once buzzed they are more inclined to ponder life and philosophy. Today, the men were asking questions. And there were some good ones too!!
A few questions from the men:
1) I’ve been to church, but because I told them I was a Protestant, they sent me away. Which church should I go to?
2) I knew Jesus six years ago, but I fell away. How do I go back to believing in him? What do I have to do?
3) I have to be saved or born again to go to church?
4) I want to go to church to learn more, but I’ve been told I have to go a week without drinking before they’ll let me in.
5) Is drinking alcohol evil?
Yikes!! Questions that took us all over the place! But it was great. We answered all of these questions, and a few more as best we could, and with as much diplomacy as possible. By the end, we saw one man accept Christ, and his brother recommitted him life to Jesus. Our English speaking friend was full of praise and appreciation for us. We couldn’t figure out why he was so grateful. Until he told us that in the past, missionaries and pastors from other places had been to Nambo, and always shunned the hut where the men were sitting. He told us that our mere presence in that place showed him that Jesus still loved him (he was the one who knew Christ six years ago), and how true the message we were preaching really is.
