Perhaps you’ve noticed that we’ve been a little quiet over here lately. That’s because we’ve just been collapsed on the floor due to a very punishing dry season. I’m told by several who have been here a long time that this is one of the driest of the dry that they can remember. Several days ago it was ninety-seven degrees inside our house at dinner time and eighty-eight when I went to bed around ten o’clock. The last couple of days, it’s been a few degrees cooler, but the characteristic wind has been entirely absent, so the air is still and stifling.
It is with that in mind that Chloe and I were happy to travel to Mbale this week—land of slightly reduced temperatures and even, occasionally, working electric fans—having been requested to assist our mission’s work in Mbale, Knox Theological College. Knox is overseen by Eric Tuininga, an OPC minister who serves as president and lecturer at the college. Knox is a modest, but fruitful work, providing theological training for pastors from around Uganda and Kenya.
Local churches abound, but as in America, you don’t necessarily need any formal training to call yourself a pastor, and with the hand-to-mouth lives that many of these pastors live, finding the time and money to attend a formal university training can be overwhelmingly difficult. Classes at Knox are three morning per week for four weeks. Recent courses have included Old Testament Historical Books, Soteriology, and Christ in the Old Testament. Knox doesn’t offer degrees, but does provide solid biblical training that will hopefully be used to benefit many congregations in Uganda and Kenya.
Chloe and I were asked to help out at Knox with some technical tasks. Chloe set up a spreadsheet for tracking the college’s library books and taught librarian Stephen Hamya, to use it. I installed wireless internet access for the college computers, set up a new printer, and got Stephen started on learning how to type. These things aren’t rocket surgery, but they are the sort of things that Eric, with all of his other duties, doesn’t have time to organize.
We hope that our work will be helpful to the college as it in turn seeks to build up the Church in Uganda. Please pray for these pastors, many of whom have made great sacrifices, not only in seeking to lead their congregations, but in taking the time to attend Knox. Pray that their learning would make them better pastors and teachers, better husbands and fathers, better Christians. Pray that their congregations would see the value of this education and be eager to support them in this undertaking.