Back in the U.S.

Certainly I'm not the first person to return after an absence. I'm told, however, that just because others have done it, does not mean that I should expect an easy time of it. We will have to see.

Yes, I am back stateside. I got back on Thursday, August 9, after a smooth flight from Entebbe and then Amsterdam. Then it was 24 hours of adjustment for me, and off to Indiana for a wedding. My buddy from Calvin got married to an amazing woman, and all of my friends were there to see it. It was a pretty great way to come home, if a little overwhelming.

Here is a picture of me and my friends at the wedding (thanks Joe).

Most of my time home has been spent catching up with my friends, hence it has been quite wonderful. I am also preparing a small talk at CRWRC this Friday, and after that I will be giving some sort of presentation at my church, Madison Square CRC, in the coming week. This will be an opportunity for me to thank some of my supporters, without whose prayers and constant encouragement I would not have been able to make much of this whole experience.

Now my plans turn towards graduate school. I'm heading to Chicago in less than two weeks to begin graduate studies in the Clinical Social Work program at Loyola University. I'm excited about the work this will let me do, but how I'm going to pay for it and how I will fair re-entering school remains to be seen. I'm actually fairly anxious about it. It helps however, that I get to live with Matt and Mandy, two of my good friends:

Maybe it is my training in Sociology, but I keep noticing mostly cultural stuff since I've gotten home. It amazes me how much the U.S. is caught up in obtaining comfort and convenience. In some ways this is why we are such an economic powerhouse, but I wonder how the quality of our lives might improve if we learned from Africa how to be content with what we have?

Another thing I feel since moving home is pressure. People are much more focused on accomplishments in the U.S. and I feel that strongly. There are an enumerable amount of things to accomplish here, and no matter how much you do, there is always more you COULD be doing. It is exhausting. In some ways this makes me miss Uganda already, I can only imagine what it will be like once I've started school again. I'm imagining it will be hard to remember what my real priorities are.

Rev. Jacob has emailed me to let me know that Davis Omanyo and Tim Dam are in the Diocese to do a Board Training to increase the capacity of the Diocese to do their work. So work is continuing and continuing well, according to Jacob. Please continue to remember the Diocese of Lango and CRWRC - Uganda in your prayers. Thank you for your continued support.

I wish I had some sort of "Final Thought" or "Reflections on Africa" that I was ready to put here, something nice and tidy that could wrap up this blog and remind us all of an important lesson, like an old episode of "Full House". Unfortunately I don't have anything like that yet. I've been sharing lots of stories and reflections with my friends, but hopefully the lessons I've learned will be revealed to me over time and I'll be able to share those with the people around me.

For now, I'll close with this Franciscan Benediction my dad gave me while I was still in Uganda:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done:
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and poor.

Jonathan Jr. (no joke)

Ma Baby

So I know that I've only been here for 5 months, but I have a child here in Lango. Allow me to introduce to you Jonathan Ryskamp Awany.
Here is the story:
A few weeks ago, I was slated to be in the small church of St. Thomas for the day. I think they were excited because I was bringing news of a group of 7 churches in Calgary, Alberta who were interested in beginning a partnership. So everyone left early for the church.

One young and very pregnant mother was still getting dressed to come and greet me at her church. As she was getting dressed, she went into labor! No one was around, they were all waiting in the church to greet me! She delivered by herself in her home. So she asked herself, "Why has this trouble come to me? It is because of Jonathan. This child should be called Jonathan!"

This week, on Tuesday morning the child was to be baptized at the weekly communion service. Also on that day, I happened to be returning to the church to introduce two visitors, one of whom represented the 7 churches in Calgary. So I think when the mother saw that I had returned on the day the child was to be baptized, she decided to give the child my whole name! Locally, the official name will be more like Ricecamp Awany Jonathan, but the child will be called Jonathan and he was baptized with my full name. Crazy, huh? I'm incredibly honored by it, and I took some pictures with the child and of the family so that I can bring them back the next time I visit. Also, I was asked to give an impromptu sermon at that service, so that was fun too.

Workin

This week, Ida Mutoigo came to Lira as well. She is the director of CRWRC Canada. She was escorting the visitor from Calgary, but it was nice to get to know her and take her to some programs and places here in Lango. Her perspectives and words were very helpful for me. It was also an honor for myself and the Diocese of Lango, because now this year we have received both co-directors from CRWRC!

The Development branch of the Church of Uganda (PDR) is also working on a resettlement program for Northern Uganda. Part of the program is protection of wells and springs, so Jacob and I have been trying to identify communities and water resources that need help.

CRWRC is considering sending another intern to the Lango region. Her work would probably be more with training of teachers and helping to start some income generating activities (IGAs) so that some of the community projects can generate money and be self-sustaining. I've been working to secure her role and help plan her work.

Also, Jacob and I have been working to restructure his department. This involves the hiring of field officers, which is a difficult task when you have little to no salary available for them. Hopefully, we will be able to at least get one field officer in to place before I leave Lira in a week or two. This would free Jacob up to build the capacity of the rest of the departments in the Diocese (Mother's Union, Youth, Health, Education, Mission, Finance) and to plan with them on how they could obtain funds, how to get Boards in place and active, how their work can fit with the vision and planning of the Diocese, etc. So sometimes, it feels like the progress is haltingly slow, but I have to remind myself that there are changes that will come even if I might not get to see them all.

On a Personal Note

I am getting ready to go. There is no real good stopping point for this type of work, in some ways it feels like I'm just getting the hang of some things and now I have to go. There is definitely a lot of work still to do here. I'm trying to look at some of the objectives I've talked about above as some concrete steps for me to leave behind.

I'm a bit anxious about heading straight to Grad School. It is nice that I have something tangible to work toward as my next step, but it certainly adds to my list of things to do when I return: interviewing for and securing a field placement for my Social Work internship, deputation for CRWRC (which means visiting churches and talking about my experiences), moving from Grand Rapids to Chicago, catching up with friends and family, looking for funding for school, going to weddings, catching up on all the music I've missed out on.... that sort of thing. So if you think to pray about my transition (both leaving and returning) I would be incredibly grateful.

It was good for me to visit Otwal again before I left. The first time I visited this Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp it was a booming, crowded slum. Five months later, it just looks like a trading center. According to the camp leaders, 80% of the people have returned to their homes. The remains of this refugee camp are turning the area into a real town. Crowded mud huts that formally housed whole families (or two) have been torn down and are now gardens and spaces for children to play. Some of these people will try to remain in this former camp and turn it in to a town, others are very far away from their homes and are waiting maybe until the peace agreements are more certain.

Depending on who you ask, you will get different reasons for why people are remaining in the "camps". No matter who you believe, it is still an incredible encouragement to see the transformation that has taken place in such a short time. It is an encouragement to see this camp and its progress because other camps still remain with 90% or more of their original population. Some camps are turning into what they call "Resettlement Points" which means the people living there aren't home yet, but have left their original camp to get closer to home. Continue to pray that peace is secured for Northern Uganda.

A Scenic World

....where the sunsets are all....breathtaking.

In addition to a scenic world, it seems I have much to be thankful for today. Tuesday my mom underwent an intensive surgery (11 hours at the Dr.'s!) to remove a malignant growth (DFSP Sarcoma) from her back.

She said that she felt very supported, so I'd like to thank all of you who prayed and lended your kinds words. Today we are celebrating with you, as my mom recuperates with 9 inches of stiches on her back. Those are good stiches though, because they mean the cancer is gone! As they say so often here in Uganda, "Praise the Lord!" So as you may guess, my thoughts have been preoccupied with home a little bit these last few weeks. Hearing this news, however, was a relief.

As for me, the work here has kept me very busy. Last week I went to (Rys)Kampala for the Uganda Country Team Meeting. It was great to see old familiar faces, as well as really feel like a part of the team. I also got to hang out with Arianne (another CRWRC employee) and her brother who was visiting from China during their last days in Kampala. Arianne is going home to Canada to get married, so she was excited to go. When we took her brother to the airport it was hard not to imagine what it would be like to be going home now...

However, there is still lots of work to do here. I spent some of my time in Kampala with Davis and Rev. Jacob sitting down to figure out what direction the Diocese was going. I never thought that I'd be passionate about organization management, but when we sketched together how the Development branch of the church was going to grow, it was really exciting. So now Jacob and I are back in Lira working at how we can hire some Field Officers to take over the programs we've been running (HIV/AIDS, Food Security/Agriculture, Adult Literacy, Income Generation/Oxen Traction, etc.) so that I can leave in August and Jacob can remain in an adminstrative role helping the rest of the Diocese (Mission Department, Youth Department, Mother's Union, etc.).

The work, however, did not make me hurry back from Kampala. I took the long road home so that I could pass through Mbale, and Sipi Falls.

Even after living alone for almost 6 months, after a week of community in Kampala I was a little nervous about hiking around all by myself. Fortunately, after an adventure involving a broken bus axle, I reached Sipi Falls and found that I would be hiking and sharing a guide with 3 Israelis. I wasn't sure what to think about this at first, given my political feelings about the conflicts involving Israel, but I was worried for nothing. When I met these 3 friends, I soon found that I hadn't met anyone in Uganda yet with whom I had more in common! It was great. They were backpacking around Africa until they ran out of money, a way to blow off steam after mandatory conscription for 3 years in the Israeli Army.

So we spent the day hiking, sharing food, playing music for each other, and playing cards late into the night. Thus, I've added Hebrew to the plethora of languages from which I've learned a handful of words from while here in Uganda. Seriously, I'm not sure if I've had more fun my whole stay here. We even have tenative plans to meet up later and continue hiking in some other part of Uganda. Who knows? We'll see.

Before this, I had been moving in the field quite a bit. Jacob and I facilitated a Mother's Union in a former IDP camp area to receive some oxen as part of an oxen traction program. We had been working with this group quite a bit, so it was exiting when we got to hand over the actual oxen.

A few weeks ago, I came up with the idea of having a demonstration area in Boro Boro (the headquarters of Lango Diocese) where we would have examples of the work we were doing in the community. After the visit to Western Kenya, this idea really took hold in the Diocese. We invited one of the receipients of the community health program to teach the lay leadership of Boro Boro on the importance of maintaining a clean compound. As a part of this, they worked together to construct an energy-efficient stove where the smoke leaves the cooking hut rather than circulating within. We constructed one stove, but about 20 leaders learned how to make them. In addition we did an amaranth demonstration, planted a demonstration garden, gave out amaranth seed, and demonstrated composting which we'll use for planting fruit trees. It was an exciting day for me, because the community really took ownership of my little idea and made something special from it. This is a drawing one of the participants made of the final product.

So if my last month in Uganda goes anything like my last few weeks have gone, I'll be very happy. More than that, though, I think I'll leave feeling like my being here accomplished something and that I'm taking away much more than I came here with. That is exciting. As always, I thank you for your prayers and support. I'm glad to be somehow connected to all of you, no matter where you might be. Please keep praying for me and my family. My brother is away in China for the month, and my mom is recovering from surgery at home. Thanks!

Getting Around To It

I posted more pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jryskamp

I saw red. I really saw red at the periphery of my vision. I thought that was just an expression, but that is how mad I was. My adrenaline was pumping, and a few minutes later when I tried to recall specific details I couldn't. It was all mixed up in my head, like a car accident, you know "it all happened so fast."

What happened? Really not a big deal. A few months ago when I was in Nigeria, I marveled at how worked up Zakka got at the corrupt police officers. Now I understand. Two immigration officers stole $30 from me at the Ugandan border after I left Kenya. They said I had to buy a new Visa for them to let me back in the country, so I did, and when I checked my passport, they had just stamped my passport normally. So I went back to get a receipt and get their names, and they refused. I was starting to get loud with them, asking their co-workers for their names and demanding their superiors. Then they tried to take my passport back from me, at which point Jacob pulled me out, saying, "I think we should go." Ha!

It took me a while to cool off, but when I did I could laugh about it. One thing I've learned a lot about here is how to laugh at myself, you have to in order to stay sane. It was, however, still frustrating feeling powerless at the border crossing and knowing that this is the reason that Uganda and other countries stay poor, people with power abuse it and take advantage. But other than this hitch at the end, I had a really great trip to Kenya.

Why was I in Kenya? I went with a small team from Lango Diocese to observe the activities of CRWRC's partner in Western Kenya. It is part of organizational capacity building for the Diocese, so we learn about well-running programs in order to help our own groups back home. I think it was a very successful visit.

When I was in first grade we were given an assignment. "Draw what you'd like to be when you grow up boys and girls." While most of the other boys drew pictures of policemen, firefighters, and astronauts, that wasn't my style, even at that young age. What did I draw a picture of? A beekeeper. Yes, that's right, in first grade I wanted to be a beekeeper. Later on I think it became a forest ranger, but at that point in my young life I was pretty sure I wanted to keep bees and make honey. I'm not sure if I was watching a lot of PBS at this point or if it was the influence of my subscription to Ranger Rick magazine, but I remember my teacher said it was the first drawing of a beekeeper she had ever received!

So, my childhood ambition came one step closer to being completed this past week. Part of the tour of Kenya included a beekeeping group. I was really excited about it, and after seeing it I've spent a few days scheming on how I can make this childhood dream a reality. More importantly, however, this is seriously having an impact in Western Kenya. They use the money from the honey to support an Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program, and perhaps Lango could have a similar program eventually. I hope I can come back in 2 or 3 years and see a beekeeping and agro-forestry project here that works to fund the various Diocesan programs.

Other than that, my life recently has consisted of a lot of meetings and visits to the field. The Diocese is expanding its development program into 2 new parishes, and we've been meeting with them as they organize themselves into groups to receive oxen for plowing fields. In addition, we have had a lot of meetings about budgeting, about agriculture, about staffing, and how to integrate HIV/AIDS into the current programs. The biggest challenge has been around how to effectively carry out all the many programs we've had. I could use your prays around this, as there are sensitive topics and challenges that we are trying to work through between the community, the Diocese, and CRWRC. In addition, your continued prayers for continued peace in Uganda and the work of CRWRC here is always appreciated.

Its hard to believe that its been 3 weeks or more since I last updated this blog. I've been really busy since then, and it has been good. As I'm left with just 2 months here, I'm also aware that there is a lot of work to be done here yet. Fortunately there are plans under way to continue the work here. I'm helping to prepare plans for another intern, from Canada, to come to the Diocese after I've left, and MCC is sending two volunteers to the Diocese in July. This lets me hope that my time here could be in some way preparatory for the work that is yet to come.

There have been a few things I should mention. My puppy died before I had a chance to take over the caretaking from the mother. I had named it Calvin, because of how it was predestined for me, so now taking another one seems a little like betrayal, but we'll see. A strange local superstition, however, doesn't allow you to grieve for or bury dogs. It is unnatural, they believe, so you can't talk about it and you just throw the body in the latrine. So that is what we did, lest the neighbors begin saying, "you buried a dog? Then you're the reason for the lack of rain."

One more thing. Last Sunday I had been invited to preach at a church. I've made a lot of impromptu visits to churches, where they always ask me to address the congregation. Anyway, word got around about my "preaching" and I was invited to this church. I deferred from preaching, however, and said that I wouldn't be comfortable preaching at a church I knew nothing about. Instead, I proposed, perhaps I could meet with the leadership of the church and listen from them to hear about their needs and then we could pray for and encourage one another. I thought that this was a pretty classy way to bow out, so I didn't think too much about it when I received at my office a formal invitation to talk to the church leaders about leadership.

Unfortunately for me, this particular church was the head of an Archdeaconry, which had about 12 parishes and countless sub parishes. This means a lot of "church leaders." So what I had imagined as a group of 5-10 church leaders meeting and sharing together was not what the pastor of this Archdeaconry had in mind. To make things worse, when I got to the church, I realized that I had left my passport in Kampala and I was supposed to travel to Kenya the following day, so I was doing everything to speed things along so I could leave early for Kenya. Rushing a community, however, does not work. They go at their own pace no matter what, as I soon found out.

I attended the church service and after the service asked the pastor, "okay, where are the church leaders?" He told me that they weren't all there yet, and that in fact he was expecting almost 45 leaders from the various parishes. I had prepared something for a small group, but I had no idea how I was going to handle a group of 45! I scrambled to get something ready, and by the time I was ready, I counted 100 people in what became an audience, and more trickled in the whole time. It became apparent that they expected me to speak to them about their various roles in the church leadership: this is what a youth leader should do, this is what a mother's union leader should do, this is what a pastor's job is. I was probably the least qualified person in the room to talk about such a thing, so I changed the program.

I think it ended up okay. I talked a little bit about servant leadership, and had them listen to one another as they talked about successes they had had in their parishes. This moved naturally into discussing how one parish could learn from another and they began a dialogue about the way forward. So as impromptu as it was, I think it went okay. They invited me back to facilitate more dialogue about how to help one another out, but we will have to see about that. I had prayed a lot before going to that church, knowing I would be speaking to church leaders, and it is only by God's grace that a successful program was pulled out of a huge miss-communication. Things are certainly never dull here. So thanks for the prayers and the support, and please keep it up.

I'm still not sure what exactly the coming months have in store for me, most likely more field visits and meetings. I know that there are plans for a board training for the Diocese as CRWRC continues to work toward increasing the management capacities of its' partners. I'll do my best to keep this updated about it.

Work Update

The structure of the Anglican Church in Uganda is like a pyramid. At the top is the Arch-Bishop and under him are the many Bishops and their dioceses. Each diocese is made up of Arch-deaconries, then down to parishes, then finally there are sub-parishes (typically without a priest and led by lay people). Currently the DPDO (the development branch of the Diocese) of the Lango Diocese is made of up of myself, Andrew, and Jacob. We are active in only two of the Diocese’s many Arch-deaconries. This is because, up until this year, the DPDO was primarily responding to the LRA insurgency with relief efforts more than development.

Arriving in Uganda and then in the Diocese of Lango, I thought I would be working with those affected by trauma from the LRA insurgency and those caring for the traumatized. I soon realized, however, that many of the more severely affected are very well cared for by well-funded NGOs and governments like that of Belgium and Norway. These formerly abducted children receive such an exceptional education and counseling, that some families will bemoan the fact that their children weren’t abducted or weren’t abducted long enough to qualify for any of those aid programs. Those children that “fall through the cracks” so to speak, are the ones who may have been somewhat traumatized, but were not necessarily abducted. When you talk to these individuals, they will much more readily identify their needs as economic before they recognize any emotional or spiritual need.

When I wanted to work with the parishes and their priests to sensitize and care for the needs of those who may have experienced trauma, what I largely found was that they were “not there yet”. What I mean is, many of the communities are so focused on daily economic survival, that the stress induced on their children by years of conflict doesn’t register with them nearly as much as the stress of not being able to consistently eat well or afford school fees. Rather than try to force my own agenda on the DPDO and on the parishes, I decided to join them in where they were working. I share this because some of you have asked about the inconsistency between what I said I was going to be doing here, and what I have been reporting on.

Speaking of reporting, a lot of time at the Diocese Planning and Development Office (D.P.D.O.) has been spent in planning and reporting these past couple of weeks. These routine office days and meetings hardly make for an exciting update. However, a few members of my home congregation, Madison Square Church, have been in Uganda over the past few weeks serving in various capacities. One of them was Dr. Richard Leep, a family friend and agronomist. He is working with a group of farmers in Mbale, in the east of Uganda. This part of the country is very mountainous and has suffered extensively from soil erosion. From Mbale you can look up and see Mt. Elgon, an area that has been affected by excessive rain, mudslides, and hail, and CRWRC is looking at how best to do food security/relief programs for the people living on the mountain.

Rich Leep is working with the group of farmers on the preventative side of relief, introducing zero-tillage farming in order to preserve the soil from erosion and nutrient depletion. He gave a presentation on this topic and Andrew (the agriculturalist I work with) and I decided to head down to Mbale to check out the training for ourselves. We enjoyed the two days we spent traveling there and back. The public transportation included its own adventures, including Andrew protecting a careless Matatu (taxi van) driver from my exhausted temper.

In order to understand zero-tillage and the training we received on it, perhaps it is important to know that Uganda has incredibly rich soil. Before the insecurity from the L.R.A., Northern Uganda was the “breadbasket” of Uganda, and Uganda was the breadbasket of East Africa. The extensive farming is largely done by hand with hoes, and it is very labor intensive. Recently, oxen and oxen-traction programs have gained popularity for plowing the soil, but these expensive tools are coveted assets, and the farmers who use them are still the minority.

The zero-tillage method that Rich Leep is introducing in Mbale would allow these local farmers to skip the developmental step of getting oxen to plow the soil, and go directly to more modern methods of farming where soil is preserved by not plowing at all! The method saves money, time, and labor. Andrew and I were quite excited about what this could do for our farmers in Lira, so we immediately made plans for a number of demonstration plots for us to test this new technology.

Because most farmers are poor, they do not take any risks. Doing something different than the way it has always been done is a risk that most farmers are wise not to take. If they changed their methods at every new idea, they would go hungry far more frequently than they do already. This way, the Diocese of Lango will absorb the risk by creating demonstration areas for the next planting season, which will be around July. If it is successful, we will begin encouraging some of our farmers to try it out.

Monday of this week brought the Planning Development & Rehabilitation (PDR) branch of the Church of Uganda to Lira to give some trainings to the D.P.D.O.s of the various dioceses operating in and around the north. I was asked to give a very brief presentation on one of the many topics of the week, “Gender Equity and Empowerment”. I led a very interesting dialogue, and as usual, I walked away unsure of who learned more from the presentation. The group was fairly diverse and made up of those who were poorly educated, and those who were educated in the U.K. and Canda; there were lay people and priests, both progressive and conservative and male and female. All told, I thought it went fairly well, and it only needed to be an introduction, because further trainings are coming later at the hands of PDR.

Tuesday brought me to a meeting with the Mothers’ Union of Otwal parish.

This is a parish that the DPDO is expanding its development programs to this coming fiscal year. We met with the mothers (some are shown above) to see what they saw as a priority, in what ways they were already working, and how we could help. Otwal is in one of the remaining large IDP camps in the Lango region. One of its sub-parishes was visited by Harry and Jenny Van Belle while they were here. I took this couple from Canada to this community, and now their church wants to establish a relationship with this church from Otwal. It is very exciting for the local parish and I get to help facilitate the beginnings of this relationship.

When I visited Otwal Tuesday, I brought them the news, making clear that it was not “free sponsors” but rather a prayer relationship between the communities, which had the potential to blossom in to something more. I didn’t mention the fact that the Canadian church eventually wants to do more exchange visits. That will come in time.

As for the rest of the week, it is back to the PDR workshops on topics like agro-forestry and sustainable agriculture. We’ll see how it goes. After that, Tim comes back from Ethiopia and is headed up to Lira. I’m super-excited about that, partially because he is so supportive but also due to the fact that he should have pictures of his new baby girl! Check out their blog if you’re interested. I’ll do my best to keep this one updated.