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 Visitors, visitors, and more visitors. That is what the next four months look like for our team and our family. A Let’s Start Talking group arrived May 11th, potential teammates Jason and Jody King come May 31st for a three week survey trip, and then nine college interns invade Jinja June 26th. Sprinkled amongst these are visits from people formally involved with the work here in Busoga: Dr. Ganus from Harding University, Mark Moore, the Bartons, and Danny Hardman, to name a few. The highlight for our family was the visit that kicked this season of visitors off for us. Lori’s sister Julie and long-time friend Emily Grantham dropped in for a quick seven day visit. We’ll share more about these below. Visitors are a blessing, as they say here in Uganda, and so our team and family are truly being blessed right now.
Let me first back up and share what’s been happening with us over the past two months. In March I was able to attend the annual East African Men’s Retreat in Kenya, a gathering of missionaries working in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Lori later attended the annual women’s retreat at the same place. The events ministered to both of us by simply stepping back from our surroundings (which are still so new to us), being taught and encouraged, and more importantly, connecting with other missionaries and sharing our experience of God and God’s work with each other. Missionaries in Africa live in a unique reality which is difficult to share and communicate back home or with native peoples. We can already tell these annual gatherings will be a highlight of our years here. Lori and I continue to become more involved with the work here while we continue our studies in Lusoga. Lori has been busy with village ministries, going out on Saturdays with Kym and Ida Bazoonona and Zipporah Kirya for Women’s Day to while Emily Bogle has been in the States on furlough. I’ve been working with teammate Adam in the town ministries but primarily with the Jinja Church of Christ. Discerning the best way for me to be involved with the Jinja church has greatly challenged my understanding of ministry and mission. God has raised up many capable Ugandan leaders in the church over the years both with and without direction from missionaries. I was greatly received by these men and women when I arrived due to the positive experience they have had with the missionaries that have worked with the church before me. Initially, I felt affirmed by their anticipation of the ministry I could bring to the church; after all, everyone wants to be appreciated and needed. But slowly I began to realize that their anticipation was misplaced on me. Instead, I hope to cultivate that same sense of anticipation towards what God can do through Ugandan brothers and sisters. My work with the church then is not so much about blazing a new trail ahead as it is to equip and release my Ugandan brothers and sisters to discern God’s work and join Him in doing it. I’ll keep you posted on what God is doing in the Jinja Church through them. Now about our first visitors from America. Julie and Emily best represent to us, and especially Lori, what we have left behind to come here – a wonderful and close knit web of family and friends. When they arrived in Uganda it was like the two worlds we live in met for the first time. It was a blessing to experience their company which seemed so familiar in this place in which we are surrounded by the unfamiliar. Lori said on a couple of occasions how great it will be to visualize Julie and Emily walking, laughing, and talking among the people and places which make up our present reality. We are more than thankful that God (and their husbands and children) allowed them to be here with us for even that short time. From now until late August, our home will become (along with those of our teammates) Hotel Jinja. A steady stream of visitors will be channeling into Jinja from America ready to invest their lives, for a short time, in the people of Busoga. Pray for safety during all of our travels and pray that God works through these cross-cultural ministries in the hearts of the people involved so that His Kingdom might grow here in Uganda. Things to Pray for our Family: - Thanksgiving that God has protected our family physically, emotionally, and spiritually during our first six months here.
- That our house in Michigan will sell quickly.
- That our team can maintain focus and unity during a hectic time.
- That God will continue to raise up leaders here in the Busoga Churches of Christ.
Blessings to all! Mark, Lori, Luke, Connor and Lydia Jane Manry Box 1515
Jinja, Uganda, East Africa
Phone: 011-256-78-2750602
www.manryfamily.com
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