The Switzerland of Africa
The Volcanoes
On the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo sit a range of 6 volcanoes known as the Virgunas. They sit within three national parks and are home to just over half (380, with the other 320 living in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda) of the world's mountain gorillas. Three of these volcanoes(Mt. Gahinga, Mt. Sabyinyo, and Mt. Muhabura) sit partially within Uganda. It was Mt. Gahinga (the one in the middle) that we went to Kisoro to climb.
This satellite image (courtesy of Google Earth) shows how the national borders run through these three volcanoes. Mt. Muhabura (far right) and Mt. Gahinga (in the middle, covered by clouds) straddle the Ugandan-Rwandan border. Mt. Sabyinyo (far left) sits at the junction of all three countries. In fact a climb to the highest of Sabyinyo's peaks will bring you to the junction itself, so that you can actually stand in all three countries at once.
These volcanoes loom over the town of Kisoro, situated in a large valley between the mountains to the north and the volcanoes to the south. Well before you begin to come out of the mountains you can see the volcanoes in the distance, their peaks so high that they are actually in the clouds. As such, when traveling to Mgahinga to climb any of these peaks, the excitement starts building early, and no matter where you go in Kisoro you are always reminded of the journey that lies ahead because there is no where that you can be and NOT see the volcanoes. And though they stand in a line, each one is very unique and distinct.
This is Mt. Gahinga, the one I climbed and the lowest (3474 meters or 11,400 feet) of the three. It says "Start with me, I'm easy," though it's not so easy as it appears. It has a classic volcano shape, but compared to it's two neighbors it doesn't look like much. The Kisoro area is full of volcanic rocks, and everywhere you can see where people have made little piles of the rocks they have picked out of their fields. These little piles are called "gahingas," and it is from these that the volcano gets its name.
This one is Mt. Sabyinyo. It says "Hey there, you know you want to climb me." It is the alluring, seductive, mysterious one. The way the clouds come across it's jagged peaks, the huge valley caused when an eruption blew out the volcano's side...there's just something intriguing about this one that makes you want to climb it. It's the second highest (3645 meters or 11,960 feet) of the three and the one that sits at the corner of all three countries. It says "Hey there, you know you want to climb me." Sabyinyo means "old man's teeth," a name courtesy of its many uneven peaks.
This one is Mt Muhabura. It says "I dare you to climb me. As if you stand a chance." It is massive, standing almost half a mile above Mt Gahinga at 4127 meters or 13540 feet. It seems to go almost straight up despite it's massive base, and when you look at it you think "How on earth do you actually get up that thing?" Hiking to the top is an all-day affair that brings you to a small crater lake and, if the peak isn't shrouded in clouds, possibly the most spectacular view in Uganda. Muhabura means "the guide" as the volcano can be seen from anywhere in Kisoro district and even from places in Kabale.
Mt. Gahinga, Mpora Mpora
Mpora mpora is a Runyankore phrase meaning "slowly slowly," and that's exactly how I had to take this volcano. My hope is to eventually climb all three of the Ugandan Virunga volcanoes, but for starters I attempted Mt. Gahinga. The easiest of the three hikes, it turned out to be much more difficult than I thought (henceforth mpora mpora). This picture is from the way back down the volcano, probably two thirds of the way to the gate. I thought I was smiling. Promise. That's just how worn out I was.
We stayed in a banda (I guess roughly translated as a cottage) at the Mgahinga Community Campground. As far as location, you couldn't get any better. From our banda to the gate was probably 100 yards. The buffalo wall (intended to keep Cape Buffalo and Forest Elephants inside the park) was at most 5 yards behind the banda. Though it had no electricity or running water, the nearest hotel was 20 minutes away and we only had to pay total (not just me) $25 for two nights plus breakfast one morning plus a broken lock.
After a breakfast of eggs and toast we headed down to the park office to pay and get our guides. Each trek comes complete with a guide and two guards, presumably because of the danger from the buffalo and elephants in the lower part of the park, but in truth because of a rebel attack that killed 6 tourists in 1999 (which isn't all that surprising considering the unrest in the 90s of the two countries bordering the park, though don't worry...there's been no rebel activity in the park since). We then took off for the peak.
Unfortunately it appears some bad food sidelined Jared early on (food poisoning being not exactly uncommon for bazungu in Africa). He probably could have raced up the mountain ahead of all of us, but something in his stomach had other ideas this day. The guide and the rear guard went back with Barry and Jared and I continued on with the front guard, John. A Munyankore from Mbarara, he's been going up the volcanoes for a year now (whereas the guides seem to have all been there at least 14 years). Fortunately, not being a Uganda Wildlife Authority guide, he's not yet programmed to talk his head off about every little thing you come across on the hike, which, though less informative, made the hike more enjoyable.
There are several different ecological areas you pass through on the way to the top. The first is Zone 2, which until the early 1990s was farmed by Batwa Pygmies (one of the guides was telling us about when they were forcing the Batwa out of the park and how he had to be careful because they had spears). As a result the vegetation is not as thick nor as tall. The rest of the park falls in Zone 1. It begins with a forest that is a mix of big trees and bamboo before entering a thick bamboo forest. Part of the way through this initial forest is a flat clearing from which you can see the volcano really well (as pictured).
The bamboo forest is just flat out thick. You could have someone standing 5 feet away from you and have no idea that they are there. This marked the last easy (though still huffing and puffing, just not near as much as I soon would be) part of the climb. The hike takes some time to get up to the base of the volcano itself, and this initial part of the hike is more of a gradual rise. Then you reach a point where the terrain just starts to go up. This point was one of the few times where John actually said anything: "This is the start of Gahinga." Which was good to know, because once you get in the bamboo forest, as thick and high as it is, there's no telling where you are (unless you are the guide, who has a handy Garmin GPS).
The beginning of the volcano is where things really started to get tough. It didn't take long for my calves to begin hurting badly. I'm used to walking everywhere, just not uphill, and so it didn't take long to hit the wall with my calf muscles. Even more discouraging is that the bamboo seems to go on forever and so I began to wonder if I was really making any progress at all. It was at this point that I am fortunate that God made me somewhat stubborn, because it was will and determination alone that kept me going. There was no way I was going to start that volcano and not finish. At one point what kept me going was thinking "well, my calves hurt but they haven't stopped working yet, so I know I can take at least one more step."
Then all of a sudden the bamboo thins out some and you can see out to the left. The most heartening part of the whole hike was looking over and seeing another arm of Gahinga stretching out. Finally I could see that I was actually up on this thing and making good progress, and suddenly reaching the top seemed much more achievable. Not long after the vegetation changes from bamboo to big trees covered in moss and lichens and you can see out over Kisoro and Mt Sabyinyo. The views were incredible, and I stopped every opportunity to take them in (though at times more for the rest than for the view).
To be honest I wish I had more pictures from the way up but I don't. Most of the time taking pictures was the last thing on my mind; usually taking the next step totally consumed me. At this point (having pushed through the wall and reached the second wind for my calves) not muscular but respiratory. Between the altitude and my being out of shape I just couldn't get enough air. Plus at this point the climb was incredibly steep, and whereas earlier you would go up some, then wind back with a straightaway before going up again, at this point it was just up, up, up.
Then, towards the top, came the ladders. With one or two exceptions they weren't at such incredibly steep angles that you were climbing straight up, but rather were making up for the trail being so steep and washed out that the normal way of fashioning steps just wouldn't work. Usually John just walked up them upright and relatively quickly, whereas I slowly made my way up leaning heavily on my hiking stick. To make matters worse the upper reaches of the volcano were really wet, so the ladders were a bit slippery. In fact everything was a bit slippery, and I was therefore even more glad to have taken the time to fashion that hiking stick (Eucalyptus pole: 200 shillings. Blacksmithed knife in market: 2000 shillings. Shredded tire tube for rubber grip: 300 shillings. Not falling off the side of a volcano: priceless).
Then, finally, the top. After 3 and a half hours of huffing and puffing, of aching and pushing, I had made it. Courtesy of a love for hiking and praying, which had my muscles (except calves) in perfect shape for this task, and a stubborn determination to finish, both gifts from God, I successfully summitted my first volcano. And what I found was like a whole other world. The crater is filled with a swamp unlike any I've ever seen, and the plants around the rim were just different. Add in the fact that most of the time I was literally sitting inside of a cloud, and it was like being on a different planet.
Yes, once again I could have sworn I was smiling. And this is the kind of picture you can get when you have no choice but to let the Ugandan guard take your picture at the summit (there were a couple of others he took, but this is the only one that shows the swamp...and probably my best smile of them). One of the most interesting things was that the cloud wasn't damp. I mean I know that a cloud is water collected around dust particles, so I was expecting it to be wet like fog, but it wasn't. Anyway, we spent about 20 minutes on the peak, eating a lunch of Cadbury chocolate, glucose biscuits (kinda like shortbread cookies) and stale toast before heading back down. We flew down, by the way, reaching the HQ hut in 2 hours. Total hike time: 5 hours and 30 minutes, an hour faster than the group that had gone the day before.
Now for the brief advertising portion of this blog post: if you ever need to get a good backpack, get one of these basic Jansport ones. Perhaps I have an unhealthy attachment to this backpack, but I've now had it for over 10 years and it's still going strong. If I've traveled anywhere in the last 10 years, be it for a night or a month, this pack has been there. I retired it from school use in high school, and every other school backpack I've had has broken within 2 years, yet this one just keeps on going. It's even lost an entire seam but, thanks to good double-seam construction, keeps on going. Not even the zippers have given me problems. So I couldn't help but take it's picture on top of Gahinga.
This trip overall could be summed up by being overwhelmed by God's creation. From lush mountainsides to towering volcanoes to clear lakes to gorgeous sunsets to bamboo forests to otherworldly swamps to the most incredible night skies, there was no escaping the vast diversity an enormity of the works of God's hands (or, more accurately, the works of His words). I thank God for this opportunity to be surrounded and humbled by what He has made and to praise Him for the magnificence of such a tiny little portion of what He has created.
The Problem With Just Saying A Little Prayer
You've heard it a million times and have probably said it yourself: "All you have to do to get saved is say a little prayer." Too often evangelism consists of this: tell someone he is a sinner and so he is going to Hell, then tell him that he can get to heaven by saying a short prayer asking Jesus into his heart. This is a funny thing, seeing as how there's no mention of a prayer of salvation anywhere in the Bible, nor of "asking Jesus into your heart."
I'm not one to say that we cannot use extrabiblical words to describe Biblical concepts; after all, if we were to do so then we'd quickly loose our ability to describe all kinds of doctrine, such as the trinity, evangelism, theology, inerrancy, and so forth. This method of sharing the gospel, however, is quite different: as opposed to using extrabiblical language to describe Biblical concepts, it uses extrabiblical concepts in lieu of the full Biblical gospel.
Before you say "this guy has no idea what he's talking about," let me lay out the gospel according to the Bible in seven points. Excluded will be aspects of the gospel upon which I hope we can all agree: that man is by nature sinful and deserves Hell; that man cannot on his own enter heaven; that Christ, who is both fully man and fully God, came and lived a perfect, sinless life; that He then voluntarily died on the cross for us as a substitutionary sacrifice, taking the punishment we deserve for our sins; that He then rose again after 3 days in the tomb; and that through His sacrifice we may attain eternal life.
Grace
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9 NASB).
"But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace" (Romans 11:6 NASB).
It all comes down to grace. We do not earn salvation, there is nothing we do to get it, it is a gift from God pure and simple. Nothing we do before or after will save us, "otherwise grace is no longer grace." I could speak all day about grace but I need not, for as deep and overwhelming as God's grace may be, the concept is simple: God has done for us what we cannot even begin to earn or deserve: He has saved us. At times it may seem that some of the points I am making are adding works to salvation: they are not. Any "works" that you see in this exposition of salvation are works of the Spirit through man, not works of man himself. See also Acts 13:38-39, Galatians 2:16, 2:21; 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 3:4-5.
Repentance, Faith & Lordship
Repentance: to sincerely commit to turn from sin and follow Christ due to an authentic sorrow for having sinned and a desire to sin no more. It's not enough just to say that you are sorry and ask for forgiveness: you must truly BE sorry and commit to turn away from your sin and follow Christ. And this commitment requires action, for if it is just something you say but do not do then it is no true commitment but rather a lie. See Luke 5:31-32, 13:3; Acts 2:37-38, 3:19, 17:30; 2 Corinthians 7:10, 1 John 1:8-10, 2 Peter 3:9.
Faith: Knowledge + Trust. You must know something in order to trust in it, and you must trust in something in order to have faith. Saving faith is knowing the gospel and ACTING upon it; without action, faith is not faith (James 2:14-19). I may know that a chair will hold me if I sit on it; however, if I refuse to sit in the chair because, as much as I know that it will hold me, I am still fearful that it will fall, I have no faith in that chair's ability to hold my weight. Therefore we must not merely KNOW that Christ died for sins and KNOW that He can save us and KNOW that He is Lord, we must actually ACT upon them. Before you think that this is adding works to salvation, remember that Ephesians 2:8-9 says that this faith comes from God; therefore how can it be a work if it is also received by grace? See also Acts 15:8-9, 20:18-21; Romans 1:16-17, 3:20-25, 5:1-2; Galatians 2:16, Philippians 3:8-9, 2 Timothy 3:14-15, Hebrews 11:6.
Lordship: When you are saved Jesus becomes your Lord. This means, quite simply, that He is your boss in every aspect and every moment of your life. It is your faith lived out. Just saying "Jesus is my Lord" is not enough for Jesus to be your Lord; there must be action. A boss not followed is no boss at all. We are not saved by following Christ, but if we are saved we will follow Christ. This is not adding a work to salvation because, as you will see more clearly later on, our following Christ as Lord comes also from God. And we will never obey Christ perfectly; however, if we are saved we will obey Him increasingly by the work of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:13). See Matthew 7:21-27, John 3:36, 2 Corinthians 4:3-5, Colossians 2:6, Hebrews 5:9, 1 John 2:3-6.
Before we move on I would just like to reiterate that though it may seem as if, in these three points, I am adding works unto salvation, in actuality all these are works of God in and through us. They are not works of our own doing but of His doing, therefore they are still acts of grace. "For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13, ESV, italics added). Apart from God's work in you you cannot repent, cannot have faith, cannot follow Christ. Repentance, faith and lordship are not actions you can take on your own but works that God does. Furthermore I hope, through examination of the passages cited, you can see that each point is also very thoroughly Biblical; I did not come up with all of this through theological argument or pure conjecture but rather through thorough, intensive Biblical study with comparison to different theological resources to confirm that this isn't heresy.
Assurance, New Birth, and Perseverance
Assurance: By this I mean both that you can know for sure that you are saved and that you cannot lose your salvation, or rather if you are saved you can be assured that you are saved. God has promised that He will not allow anyone who is saved to lose their salvation (John 4:13-14, 6:37-40, 6:51, 10:27-30; Romans 8:1, 8:33-39, 11:29; 1 Peter 1:3-5). As for how we can know we are saved, John wrote a letter about the subject: 1 John (see 1 John 5:13). The principle ways of knowing that you are saved are the next two points: New Birth and Perseverance.
New Birth: When you are saved, you are "born again" by God. As such you have died to sin and your old way of living and have been given a new life of obedience, apart from sin, in Christ. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV). This new birth is courtesy of the Holy Spirit, the seal which serves as a guarantee of our salvation (Ephesians 1:11-14). His presence in us is made evident by the fruit we bear: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). If we are saved we are changed: if we are living by the Spirit, if "it is not I who lives but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20), if "he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4 ESV), how can you NOT be changed? See also Ezekiel 11:19-20; Matthew 7:15-23; John 15:1-6; Acts 2:38-39; Romans 5:3-5, 6:1-23, 8:9-11, 8:16; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22; Ephesians 2:1-5; 1 John 3:24, 4:7.
Perseverance: If you are saved, then you will persevere in faith and growth. Though you will still struggle with sin, though you may have short-term failures, in the long-term you will continue in the faith and grow closer to and more like Christ. While this, at first glance, may seem to add works to salvation, it does not. The reason you persevere is because "it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phi 2:13 ESV). We will seek God increasingly and obey God increasingly not because of our own effort but because of the effort wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. Perseverance is a long-term sign of our salvation, not a cause. Once we are saved we will, guaranteed, persevere. We cannot persevere apart from salvation as we cannot persevere apart from God's work in us. Likewise if we do not persevere then we were not saved in the first place. See Matthew 24:10-13; Luke 9:23-24; John 8:31-32; Romans 2:6-8, 11:22; 1 Corinthians 15:1-2; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 1:6, 2:12-13; Colossians 1:21-23; 2 Timothy 2:11-12; Hebrews 3:14; James 1:12; 2 Peter 1:3; 1 John 2:3-6, 2:19, 3:4-10, 4:4.
Implications
So you see that the gospel consists of more than just "You're a sinner, Christ died for your sins, say this prayer and then you'll go to Heaven instead of to Hell," and we do a great disservice to the lost when we teach them that salvation consists of a little prayer. If you just tell a man "If you say this prayer then you are saved," he may just say that prayer as fire insurance, not truly believing it, call himself a Christian and think himself destined for heaven. He has no faith, he has repented in word only, Christ is not his Lord, he is not indwelt with the Holy Spirit, and he does not persevere. One of my first friends in college was a guy who said the prayer, considered himself saved, but didn't really believe that Jesus even existed!
As a result we end up with churches full of "believers" who aren't really following Christ because they were never saved in the first place, they just said their prayer. That's also part of why church membership rolls are significantly larger than church attendance across the board: people say their prayer, "get saved," join the church, and fall away. They are "Christians," they are "saved," but they've just passed through the revolving door and are living just like the rest of the world.
Why? Because they never were actually believers, never were actually Christians, never were actually saved. They did everything they were told that it takes to be a Christian; the problem is that no one ever told them what a Christian really is. As far as they've been taught, a Christian is someone who says this prayer. They said the prayer, the pastor said they were now saved, so now they're "Christians". No one ever told them that a Christian is someone who follows Christ as Lord, who perseveres in faith and growth, who seeks God faithfully and wholeheartedly (all, of course, due to the Spirit's work).
We have come to understand this problem, so we say the prayer must be heartfelt. Of course we don't really explain what that means, we just expect them to understand if they really mean what they are saying. And yes many people who say the prayer but aren't really saved "mean" what they are saying, they just don't understand what they are saying, so they don't really mean it. I can say "Jesus I am turning away from my sin and following you as Lord" and mean "Jesus I don't want to go to hell so I'm going to say this prayer, I don't really think I'm all that bad but I'll stop drinking, and I'm not sure what this Lord business is but I'm guessing it means I should go to church." So if we don't explain out the gospel fully, how can someone mean the prayer?
I also see where the "just say a little prayer" ideology comes from. It is known that salvation is by grace alone, not by works, and it is believed that salvation is by choice, so there is an attempt to make it as simple as possible because if anything else is added then we take away from grace. The great irony is that "just say a little prayer" salvation takes away from grace because it adds a work to salvation: a prayer. If our faith comes from God, our repentance comes from that faith, our following Jesus as Lord requires the work of the Holy Spirit, our salvation is kept by God, our new birth comes from the Holy Spirit, our salvation is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit, and our perseverance is the work of God, THAT'S grace. NOTHING in that equation comes from man, it all comes from God.
The prayer of salvation is not in the Bible. "Just say a little prayer" evangelism fails to explain the gospel in full, resulting in false conversion upon false conversion. And that little prayer adds works to grace, by which grace is no longer grace. It may put more bodies in the pews, but the goal of evangelism is not to put bodies in the pews but to be used by God as He leads souls into heaven. We are fortunate that He saves people despite our failures to accurately present the gospel. It is imperative that we share with people the full Biblical gospel, the true gospel of grace.
The Place Of The Little Birds
This weekend the Wilks, Kari, Dr. Christy and I spent a night at Bushara Island in Lake Bunyoni. Just outside of Kabale and about 2 and a half hours from Mbarara, Lake Bunyoni sits up in the mountains of Southwest Uganda, a region which more resembles Colorado than Uganda. The lake, one of the deepest in Africa, is beautiful and surrounded by mountainsides covered with terraced farming. Bunyoni means "place of the little birds" and it is a fitting name as there are birds everywhere.
Bushara Island is a "resort" island in the lake. Its revenues help support an orphan care project and it is supposedly an eco-friendly resort. To get there you have to take a boat, be it a motorboat or a dugout canoe. As interesting as it may be to travel to Bushara by dugout canoe, we opted for the motor boat instead. Canoeing was not neglected altogether, though. You can rent canoes on the island, so Jared and I took one on a trip around the island. We discovered that dugout canoes don't steer quite so well as your average American canoe and we spent the first 10 minutes spinning in circles. In all it took about an hour and a half of circling and zig-zagging to make our way around the island. We didn't really start to get ahold of how to make it go consistently straight until the last 10 minutes. Later we helped the girls take a trip out in a giant canoe as well.
There are a few different things you can do on the island. You can rent canoes or small one person sailboats, hike (though the island's not all that large so you can't hike for too long), play volleyball, eat decent to good food, relax by the fire at night (and yes it can actually get cold enough that you would want to sit by a fire...in fact this morning everyone was wearing sweatshirts or jackets), swim, and apparently do a variety of other activities that must be elsewhere on the lake (they were listed at the reception but they definitely weren't present on the island). There was also a small playground, from which this picture of Anna Wilks comes. At night we sat out on the swimming pier and looked up at the most gorgeous night sky. Being at significant altitude and with no power anywhere to provide any light, you could see an incredible number of stars. I've never seen the Milky Way so clearly nor stretching all the way across the night sky.
We stayed in tents. These weren't exactly camping tents, however. Each one had a few chairs to relax in out front, comfortable (for Uganda) beds, a table with chairs, a nightstand and a place to hang your clothes inside. Also provided were lanterns, flashlights, candles, and even some flip flops. And the blankets were the best: when it was still warm when I went to bed the blankets didn't make me feel hot, and when it was cold when I woke up the blankets kept me warm. Not exactly roughing it. Of course the bathroom was a "composting toilet," basically a pit latrine but with an uncomfortable seat (instead of just a whole) and some ash that you had to dump in when you were done (though it worked to keep it from smelling somethin awful like most pit latrines), and the shower was a large metal container suspended above an outdoor enclosure, but there's no power, no running water, and it's "eco-friendly".
In all it was a great time to get out and see God's fantastic creation, relax, and enjoy the company of great friends. Hope you enjoy the pictures.
The mountain in the background is Mt. Muhavura. At 4127 meters (13,540 feet) it is the highest of the Ugandan Virunga volcanoes, a volcano chain that stretches across Uganda, Rwanda and DRC. In fact you are looking at both Rwanda and Uganda right now as Muhavura sits in both countries. Their slopes are covered in rainforests and are the home of half the world's wild mountain gorillas (the other half living in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, also in Uganda). In fact the Rwandan Virungas were the site of the events best known from the movie Gorillas In The Mist. Next weekend Barry, Jared and I will attempt to climb Mt. Gahinga, the shortest of the 3 Ugandan Virungas. Hopefully we'll eventually be able to summit Mt. Muhavura as well.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
That's right, it's time once again for the world's greatest sporting event: the World Cup. It might not seem like that big a deal to you, as most likely you are currently sitting at home in America and don't really give a rip about soccer, but for the rest of the world this is THE big event. There were probably more people in Africa alone watching tonight's opening match between Germany and Costa Rica than there were people across the world who watched the Super Bowl.
As for my teams, above all I'm going for Germany then Ukraine. Neither team really stands much chance of winning, but that doesn't mean they won't. In fact Germany's own coach said that the only way they stand a chance is to ride the fan support they get courtesy of being the host nation. Brazil and England both, however, are possibly fielding the best teams in their history (which, in the case of Brazil, would mean the best team of all time) so beating either will be a huge accomplishment.And while I'd like for the US to do well, I just can't take them as my main team because no one in the US really cares all that much for soccer. I'm certainly not the world's biggest soccer fan by any means, but when you see the enthusiasm in places like Uganda, where the national team could probably be beaten by some US college teams, it becomes real hard to get behind a national team where so few in the nation really care.Anyway, pray for this time as I'll be spending many evenings sitting in the basement of the gents flat (guys dorm) at MUST watching matches and building relationships to share the gospel.
Simon, Son Of John, Do You Love Me?
In honor of having finally been reunited with my digital camera, a post entirely of text.
When you say that you love God or that you love Jesus, what do you mean?
As you may already know, Greek has three different words for love: eros, phileo, and agape. Eros is romantic love, phileo is brotherly love, and agape is that unconditional, God-like love (the kind of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John 4). In John 21:15-17, a passage often called the reinstatement of Peter, we see an interesting use of the latter two loves. At this point Jesus has died and rose again, and He has now appeared to His disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.
"When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon, son of John, do you agapao me more than these?' He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I phileo you.' He said to him, 'Feed my lambs.' He said to him a second time, 'Simon, son of John, do you agapao me?' He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I phileo you.' He said to him, 'Tend my sheep.' He said to him the third time, 'Simon, son of John, do you agapao me?' Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, 'Do you agapao me?' and he said to him, 'Lord, you know everything; you know that I phileo you.' Jesus said to him, 'Feed my sheep'" (John 21:15-17 ESV, "love" replaced with original Greek words).
If you were to write a praise song and had to chose one of the Greek words for love to express your feelings for Christ, you'd probably choose agape. In fact, when we say or sing or preach that we love God, we usually mean it to be agape. After all we know that that's how we're SUPPOSED to love God and Christ, and since it's how we're supposed to be then that's what we try to mean.
But during worship this Sunday there was a song that very often repeated the phrase "I love you" in regards to Jesus and God really convicted me as I began to wonder "which of the Greek words would I use?" I know I'm supposed to be able to say "O Lord I agapao you." But I think, were I to be honest, I, like Peter, would have to say "I phileo you."
And that's one of the great things about Peter's response in this passage. In the past I've looked at this and thought, "Oh Peter, why can't you say 'I agapao you'?" Now I see the answer: Peter didn't want to lie. As difficult as it would be to stand before Christ in that situation, his agape love clearly demonstrated before you by his death and yourself having denied Him three times, and respond with phileo, Peter does not lie to Christ. He does not profess a love that he does not have.
It's not that I don't want to be able to say that I love Christ in such a manner, such as Peter certainly would have desired to say such. But if we are to worship in truth (John 4:23) then we must not lie to God about how we relate to Him. In fact to lie to God in worship is quite the opposite of worship for it is to insult God. It is like saying to God "I will say one thing with my lips though I mean another with my heart, and I expect to be able to fool you into believing that what I say with my lips is true and for you to accept it as worship." As such we mock God rather than praise Him.
God knows how you love Him. If you don't really, wholeheartedly love God with that God-like agape love, it's not bad to say "O Lord I phileo you." It's not like you are saying anything that God doesn't already know. To settle for a lesser love, THAT would be a bad thing; to be honest about your own failings in loving God while striving to love Him more, that is virtuous. Besides if love truly does come from God (1 John 4:7), then you love God as much as He has caused you to love Him; should you be ashamed of what the Lord has given you? Certainly not.
We should strive to love God more perfectly, begging Him through prayer to well up that love in our hearts, seeking Him in His word that we may know Him better to love Him all the more. Yet at the same time we must be honest about our relationship with Him, and we must be honest about it to Him, honest about it to others, honest about it to ourselves. To do otherwise is to be a fool.
"(Your name here), do you agapao Me?"
Queen Elizabeth National Park
So it's been forever since I've posted any pictures, largely due to the fact that my digital isn't back yet (but oh how happy I am that it will arrive in the country on Monday morning). But to make up for post after post of text upon text without any images, here's a deluge of scanned photos just recently developed.
These particular shots are from my second trip to Queen Elizabeth National Park. I didn't post any after the first trip because just about all of them were crud, partially because I had never done any wildlife shots and so learned a lot from them, but also because your first time in a game park you just take shot after shot of anything and everything and don't think as much about composition, lighting, and the fact that the hyena in the grass is going to come out mostly as grass with some brown thing in it. Hopefully I'll get a few more opportunities to improve and get better pictures, especially as I hope to travel to Maasai Mara National Reserve (where the Great Migration migrates to) and maybe Amboseli National Park (in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro) in Kenya next July.
The sunrise as we drove into the park. See the cloud of dust coming up from the road? Yeah, that's Africa. Unfortunately I couldn't get the scan to look as good as the print, but I still think it's pretty dang good.
A male Water Buck. These things are everywhere in the park. They're kinda like giant massive deer with funny antlers.
A Cape Buffalo, one of the "Big Five," with the Rwenzori Mountains in the distance. The Big Five are the five large animals that game hunters considered the most difficult to bag. The easiest to find by far, their difficulty comes more from the fact that they're mean as can be if you get 'em goin. I have a couple of better shots, but the developer messed up the prints.
An African Elephant, also one of the Big Five (the others, not pictured as not seen, being Lions, Lepoards, and Rhinos...rhinos not found in Uganda). These are what you come to QENP for. This one has his ears out because he's saying, "You're too close...get back in your car you freakin' idiot or I'm going to charge." So getting out of the Land Rover and getting as close as I did to this elephant to get some shots may be (scratch that...is) the dumbest thing I've ever done (one of the girls got a picture of me that'll show just how close I was...if I get ahold of it I'll be sure to post), but hey, at least the shots turned out well. And I did get back to the car, quickly but in a slow, non-startling manner.
A herd of elephants on the banks of the Kazinga Channel (this time no chance of getting charged as I'm on a boat). We saw elephants everywhere this time around. We even had 6 (two adults and 4 babies) cross the road right behind Kari's car (pictures lacking, unfortunately, due to technical difficulties).
Two more elephants in the water. Elephants elephants everywhere. And it's truly amazing to see them just wandering about in their natural habitat. Zoos have nothin on game parks. You've probably noticed that the tusks on all of these are kinda short. Well, thanks to Idi Amin feeding his army by way of elephant poaching, there were fewer than 100 elephants in QENP when Museveni came to power 26 years ago. There are now over a thousand elephants in the park (a phenomenal turn around...one of the greatest in all of Africa), which means the elephant population is very young and their tusks have not had all that long to grow.
If there's anything you'll see at QENP more frequently than Water Bucks, it'd be Wart Hogs. In fact you can usually find them all over within the grounds of the Mweya Safari Lodge themselves. I got a much, much, much closer shot of one there, but it's so dang ugly I just couldn't bring myself to put it up. They're pretty much the ugliest animals God made.
A Ugandan Kob, a very common type of antelope found in the grassier areas of the park. A very pretty gold color, but unfortunately I don't have a warming filter for my telephoto lens to take into account the overcast lighting so the color didn't come out that well.
Sorry, no photos of hippos. I had some ok ones last time, plus I only had one roll of film left for the boat ride (and most of that got used on elephants, with a few reserved for attempts at getting yawning hippos...which I failed to get, but would have gotten had I not run out of film before the hippos had a yawn-fest). And I didn't think to bring any of the older shots over to the Wilks to scan. Maybe next time.
Nakivale Refugee Camp
The past couple of weeks we had a team of Union University nursing students and professors in working with Kari. I helped drive them out to the Nakivale Refugee Camp and took some pictures as well. They're now up to 6 churches, all started by the refugees themselves. Also there are a large number of Muslim refugees from Sudan and Somalia that have recently been moved here, and the 6 churches already have worked out a strategy to reach them with the Gospel. This place never ceases to amaze me.
One of the volunteers, Ashley, taking a picture of the children, who are crowding around to have their picture taken.
I think this is my new favorite people shot (that I've taken, that is). I'm not sure how to explain it exactly, but the composition, the look on the boy's face, his stance, the depth of field (focus), the expression on the kid in the backgroud...it just all works together almost perfectly.
If I change my mind, however, then this one will be the photo to take it's place. The little boy with distended belly, arms over his head and expression on his face, wearing diry, ratty second hand clothes, adults blurred in the background walking away...it's like life for a child refugee wrapped up in a single image.
This past weekend Barry, Jared and I went down to Kisoro, a town in the southwest corner of Uganda, to hike up a volcano in Mgahinga National Park. To get there we had to drive through and area that has been dubbed The Switzerland of Africa. The drive took forever (3 hours to cover a mere 50 miles) but was well worth it just for the views. The dirt road between Kabale and Kisoro winds through mountainside after mountainside covered in lush terraced farming. Then you drive through a big rainforest thick with trees. This forest preserve is a remnant of what the entire area once looked like. Neither my words nor my pictures could ever do this area justice: you'd just have to see it yourself Then, after passing through the reserve, you come back into terraced farming and can see the three volcanoes, and within an hour you finally reach Kisoro. How Barry described the area: "I think when Winston Churchill called Uganda 'The Pearl of Africa,' this is what he was talking about."
