SPEAKER_00 0:01

Community and everything about life is so geared towards agriculture and outdoors and all that kind of stuff. You know when it when it says those and it's all those who go out everything with their speed will come back up with their speed. Uh door you get a sense of that gear because we have understood that there's a you know there's a time of year when you're looking at your bag of grain and you're thinking, am I gonna eat that or am I gonna put that in the ground and open the best?

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Welcome to the Reform Deacons, a casual conversation with topics specifically designed to help local reform deacons. There are nearly a thousand deacons in the OPC alone. So let's take this opportunity to learn from and encourage one another. We're so glad you could join us. Let's jump into our next episode. My name is David Knockle. I'm not in the offices today, but rather in the field. Coming to you today from Karamoja, Uganda, where I'll be talking to Chris Verdick of Kision, a Yesu Presbyterian Clinic in Karamoja, Uganda. AYPC is a small outpatient-only clinic located in rural Uganda. It was originally opened in 2002, provides medical and laboratory services in the context of a Christian environment. It's part of the OPC's Uganda mission as it ministers to this community, both in word and in deed, seeking to bring a ministry to the Carmajong, both to their spiritual needs, but also in meeting their physical needs. The OPC's Committee on Diacle Ministry significantly subsidizes the operation of the clinic in cooperation with the OPC's Committee on Foreign Missions. Chris serves as the administrator for the clinic. He and his wife, Chloe, along with their three daughters, have been part of the mission for the past decade or so. They are amongst the longest serving members of the mission at present. We're so thankful for their work. Chris, thank you for joining us today on the Reform Deacon podcast. How many years have you guys been?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

So in July, we completed 10 years. So we're in our 11th year.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Okay, yeah, that's what I was thinking. A little bit more than a decade. Yeah. So why don't we begin with maybe you describing a little bit about how you got involved, initially got involved with the work.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

So Dave Aachen, who was uh pastor here previously, um was an intern and kind of the youth uh leader at New Life, where I attend uh when I was in high school and junior high. So midway through my high school, uh he left to come to Karamoja. Uh we kind of, I don't want to say we totally stayed in touch, but you know, he would come back on furlough or vacation or whatever, and we would reconnect. Uh so when I was in college, I thought I I would like to go visit him. We had also had Herb previous come out. He stayed with my parents. He came out for a wedding and he stayed with my parents, and and uh that was a couple years before, but encouraged me to come out, uh, check out the work. So yeah. That was the genesis of it.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Right, so you came out to be the uh administrator for the clinic? Is that how that all no?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

I came out to be a I came out to be a visitor in 2006, yeah. That was when I was still in college, I wasn't married. But I was so impressed when I came out just with all the work that the mission was doing. Uh, it wasn't like kind of what you would think of as a as a mission or as missionaries. The missionaries were so different than what I kind of expected to find. Um my my you know, my own experience with Dave notwithstanding. Um, so that kind of got me really interested in uh coming back. Uh so then 2009 I got married to Chloe, uh and we uh had kind of just talked casually about it. I think I forget if Dave was on furlough or something. I had a lunch with him um sometime around that, maybe 2009, something like that, and uh kind of pitched him on an idea of basically I said, What if Chloe and I came out? Uh Chloe could do some bookkeeping for the mission, um, and I could do communication kind of stuff, talk about you know, telling the story of the work, getting that out to uh an audience. At that time, we had, you know, there was no Facebook, there was no Twitter or anything like that. Uh virtually, you know, unless you were really, really connected to somebody who was here, you had no idea what was going on. Um, which I also having come into it and seen how much was going on, and then realizing that before I had come, I had no idea about all this stuff, uh, kind of realized that that was an area where the mission really could improve in communicating back to the churches and that kind of thing. Now, I don't know if I, you know, long story short, I don't know if I've achieved that goal of being, you know, helping the mission to be better at that.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

But that was the original idea. I'd do that, I'd help uh I'd help Bob do some maintenance and that kind of stuff. Yeah, that was the idea, that was kind of what we pitched to Dave, or I pitched to Dave, and he said, Yeah, I think that might be a good idea. Why don't you guys come visit and uh you know see what Chloe had never seen the work, so that was that was the genesis. We visited in 2010. I think we knew by the time we were done with our visit that we were going to plan to come here. And uh she had work commitments that she had to finish up, and so we didn't get out here until 2012. But that's yeah, I came to do maintenance. And then uh I did that for about a year, maybe a year and a half. And then uh I talked to the pastors, they wanted somebody to do, they wanted to be doing radio ministry and they wanted to be publishing in Karamanjong, uh, both of which I had some kind of light skills in. Uh so I stopped doing maintenance and I started working for them. Uh, and that was about a year and a half also, and then end of 2015, uh Dr. Jim was leaving the field, and the mission wanted to keep the clinic open, so they talked to me and said, Are you willing to be the administrator at the clinic? And I said, sure, I'll give it a shot. No idea if we can actually make this work. So I think we said give it six months or maybe 12 months, I can't remember, and uh kind of reevaluate. And I've been doing it since then.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Just had to get that little plug in there for short-term missions, people coming and visiting and and uh staying for a decade. So um that's just that's that's awesome. I think it's just underscores the importance and value of people coming and visiting and and just seeing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

And uh yeah, also underscores that uh I would just like to you know put it full disclosure. I was completely useless when I came in 2006. I did not do anything worthwhile at all. I thought I would maybe do something worthwhile, and I thought while I was here that I was doing worthwhile things, but uh you know it became apparent that I was not uh accomplishing anything of value while I was here. But yeah, like you said, it just put the idea in my mind.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

So yeah, and you're serving very well as the administrator for the clinic now, so it's God's God's leading. Speaking of the clinic, um maybe you could describe it to someone who may have never heard about it, may have never even heard of the OPC Uganda mission. Some of our listeners, like, you know, what is this? What are they doing? What is this clinic? How would you how would you describe the work of the clinic?

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Uh so the work of the clinic is uh the well, let's say the clinic, the clinic Akicionayesu Presbyterian Clinic, which is Karma Jong for Compassion of Jesus Presbyterian Clinic, um is an outpatient facility, so it's not like a hospital, it's uh it's more like a doctor's office kind of uh and we see about a thousand patients a month um treating malaria, uh intestinal diseases, skin diseases, pneumonia, um basically anything that can be done outpatient. We have a lab that does basic uh tests. We test for malaria, we test for typhoid, we test for um solosis, which is a common problem here. Uh what else do we test for? We can uh look for other things in the blood. So anything that takes basically a rapid test or a microscope um investigation, we can do.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Why is it important to have a this kind of clinic in Karamoja?

SPEAKER_00 8:41

I think it's uh well in Karamoja, that's a broad thing. I think it's important in Nakalay uh because, well, I can there's a brief history there I can give. When we first opened the clinic here, it was we were basically the only functioning health center, I can almost say in the district. Uh we there are, I think there's right now, as of today, there's probably eight or nine uh government health centers from our level, health center two, which is the lowest level, all the way up to hospital. Um but for example, the hospital is seven kilometers away from us. And when we came in 2001, it was completely non-functioning. I don't think they had a doctor, I don't think they had medication, medic supplies, anything, you know, the staff were never there. So that was in that time, we were basically almost the only game in town. I don't want to oversell it, but we were you know something close to that. Uh, and you could tell, I mean you look, I was I was rummaging through some of our old records trying to throw stuff out, and and I was looking back at the early days, and then we're seeing 200 patients a day, and I'm just like that blows my mind because I feel like we're such a bigger operation now, and we see maybe 50 patients a day, 60, you know, 100 on a really, really banner day. So to just think of, you know, how are they even processing all those patients in a day? I cannot imagine it. Um, so that was the original idea, and now that we're here, of course, uh nothing else is gonna be built in our area, so we're kind of the health center for our area. Um, if we were to go, yeah, what would happen? Some either somebody would have to take over the clinic or government would have to step in and put up something else. I don't know. Um and so, you know, I the the old the old adage was we can't preach to people who are dead. Uh and I think in the early days there was some truth to that. That you know, literally if we weren't around. See you later. So in the in the early, there's that there's the old adage that you can't preach to people who are dead. And I think in the early days there was some truth to that, where if we weren't treating these people, nobody was going to. Uh so I think our mission has changed over the years. Uh, and we've maybe gone through a number of iterations. I think when Dr. Jim was here, we he was what he was really good in was uh teaching and training technical staff. So we've got we have a number of very good nurses who have gone come out of of Acquision Yeah Su Presbyterian Clinic who have you know gone on to other jobs and that kind of thing. But you know, we've made a mark. We may not have made a mark in Nakaleo. I mean we did, we did while we were treating people, but but our work has gone out into you know different corners of the country because of of uh Jim's uh gift at teaching and and bringing up uh young nurses and and uh clinicians. So I think that's you know been one aspect of what we're doing. I think right now my vision is uh I just want to I want to be exemplary in what we're doing. Uh we've got a number of other semi-functional to functional health centers around us. We're not the only game in town. Uh but I but we are the I I think I again, I hope I'm not overselling us, but I think we're the best game in town in terms of the quality of care. And uh I want to be exemplary, I want to be, I want other health units who are around us to look at us and say, we could be doing that like Nakalay is doing it, which is sorry, Nakalay is what they call us in the they don't call us AYPC. So um to that end, I want us to have, you know, I want us to always be stocked in drugs. I want us to always have the you know the right lab tests, the people, basic things that people need. Uh I want us to always have enough staff uh on hand so that somebody isn't sitting around waiting, wondering when there's going to be a doctor who shows up. And I want us also, this is an area where I I think we're still growing, but I want us to be the best in patient care. Patient care, I mean caring about the patients as people, uh not just kind of as numbers in the line or getting them through the the queue or whatever it is, but you know, treating them with dignity. I think that's something that we offer that's maybe unique as we're as we're a Christian institution, that we recognize that people are made in the image of God, we realize that they have dignity because of that, regardless of socioeconomic status or tribe or whatever it is. Uh, and so I think we're still making forays into that, into you know, kind of emphasizing that, but that's that is something that I want to see us do more and more is be the number one facility for treating patients well. Um, and you know, and there's there's a whole cultural thing there that, you know, if you've got to treat patients badly or they don't listen to you, or you know, whatever it is, but trying to turn that around and hopefully get still good results out of it is one thing that I'm looking forward to doing.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

You mentioned the district. Do you have a sense of how many people live in this district in this district? And you Akalay is the local, very local area, like kind of the parish. The parish. Yeah. And then the district is bigger than that. What any sense of the size of the district?

SPEAKER_00 13:53

I don't really know. I I mean we have the official figures, which are basically made up as far as I know. Um, even the you know, we have the population data from our even our parish is I'm pretty sure not not uh not really accurate. But yeah, I don't know how many people live in the district. I would peg it at maybe one to two hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah, a couple hundred thousand, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

And that was and you had said that there's eight different uh medical institutions in the district, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

There there's one Catholic, no, sorry, there's two Catholic health centers, there's AYPC, and I think there's probably about eight government facilities. I could do that, I could figure it out in my head, but I think that that's a that's an approximately correct number.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Do you sense that people trust the clinic? What's the reputation?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Again, I think this my whole goal on this is on patient care is that we should we would just have an excellent reputation. There's there is uh you know, we can we have we are known as a clinic that always has workers. We're known as a clinic that always has the drugs and the tests in stock. Um and so people always come to us when they strike out somewhere else, let's say. They go to the hospital when they don't have whatever they need, so they come to AYPC. Um and then we're also in terms of in addition to the actual health centers that are in our district, we have these kind of unlicensed drug shops uh that are all over the place. And you can go there and buy whatever drugs you want. We don't have kind of, you know, an well, we do have an FDA, but we don't have, you know, we don't have limits on what you can buy. Okay. You don't have to have a prescription for anything here. And so um, you know, if people get sick and they say, I have a fever, I'm gonna go to the drug shop and buy malaria tablets, and I take them and I feel better, and okay, great. You don't have any idea if you actually had malaria. You make you make an assumption because you got better, or if you don't have enough money, maybe you buy two tablets instead of six, and then you feel better after you know the second day, and so you don't buy any more, then you get you know, malaria comes back later. That's a whole other aspect of health care in Uganda, and I think especially in our district. So we also have, in terms of our relationship with the drug shops, we're because we're subsidizing the cost of care, we're the cheapest option. The government is free, obviously, but the government often, as I said, doesn't have what you want, so you then you go to the drug shop to buy the drugs anyway. Um, so we have we have all of those things, but I really want us to have the reputation of people come because they get the best service where we are. Um and I think we have I think we have a reputation like that, but I want us to be more and more kind of almost exclusively known for that. Um you know, if we decided we're gonna subsidize things less or whatever it is, that people would still come because they just really want the good care that we're gonna give. That would be my goal. I think and I think we're working towards that. But that's a long answer and probably a largely relevant answer to your question.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Do you have any anecdotal stories you could share that might demonstrate how how people view the the clinic walking a long ways or yeah?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

I mean, not even anecdotal. We uh we in 2019 kind of uh Leah Hopp, one of one of the missionaries here, um did a lot of work on the data from 2019. So we have, you know, we have we keep all the data from all of our patients. So it's all in paper books. So we took about three months of like maybe not three months, but a a while, maybe a month or two, every night, kind of for a couple hours sitting and doing data entry from these books into the into an Excel spreadsheet to kind of map where are our patients coming from, where are diseases being seen in this district, and that kind of thing. And um yeah, we I 50, I think over 50% of our patients come from um outside of our catchment area, which our catchment area, as we're a health center two, is technically uh our parish. So about half of our patients come from our parish, which is a couple villages, and then half of them come from elsewhere in the district, other districts, and so necessarily they're walking past or driving past or whatever it is, they're they're coming past um other health centers to come to us. So that's not a very interesting anecdote. Well, how far would you say people are willing to come? We I would say the the the farthest that we have maybe statistically significant people coming from is I don't know, I don't know how we do it in terms of mileage, but let's say a two-hour walk. Whether they're walking or taking a motorcycle or I don't know, but but quite a quite a distance.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

We have a few people that come for other things. We have we're one of the only facilities around that stocks anti-rabies. Um and so we get people coming from farther for that reason. But aside from those few cases, I think the only Yeah, I think we we probably get people from about two hours walk away on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Can you talk a little bit about how the clinic interacts with other medical care facilities? What is the relationship with the other medical care facilities or even the um the health department?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, I mean we're we're basically part of the health care delivery system for Uganda. I mean, we're we're kind of folded into that. We are we are so there's there's three categories in Uganda. You've got government facilities, you've got private not-for-profit, which is what we are, and you've got private for-profit, which is largely um bigger hospitals in urban areas. Um as a private not-for-profit, we do get some minor assistance from government. Uh we report to government, so we you know we fill out weekly and monthly and annual reports that go to them. Uh we, you know, hypothetically, we attend trainings that they're offering and we uh and they come and check up on us and that kind of thing. So we're we're not we're not government in the sense that we're not, we don't, we're not bound to all of the policies and all of the practices that they have, but we're very much a part of the system. As I mentioned earlier, I think you know, because we're in Accalay, they're not going to open a competing facility in Nakalay, basically. So um, and then in practical terms, we also do, I mean, like I said earlier, seven kilometers away is the hospital. So any patient that needs uh something that we can't provide, we refer them up to the hospital. Um if the hospital can't provide it, then the hospital refers them to the regional referral hospital and so forth up the up the chain. Um so yeah, we we have we do have a relationship with the various other facilities, whether hierarchical or you know casual or whatever it is. A number of the people that we're employing right now have maybe uh done internships or whatever at other government facilities. So we have a small network of people that we know around.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Most of our listeners will have never been. I mean, never come take care of you, um, never see physically um the clinic, although there you do have a website, right? Sort of. Sort of. Uh is it aypc opum.org. Opum.org. And then there's a page for we have a page on our website, yeah. For the clinic, so they can even see some pictures of it. But could you maybe um somebody's sick, uh they decide to come to this clinic? What's their experience going to look like? Just kind of walk them, walk them through a little bit what what they're gonna experience, what are they gonna see, how are people dressed, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Uh well, we have so the facility is all basically under one roof, which has the Three buildings and then kind of corridors in between and a large waiting area in front. So you come into the clinic, you'll first go to the large waiting area. You'll get registered, you'll pay a registration fee. From there, they will uh triage you, take your history, uh, and then either you'll most likely be sent to the lab. We pretty much screen everybody who comes to the clinic for malaria because it's so endemic in our area. I think our I think our district is one of the highest, if not the highest, uh incidence of malaria in the country. So we you know we regularly find people who come in for you know tooth pain and they have malaria. So we we found it's just easier to screen everybody. So that means that virtually everybody goes to the lab. Um on the off chance you don't go to the lab, you'll see a clinician. Um so to do the history taking and the and the triage, we actually have local people who are not necessarily formally trained, but we've been trying we've trained them in our facility to do those jobs. Uh, and then they can recommend only a few lab tests. Most of the lab tests will come as are at a request from either a nurse or a clinician. Um Uganda, just incidentally, Uganda uh nurses and clinical officers also treat and prescribe patients, unlike in the US, where I think a doctor has to do that in most cases. So we don't have a doctor in the facility right now, but our level of facility really only need a nurse to run it. So we actually have the next level up of staffing from what we're supposed to have, which is good. I I don't think I want to have a facility where we just have nurses, but anyway, yeah, so you'll you'll either go to the lab or you'll see a clinician. We have four uh examination rooms where a clinician will talk to you, do a physical exam if necessary, um, and prescribe for you, look at your lab results, and then you'll go to the pharmacy and get your uh order filled. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Can you talk a little bit about maybe the spiritual aspect of the clinic as it's a part of the uh ministry of the Orthodox Lutheran Uganda mission?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Since 2018, we've had a chaplain on staff. So he does staff devotions in the morning uh every day, every day of the week. We're open Monday through Friday. So he does that in the morning before we start work, and then mid-morning he will do kind of a gospel presentation, short sermon kind of thing for the patients who are waiting uh in the waiting area. Generally, everybody wants to come around 8 to 9. That's when most of our patients come. Just they the it's drilled into them that this is Uganda. So in most cases, if you come, you've got to get there early because you might be there all day. And also, you know, we have the uh the vagaries of the weather around here in rainy season. You don't want to have to go home while it's pouring rain in the afternoon. So generally by mid-morning, we have most of our patients for the day will be sitting in the waiting area at one point in their journey. So he'll do a yeah, he does a short gospel presentation, he invites people to church. We don't have a formal, this is one thing I'd like to I'd like to see us improve on. We don't have a formal mechanism for every patient going and talking to the chaplain. Uh one, I don't think I don't know that he would have time for that. And two, um it yeah, we just we haven't gotten around to it. I think if uh if we have a ministry team there, that might make it easier to do that. Um because you'll have more, you'll have more manpower. And yeah, he's got he also has this he has to spend time preparing devotions and that kind of thing, too. So um, yeah, I think that's one area I would like to see us uh improve in the future. Uh but we do still have, you know, in case of anything, any clinician can send a patient to the chaplain to be prayed for, and that does periodically happen. Um, especially I think you know, if if there's emergencies or whatever, we um we're referring to somebody whose child is you know deathly ill or something like that. We will request them to come and pray with them and and uh offer them some spiritual comfort or guidance before they you know get on the uh motorcycle up to the hospital or whatever it is. Uh he's also been great in just handling uh interstaff disagreements and that kind of thing as a you know, kind of as a counselor and a mediator, exactly. So uh he's been really good at that. And I think, yeah, I think he's viewed well in the community. Um he is an outsider, he's not a Karamajong, so he is in some ways he's a little closer than we are, but he's also you know he is Ugandan. He's Ugandan, yeah. Yeah, but he's from a different tribe. So I think he's he's maybe a middle ground between a missionary and a Karamajong in terms of how the community would view him.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

So are people are patients open to listening, to being prayed for? Which how would you characterize that?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I I think in general, yes, people are open to that. Whether or not it means anything to most people is probably not as clear. I would say, you know, largely, maybe not. Um, but this in Uganda, you don't if somebody says, Can I pray for you, or can I, you know, offer you some advice or some or something like that, I don't think I feel like virtually nobody will say no to that. Um, what they will then do with it after you give it to them is you know, I think a lot of most people will probably be in one ear and out the other, but not everybody.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Lots of sowing of the seed. Yeah. I forget, uh, I'll never forget. Pastor Al said to me one time, he said, the next time somebody disagrees with me when I teach the Bible in Karamoja will be the very first time. So that's funny. He said, you know, everybody says, Yes, Pastor, you're right, Pastor, we agree, Pastor, and then they just go out and uh you know live their life the way they were before. So that's I that's I think one of the major spiritual challenges that we have here is trying to ascertain who's who's really serious about their faith and how do we identify those people and work with them.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Can you talk a little bit personally how your view of the gospel and of Christ has grown during this time of service in this way?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

I would, I mean, there's so many directions to go. I'd say the the clearest thing, and maybe not the most in-depth or useful thing, is the I think the the teaching of Jesus becomes so much more living or present, I could say, living here. When you talk about, you know, I'm the good shepherd or the parable of the four soils or something like that. It just comes alive here because you know I'm from you know I'm from San Diego, so I have a you know a quarter acre that, you know, three-quarters that is my house or whatever. And uh, you know, I'm I'm trying to grow like six tomatoes in my backyard, uh, versus here it's just you know, community and everything about life is so geared towards agriculture and pastoralism and all that kind of stuff. You know, when it when it says though in the Psalms, those who go out weeping with their seed will come back with their sheaves, uh say singing or joyful, or you get a sense of that here because we have hunger season here. There's a you know, there's a time of year when you're looking at your bag of grain, you're thinking, Am I gonna eat that or am I gonna put that in the ground and hope for the best? Um, and so that you know, those kinds of things are just so much more uh visceral, I think maybe is the right word here, than they are for somebody like me who just lives in the city in the US and has very little connection to you know the earth or whatever you want to say. So I that's that's one thing. I think, I mean, how many other directions could I go in? I think you get a another thing is you get you get a very real sense of human depravity here. I don't think people here are necessarily any worse than they are in the US, but it's definitely more obvious. Um, I think you know, sins are just so much more public here, they're so much more uh uh basic. They're not it's just hard to hide things in in a lot of ways. And so I, you know, you yeah, you just get a sense of that. And you know, we also have the blessings of many, many years of kind of you know, more or less Christian cultural foundations that we have in the US that just isn't here. Everybody here, even if even if they're 100 years old, is basically a first generation Christian. So, I mean, yes, the gospel has been in Karamoja for 90 years, maybe a hundred years now, but it's just it has it has progressed so slowly that there's the the impact is not felt generally generationally at or hardly at all here. I think the other thing that we are learning, and I think we're learning even more as we uh as we uh slim down on our team here, is that uh we just we are not the solution to everybody's problem. It does throw you back on the gospel and say, you know, more and more you just look at the problems that we see here and say, the gospel is the only answer for this. Uh when you've got a big team and you've got money and you've got ideas and all this kind of stuff, it's very easy to slip into the thinking that we can solve all these people's problems with our resources, uh, with our ingenuity or with what you know, our education or whatever it is. And um in some ways, yeah, again, you know, our team getting smaller and smaller has had the good side effect of forcing us to remember that the gospel is the only thing that's really going to have a lasting impact here. We can drill as many boreholes as we want, we can help as many people as we want at the clinic, but it's not gonna have a it's not gonna have a meaningful eternal impact, certainly, but even you know, generational impact, I think, unless the gospel takes root.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

What would you say are some positive things we can learn from the camera, John?

SPEAKER_00 32:06

James preached on Sunday, you were there, David, about Noah. And the one thing that I really took away from that, which I have never considered before, was he said, What would you do if your if the church was only your family? Basically, you know, that's essentially what he said was in Noah's time the church had shrunk down to Noah's family. And I think that is something that is very true here. Um, I again I don't I don't think there's anywhere where you can say there's a cohesive community of Christians here. We do have a church, we have a congregation, but in terms of you know, when these Christians go back out into their homes in the village, they're like little isolated pockets. Um, you know, it's you can't just say, Oh yeah, my neighbor's a Christian, and this neighbor's a Christian, and my and my you know, mother and father are Christians, and so we have this little community of Christians here. I think every single person or every single nuclear family who is who claims the name of Christ is a almost a church of one, you know, kind of and so it puts it in perspective. I think, you know, I think it helps us to have compassion on uh the faults that we see in the Christians who are here. Uh when you really when it really when you really think about the difficulty that there is in that. I said I we were we were back in the US. I'm gonna get to your I'm gonna answer your question eventually. When we were in the US this summer, I I said I I was just talking about our work and I was telling our church that you know that you have the parable of the four soils, and you have the good soil there, it is there, but in you know, just in terms of gardening or farming, the edge of the field is never the place that produces the good fruit. The edge of the field is always you know the stragglers and and all that. So when we have such a small portion of good soil here, um you you have to you're you have to expect you know this kind of straggly, misshapen, lousy fruit. Um, and that's part of what we need to do. We're trying to push out the boundaries of the good soil to expand the garden so that there's a nice rich place in the middle there where uh fruit can grow, you know, where plants can grow and thrive, not on the edges, on the boundaries of the field. So um, sorry, getting back to your point, as I look at some of these Christians who I really truly believe are Christians, they really have faith, they really are struggling to live a Christian life in their community, um, I think we can learn tremendously from their faithfulness. You know, weak as it may be, but they have none of the benefits that you know that you know maybe our your listeners or me or you or whatever have had in having a solid Christian community and having maybe grown up in a solid Christian family or all of that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Um yeah, I th so I as I look at some of these people and I think, man, they're being they're being faithful in the midst of absolutely unbelievable counter-cultural pressure.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Um, that's an encouragement to me.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Yeah, I was thinking about the the cult, the the we have we probably have no sense of the pressure, the cultural pressures that are on them as as members of a very broken community. Yep. And yet the as they yearn to live for Christ in the midst of that, it's it's very encouraging to just see.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Uh you know, it takes you honestly back to all these letters that Paul wrote in the New Testament where he's you know, you look at some of these letters and you're like, really, you know, is this really a big issue? You know, are we really talking about meat sacrificed to idols or whatever? You know, we just don't even think about that kind of stuff anymore. But these people are living it, you know. They in some ways that's that's that, you know, first generation Christianity that has no contemporary example to follow, you know.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Yeah. If someone's listening to this and is moved by what they're hearing, what would you tell someone about taking a step forward to to see if service in the mission field, particularly maybe medical missions or here in Karamoja? What's what's that step forward that you would encourage folks to consider in exploring such service?

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Don't get on the plane and come to Africa right away. I guess that's what I would say. That's the that's obviously what people people who are moved tend to do or tend to think is the right answer. And I I don't want to say that's the wrong answer necessarily, and again, you know, as I said earlier, I I came when I was useless and had uh you know no intention of being a missionary or whatever, and here I am. So I can't discount that entirely. Um but I would say pursuing an active interest in missions in general as a first step, uh, you know, either get on your missions committee at your church or you know, maybe just talk to the people on your missions committee and you know, get more information on missionaries and you know, pray for them, send them an email, uh, you know, whatever, whatever that looks like. Communicate with missionaries, get get kind of a sense of the lay of the land or whatever it is with missions. And you know, also, you know, we are all we all have mission fields close to home. So I I guess yeah, I should also say I, you know, coming to Uganda was not the first thing I ever did. I did I did uh two years of Team Baja, which was you know just over the border. And having done that, me and a couple of my friends from New Life, you know, would go on Saturdays down and do stuff for Dave Crohn. Um so we had in Mexico. Yeah, in Mexico, in Tijuana. So there were some, you know, I didn't think about it at the time, but there were baby steps, I think, that maybe led to my being here today. You know, my parents, my whole life growing up, missionaries were just coming through the house all the time. Uh, whenever they were coming to, you know, talking in life or whatever, they would always stare at my folks' house. So um whether or not that was on a subconscious level or I don't know, you know, we can call it formative, I think. It was those were the building blocks that led to me thinking I should go to Uganda and do something. So I would say, yeah, the first the first step is uh you know, gauge your interest in it. I mean, I'm a I know I'm an incredibly emotive and moving speaker, but don't be fooled by me. But yeah, but at the same time, I don't want to discourage people from coming. I mean, we like having visitors, uh, and I think there is a great value in coming and seeing the work, seeing you know what the mission is doing, what the not only what the mission is doing, but you know, getting a sense of the global church beyond you know the kind of North American norm norms that we have, and not even that, you know, Presbyterian, OPC, whatever. Um seeing that you know God does work in different ways and different styles and all that kind of thing throughout the world. I think probably more than anything, having been on different missions trips, that was the most impactful thing to me was seeing seeing God working in the different churches throughout the world. Rather than I mean, uh yeah, rather than what necessarily missionaries are doing or missions are doing.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

So, Chris, we want you to know you're not alone. Uh let's leave listeners with just one thing they could be praying for you guys at the dinner table tonight. What's that what's that one thing that you think they should be praying for?

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Uh well, can I get more than one thing? If you'd like to get more than one thing you would. Can you break the rules again? Sure. I would say pray for our team. Again, we're we're facing a uh big shortage of missionaries here. So, okay, actually I'm gonna make it three. Pray for more missionaries to come here. That's number one. Uh pray for our team in the absence of what I would consider a full a full team, that we would persevere, that we would be encouraged, that we would be able to be spiritually fed, and that we wouldn't, you know, get tired and jaded and uh and all that with the work that we have. And then the third thing, which should have been the first thing, is uh something I've been thinking about a lot for the clinic this year. Uh, and that's again with our team shrinking down, we just don't know what the future of this work is going to be. And so it's on my heart and mind that what do we do with the clinic going forward? Um you know, if the mission needs to downscale or if the mission needs to close or whatever, I would like to see the clinic continue, but how do we do that? Uh, and I think one of the things that I'm I've talked to a few people on the staff about, and I'm hoping we'll again planting seeds, I'm hoping we'll see something sprout up, is uh that some of these staff would become missionaries themselves. Not necessarily, you know, missionaries, you know, gospel preaching missionaries, although that would also be great, but uh that they would look at this clinic that we have here, its proximity to the local church, its ties to the local church, and that they would say, we we really want to see this work continue, maybe at sacrifice to ourselves, either professionally or from you know, uh proximally to their families or whatever it is. Uh we want to see this work continue and we're willing to uh be missional about it. We're willing to to sacrifice and to say this is this is our uh effort at uh seeking first the kingdom of God. Um and we do it in faith that that you know all things will be added to us, uh which is not it's just not a common thing for professionals in Uganda. So it's that will be that would be a very counter-cultural thing to do. Um and it's kind of a big ask for anybody who's working for us, but the Lord knows he can work. So pray that uh somebody would be, somebody, some people, more than one, would be found who would like to take ownership of that work and carry it on.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Nice. Yep. It's a great way to end. Chris, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. I hope in this brief interview, listeners are given at least a glimpse into how the Lord's using the Christian witness of this clinic to demonstrate the compassion and mercy of Christ here in this remote region of Uganda. Thanks. Yeah, great to be with you. Thanks for joining us. Go to our website, thereformdeacon.org, where you will find all our episodes, program notes, and other helpful resources. And please make plans to join us again next month for another episode of the Reformed Deacon Podcast.