January 17, 2024 Almost Home | Uganda Trip #11 (January 12) I’m sitting with Stu and Mike in the Amsterdam airport during our six-hour layover here. I’m anxious to land at MSP at 4 pm on Saturday, see Carol, get cleaned up, try to stay up till 9 pm. I hope I get a good night’s sleep before gathering with you all at FCC on Sunday morning. I anticipate dosing in and out of consciousness on Sunday, watching football playoffs. We ended our classes this week well. Our students were engaged and worked hard at grasping how to handle the interpretation and communication of Old Testament Narrative and Law. I found our work on the law most helpful as we sought to see the law in light of God’s character and how Christ fulfilled the law before we move on to application. Application…that is often the struggle. I notice it in my small group when we go through the FCC sermon and conversation guide. We find it easy to make observations, but how does it apply today, or to put it another way, “So what?”. Most of the troubles we have in the church is not failing to know the Bible, it has to do with failing to appropriately apply the Bible. 

There are some really incredible leaders that we are working with who are sharing leadership with us, and they seem prepared to take over our function. Then it will be all theirs, as it should be. As a matter of fact, we have identified two men that we think could be sent to other countries. The goal of an enduring movement of gospel-centered, Bible-saturated, African lead churches seems within reach. I look forward to our next trip in May. I also look forward to being back at FCC soon! Larry Szyman Pastor for Missional Life

January 9, 2024 In The Classroom At Last | Uganda Trip #11 Today we started our five days in the classroom. I was fairly concerned about my capacities as my jet lag has been really bad this trip. Last night I probably got 2 ½ hours of sleep, and I was afraid my body was going to decide it was tired when I was teaching, and I’d be incoherent. Thankfully, that was not the case and my energy level was solid. Our subject matter for this round is Understanding and Communicating the genres of narrative and law in the Scripture, using Genesis and Exodus. It is good to be reunited with the cohort, and my learning group in particular. It will be fun to see that even though they are quite familiar with the stories (narratives) in Genesis, how that knowledge can deepen as we give them tools for greater understanding and application. Our vision is to establish an abiding network of Gospel-Centered, Bible-Saturated, African-led churches. This means the leaders in my group (from Uganda, South Sudan, and the Congo) need to be equipped not only to understand but multiply leaders. This means sharing the teaching duties with what we call Lead Trainers, those who took the courses in a previous cohort and set themselves apart. Vincent (pictured) did a really solid job. Stu Dix suggested I take his phone, record him teaching, send him home to view it, and do a self-evaluation. Tomorrow we will go over his evaluation and I will give him mine. The temp was 102 today. The rest of the week looks a bit better, with highs topping out at 96. Whenever we are in our quarters, we each have a fan on us. It’s been cooling off enough at night that I haven’t sweat myself to sleep–yet. It’s an honor to work with these eager leaders. Pray that I get some sleep, please! Larry Szyman Pastor for Missional Life

Today’s thoughts will come from yesterday (Thursday, Jan 4). At 9 am, Mike Evans and a few local guys headed to a town called Kitgum (a 45-minute drive), while Stu Dix and I headed to the Adjumani district (one hour and 45 minutes), an area currently hosting 440,000 displaced people in 18 settlements (or neighborhoods). When we think of a refugee, we think of a person passing through on their way to a preferred place. The average length of stay for a refugee is close to 20 years! Churches are needed in this environment. Is it possible that a Gospel-Inspired Life can be experienced in this setting? Our pastors say “yes”!