September 18, 2025

Uganda Trip #15 | Post 10

Sometimes travel is not a straight line! More on that later.

In today’s post, I want to emphasize the importance of partnerships in ministry, especially in overseas endeavors.

The picture accompanying this post highlights some of these partnerships. The top row consists of three brothers from Alabama. Yancy Carpenter is the president of Four Corners ministry and is the chief funding and support agency for all that takes place at Abaana’s Hope, the 100-acre ministry site in northern Uganda. The man in the middle is Bernard Anderson, pastor of Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Auburn, AL. The third in the top row is Jimmy (whose last name I am spacing out right now) who is the founder of the ministry. What they have developed over the years is really remarkable.

There is now a church, Cornerstone Community Church, an elementary school, a farm that is employing methods yielding 6 times the yield than the norm in Uganda. Then there is the PTC – the Pastoral Training Center that we have been assisting the last six years.

We had a lot of good-natured ribbing between the Yankees from up north and our brothers from the south. When Bernard got a little agitated during a conversation, I was able to follow up with a two-hour discussion, which was good for both of us. I felt I understood a bit more life for a child in the south in the 50’s and 60’s. He would see the doctor in a waiting room with metal folding chairs and cement floors. His white neighbors had padded chairs, carpeting and TV. It’s so hard to believe this took place in my lifetime.

Yancy and Jimmy have been instrumental in creating the infrastructure that allowed the PTC to flourish. We had 68 graduates on Saturday, and they helped raise funds that created classrooms, dormitories, library and a new kitchen. We then used these spaces to help train the church leaders.

By the way, the front row in the picture is Mike Evans, yours truly, and Stu Dix. The three of us have probably been on 12-15 of these trips together. We were good friends before and that has only deepened over these trips to Uganda. We figured between the three of us, there were probably 65 trips between us.

Here are some other leaders…

David Hagins is another southerner (by the way, they are all rabid Auburn fans) and a full-time missionary with his wife Jessica and five kids. He makes sure all the day to day things take place such as having a driver pick us up and drop us off at the airport six hours away, western meals cooked every night (we use leftovers from lunch the next day), run into town to make sure we don’t run out of supplies (especially Coke Zero), and a myriad more. We simply show up, study and teach.

Benson, Sunday, and Vincent, three African men who have increasingly taken on more responsibility each year and will be running the PTC now because this movement is NOW and African lead one. Benson is so gifted that he could come to the States and do great. What I mean is not that he is good enough to teach Americans, but that he is gifted enough that he could teach and field questions at a place like FCC effectively.

Other leaders who have taught over the six years: Ben Reedy, Dan Fosterling, my son, and Tim Prince from FCC. Peter Bergeson from FCC New Richmond. Rob Kazmarek from the Bridge Bible Church, Somerset, and Ron Weller from The River in River Falls.

John Blum took a trip with me before we made the commitment to help me map out a process to ensure that an abiding network of African led churches took hold (as much as man can do so). His help created the grid that we followed over the last six years.

The partnerships continue…

Training Leaders International (TLI) provided a cross cultural, tested curriculum that served our African leaders well. Going into each course with a quality curriculum was really helpful. The last unit was on the book of Revelation, and frankly, I avoided teaching this three years ago. I couldn’t hide this time through, but I found the materials helpful to get through the task, but it has helped me in my understanding and approach toward the end of all things. This book wraps up how TLI states all that the Scripture seeks to communicate…

For His glory,

God is reconciling

The world unto Himself

Under King Jesus

The last two chapters of Revelation give us great insight into what this reconciled world will be like. I’m looking forward to it.

Briefly, our travel home has been a bit…you can fill in the words.

We got to the Entebbe airport early, only to be told that our first leg to Brussels would be delayed two hours and would cause us to miss connecting flights. Mike was to be going from Entebbe to Brussels, Brussels to Zurich Switzerland, and Zurich to Naples, Italy where his wife would join him for their 5oth anniversary.

Stu was scheduled to Brussels, Brussels to MSP, MSP to Kalispel, MT, where he would meet up with his wife and drive from their summer home in Glacier National Park, where they worked this summer.

For some reason I was scheduled to Brussels, Brussels to Newark to MSP.

We waited in line (a warm line, the A/C couldn’t keep up) for an hour plus as they came up with alternatives. In the end, Mike and Stu were routed the exact same way, but I got the good news that I would go Brussels to Chicago (stopping in the C concourse to get a Chicago Dog) to MSP.

Our 11:25 flight from Entebbe was supposed to leave late at 12:30, but didn’t get off the ground till 2:00 am making all our plans irrelevant. Our routes became…

Mike: Brussells to Munich, Munich to
Stu: Brussels to London to Seattle, Seattle to MSP, MSP to Kalispel. He had (has actually-he and I are still in the air) to fly past his destination twice before landing!
Larry: Brussels to Newark, Newark to Cleveland, Cleveland to MSP. My time from arriving at the Entebbe airport to the arrival at MSP is/was about 32 hours…quite a grand for my last trip.

We flew United…I miss the earlier trips of Delta. MSP to Amsterdam to Entebbe. One this we came to appreciate is United’s app is quite helpful. We didn’t feel the extra cost was worth it on the front side. I think the savings aren’t so compelling right now.

I am tired. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. I has been so very worth it. I have mixed feelings about leaving Hudson at 12:15 on Thursday for a ten day trip to Poland with my siblings.

I anticipate one final post before shutting down this phase.