It’s a Sunday morning, and today we have arrived early at the trees where the people will come for prayers. So, Emmanuel and I set off to visit some close-by manyattas to let the people know that we are here. Emmanuel is my companion and language helper on this occasion; he is a young lay reader with the Church of Uganda (Anglican). As we walk through one village, we come across a group of young men being taught by a blind elderly man how to make a large granary out of woven canes. These hold about 1,000 kgs of grain.

I think, “How do we share with them? Will they engage with us? I can’t sing a song in their language, but maybe Emmanuel could, solo. Dare I ask him?” Being caught unprepared and not wanting to be seen as foolish, I chicken out. After a short time, we move on! Yes, we had time to share with them, but we didn’t seize the opportunity with new creativity, so we missed out. I was disappointed with myself!

Another Sunday, in a different part of the district, the singing had already started under the trees, the regular attendees had started to gather, and the circle of singers began to enlarge. Having very little ability in the language, I danced and mimicked the singing a little, but all the time focussing a lot on what was happening around us.

Here comes a group of young men down the road towards us, about fifteen of them, going together somewhere. Can we get them to stop and join us today? Knowing that these young men enjoy music in the warriors’ style, I ask Amuk, the song leader, to change the style of music to the men’s style. The music changes, and now the men are close. “Emmanuel, go and invite them to join us!” Will they dare stop? Yes, the leader of the group is prepared to join the circle!

About half of the men enter, but one who would not join tries to get them all to leave. “No,” says the leader, “we stay.” The disgruntled ones go and sit under a nearby tree. I’m delighted that some of the young men have joined us, as here in the Karamoja, very few young men come to Christian prayers. Praise God that today, a group stay and listen to the Good News about Jesus, and even the ones under the neighbouring tree are close enough to hear the message!

It’s a Thursday, and I have started going to a village where there are a number of small communities of Jesus-followers nearby (within 30 minutes’ walk). I am teaching from the book of Ephesians, and there are a number of teaching points that can be illustrated by examples from the culture.

“He has chosen us in Christ before the creation of the world.” Ephesians 1:4. The Karimojong believe that God had chosen them to look after all the cattle of the world. They want their sins, the problems of life to be gone, to be behind them, but to them, God has become distant, and life is filled with one problem after another. Yes, it is like they are even experiencing the wrath of God (Ephesians 2:3).

The old men with many cattle and many sons are believed to be the closest to God, but even then, many of these men are losing their cattle to raiders, soldiers and disease, and their sons are also often lost in the raids. So, they think that God is not close and that He does not want them anymore. But this does not have to be true! (Ephesians 2:4, 8, 13, 19)

In the first two weeks that I was there, only two older men came to the group, the only believers amongst the elders. But over the next three weeks, more and more older men came, until on one side of the circle, there were at least fifteen elders sitting on their little stools, listening to the Word of God. I don’t know the long-term effects of these times, but if the elders give permission to the younger generation to explore and experience life in Jesus, big changes will come to the community.

The lives of the Karimojong men that I know who have chosen to follow Jesus have been very much changed. One man, Mariko, had had the reputation of being a strong and fierce warrior; nobody messed with him. But now, he is peaceful, filled with the joy of Jesus, and he loves to lead groups in prayers and to take the Word of God to new places using a cell-phone-sized solar-powered audio player called a Treasure. When he prays for people, he has even seen God perform miracles.

When we were preparing to return to New Zealand after almost five years’ service in the Karamoja, some of the men told me, “Thank you Bruce, for coming and being a teacher and friend to us who have not been to school. The other missionaries we have met only spend time with those who are educated.” We look forward to hearing more about what God is doing through these men in that part of the Karamoja. Perhaps we will have a good opportunity to return and encourage them!