Uganda: Every Tribe

"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb...And they cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." Revelation 7:9-10

Last Sunday my colleague Angela and I traveled with a priest to one of the 16 missions overseen by our parish church. These missions are composed of parish members who have no means to travel the distance from their extremely rural and isolated villages to the main church. They are visited by the priest for a service perhaps once a month (or less).

We bounced along a fissured dirt road past increasingly isolated and sparse villages, and then priest turned off the mud road and onto what appeared as a overgrown footpath barely visible amid the weeds. We drove for miles into the Ugandan “bush,” lurching and jostling between banana trees and cassava plants. The priest explained as we drove just how difficult life is at many of these missions. The people live many miles from the nearest store of any kind, and not a single person owns any sort of vehicle. They grow all the food they eat, but basic commodities like sugar, salt, and soap are very difficult to acquire.

When we arrived at the mission, the congregation was already gathered and had been patiently awaiting our arrival for several hours. Their humble church is in such poor condition that there is serious risk that it could collapse any moment upon their heads. Just the week before I had visited the rubble of another mission church which had collapsed upon and injured several church members. Therefore at this mission the congregation was avoiding danger by sitting outside under a canopy of tarps tied together by banana leaves and held up by sticks.

Part of the reason for our visit on this particular Sunday was to dedicate a new well that had been paid for by an American church. The gratitude of the villagers was overwhelming, because up until now their nearest well had been several miles away. It would take the children the better part of the day to collect jugs of water for their families and carry them home. Many children, we were told, had been drinking bacteria-ridden pond water. All the important persons of the village stood up and gave speeches about the need to care for this precious well, and a whole committee was selected to supervise and guard it.

At the end of the service that day, the priest appealed to those could afford to do so to try to save enough to give 500 shillings a month to help support their church, whose latrine is collapsing in addition to the building. This is the American equivalent of about 30 cents, but for many in this mission, to even think of sparing such a sum would be a major gesture of faith. 30 cents a month, a mighty sacrifice. My heart aches even in recalling it, and I find myself burning to cry out, “My American brothers and sisters in Christ, what are we doing?! What have we done?! We begrudge God the smallest sacrifices when the widow’s offering (Luke 21:1-4) is real and is happening every single day. Let us open our eyes and see our lives and hearts truthfully! Our brothers and sisters in Kikungo are calling us to repentance.”

The headmaster of the mission school told us that of the 350 students attending, only 30 will eat any sort of lunch each day. As guests, of course, we were served a lunch of matooke (steamed green bananas) with a kind of broth composed of little chicken bones that had been covered in water and cooked in banana leaves. As I watched the people around me hungrily consuming handfuls of matooke, I’ve never been more honored to partake of a meal.

What I will remember forever, however, is around in the middle of the service and seeing men and women with their hands clasped together and their faces turned upward, singing praises to the great mercy of Yesu Kristu (Jesus Christ). It hit me as I stood there that if there really is such a place as the “ends of the earth,” I might be pretty close to it, yet even here the name of Jesus Christ is honey upon the lips of a hungry people. The praises of God are being sung in corners of the globe we have never imagined, in places we as Americans can barely fathom. Here in the bush where survival is itself a daily struggle, even here the name of Jesus Christ is lifted high. And God is pleased by their worship. He is so, so pleased. We ourselves have become witnesses of Scripture fulfilled, of the ancient promises of God being made good. God is writing His name on all nations and tribes and tongues, and they are being called His People. Glory to the name of the One who has done this! Amina. Amen.

Meghan Good (with Angela MacDonald)