Feb 11 - Bible Distribution - 480 Bibles into the hands of thirsty Christians

Today was the first of five days distributing Bibles to the poor in areas near the Ugandan and Kenyan border. The pattern each day will be the same.

 DISTRIBUTION BY REGION BY CHURCH ASSOCIATION OR CHRISTIAN NON-PROFIT
     We are working through Uganda by region. Currently, our area is about 50 miles wide and 125 mile long. Pastors Monday and Okumu have selected areas where the church body is weak or the interaction between denominations is not strong.

  Based on these criteria, pastor associations representing 15 and 45 churches and many denominations select a location based on these criteria. The association is required to ensure Christians attending will be followed up. 

MORNING AND AFTERNOON DISTRIBUTIONS     
Morning Distributions
     The major difference is the morning sessions receive 3 hours of training on the importance of the Bible, ways to study the Bible and review the whole story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. 

Afternoon Distributions
    In the afternoon, we condense the morning session into about 45 minutes. Same message but shorter.
 
Who attends?
     The folks who come to the sessions represent between 20 to 50 churches of all kinds. The church hosting the event are selected by the pastor associations to help grow the church in a particular area or help a struggling church. This is a huge undertaking for these small local churches as typically 100 to 300 plus people come to receive a Bible.

HOW DO WE FOLLOW UP TO SEE IF THE BIBLES ARE BEING READ?
     We take the individuals name, cell phone number and church name. Association pastors must follow up each name. This also provides us a way to randomly follow up the pastor and/or the individual.

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MORNING
    Our morning stop was at Munamba Baptist. This rural church was packed and about 75 sat outside - they could see in and could hear and seemed to make notes like those inside. 320 came with requests for Bibles for 710 folks in their congregations. We were able to distribute 320 Lugandan, Lugandan diglots, and a few ESV English Bibles.
 
     Over 50 pastors came representing 25 or so denominations including one Catholic. They were sat up front so they could be sure to hear God’s plan for His people.

AFTERNOON
     The roads in these areas have deteriorated and are difficult to traverse and sometimes almost impassable. The afternoon stop begin at 3 pm. We were at Bubuaka Baptist.

JAPADHOLA PEOPLE     
     This is the area where most Japadhola people live. They are fiercely independent and tribal. Some still worship at a rock where they ask for blessings and to curse people. We drove by the rock and I can attest that it is a rock.
    The Japadhola New Testament was first published in 2003 and in early 2019, the complete Bible was published. 
     Many today were not aware that the complete Bible was available. So this was a joyous day for many to not only hear this news but to receive a Bible in their language. 
     
DISTRIBUTION
​    We competed attendance with a large funeral for a prominent local Ugandan so the turnout was lower than expected. But 32 pastors came and a little over 200 folks. The pastors apparently heard about the training from the morning and asked if we could come back to teach the more complete message of the Bible.
 
     I loved this place. It was like many of the rural churches filled with the salt of the earth. I do want to go back to this place God where is investing in His people. 200 Bibles were distributed mostly in Japadhola and Lugandan. We distributed all we had.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
These Christians and their churches have been slow to grow and mature in Christ without a Bible. In fact 85% of the population of Uganda are similar to the places we went this week.

Could you pray a short prayer that these people and these churches will read, study and share their Bible and that the harvest produced will be great?