Peace Village

After completing on Friday week one of the oral story telling training with the CLIDE staff (Community Livestock Integrated Development Consultancy) Saturday morning we headed north by van for a 3 hour drive to the Nakayot Peace Village.  Upon arriving we were greeted by some of the village leaders and their one elected Local Community leader.  This is a government position.  They showed us the school that has been destroyed by a storm and termites.  There are a couple of rooms that they can sometimes use, but for the most part the children of the different elementary levels meet under nearby trees.

Next was a walkthrough of the village itself.  You enter the village through a low gate and once inside you see a number of separate family groupings.  Each of these are called a minyatta.  Along the way through the village we were greeted with Ajoka.  Hello, or “I see you”.  To which we responded Ajok. A large number of children were following us wherever we went.  Always wanting to shake our hand.

The goal of our village walk about was to go to the edge of the village to see the hut that the village leaders had provided for Dr. Val several years ago.  It had fallen into disrepair and Val wanted to check on it.  She was blessed to find that it had been completely restored by one of the village family’s

From the Peace Village we traveled to Kangole where we would spend the night.  On Sunday we attended a 3 hour church service at St. Marks Anglican Church.  This was a wonderful and unique worship experience for our team.  Each of us got to share a greeting to the congregation.  The service was also attended by Joseph, the Anglican Bishop for all of Karamoja.  Cannon Zachary was also there.  Zachary was recently canonized by the Anglican Church for his lifelong commitment to Christ, especially the 28 years he spent translating the entire Bible into the Karamojong language.

During the service Bishop Joseph asked Mike and Gail to come up and dedicate several new born babies.  Later Mike, Dorothy, and Julie were asked to pray for a woman whom they suspect is under spiritual attack. 

After lunch we started our journey back to Soroti. While we were gone they had been heavy rain and the dirt roads were much worse than when we traveled north the day before. 

Monday is planned to be a day of rest and preparation for the next four days of training. Our team is healthy and in great spirits.  Thanks for all your prayers.  They are working.