The many Hats of leading a team in Uganda

 

The hats of teamwork in Uganda, 2023, are many, varied, mostly worth wearing, though some are reluctantly accepted. Here are the few from this week.

Chairing the Board of Christ School Bundibugyo Hat. On Friday, we spent the morning meeting with the staff prior to the arrival of the students for Monday's beginning of the new school year. The day combined practicalities of how classrooms will be assigned, introducing a new Swahili teacher and curriculum, listing repair projects to buildings and security precautions to follow . . . with inspirational speeches by the Head Teacher (Peter), the Spiritual Life Director (Mike), the Director of Development (Patrick), and us. The vision and mission were right over our heads, and Mike reminded us that our goal is to connect the head and the heart. Academic excellence, that's a given. But we don't just want to turn out people who take tests well, we want leaders who are committed to the common good of the community and who reflect and honour God in their lives. 

The staff listening to Deputy Head Teacher Theopista Salube who was celebrating the growing number of female teachers.

Peter reminded us that we are a team, each with unique strengths and weaknesses, but collectively we are a strong whole. Scott reminded us that our path is faith, that it's not easy to work with low resources in a remote place, but the vision of academically excellent servant leaders for the good of Bundibugyo and glory of God is worth our sacrifice. It's been over 20 years now, and we are seeing the impact of our graduates. This is Kingdom change, slow and fragile at times, but sure. We walk a difficult line of keeping fees low enough so that families in this place of poverty can afford to send their students, but also paying just wages to teachers and having nutritious food and safe facilities. This can only be done by subsidising half of operational costs and all of infrastructure costs. Parents pay fees that we match with donated funds, and we raise all the money for bricks and mortar (and computers!). We also have a provision of "OVC" (orphans and vulnerable children) scholarships, for those whose family can't even meet our subsidised fees. So the Board of Governors hat is also a chief fundraiser hat . . . and a budget supervisor hat, which involves nearly daily meetings, emails, bank transfer approvals, spreadsheets. ( I also had a short moment to speak to the staff wearing the "mama Jennifer" hat of having the long view of the school and the prayerful love of many life trajectories). 

Lindi our dog taking the cue that I've set out all the chairs for team meeting . . . 

Team Leading Hat. This one is daily and all hours for encouragement and supervision of a diverse team, and can range from medical consults to meals to technical advice to prayer. This hat is our main style on Thursdays when we are preparing a Bible Study (currently going through Isaiah using a Serge/New Growth Press Gospel Centred Life guide), prayer time, and business meeting that usually runs two hours and a 5-page 15-20 item agenda. The weekly anchors of Monday night local food in the kitubbi, and Thursday night team meetings and pizza (plus weekly women's and men's prayer times) help us stay on track, and build capacity to roll with the punches of living on the fraying edge. This week we had individual meetings with about half our team as well . . . and cheered on Alexis as she ran a 3-day literacy workshop training primary school teachers in the public and private schools locally to teach reading phonetically. 

  

Another fun team hat this week was substitute teacher at Rwenzori Mission School . . . since one of our teachers is on Home Assignment to raise more support and connect with family, and the most sensible alternative Alexis who IS a Kindergarten teacher was pulled out for the Literacy training above, I got to teach 1rst graders social studies and recess and reading comprehension and just delight in their ideas and energy. We can use a new teacher for Fall 2023 since our beloved Miss Laura is about to finish her two year term!

Legal Face of World Harvest Mission Uganda Hat. This is one of the heaviest hats we wear, and took most of Tuesday and Wednesday this week. On Tuesday we spent the day in Fort Portal, where our land lease as a foreign NGO requires us to renew periodically. The first Serge missionaries who came to Uganda worked to establish a base of operations in Kabarole district, both to serve as a more accessible and secure office for Bundi work and to invest in a local church in that area. We walked the land and spent hours with the elders and deacons of that congregation, men we have known for decades and who have often been advisors and friends. Our goal is to get all the paperwork in order to be sure the New Life Presbyterian Church denomination has the title to the church land, and that the mission land can continue to be used.

With Christine, Isingoma, Chris, Patrick and Abia from Fort (and John our mission administrator)

We also met with our lawyer, who then came out to Bundibugyo on Wednesday for episode-too-many-to-count in our seemingly endless court case here. To remind you, World Harvest bought a sizeable piece of land about twenty years ago to plant gardens to feed the CSB students and teach agriculture. Which we did for over a decade, then 8 years ago the family who had sold us the land and used the money to send their kids to school saw that cocoa was becoming a more lucrative option in Bundibugyo and decided to sue us to get the land back, saying that the man who sold it only really meant to lease it. In spite of many witnesses and years of struggle, the court decided to award the land back to this family  . . and this surprising ruling was upheld in spite of our appeal. So now we are in a stage where the plaintiff not only gets the land back, but is allowed to charge us all their court costs. So Christ School not only loses the land, but a lot of money. Not surprisingly, there are three law firms all claiming to represent the plaintiff and all vying for the right to bill us, and all their bills are not only 5+ times inflated from any possible reality-based legal costs but also amount to more than double the actual value of the land! However, in the Ugandan legal system, only one bill is allowed to be presented. So the judge called us all into his chamber and told the squabbling law firms for the other side that they were embarrassing the legal profession, but he gave them two more months to get their act together and create a unified bill. 

I sat for about two hours post the time we were told to appear, in the empty court waiting for the lawyers and magistrate.

The experience of injustice, while universal, still drains us. It is part of standing with marginalised people in places where the more powerful step on the less connected. We know that, and we resonate with a hundred Psalms that say the same thing. But it's still hard, and dehumanising to become revenue sources for the greedy.

The Serge Area Director Hat. This week we also had a long zoom with our Executive and Area leadership, to make some decisions, hear reports, and pray through many needs. These are people we love and know well and look forward to being with, both in person (see previous post!) and virtually. And pretty much every week there are a few hours of calls with the 11 teams in the six countries of East and Central Africa we supervise, or security committees, or emails to answer or reports to create.

Let me end with the human being hat. We still need to survive, to shop, to cook, to clean . . to have friends and to love and pray for our families. 

Living in the reclaimed jungle means the grass and weeds grow quickly . . . I do the laundry and Scott pretty much does everything else. Saturday mowing is in process as I type.

This week Ann Kieser, one of the most long-term team mates that we have and whom we lean on a lot, left for a 4-5 month home assignment. That's the normal rhythm of mission life, but a weight on the heart none the less. One of our kids had an injury-related surgical procedure, our niece and brother-in-law have birthdays today, Scott's mom lives in one of the American towns that had a mass shooting event this week. Perhaps this stage of life, with mothers who are 86 and 90 (but still independent!) and with kids who all live and work on a different continent than we do, the reality of this world not quite feeling like home is more acute. 

It's been a full week with many hats. In a few hours we'll be back down at Christ School for our beginning-of-year prayer walk, then we'll end the week in our Manchester United fan hats hopefully watching a great game. Thankful that one of our hats is being blessed by many friends who care, pray, and pull alongside us for a better world, in Jesus' name.

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