Just an update on Okutot and storying – we’ve been “out of town” for a while (most of Dec) – we have a retreat with KACHEP every four months, the last was in the Jinja area (at Mto Moyonyi on the Nile River – discussed Jim Collins’ “Good To Great”) and we have been a bit fragmented with coming and going – but the last time we storied was pretty cool – “David & Goliath” is always a favorite among pastoralists, telling as it does the story of a shepherd boy who cleverly defeated a great warrior leading an enemy raid – the first time I told this (recently) was at a spraying event in Kasyapus (walking distance from Nabilatuk) and the shepherds got very excited and said, “that’s exactly how it is with us” and laid out a large number of parallels – so, I was pretty confident of a good response, but how to connect it to Jesus (the ultimate goal of all our work)??
- well, Jesus was not only Son of God and “Son of Man” but “Son of David” – and he did at the cross, and will do at his 2nd coming, what David did here: go into battle for us – then I remembered something I learned about the military (and police) from my brothers: they put their bodies in between the enemy and their homeland (“In Harm’s Way,” as it were) – this is a fundamental act of substitution – not only does the champion represent the nation but he offers himself as a potential sacrifice for those in whose place he fights – Saul was supposed to be the champion of Israel but neither he nor any other soldier was willing to go out to face Goliath, the possibility of “sacrifice” was far too great – David’s question was to the point, “For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God?" [1 Sam 17:26] and his counter-taunt to Goliath was meant for Israel “after I cut off your head, then all the world will know … and all Israel will know …” – the ones who didn’t fight only saw the giant but the kid who did, saw the God who had delivered him from lion and bear – Jesus did this for us, though on that occasion, unlike David, he won by dying rather than by killing, so that “all the world would know ...”
- we’re getting good responses to events but not yet getting the depth of response that comes from putting it all together – part of that is because we’ve been inconsistent for the last number of months; the other part is, when we are consistent, we only go once a week – hard to build on such thin foundations
Tom
PS - We're back in Karamoja -together with Simon and Carina Gruber from Pioneers Germany- we'll take an overnight in Okotoot in a couple of days as we finish off the meeting room foundation for KACHEP. We pray that next month a small team from USA (Wis, Fla) will join us to finish up this last Nabilatuk project....
