Uganda Delights

Happy October to you, our beloved family and friends!

Beautiful Uganda scenery

 

This past weekend marked four weeks since Eric and I have been back in Uganda and seven weeks since we have been married. We are fully settled in our home and work as we so gladly welcome a steady and healthy routine into our lives as a married couple.

Here are some snapshots of what we have been up to:

1.     We visited Eric’s old work- Pentecostal Theological College (PTC) and got to see some of his friends/former co-workers. They welcomed us in true loving hospitality. Eric will be helping them by working on their farm once a week to improve the productivity of the cows and continue to assess all components of the farm for quality sustainability.

2.     I am back at my work – LivingStone International University (LIU). I am teaching one class to the 3^rd year education students called: Philosophy of Education. This is my third year of working with these students and I have seen such tremendous development in their learning, behavior, and character. They are the change that we need in East Africa and I am so proud of them.

Eric also is co-teaching a computer class at LIU and he is doing an amazing job of teaching the students practical computer skills and connecting with each of them. In addition, Eric is also taking time to create a full academic curriculum for a new course at LIU in Agribusiness. He also is planning to spend some time at LIU’s permanent campus, as it is being built, to assess their land and do some tree and crop planting.

Eric teaching his computer class

LIU also just celebrated its 4^th graduation- we were both in attendance, although I was more involved since I have held an administrative position.

The top LIU administration and its highest scoring students

3.     An incredible part of our daily lives are building relationships. One of my favorite quotes is: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. 

Given that we are from a totally different culture, country, language etc.. it may seem challenging to connect with our African friends and build quality relationships. Amidst these barriers, the universal posture of love, care, and Jesus’s character allows for the immediate gift of connection.

Both Eric and I have a group of mentee students who we meet with formally once a week and informally with individual ones throughout the week. (Eric has 8 male students and I have 8 female students).  This mentoring time allows the students to ask questions and work through struggles. Mentorship allows a safe space for the growth of healthy and trusting relationships. I have been sharing with my ladies about what true beauty is and how to have strong friendships. Eric has been getting to know his guys through each of them sharing their life journeys, which has opened the door for discussions on faith, how to deal with doubt, how to spend money and how to navigate family dynamics.

A handful of various students have approached Eric and I and asked us to counsel them on how to have Godly dating relationships. It is our joy to do so! Often times in East Africa, the conversation of dating and romantic relationships is not welcomed, therefore there is a lot of confusion in how God has designed us to be in relationships, which leads to decisions and actions taking place in darkness.

One of the dating couples who we are in community with are Benard and Faith, they are pictured here. We love meeting with them, praying for them and we are grateful for their open hearts to share, learn, and listen.

Eric, Benard, Faith and Lauren 

We aim to keep the relationships with students that I have already built over my previous 2 years at LIU and before from my years of working in South Sudan at a secondary school there-there are 22 students who graduated from there and are now at LIU. Eric and I have planned fellowship gatherings with them as a way to connect and continue encouraging and supporting them.

4.     We are each connected to the international community here through a weekly men's prayer breakfast that Eric attends once a week and a ladies prayer breakfast that I attend once a week in addition to a weekly ladies Bible study. We use these opportunities to develop friendships with fellow expats who are actively working in various missions and international organizations.  We have dear friends here who we share meals, games nights and tea times with.

5.     Fun times:

·      We drove to the capital city to meet my mentors and dear friends: Dabbs and Mary Cavin (Mary spoke at our wedding)- they were in town visiting projects they are apart of.

·      Eric has been working tremendously hard on our home garden! He has been working alongside Ray, who is a helper around the compound that we share with another couple. We have about a dozen different crops growing alongside some flowers (sunflower included J)

Ray and Eric planting our garden

We are always grateful for your love and prayers. Even though we are far, you are still in our hearts and prayers!

Happy Fall and lots of love,

Lauren and Eric Ranck

A Whole New Season

Hello and welcome to the blog once again or if it is your first time then you are most welcome!

This is Lauren writing for me and Eric because if you have not heard, we are getting married in T- minus 10 days!  We are completely thrilled and so grateful for the individual journies that God has taken us on that have led us up to the beautiful gift of meeting, dating, and now starting a journey together.

How has all this happened?

Well, long story short- Eric found my name among mutual friends on Facebook in May 2017, he took immense courage to write me and that started us on a long distance friendship, quickly turned relationship through WhatsApp, Skype, emailing and then finally a one week visit to Uganda for Eric in October. It was our first time to meet after 5 months of talking - him in PA and me in East Africa.
We continued dating, I went to the US at Christmas for 3 weeks to visit, Eric and I spent time together, our families met, then Eric came to visit me again in Uganda for a week in March and proposed and I said YES!
I moved back to the US for 3 months in June hopping around Maryland (where my family is) and Pennsylvania (where Eric lives and his family too).

These last three months have been full and fun as we have gotten to know each other better, have gotten to know each other's families and some friends better and prepare for a lifelong marriage!

Defending his thesis

Included in these three months:

1. Eric's successful completion defense for his masters' thesis in Animal Science

2. Eric's GRADUATION from Graduate School! Congratulations!

3. I took a girls trip to Northern Ireland with two good friends

4. I moved in with a lovely family in State College to be close to Eric for the month of July

5. We have been wedding planning- including growing beautiful sunflowers!

6. We had time in Little Rock, AR with Laurens's dear friends (now Eric's dear friends too:))

7. We have had a beautiful time with our families: at the family cabin weekend with Eric's family, on the farm, a baseball games, dinners, breakfasts, etc etc!

8. Eric moved out of his home in State College after wrapping up an intense and very hard working season with grad school. He has been saying goodbye to friends, saying- see you later to church community at Grace Fellowship Community Church

9. We had a lovely couples shower that my parents hosted for us- many dear people, who we love came and it was a fun filled celebration

10. My mentor, Mary, hosted a special bridal shower in DC for me

DC Shower

Wedding Prep- planting in the rain

Family Cabin Weekend (not all are pictured)

Graduation!

Graduation!

Growing sunflowers for our wedding!

Dinner with friends in State College

Graduation

The last and very big update is that Eric and I will be moving back to Uganda in September! I will be working with my students at Livingstone International University for the third year and Eric will be doing a collaboration of assignments as we prepare to move to northwestern Uganda for him to work alongside farmers teaching, training and supporting agricultural livelihood programs. Eric has been working very hard to fundraise for our work and ministry there. We are very eager to return! For more information please visit: https://worldrenew.net/ranck

Here are some photos of our community in Uganda!

Lauren's students

Eric's old coworkers/friends

We pray for you and wish you much love and joy!

Love,
Lauren and Eric

Final Pictures

      So to concluded my posts of my time in Uganda, I thought I would just put a lot of pictures of people. The highlight of being in Uganda by far was the good times I had working with the people. Thank-you all for reading my posts, praying for me, and supporting me financially. God Bless you!

Mary at her taylor shop. She attended my "When Helping Hurts" training. She has 4 sewing machines and trains girls who are drop-outs from school.

From left to right: Faith, Franco, myself, Simon Peter, and Rose. Franco and Simon Peter are two of the leaders of Pentecostal Assemblies of God, the church denomination I spent my time working under. Faith and Rose are the wives of Franco and Simon Peter.

Alfred and his wife, Rose.

Sam and his wife, Jalia.

Isaac, my "twin". Life was never boring with this guy.

Anthony and Sara Sytsma. I spent the Christmas with them. I learned a lot from them and had a lot of fun visiting them.

No caption needed. :)

My math class.

Anthony on my left and Ben on my right. They were two guys I got to know from the Pallisa church.

Erich, the principal, and his wife.

Jane and Betty. They were friends of mine and we all three happened to be at the same training in Kampala.

Pastor Simon, my connection to the Pallisa church.

The "When Helping Hurts" class from Pallisa; I really enjoyed this group of people.

The church members of a village church where Alfred helps to pastor.

Final Comments

     

The party which my friends put on for me.

         As I write this post, I am at my parents house in the US. Yes, my almost year and a half experience in Uganda has come to a close. Many people ask "Are you home for good?" To which I respond, "I hope to go back to Uganda again sometime". I hope I am not "home for good". For this summer I will be working on the home farm. I am looking forward driving tractors and farming in the US again.
       Lord willing, this fall I will begin grad school at Penn State. The Lord has been good in working out the whole grad school thing for me. I won't bore you with the details, but I have to say I am excited about the idea of going back at Penn State again. I plan to pursue my Masters in Animal Science, focusing on Dairy Nutrition.
      In closing out my time in Uganda, some of my American friends had a farewell party for me. One of my friends came up with a list of questions for me. I have to note that some of the answers to my questions are answers I might have given before I went to Uganda. It is just that while in Uganda, I was able to see situations that make me answer certain questions with more Gusto. Here is the list of questions, with my answers to each question:

What is one of the lessons that you learned from living in Uganda that has impacted your life the most?
         Many times, us Westerners really miss things when it comes to helping people, especially in the area of physical help. We often set up programs from a top-down approach. We think we understand people's problem and sometimes really miss what a person's problem actually is. I believe we need to be more critical in asking ourselves hard questions such as "How sustainable is my work?" "How can what I am doing be scaled up in a big way?" "Does my program allow flexibility, or is it a one size fits all?" Obviously, we can't do things perfectly, but I believe we should be constantly asking ourselves how we can help in better, more holistic ways. Most of all, things which are given free of charge are considered relief. Relief is fine if it is given in an emergency situation, but relief given when people really need development, often does more harm than good. 

What have you learned about yourself?
         I learned I need to have more patience in life and trust God to work out life's details, rather than worry about how life will play out.
         I learned that agriculture still has a big place in my heart. Part of what makes me like or dislike an area of the world is how much and what agriculture is taking place in that particular area. It would be hard for me to do something long term which has no connection to agriculture.

What have you learned about people?
          While people have a lot of similarities the world around, there are indeed many differences. In Uganda, time is almost never considered and asset. Money, on the other hand, is a lot harder to come by. While in Uganda, I tried my best to appreciate the differences between myself and others around me.

What have you learned about God?
         God can work in situations that really seem hopeless. 
         God is perfecting people, but sometimes it is easier to see the imperfections of people rather than what God has done already in that person life.

What two things have you learned from Uganda that you want to carry over into America?

         People in Uganda are very hospitable and generous to guests when guests come. They appreciate their guests.
         Ugandan's do better with experiencing calamities than I do. Someone can lose a valuable possession and it doesn't seem to get them down like it does me.
         These are two qualities that I have observed from Ugandan's and which I want to grow in.

What is one of the things you did that you are most thankful that you did?
         Visiting friends at their homes is one thing I really am thankful that I got to do. You can't really experience a culture unless you visit a person's home. And the more you do it, the more you learn about the culture you are living in.

Is there someplace you wish you would've gone or something you wish you would've done?
         I got to travel to a lot of places and do a lot of things in Uganda, However, one area of Uganda I didn't visit and wish I could've was Western Uganda. People say it is a very green area of Uganda with lots of agriculture. 

How do you think you'll stay in contact with of your local friends?
         Through email, Skype and Facebook.

What do you think was your biggest achievement there?
         Probably the 5 curriculum outlines which I was in charge of developing. I had good help from the rest of the staff at the college in developing these programs, but I was the person heading them up.

Have you seen God on your side as God of able?
        When I traveled to Uganda, I was worried about the fact that I had never been to Uganda, I wasn't going to be living with any other missionaries, and that I was committing myself to one year! God was faithful, and within a couple of weeks I didn't feel like I was at a new place. I really enjoyed my time at Pentecostal Theological College, despite the fact that I was the only American there.

Dry Season, Wet Season, and Coffee

Please excuse me for all the landscape pictures this post! I wanted to fill you in on some of the season's we experience here in Uganda. Uganda has a defined dry season from December-March and a defined rainy season from April-June. From July-November the weather can be either rainy or dry.

This is a picture of our school compound at the end of dry season.

Same shot after a couple of rains

A couple of week back, I was doing a "When Helping Hurts" training in a village that is on the slopes of Mt. Elgon. The elevation of this village is probably around 4500-5000 ft above sea level. The climate and soil is very conducive for bananas and coffee. The rest of the pictures were taken during the end of the dry season.

In this area, there are rolling hills, as well as steep cliffs.

When I arrived in the village for the training, the coffee was in full bloom. In fact, as I was traveling up the mountain, I could smell the coffee flowers even before I saw the coffee trees. Coffee has a very pleasant and unique smell. Because there were so many coffee trees in the village, every where I went smell like coffee flowers, even inside the church.

The trees had a lot of flowers on them!

The flowers are a pure white color.

This village has such a wonderful feel; you walk through coffee and banana orchards that surround the homes and farms. Almost every home has at least one milk cow which they harvest 1-2 gallons of milk per day. The cows mostly eat banana stems.

"The Homestead"

The second day I was there, some type of moth showed up by the thousands. I was very intrigued by the way these moths were drinking the nectar. Every time there was a break in the training, I was outside getting pictures or videos of the moths drinking the nectar.

A moth drinking nectar.

"When Helping Hurts" Training

The bus and taxi park in Kitgum. The white van with the reds strips on the right is a Toyota Noah.

         My journey began on a very full bus at 6:00 am from Mbale. In fact, it was so full, that the isle of the bus was full of people standing up and luggage. After a stop in Soroti Town, we continued on to Lira Town. Lira is a town in Central Uganda. My end destination was in Kitgum, Northern Uganda, where I was to meet up with Pastor Francis to teach a short version of "When Helping Hurts" in his church. The ride from Lira to Kitgum was not as pleasant. We had 15 people packed in a Noah (mini-van), plus luggage. We traveled for hours on dusty, bumpy roads.

This is how I move deep into the villages.

          After spending the night in Kitgum, we traveled to Pastor Francis's home village on a motorcycle.  It was over an hour outside Kitgum on a dirt road. Often, motorcycle transport is the fastest, and sometimes, the only way to move out in these remote areas.

The dirt roads connecting the rural villages and towns in Uganda.

        For those of you who are familiar with African history, you may have heard of the Lord's Resistant Army (LRA). The LRA was mainly in Northern Uganda, especially in the Kitgum area. The trading center in the picture below served as a UN camp where 4000 people lived for several years until the LRA moved away.

Here is a trading center where I spent the night in a guesthouse which costed $5.

      In Uganda, there is a difference between a trading center and the village. A village is spread out and tends to be more of an area, than a group of houses. In northern Uganda, villages are often mud huts with grass roofs. A trading center is more like a very small, primitive town were people do business.

Myself, Paster Francis, and his wife, Darine

         Pastor Francis is a really great guy. I really appreciated his humble lifestyle and how he treated his wife well. His wife Darine is very resilient person and can ride a bike through the bush like nobody's business.

Pastor Francis's church where we had the training.

       The church almost felt like an igloo, except that instead of escaping the cold, we were escaping the heat. These mud hut structures are a little dark inside, but it was amazing to me how cool it stayed inside, even at the hottest time of day. Often churches have metal roofs and get quite warm in the afternoons.    

Inside the church.

The youth made lunch for all of us.

 Everyone was served a meal of Atapa, rice, and beans cooked by the youth of the church. Atapa is a local staple food made from ground up cassava, sorghum, and millet. It is a very heavy dough substance.

Finally, they showered me with gifts: 3 chickens (which I carried all the way home), pigeon peas and ground nuts. I am always extremely blessed and humbled to have them give me things, and even sometimes a little money as their token of thanks.

The women giving their gifts of appreciation.

     
         One of the things I have been doing when I go to villages is teaching "When Helping Hurts". The training was started by my friend, Anthony Systma, who worked with the authors of the book "When Helping Hurts" to come up with a training manual. The training is geared toward church and community leaders. While some of the information may be a little hard for illiterate people to understand, there are parts of the training that really resonate with the people. The prosperity gospel is something that always brings stories from people. At this village, a lady was saying she was trying to convince her neighbor not to go to a certain prosperity gospel crusade. The neighbor went anyway; when the neighbor took her money up front so she could be prayed for, the preacher humiliated her and chased her away because the money she brought was so little. Chapter six is another chapter which always resonates with people, especially up in northern Uganda where the UN took care of people in camps during the time of the LRA insurgency. The class was able to see how long periods of time where people received relief, hampered the development of people in their area. The people no longer wanted to go back to their old ways of life in the village and work because they were used to handouts from the UN and government.

     
There are 10 chapters in the "When Helping Hurts" training manual:

                      Name of chapter                                      What the chapter talks about

1. Why did Jesus come to Earth?  Talks about how God wants Christians to help the poor.
2. What is "Poverty".  Looks at how broken relationships are often the main cause poverty.
3. The Prosperity Gospel.  Discusses how the prosperity gospel is false and can hurt people.
4. Fighting Poverty through Reconciliation. Tells how to fight poverty through reconciliation.
5. Worldview's and Systems. Worldview's effect life perceptions; broken systems add to poverty.
6. Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development.  Which approach should you use? It depends.
7. Asset-Based Community Development.  Tells how to start with resources from within.
8. Participation of the Community. Talks about the importance of involving people on the ground.
9. What causes change in someones's life?  How to use situations to bring change in another's life.
10. Missionaries and Sponsors. Looks at some cultural challenges both Ugandans and Missionaries face when working together.

Future Plans
       I am planning to come back to the US in May of this year. It is hard to believe it is coming up so quickly! In some ways, I feel like my time here is not complete yet. On the other hand I feel like the last year and a half have been good and that now is good time to move on. I would say there is a good chance that I will come back in the future and serve in Uganda. Right now, I am hoping to start grad school in the fall. I am still deciding on which school, but planning to get a masters in Animal Science. For the summer I will be at home helping on our home farm and hopefully reconnecting with all of you! Obviously, all these plans are in the Lord's hands and I want to be flexible to any change God would bring. Please pray with me in this area of life.