PERSPECTIVE Don Atkin

FULL TIME MINISTRY

This term is a misnomer that has often been used to separate believers into two categories—clergy and laity.  Such separations are without biblical substance, and severely hinder the maturation and fruition of the body of Christ.

I am indebted to Paul and Pam Hunter for the following account of a 28-year-old Ugandan woman who is certainly a “full time minister.” 

Maureen … A Powerful Minister of God ... Part One

You won’t meet Maureen Arinaitwe unless you stop at the Bata Shoe Store for socks, shoelaces, polish, shoes, or sandals.  She works from 9 am until 7 pm Monday through Saturday.  You would assume that her job at Bata was her life.  In fact, she has worked for the best shoe company in East Africa for 9 years.  She started when she was just a young girl of 18.  On July 31th of this year she will turn 29.  Just a clerk in a shoe store, right?

Behind every person is a story.  Some are common stories.  Some seem unique.  I find all of them interesting.  I’ve known Maureen going four years.  She is a cheerful and outgoing lady who is married to a lawyer.  They have a boy and a girl.  A common story, right?  Last week I uncovered Maureen’s story.  It’s too good to be kept to myself.

Maureen was the first born of six sisters and one brother.   She was born in Mbarara, a well known town in west Uganda, just before you reach the border into Rwanda.  Her birth father is unknown to her.  She was only six months old when Paul, her step father, began caring for her.   Paul and Maureen’s mother have been together ever since.  They moved to a small village across the Nile River, west of the Nile Brewery and Textile Company, named Nyenga.  Paul was educated, a civil engineer, and had a good job with the government.   There was just one huge problem.

Paul loved to drink and he did it every day.  He spent most of his salaries on alcohol.  Maureen still wonders “why the government didn’t sack him.”  The family existed in horrible conditions, sleeping on the floor of a mud house.  There was no peace in the home.  It was a brutal existence of strife, anger, arguing, and fighting.

It wasn’t until Maureen was 16 years old and in her third year of secondary school that she found out Paul was actually her step father.  Her mother decided it was time to take her to her birth father back in Mbarara.  That family was filled with alcohol too.  Soon after Maureen arrived, a strong and abusive uncle sold her to a married man for 100,000 schillings ($50) so that he would have drinking money.  Maureen was innocent and an even more horrible existence began.  She was the younger wife and the opposition, jealousy, and competition between her and the first wife was intense.  She gave birth to her first born and named him Paul.

By this time Maureen barely existed deep, deep in the village, high in the mountains away from Mbarara.  One day she was washing her clothes when she heard someone behind her.  She was shocked to see her mother standing there!  She ran to her mother and almost knocked her over.  “Come on,” her mother said, “you are coming with me.”  No sweeter words had been heard in her life.

A complication arose.  The mother had taken her whole salary from her work in an orphanage to come to get her daughter and she planned on returning with just Maureen.   Maureen pleaded, “But, we have to take Paul with us.  He is my son.”   Maureen’s son, Paul, was malnourished and on the verge of death.  Her mother reasoned that he was just going to die anyway.  Why would they want to take the child with them?  She looked around the village for someone to take care of Paul until he died and then they retrieve the body for burial.  When Maureen convinced her mother that she was not going unless Paul went with them, her mother relented.  Maureen has vowed that Paul will never return to that awful place.  He is now 8 years old.

Brothers can be very important.  Maureen’s sure was.  He brought salvation to Maureen’s entire family.  He was the first to be saved.  Paul, her stepfather, was the last, giving his life to Jesus in 2003.  Maureen had been born again while still in the west and pregnant with her son Paul.

The contention that Jesus makes all the difference in the world is sure true of Maureen’s family.  Yesterday, Pam, Abdu, and I visited the six acres that was such a horrible beginning for Maureen and found the place totally changed.  Almost every day the former alcoholic requests forgiveness from his family.  In January Maureen’s mother, her son Paul, and her sisters moved into the house that Maureen had built for them.  Paul, the step father, was too embarrassed to move into the house until last month and continued sleeping in the mud hut.  Maureen has become the bread winner and provider for the family.  This too is an amazing story.

Maureen’s husband is not a born again believer.  He earns a great salary, but he has never contributed a single shilling for what Maureen has done for her family.  He never wanted to marry a woman who had any previous children and so he does not allow her son Paul to even enter their rented house in Jinja.  Everything that has been gained financially has been because of what Maureen has budged from her small salary over the past nine years in the shoe store.

Maureen earns 5,700 shillings every day she works at the shoe store.  At the current rate of exchange that is $3 a day!  She told me last week that people can learn to budget on that amount and save money.  All three clerks working there are receiving the same pay, although the current manager who is a committed believer believes that Maureen is entitled to a raise after being committed to the company for nine long years!  He is working to get a raise for her.  Once a year the company may give their employees a bonus of 125,000 shillings ($63), but they don’t count on it.

Over the past nine years, Maureen has developed a pig farm, a fish farm, a maize plantation, and farms sugar cane, mango, sweet potato, beans, among other fruits and vegetables, on the family property.  She is the one who saved money to purchase lumber and hire labor for all the building that exists on the farm.

As I sat and listened to this incredible story, I was prompted to comment and ask, “Maureen, you don’t think like an orphan or behave like an orphan.  You have a powerful ministry.  What made you like this?”  Her response revealed a faith in the goodness and sovereignty of God.  She said, “My past experiences.  They made me a strong woman and gave me vision.”

Maureen could very well say with the Apostle Paul,

… that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death … (Philippians 3:10)

She has suffered a lot, but has been able to see the purpose of God in preparing her for a productive, redemptive existence.   She has seen the power of His resurrection in bringing her whole family to salvation.  She has a great heart of compassion for the people of Uganda … but, that is another story that I hope to send to you tomorrow.

I am so encouraged by Maureen’s story.  Not every person in Uganda has an orphan spirit or is sitting around waiting for someone to give them a handout.  Some, just like this powerful young woman of God, just 28 years old, have taken what the Lord has given them … including the hard times … and been faithful with it.  Now God is increasing her responsibilities.  Jesus said,

“if you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in larger one.”  (Luke 16:10)

I have already written almost 1300 words, but some have told me these stories are not tedious … so, I want to add several more aspects of this story.

The fish pond has now been in existence for several years and been yielding some good income.  A new fish pond is being dug below the first one so that the first one can be re-dug and repaired.  When they began digging the second one, the family discovered it was all sand … building sand!  They can now sell 8 trucks of sand a day and receive 160,000 shillings ($80 … which is $50 more than the national average income per month per person!)  Maureen told us, “This resource has been here all this time.  We had no idea what the value of this property could bring.  Why has Uganda been poor so long when there are all these resources?”

At the same time Maureen is finishing her the house for her mother and step father, she is building a house for her, her husband, and son and daughter.  She has also purchased another plot for her son Paul that is nearby the house she is building for herself and plans to build a house for him as well.  She is so thrilled that her step father is caring for Paul since he cannot live with her in town.  He is very bright and a powerful preacher.

There is an old neighbor woman named Lucy that lives next door.  She is nearing a hundred years old.  She has no husband and no children.  Maureen takes care of her.  She feeds her and helps get medicine for her when she is sick.  She comes to Maureen’s parents every day.  She was at the house after we toured the farm.  I had to ask her if she was saved yet.  She said no, but that she was going to get saved some day.  I had quite a conversation with her through my interpreters, Maureen and Abdu, before she confessed Christ with her mouth.  There was great joy in the household.  Maureen told us on the drive back to Jinja that Lucy wants to sell her five acres to Maureen and that she wants Maureen to bury her on that land.  Maureen is saving to purchase this land ... $3,000.

Finally, but not totally, Maureen is the one who arranged for us to travel to her village and tour the farm.  This means that she rented a car and paid for it.  This has never happened to us in all the time we have been in Uganda.  We have always paid for transportation and almost everything else.  Last year, it was Maureen who bought a pair of shoes for Pam.  Pam had no idea that this woman existed on a $3 a day salary.  Wait until you hear what Maureen is doing outside of her work and her family

 

PART 2

Asking questions seems to be a productive way to advance the Gospel and discover some amazing stories.  Most people are polite enough to tell me what they are not likely to volunteer.   Maureen is one of those people.  After being casual friends over the past three years we have had our hearts connected over the last week.

Through questions I discovered Maureen has managed to become the bread winner for a large family on a $3 a day income.  She has successfully budgeted and saved from this small income over the past nine years in order to develop a very prosperous farm that harvest vegetables, fruits, tilapia, and pigs.  This secondary income has enabled her to build the first decent house for her mother, stepfather, and siblings … as well as begin one for her immediate family and purchase a plot for another house for her first son.  And, she is only 28 years old!

Speaking of her immediate family, I wrote yesterday that she is married to a lawyer and they have a son and a daughter.  However, there are 7 staying in their rented house in Jinja!  Maureen also cares for a stepsister (this always includes not only upkeep, but school fees), the sister of a fellow employee, and a 17 year old girl she picked as she wandered the streets of Jinja.  This last girl just recently gave her life to Jesus!

Maureen seems to have a very good sense about who she is and why she is here.  If you read Part One of her story you know that the Lord allowed her to pass through some terrible experiences to get to where she is today.  Those challenges circumstances became the foundation for her faith, identity, and vision.

After Pam, Abdu, and I toured the productive farm she has developed over the past several years, Pam and I accompanied Maureen to Masese (pronounced maw-sess-ee).  This is a “suburb” of Jinja that is high on a hill.  One part of Masese had some rather well off citizen, but the rest of it is the community of a displaced tribe from the northeast part of Uganda.  The Karamojong (pronounced cal-a-ma-jong) are some of the most troubled people living in the south of Uganda.  The Karamojong tribe is one of few African tribes that have continued to live in an 18th century lifestyle, which have continued with barbaric acts of raiding their neighbors (tribes) and gone on practicing this at the expense of their own clan members.  They are a tribe that believes all the cows in the world are theirs.  They will literally take cows from anyone because they believe this.  They are warrior like and do not wear clothes in the northeast.  This particular displaced community of Karamojong came to Jinja because of a severe drought.   Most of the children who are beggars on the streets of Jinja and Kampala come from this tribe.

After a hard rain the night before, we discovered the road to this village was impassable … literally!  A car was stuck and we were not about to attempt what they obviously failed to achieve.  We disembarked the vehicle and began a climb up the road to the village where Michael lives.

Michael weighed just 3 kilograms when Maureen found him abandoned behind her shoe store.  Her heart was filled with compassion and she scooped him up, took him to the hospital, discovered he had tuberculosis, bought his medication, and fed him for five months.  I couldn’t retrieve the photo of him in that condition from Maureen’s phone, but he appeared to be on the verge of death.  During the time that Maureen cared for Michael she located the young mother, a Karamojong.  After Michael’s “recovery” Maureen placed him back with his mother so that she could continue to breast feed him.

Although Maureen travels to Masese every Friday to check on Michael and take him food, this was a special day and Maureen was our tour guide to the small mud hut in which he is surviving.  Pam and I believe that the impassable road was part of God’s plan to have us literally walk past the filth and terrible conditions of this village in order to increase our appreciation for Maureen’s amazing ministry.

We found most of the woman working in an effort to get some food for the throngs of children that were everywhere.  We observed groups of men gathered between huts and in bars doing nothing but drinking alcohol … some were already passed out and waiting for the next day to begin this cyclical behavior again.  We shook our heads at the small children who were cooking and stirring corn mash, and other elements, that would be chemical substance for the men of the community in the future.  We avoided the feces and urine that made walking the path to the house an obstacle course, even observing some who were relieving themselves.  We literally stopped to watch a squatted, sleeping, swaying child of no more than 18 months who was covered with flies.  I attempted a photo, but the foot traffic woke the baby and she became frightened of the while people.

We finally reached Michael’s hut which was almost the last one at the top of the hill.  A crowd gathered as I took photos of Michael, his mother, his siblings, and some of the onlookers.  You will see from the photos that the women create scars on their bodies for beauty, but also part of their worship of demons.  Maureen held Michael, fed him a hardboiled egg, and we thanked God for people like her who are making an impact among their own people.

On the way back to the car, Maureen noticed a lady off tour right.  She called out, “Sharon!”  She had met this lady, one of the rare Karamojong who speaks English (Maureen had to learn a new language to minister to these people), in the hospital when she was taking care of Michael.  Sharon most likely has AIDS, but is currently suffering from TB.  Maureen told her to go back to the hospital tomorrow and that she would come to see her.  We know that Maureen will be the one paying for the medication and providing food.

This was a nasty place to be, and Pam and I were not there because we had been assigned this territory by our Father.  Instead we were guests of a person who quietly goes about her work … ministering to customers, family, friends, and strangers as a representative of our Father.  She is a full time minister of the Gospel of the Kingdom.  Maureen is a bright light in a world of darkness and we are honored to call her our sister and friend.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.  (Galatians 6:10)