We are serving the farmers of Uganda... We work under Equip Canada, a registered Canadian charitable organisation that assists the local church in ministries to the poor. We work with rural farmers teaching them a life changing curriculum called Farming God's Way. Check out our links to our web page and to the various organizations we are associated with.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
On Tour
Friday, September 11, 2009
a perspective on the curretn Kamapal Violence
Varying reports are coming from the four corners here this morning. Anti government media sources report things worse than they are and pro government media underplays things so somewhere in the middle is the actual situation. The streets downtown are mainly quiet as most businesses have remained closed and police have a heavy presence. News media are advising/ordering all foreigners and expats to stay at home today which is logical given the
dynamics at work at the moment. As far as I know, all foreigners are safe and have not been attacked. We live in the southern part of the city and it is peaceful here so far. I spoke with a Police friend this morning and he told me that the intelligence has been at work and the police
will be getting the bad guys soon. He also said that the eastern side of trhe city will be intense today as the melee moves out toward the town of Mukono then on to Kayunga where the Kabaka (Bugandan king) is supposed to be addressing the Youth Celebration. He said the fight will end in Kayunga tomorrow. Kayunga is 40 kms out of Kampala. The President went on the air last night and laid out certain criteria for the event if it is to continue. Make no mistake, this is a planned and orchestrated event to cast a bad light on the government and personally on President Museveni. Trying to grasp all the issues is not possible but this is a confrontation between the tribal king of the largest ethnic group in Uganda and a President, both asserting their dominant positions. The tribal king is a man who actively practices and consorts with demons and withcraft. His nice suit will fool the Western mindset. The real issue being revealed here at least in my view is this...Without a vision people perish. Uganda is a nation of young people, the median age of a Ugandan being 14 years 6 months. Very high unemployment, a lot of illiteracy and uneducated youth with no job, nothing to do, no purpose in life, no direction to focus their energy, and you have a large group of the population who are very easily manipulated into violence and mayhem. This would be like "party time" for a large portion of them who are
uneducated as to the political motivations for this issue and who, frankly, could even care less. Protesting the government and the President is not a justification to loot and pillage innocent business people and burn their stores. Last night they stopped buses on the highway into town and beat and robbed the passengers. Lots of stories are emerging about the mayhem that is completely not germaine to the political situation at hand but I think the police will be getting stronger control on these things as the day progresses.While it is difficult to agree with all the Presidents actions and philosophies, he is trying to steer the country in a positive direction and has moved Uganda a very long way towards a stable free market economy. There is freedom of the press unlikey matched anywhere else in Africa. The move towards a democratic society is well underway. Only the naive think that democracy should have happened overnight. At this juncture in the history of Uganda, he is by far the right man to be President and has a clear and deep understanding of globalism, economics, democracy, and the pursuit of being a nation free from Western support and becoming a nation controlling its own destiny is his dream. Oppositon elements cant understand that and cannot articulate any clear vision that would make them more desirable to be the government. So their methodology is to create violence and fear and intimidation, using the youth and their unfocussed energies to achieve the bent and twisted aims of the manipulators. Pray for the peace and welare of Kampala and for the youth that are misguided and misdirected in their life. They really need Christ to give them purpose. In reality,this event is only a blip on the spiritual radar screen. We continue to believe that Almighty God has plans far beyond the lower human understanding for this nation and we see a massive revival coming. Uganda holds a pivotal position in the spiritual warfare over Africa and this skirmish
is powers of darkness coming against the authority and rule of Christ in Uganda. Last we checked..........mr. d lost seriously. he is a completely defeated foe of the Kingdom of God but knows what the stakes are in Uganda. We sense Uganda is about to be the focal point of a spiritual revival of immense proportions that will have global effects, not just national or even regional.There has been a corruption of many top leadres in the born again movement here that is of spiritual significance. We believe that even as there is an exposure of the rot in the status quo leaders, there is also a deep cleansing and repentance occuring as well. New leaders are arising and taking the baton with renewed determination to walk uprightly before God.This is one of the most praying nations in Africa if not the world and the Body of Christ is being reinvigorated to unprecedented prayer for Uganda and Africa. These prayers are stirring hell and inviting Heaven and the reaction to prayer is now being seen in these riots. But riots will not prevail nor become the trademark. Before peace can be achieved, a battle must take place and that is exactly what is happening.Many of our friends are concerned about our welfare. We are fine and very safe and thank you for your care for us.Hope this helps you to understand the underlying issues a little better and helps you to know how to focus your prayers for the situation at hand. Ron
a perspective on the current Ugandan violence
background to Uganda Violence
Thursday, September 10, 2009
pics of Kamapal violence

Rioters roll tyres to start up a fire at Kubbiri in Mulago

Policemen march to down town Kampala to confront the rioters

Rioters burning tyres and other items infront of Royal Complex in the city centre

An injured policeman on duty on Wilson road

A body of a man being loaded onto a pick-up truck. At least three people
were confirmed dead

Bricks thrown in the middle of Bombo Road duing the riot

A wounded policeman being helped off the scene

Asian women squeeze into a van to escape for dear life after
their factory and residences were set ablaze by rioters

People walking back home in the evening after failing to get public transport
Three killed in violent Kampala riots
| Thursday, 10th September, 2009 |
| |||||
|
By Vision Reporters
THREE people were reported dead as violent riots linked to the Kabaka’s planned tour of Kayunga district spread to the city and across Buganda.Visit our Gallery By press time, 39 people had been injured in the riots, triggered off by false reports that Katikkiro Walusimbi had been arrested on his way to Kayunga. He was expected to prepare for the Kabaka’s visit which was slated for tomorrow. The city suddenly flared up into chaos in the afternoon as Kabaka supporters engaged the Police in running battles. They pelted vehicles with stones, barricaded roads with logs and huge boulders, lit bonfires, looted property and torched buildings. The chaos first erupted around Kiseka Market and spread quickly to Wandegeya, Bwaise, Kawempe and Maganjo-Kagoma on Bombo Road, stretching the Police to the limit. Military Police moved in with armoured vehicles to take charge of the situation. Offices and shops closed down and motorists vacated the roads amid sporadic gunfire, teargas explosions, a heavy presence of regular and anti-riot Police backed by military Police. In Bwaise, demonstrators set a huge store on fire before going on a looting spree. The Police fire brigade put out the fire. The rioters also set ablaze the Natete Police station, and the vehicles parked there. A Police woman in Natete was stripped naked and beaten up. Reports also said some shops in the city were looted. In the city centre, Kabaka supporters barricaded Entebbe Road near Centenary Bank with logs and burned tyres. They turned all vehicles away, threatening motorists and stopping them from going to Market Street. Commotion erupted in Kawempe when four policemen, attempted to stop a rowdy group from barricading the road. They were disarmed and their guns taken. Kawempe Police boss Joel Aguma confirmed the incident. Outside Kampala, too, rioters resorted to violence and looting. In Kyengera, on the Masaka highway, youth seized a truck loaded with sodas. They grabbed the sodas before burning the truck. In Nabbingo, also on Masaka highway, irate youth stopped buses and roughed up passengers.
In Mukono angry youth attacked a bus, smashing the windows and injuring passengers. The Police rescued them. Two of the dead were reportedly killed by stray bullets near Shoprite on Ben Kiwanuka Road. One was a Saracen private security guard and the other a Congolese businessman who was shopping. A bullet ripped through his stomach. A third man was shot in the eye in Bwaise and died on the spot. The bodies were taken to Mulago Hospital. “The guard was standing in the door when I suddenly saw him fall down after a military truck fired live bullets in the air,” said a shaken Annet Namusisi, a telephone booth operator.
By evening, more than 30 people had been rushed to the casualty ward at Mulago Hospital with various injuries, ranging from gunshot wounds to broken limbs. Most of them were from Bwaise, Kalerwe and Kanyanya suburbs. Four policemen were also rushed to Mulago Hospital with injuries. One of them, Alex Wabwire, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, had his leg shattered. He was reportedly shot by rioters who snatched a gun from a guard. Eliphaz Sekabira, the hospital spokesperson, said 39 people were being treated. Three people were arrested and detained at the Central Police Station in connection with the riot, said Kampala metropolitan deputy Police spokesperson Henry Kalulu. However, many others were reportedly detained at Wandegeya Police Station. It took the combined effort of the Police and the army to quell the riots in the city centre, which returned to relative calm at around 4:00pm. Thousands of commuters were stranded till late for lack of transport, forcing many to walk home. The few taxis on he road charged exorbitant fares. By press time, major roads such as Masaka, Jinja, Gulu, Hoima and Entebbe roads, were still blocked by angry protesters with logs and bonfires. Riots were also still going on in the suburbs of Kampala, such as Nateete, Bwaise and Busega, as well in the districts of Mityana, Mukono and Wakiso. A motorist on Mityana Road said the road was blocked by protesters at Bira, causing a long queue on either side. Stranded motorists and passengers, including foreigners, threatened by violent youth, were calling The New Vision journalists, pleading for help. In Kampala, mambas with military policemen criss-crossed the city at night, while foot soldiers patrolled in single file. Reported by Steven Candia,
Chris Kiwawulo, Charles Ariko
and Patrick Jaramogi
Uganda Violence
Jesus' disciple.
family summer
better bloggers
Well friends, this should be an easier way for us to blog as we only have to send posterous an e-mail in order to post a blog. Our blogging from Uganda was pretty pathetic as getting on the computer to blog was not too easy and even when we did blog it was pretty irregular. So, since I can use my phone very easily for e-mailing both here in Canada and back home in Uganda this blog should stay fairly up to date. I should be able to blog even from the field as I work in Uganda so it should be almost more like elaborate twittering. It's crazy how much technology has changed since I first arrived in Uganda in 1995. I remember driving about 20km from New Hope up to Luweero town Post Office to check wether there were any faxes to pick up(and of course there was lots of snail mail to pick up too). I also remember my huge first Ericsson phone. My first cell phone was in Uganda, actually. It was the good ol Ericsson 1018 which was best used when I was still courting Jane and would call her in the evenings at the NAREC guesthouse where she stayed on one of her Catering practicums in Kampala and also when she was staying at the Vanderoots in Makindi. Now I have my world phone Nokia e61i (which to many people is already an "old" phone) that I use wherever I am. These tools are great for so many things -- in all they are tools to further the kindom of God. We're so happy to be able to stay in touch with all of you one way or another. So off we go on our effort to be better bloggers.
Monday, July 20, 2009
We want to thank all of you who prayed for Jane to be able to get a passport. We had been trying for two years to get Jane’s Ugandan passport renewed without any success. It was SO frustrating to see how the Ugandan officials do not have the heart to facilitate their own citizens in their travels. We eventually decided to try to go to Rwanda to get Jane a passport there as she is of Rwandan decent. What a different story! We were helped immediately when we went into the Rwandan embassy in Kampala. They helped us attain all the documents we needed for a Rwandan passport – including a letter of recommendation from the Ambassador himself! We enjoyed our stay in beautiful and clean Kigali and got Jane’s passport within eight days of filing. Unfortunately we were not able to get a passport for Tugume our nephew (hopefully next furlough we will be able to bring him back with us). It was such a joyful moment when Jane got her passport. We could hardly believe it. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so we did a bit of both. Thanks everyone for your fervent and persistent prayers. Please continue to pray as one of the main reasons for having our furlough at this time is for Jane to secure her Canadian citizenship before her Permanent Resident card expires in September.
We have also continued to forge our partnership with Arise Africa International (AAI) over the last few months. We recently surveyed the future training farm site with an eMi (Engineering Ministries International www.emiworld.org) team. Also, John Sauder, an eMi missionary serving with AAI is helping to put together a project proposal complete with engineering drawings and site plans for us. Thanks also to Lindsay (eMi intern) who is working on the architectural drawings right now. It is exciting to see these plans come together. We plan on opening the training farm in September 2010 to our first students. The farm will be called “Providence Farm Uganda” and has the potential to host a variety of training courses that Equip currently offers only in North America in addition to the planned agriculture training centre.
We are coming to a town near you! We begin our speaking tour of Western Canada in September and will be traveling through BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan until the end of October. We would love to give a presentation about our work and vision to you, your home Bible study group or your church. Chris is willing to preach, share a Power Point presentation or even share about the FGW principles. Please use any of the contacts below to book your spot. We are happy to get together with those around BC before the fall as we will be spending time around Abbotsford with our church family at South Abbotsford Church.
We look forward to seeing all of you soon and sharing with you about what we’ve been doing and where God is leading us.
God Bless,
Chris and Jane, Andrew Kenny, Albert, Isaiah and Ezra
.
Yes we finally made it back to Canada! We’re so happy to be back and get a chance to see all of you, our dear friends and family. We were glad to see that there was some warm weather here in Abbotsford to welcome us back. Not only was there warm weather but a warm welcome from Bill and Sandi McGladdery who have let us take over the main floor of their home here in Abbotsford. Their house will be our home base while we are here in Canada.
We want to thank all of you who prayed for Jane to be able to get a passport. We had been trying for two years to get Jane’s Ugandan passport renewed without any success. It was SO frustrating to see how the Ugandan officials do not have the heart to facilitate their own citizens in their travels. We eventually decided to try to go to Rwanda to get Jane a passport there as she is of Rwandan decent. What a different story! We were helped immediately when we went into the Rwandan embassy in Kampala. They helped us attain all the documents we needed for a Rwandan passport – including a letter of recommendation from the Ambassador himself! We enjoyed our stay in beautiful and clean Kigali and got Jane’s passport within eight days of filing. Unfortunately we were not able to get a passport for Tugume our nephew (hopefully next furlough we will be able to bring him back with us). It was such a joyful moment when Jane got her passport. We could hardly believe it. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so we did a bit of both. Thanks everyone for your fervent and persistent prayers. Please continue to pray as one of the main reasons for having our furlough at this time is for Jane to secure her Canadian citizenship before her Permanent Resident card expires in September.
We are really excited about some new training material that we have been introduced to recently and that we will now be using. FGW stands for Farming God’s Way. Farming God’s Way was developed in Zimbabwe and is basically Kingdom agriculture; focusing on Godly stewardship of our land, energy and resources. Chris attended a FGW seminar at New Hope Uganda and then promptly put in an FGW “well-watered” garden at our home, using FGW methods such as a heavy mulch layer, no tillage, and properly spaced planting stations. FGW takes peasant farmers towards zero tillage and continuous mulch cover – this leads to much higher yields and virtually no soil and nutrient loss. Farming God’s Way does not need high economic input and therefore is a very sustainable method. There’s a lot more to say but you can check out their site at www.farming-gods-way.org .
We have also continued to forge our partnership with Arise Africa International (AAI) over the last few months. We recently surveyed the future training farm site with an eMi (Engineering Ministries International www.emiworld.org) team. Also, John Sauder, an eMi missionary serving with AAI is helping to put together a project proposal complete with engineering drawings and site plans for us. Thanks also to Lindsay (eMi intern) who is working on the architectural drawings right now. It is exciting to see these plans come together. We plan on opening the training farm in September 2010 to our first students. The farm will be called “Providence Farm Uganda” and has the potential to host a variety of training courses that Equip currently offers only in North America in addition to the planned agriculture training centre.
We are coming to a town near you! We begin our speaking tour of Western Canada in September and will be traveling through BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan until the end of October. We would love to give a presentation about our work and vision to you, your home Bible study group or your church. Chris is willing to preach, share a Power Point presentation or even share about the FGW principles. Please use any of the contacts below to book your spot. We are happy to get together with those around BC before the fall as we will be spending time around Abbotsford with our church family at South Abbotsford Church.
We look forward to seeing all of you soon and sharing with you about what we’ve been doing and where God is leading us.
God Bless,
Chris and Jane, Andrew Kenny, Albert, Isaiah and Ezra
.
Friday, February 27, 2009
The Sperling Jerry Can
…carrying Living Water in practical ways…
Dear Friends and Family, January 21, 2009
“Kulik’omwaka!” This is the greeting that we tell each other here in
A Dream Come True! For many years, I’m sure many have read and heard about our vision to have a Demonstration and Training Farm at which to offer more advanced agricultural training to rural Ugandans - especially to pastors and church workers who need to support themselves in some way. We are so excited to announce that this dream is slowly becoming a reality. Over the last year we have been developing a relationship with Arise Africa www.ariseafricaintl.org (a long-standing national NGO) with whom we will be partnering to offer both training at a proposed 20 acre training farm but also mobile community work that will aim at improving rural agriculture through the Arise church network. The farm will be at the Arise Africa Base at Bukaleba (0º27’00”N, 33º23’30”E) which is 2500 acres of land. The land is situated right on a large bay on
Once fully running, the Training Farm will not only host agriculture courses but also hydro missions classes, medical missions classes and community outreach programs. The training farm will also co-ordinate with other work going on at the Arise Africa Training Centre to provide pastors and lay people a fully rounded community missions education.
We wanted to share this with you before we come back in spring so that you are all aware of these changes when we come to visit you. We have begun, slowly, our shift between our current work with YWAM and Bushfire to our next phase with Arise. It is a blessing as all of the Directors of these organizations are friends and companions in mission work here in
Equip
Please Pray. We ask for your prayers for wisdom and knowledge as we forge our partnership with Arise Africa International. Currently, we have an agreement in principle to work together; we will now be working on detailed documents so w can work together as partners. Chris has a lot of work to do in writing up agreements, policies and proposals let alone course work and syllabus development for the Training Farm. Please pray that this will all go well and smoothly and that we will sense God’s guiding hand as we believe it to be His will to start up the Training Farm.
Our Itinerary: We will be happy to share in your church, life group or home during our furlough which will run from May to October. We will also be setting up some formal info meetings/fundraisers in most of the areas where we normally visit and raise support. These meetings will be excellent times to see formal presentations about the Training Farm and the funding needed to establish this new Equip work. Please contact us via e-mail to set up dates for sharing with your group.
Some Needs. We have a few needs that need to be met for our time back in
Hope to see you soon,
God Bless,
The Sperlings – Chris and Jane, Andrew, Tugume, Kenny, Albert, Isaiah and Ezra
Financial contributions can be sent to:
Equip
V9L 3Y1
In the
Equip, Inc.
Cheques should be made out to Equip with a separate note;”for Sperling support”.
Donate online at www.sperlingsinafrica.com




























