From: "Tracey Rzepka" [mailto: missionarytracey@gmail.com]
Date: Mon, October 29, 2007 12:30 pm

Below is a copy of my newsletter sent out by mail. Blessings to you!

Greetings from Uganda!

I am still here after 5 months. Things are going well outside of the normal challenges associated with being a missionary living in a foreign land. Praise God and thank you for your prayers!

Hospitality

The last few months have been so busy. We had many students visiting CLIDE from America during their summer break. Most were Veterinary Medicine students but we did have a few others as well. I was happy to host these visitors in my house as they came from the airport before going to Karamoja and back as well for rest periods in between. I live approximately 8-9 hours from the airport and where we work in Karamoja is another 4 hours drive. One student Jessica was here for 3 months and she was such a blessing to so many people including me. The students helped me to make cushions for my sitting room and to pick out material for drapes which still need to be sewn together. So Hospitality has been my first assignment that God had planned though I had no idea about it. He provided this nice house with several bedrooms for many visitors. I have had dinner parties for up to 14 during the last few months. Thankfully, He has also provided a lady named Janet who has been helping me to cook for all the visitors and to keep the house and clothes of all very clean. She is so wonderful and I am so thankful for her along with Herbert who God also provided to stay in the boys quarters to help me with cutting the grass and keeping this place clean as well as to provide security. Thank You for your prayers!

CLIDE – Community Livestock-Integrated Development Consultancy, is the organization I am working with here in Uganda. The last few months have been a major orientation time for me to get to know the members of staff as well as what everyone is doing. I would like to share about the different ministries that we are involved with.

Veterinary Medicine/Livestock Training - This has been the main area of work of Dr. Val Shean, my co-worker, in the past. She has trained Community Animal Health Workers (CAHW) who have also been trained in using herbal medicines for the animals as well as to produce them for marketing purposes. These are locally and freely available to be used to treat animals as well as humans and knowledge about these useful plants needs to be preserved. In October, I attended a one week training for about 40 CAHW. They produced some of these medicines during the training. One is similar to medicine on the market in the US containing Capsaicin for pain. I gave it to a friend here who used it for chronic pain in his feet and legs and it helped him so much. They also make black stones which draw venom out of a snake bite which is useful here as well. I led a session one morning with the CAHW to introduce the subject of HIV/AIDS. They actually know a lot about HIV but have requested further training which we hope to do in the future. Since I have been here CLIDE also had 2 goat trainings where widows or needy people from 2 churches were trained to care for goats and also given a goat. These goats will multiply and provide a source of income for them. We have been asked by one of the churches to do HIV training there which we plan to do in November.

Social Transformation/Peace – I was involved with a two week training in Karamoja about peace according to Biblical principles. Five men came from Dr. Val's church in Oregon and they helped to facilitate the meetings by telling Bible stories and relating their own personal testimonies about forgiveness and reconciliation. These meetings were held for the church leaders the first week, then community members and church leaders the second week. At the time, I wondered how these few (50 or so) people could make an impact on the warriors in the communties who were raiding to steal cows and taking lives at the same time. However, many people were praying in America during the meetings and the outcome of these meetings is so far very encouraging. Since the training ended, there have been two more meetings of over 200 people led by the Archdeacons in the opposing clans, the Pian and the Bokora. There was also a meeting which was called by the Jie along with the Bokora. The Jie are another clan which was not involved with the meetings but heard about them and decided to call their own meeting. People do want peace and they have discussed many ways for that peace to come about. One of the plans is for the Pian and the Bokora to start a new village and live together. On October 15, they will meet in the area where they want to build the village. I learned so much during the meetings about the Karamajong and was also able to participate in the meetings by leading one session on the Traditional Approaches to Peace and also looking at what other organizations have been doing to promote peace. Many thanks to those of you who were praying. About 35 people made decisions to follow Christ or rededicate themselves to following Him. Many who came forward were church leaders. Praise God.

Timothy Project – This is a project which started to help street children who were returned to Karamoja from the streets of Kampala, the capital city. CLIDE is now sponsoring 235 children and is looking for donors to help with this sponsorship. I am still sponsoring 3 students, thanks to your generous gifts. One will be completing university soon. He was able to come with us to Karamoja for the CAHW training and he really enjoyed it seeing much of what he is learning in his mass communications major being put into practice. We have also been mentoring the students that have come to work with us this summer. They have also helped with the Timothy Project students taking histories and photos of the students.

Emergency/Relief Projects – The Timothy Project started out as an emergency/relief project as these 700+ people were brought by bus suddenly to Karamoja. Some are still living in the camp where they were settled. CLIDE assisted with relocating some people and getting the kids in school. We are now having another serious situation in all the areas surrounding Soroti. We have had serious floods which have washed out several major roads. The water keeps rising, threatening to break the one remaining bridge that we have to the capital city. Many people have lost their crops and even homes. CLIDE will be able to help some of these people with its emergency funds if needed. The UN and other relief organizations are flying supplies to many areas. Please pray for the floods to recede and for assistance to those who have lost all they have.

HIV/AIDS – This is my area as you know. We are trying to integrate HIV training into all that we do. The staff talked about HIV with the Timothy Project students a few weeks ago. I am trying to have training with the staff once a month so they will be able to then teach others. We will then do the bigger trainings together. They should be able to carry on the work even if I am not here and several have already been trained in the past so we will be working together as a team.

Spiritual Growth – Last but not least, this is also a big part of CLIDE, integrating the Word and the presence of God in all we do.

These are some of the things I have been involved in this summer. It has been a very busy time but never boring. I am now trying to rest a bit and catch up before we move forward in doing the HIV trainings. Thank you for all of your financial support and prayers. May God Bless Richly Bless You!

Prayer Requests