Pastor Patrick and I sat next to one another during his visit to Calvary Chapel on Sunday. He was one among many pastors visiting with an international Bible school and attending a conference nearby. After introductions, Pastor Patrick asked to meet with me after church. His wish is to have me join his group of churches in Lira, Uganda for a three-day conference.
We met again at Fishing Village, the location of all my meetings on Thursday given the power outages around town. I can’t quite tell if Pastor Patrick was concocting this conference on the fly because of his chance meeting with me or if he actually had a conference already planned and will add me to the lineup. In Uganda, a mzungu just never knows. This is where the Holy Spirit really comes in handy. A quick prayer about the wisdom of making such a commitment and I tentatively agreed.
Sometimes I get a creepy feeling about people who want me to participate in some event with them – it’s always tempting to be flattered but the reality is that many people have ulterior motives. For example, a man approached me today and asked if I remembered him from church. I always think it’s possible so I tried to place him. He went on to tell a long story about our supposed conversation only to realize that we had never actually met before.
I got a sense of peace with Patrick and allowed the conversation and planning to take its natural course. The conference will be held in January and among many other things will contain a teaching about business planning and proposal writing. Patrick wants to build a school in Lira and he and his committee need help strategically positioning the school in the community and developing a proposal for funds. He mentioned that a number of other pastors in the area have similar visions and could benefit from some individual consulting to help facilitate their work.
I’ll continue to seek God’s wisdom for this conference and, until then, I look forward to returning to Lira in January.