A Narrow Path In A Distant Place (Lane Farr): Early Juneish

Town Hall Meeting and Tour With Eddie In Najembe

It started out pretty funny actually... The night before we went to this town hall meeting, Eddie- the a political leader in Najembe (pictured below in white shirt and dark pants) came with our team to a cool place in the rain forest where we had a team bonfire/welcome party for a few of our new team members. He somehow caught wind of people calling me "Pastor Lane", (for more on how I got the nickname, you'll have to read earlier posts).

As Eddie was starting the town meeting, he mentioned that we should start with prayer (as they do many meetings/occasions here). He mentioned that since we had people of several religions present, we should pray simply to "The Almighty God". Then he proceeded to tell everyone that we were lucky to have a pastor present. He turned to me in the front row and asked if I "Pastor Lane" would offer the opening prayer. All of my teammates who were present seemed to think it was pretty funny. They thought my awkward/impromptu prayer was pretty funny too.

We left the town hall meeting and went out into the community to see the living conditions of some of the citizens. It was pretty humbling. We went to a school where the brick walls seemed like they could fall down with the slightest wind, we watched as kids played soccer with twine-wrapped trash bags. Eddie pointed out several children with sores (skin infection) on their scalps and he explained that they would get worse and could even die eventually if it goes on untreated. We walked into several people's homes which were just a few boards holding up a roof on a dirt floor. The sanitation situation was bad too. Basically camping conditions.

Here's a couple kids we ran into by a little piggery we visited. Help international has helped women's groups establish piggeries in the past. We are currently deciding whether to continue with those kinds of projects. Part of my job is to evaluate their effectiveness.