Mission to Uganda

June 30, 2012

David Landow, a student in the M.Div. Pastoral program, has been called by the Lord to spend his summer in Uganda. He will be the intern for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s Mission in Uganda: “I leave June 20^th, and I’ll be there through August 31^st, so a little over 10 weeks. I’ll be up in Northeastern Uganda, an area called Karamoja, living with the Karamajong people [see map below].  The OPC has had a mission there for over a decade.”

David’s work will largely involve daily preaching in Nakaale. “I’ll mainly be preaching daily at the medical mission to people who are waiting to meet with the doctor or the medical staff there. They do a morning devotion and then some preaching with the people waiting, and they also do some preaching in the surrounding villages when the weather allows. When I’ll be there, it will be the middle of the rainy season, so travel is not as easy.”

Karamoja is one of the least popular regions of Uganda—David says, “It’s not the place you go for a safari.”  However, the need for the gospel there is strong: “From my understanding, what Bob Wright, the missionary deacon, was telling me is that a lot of people would self-identify as Christian, but there’s not a really strong understanding of the Gospel.  Also, there are very high rates of alcoholism and domestic abuse and things like that, so it’s an area that’s very much in need of the Gospel.”

Preaching every day to the people in the medical mission will provide a challenge that David has not faced before.  “I’ve never tried to speak through a translator, and I tend to speak rather quickly as it is. So trying to slow down enough to be understood by a translator and speak in short enough segments is something I’ve never had any experience with…I really don’t know wholly what to expect. I’ve done a lot of mission trips to Europe, to Germany and to Scotland, but I’ve not traveled in a developing nation before, so I’m going in not knowing exactly what to expect.  The Lord opened this door, and I’m excited to see what he’s going to do.”

David's time at Westminster has prepared him for this trip because he has met a diversity of students from various cultures on campus. “Getting to know people from different ethnic backgrounds who have a real passion for the gospel in their home countries, and especially people I’ve talked to who are coming from other countries and planning on going back, has been a real inspiration to me and has motivated me to want to experience what it’s like to share the gospel and to minister in another context.  Whether or not I’m called to foreign missions, I’d like to be able to experience and sympathize with what their callings are, and I experience that a little bit here, having gotten to know students. Experiencing the desire to share the gospel shown by the different people groups that are represented here has been a real inspiration to me, and has motivated me to want to do more, to focus more on foreign missions.”

David’s primary prayer is that God would use his preaching for his own glory. “Regardless of what happens, pray that I would rest in the fact that it’s God’s plan that’s being worked out, not mine.” Please pray for David and the OPC Mission in Uganda as they seek to bring the whole counsel of God to the nation of Uganda.

You can visit his blog here: www.davidlandow.com
See Operation World's prayer page on Uganda here: www.operationworld.org/ugan

If you would like to donate to help support the work of students like David, please visit our online donations page.