May 2006

It has been about a year since Peter Keller, his daughter Christine Keller, and Chuck Wojnowski went as our church's missionaries with Ken Goyer to Lira Uganda.  Adelitus Mgao, a medical officer from Christine's Peace Corps village in Tanzania joined us there.

First Congregational Church received over $8,000 for our use in building highly efficient stoves, repairing wells and helping sick people, especially babies, in the refugee camps there.  We have had a very direct, very positive effect on the lives of thousands of desperate people in the camps.  Our goal was to build 10,000 stoves, but when we left a month later we had built only about 400.  We did succeed in building a business infrastructure and I am extremely proud that as of about a month ago, we have met our goal of 10,000 stoves!  Mathew Langol supervised JK, Mary and Frances, our employees, in overseeing brick making, stove construction and the education of the people in the camps about their use.  They have done an outstanding job.  Below is a letter from Ken Goyer updating us on events in Lira.

Let us all pray for peace in northern Uganda!

Dear Friends,

A quick update on Wednesday, April 19, 2006.  Not much exciting is happening.  Mathew has gone off to Southern Sudan with a truckload of supplies for a cholera outbreak.  He has been gone since last Thursday and I hear that he should return today.  There is no news on my visa situation to Darfur, but I assume that everything possible is being done.  I see that guerrillas have invaded the Chad capitol with machine guns and heavy artillery.  We get news of shooting in Darfur but then there is still shooting here in Northern Uganda even though yesterday's press announced that the "troubles" were over and the IDP's (Internally Displaced People) were returning home.  The paper also said that right now, more people are dying violently in Uganda than in Iraq.  (I hope not.)  In the meantime I've been to about five camps and made two trips to Abia camp to study the bricks.  I'm not real pleased with the bricks.  They don't float and they are not very strong.  So we did training as to how to improve the bricks and the test discs should be ready by now, but I am in town waiting on Mathew so we can have some discussions with Bishop Tom about our future in light of the circumstances.  Casually, I went to Erute camp this morning with Helen, the nurse and we took ten babies off to the PAG (Pentecostal Assemblies of God) hospital with malaria.  The mothers say that at least three babies die every week in Erute Camp alone, not counting the babies that have been taken to the hospital or the village and die elsewhere.

We should not forget about all of the silent death that is constantly taking place here.

The local camps are suffering very much right now because the policy is to encourage people to move to the distant camps where they are closer to their land and they can dig and plant their crops.  There is some good logic to this approach but this "encouragement" involves shifting aid away from the local camps and giving it to the rural camps.  (Much as we shuffle off our homeless people.)  This means that the young, strong and able-bodied people leave the women, children, elderly and infirm in the local camps who now receive no food or other aid.  As a result many people are (I hate to say) starving and living in the elements since their roofs have been shredded and are not replaced.

In spite of all of the adversity with this project, it is heart warming to drop in unannounced and see all of these stoves and hear how people like them.  A new stove has been undergoing spontaneous "local" development.  This is the "Sprocket Rocket", a charcoal-burning rocket stove.  Even though we don't approve of burning charcoal very much, it is a reality, and we might as well get over our reluctance of it.  People have used some of the lightweight bricks and a bicycle sprocket or other metal to make a charcoal burning stove.  One woman paid 1,000 shillings for an old sprocket.  They say that the Sprocket Rocket saves one half of the charcoal.  Instead of 400 shillings of charcoal it uses 200 shillings of charcoal per day.  People in many camps have no firewood and must rely on charcoal for cooking.  (I know that we say that half of the energy is wasted in making charcoal but I would like to know how much energy is wasted when the charcoal is compared to wood with very high moisture content.  Maybe we need to consider that charcoal isn't as bad as we think.  Anyway people will continue to use it so let's figure a way to reduce the carbon monoxide.)  Many people have built their stoves inside their homes.  This is a new development.

So I hope to settle some business matters here, and go to Jinja to see some friends, and Tororo to start a small stove effort with the Tororo Rotary Club, then return here and work until visas come for us to go to Darfur.  If they don't come there is certainly enough to do here in Uganda.  Even though there is more to say, this isn't a bad place to stop.

Best regards,
Ken Goyer