Ministry of Margaret Nelson
Uganda, Africa

September 14, 2003

Special Prayer Request

A situation has arisen this past week that I have felt the only answer to is to marshall as much prayer as possible.

Sometimes business issues in my small village of Kyevunze take awhile to filter down to me, since I don't speak the local language well enough to attend meetings. What I have learned is that there is a rich man who is planning to buy up 40 acres of Kyevunze, apparently along the highway. He apparently owns some bit of land along there and now wants more for some sort of business venture.

A business venture in itself might not be such a bad thing, since people always need and want jobs, but this situation smells badly of an unjust and possibly illegal move that will cause an increase in poverty to the local villagers. The man and 2 local government officials have had several meetings with the village and have apparently just told 12 families they will have to move out, and that they will be compensated a mere 250,000 shillings each for their houses and land plots - a paltry $125. Then a land survey will be done, so we're not sure how many other people may have to move. People are crying because they don't know where they can go or what they can do with such a small amount of money, and they have no legal recourse. No one has money to hire an attorney to fight back.

The plan is to put in a gas station, a hotel and a school. There is already a fine school in the village. In our area there is no tourist trade and even the town of Luweero, 3 km away, only sports 3 hotels, because Luweero is a place where people drive through - they don't stop. There are several gas stations already. So it seems the man is displacing people in order to build his own little domain, for no really good economic reasons that I can see.

An interesting component to the story is that most of this land this man is planning to buy up is land that our prayer group fasted and prayed over in July, including the road to Luweero. An unbelievable number of road accidents and fatalities had been happening ever since I've lived here, and who knows how long before that? We had felt there was a demonic stronghold over that area, and since we've prayed against it, there has not been a single accident or fatality.

Now this man is planning to buy up what appears to be most of this land we had prayed over. So the prayer of my heart has been that if this is another trick of the enemy to bring a new kind of death and destruction to this former spiritual stronghold, that God would prevent it.

So please pray with us and for us, that this oppression of these poor village people would stop and they would not be removed from their land. "He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich - both come to poverty." Prov. 22:16. "He who opprsses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whever is kind to the needy honors God." Prov. 14:31.

How will this project affect me personally? I don't know yet. I am not far off the highway, and 40 acres is a lot of land. So whether or not I would be forced to move is an unknown at this point. The other side of the coin is that if a "hotel" is put in, with no obvious source of business, it's almost certain it will be used as a disco or nightclub to attract business, and probably not reputable. And in Uganda there are no curfews or decibel limits, so living even within 2 or 3 miles of such a place could be difficult, and the relative tranquility of our little village would certainly be destroyed.

So pray for me also, for wisdom, and for our prayer group on Monday, that God will give us insight and wisdom in knowing how to deal with this problem.

Thanks and God bless you!

Margaret

New Pictures - August 2003

Teaching in Kabanyi church	Teaching in Kabanyi church
Pastor Ezira's Father	Pastor Ezira's Mother. They were married after they both were saved.
John - Ezira’s nephew. John has been raised as an orphan by the family as his mother is in the Congo. John’s birth was the result of a rape by a soldier.	Intent Listener
Kabanyi Grannies. Widows. The one on right is a Munyankole, the other is Rwandese, both from cattle keeping tribes.	Rwandese Widow
Kids watching me teach at Mamuli church.	Baby Joel, a neighbor’s child, at Nakazzi church, New Life Centre