1. 48 year-old Opolot John Peter is married with 6 children
48 year-old Opolot John Peter is married with 6 children. Before the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels (LRA) attacked the place, Peter says that life was good. “We were rich. We had cattle, goats and sheep. Educating children was very easy; one cow would pay for two terms. Food was abundant and although I was a pastor, my family was in a good state. In just a short while, all that we held dearly was gone, and suddenly, we were made very poor and ran for safety in IDP camps.” Peter recalls.
On return, resettling was hard. They had to start from scratch. They hardly had enough to feed on. “All my hopes were in the Lord. I would pray, hoping that God would perform a miracle and send someone to help me get on my feet again. I left work to my wife and children. Our children were not old enough to support their mother to grow enough crops that would serve as food and for sale to meet other needs. As a result, we had famine all year through. We could not send children to school. Instead of supporting my wife to increase food production, I would waste time in the trading centre, and would come back home expecting to find food ready. The church I was rebuilding was not growing because people were as needy as I was and I could not help them. Instead, I wanted them to help me,” He says. “Because of my failure to provide for my family, problems with my wife started coming up. Instead of responding positively and helping her with garden work, I increased my time away from home to avoid quarrels with her. This made it worse so that she even demanded that I stop pastoring. My marriage was at the verge of breaking up. I decided to leave pastoral work to support my family. But even then, nothing changed. I used to waste time.” When PEP started, they both attended. “In one of the first trainings we had, it was about God’s purpose for mankind. We realized that GOD first provided for man before he created him, however, we the co-creators were not doing the same. We were producing children and hoping for an outsider to come and educate them or feed them for us. We also learnt that everything that God created and entrusted us with was of great value and was meant to help us in times of our need. The trainer challenged us to begin appreciating the little resources we have and to utilize them well to meet their needs. We realised that unless we appreciated and used the resources that God has already blessed us with like the disciples who thought they could not feed the crowds, God was not going to entrust us with more resources. “I had land, but the biggest part of it is swamp. I had never perceived anything good coming out of it.”

2. After that training, I sat with my wife and we started mentioning the resources we had and how we had utilised them. When we mentioned the swamp, we all said it was useless. But later, something told me, ‘it is useful!’ I started thinking how useful a swamp could be. Then I remembered that sugarcane can grow there, and also rice. I told my wife about it and we agreed to plough it for sugarcane because no one had grown it in our village.” On top of increased production of food crops, Peter planted one acre of sugarcane in the swamp and the remaining three acres with rice. “I started valuing my time. Instead of going to the centres to chat, I spend it in the garden with my family. We started having more than enough food in the family, and we would be able to give to the neighbours. Food security is very key to us now. Sugarcane and rice are the ones we sell out for money to help with other home needs. My children have gone back to school and I don’t have worries over their school fees”. Pastoring was my calling, but the problem was that I was blind. I did not know how to match the physical and spiritual leadership at home and at church. I thank Tearfund for PEP because my I have been renewed holistically. I resumed my Pastoral work and the church now is very strong and growing too. My family supports me in this. Preaching in church is very easy because PEP taught us how to interpret the Bible and apply it to our daily life. It is very easy for me to counsel people using the Bible now. Peter says that PEP has continued to increase their knowledge. Recently, he says he again learnt that he needs to practice crop rotation in order to maintain soil fertility on his piece of land which is packed with both food and cash crops like improved oranges, ginger and sugar cane.