Orientation

The place that I am living now feels like home which has been particularly nice after long days out.  Over the past few days, we have been touring and learning more about Watoto Church and all of its ministries.   I am going to split this blog into two sections in order to not make them that lengthy.  I will begin with talking about the church and the Watoto 360 program.

On Thursday, we had our very first official day in Watoto 360.  Early in the morning, our driver, Abeh, drove us to Watoto Central Church.  It looks like the majority of our class sessions will be held at Watoto Central in a room right beside where the children’s choir rehearses.  OH MY GOSH!!!  They are sweet little treasures!  I was talking to some of my Ugandan classmates, and they said that when they were younger, they also participated in the choir.  The Watoto Children’s Choir travels all over the world with each choir consisting of different children from the Children’s villages.  What an amazing opportunity for kids to travel!

Watoto has five churches in Kampala, north, south, east, west, and central.  Watoto Central is where Gary Skinner, the founder of Watoto, preaches.  There are also churches located in each of the Children’s Villages.  Let me tell you that the Watoto church is alive!  Between all of the different campuses, they are 20,000 members strong.  A regular church service includes a five part-harmony, African version of Hillsong worship band, a hip-hop dance crew, smoke machine, rappers, lots of hugs, people dancing in and out of the pews, and… a DJ spinning beats as the congregation comes in.  Myself and the other internationals are asking our Ugandan friends to teach us to dance so we don’t look like complete idiots every church service.   Besides all of the flashiness, there is a real core to Watoto church.  I like how they use African cultural elements in their worship to reach to the African people.  As I said before there are many different campuses to the Watoto church.  Every week, the different campus pastors meet and write a communal sermon to be preached the next Sunday.  Even though the church is rather large, Watoto is a cell-based church, meaning that every individual church-goer is a part of a cell or small group.  The small groups consist of a maximum of 10 people that meet once a week to study the Bible.  The coolest thing that I have encountered at Watoto Church so far was at the youth and young adult conferences that have been going on this last week at Watoto Central.  We attended a few of the incredible sessions on both Thursday and Friday with the guest pastor, Earl McClellan from Shoreline Church in Dallas, Texas.  Every session we attended, whether it was in the morning or late at night, all the pastors from each of the Watoto campuses were there sitting in the front row and I mean all of the pastors, not just the youth ones!  

As Thursday was our first official day in Watoto 360, it was also the first day we got to meet the entire class.  There are 54 of us in all, 8 of which are internationals, 4 Ugandans who are connected with Watoto Church, and the other 42 are all from the Watoto Children’s Villages.  I will explain more about the villages in my next blog but to summarize, the villages contain children who were vulnerable and in need of some help, whether that mean they were orphans or their parents were unable to care for them.  Ya, powerful!  My fellow classmates are amazing human beings who have gone through a lot of hardships in their lives.  They also are the most welcoming and loving individuals I have ever met.  In the last three days of getting to know my Ugandan classmates, I have received many hugs, shared many laughs, and have conversed in some deep conversations.  I am so excited to learn from these incredible individuals that I am privileged to call classmates.  

As part of our orientation, we had Gary Skinner, the founder of Watoto, come to our class to speak to us about how Watoto began almost 30 years ago.  It was such a great honor to have him talk to us, especially since he doesn’t share the whole story of Watoto to that many people.  He described his life growing up, what lead him to Uganda, what Uganda was like when he first arrived, how he sometimes feels like quitting, and how he first established a church in Kampala.  The first church they founded, Watoto Central, actually used to be a building in control of the army.  What an amazing turn-around from a place of violence to now one of love and peace.  Gary shared with us how he really didn’t want to have anything to do with childcare ministries whatsoever.  All Gary wanted to do was preach and establish churches in Uganda.  He stated that God had a different plan in mind for him and flat out told him, “I did not bring you here to preach but to look after my children.”  It was then that Gary began the Childcare ministries and Watoto has been growing ever since.  There are two villages in Kampala, one in Gulu and they are beginning to establish a church in southern Sudan.  The cool thing about the whole time he shared with us was that it seemed like the whole story was still very fresh, raw and real to him.  He broke down and cried numerous times as he spoke.  At one point, he asked each group of us to stand up.  When it was turn for the forty-two Watoto graduates to stand up, he bawled.  The whole mission of Watoto Childcare and church is to raise up the next generation of African leaders and those forty-two people are living proof to that future promise.

So yes, I believe I will learn a lot from this amazing organization and all the people that are involved in it.  I am so thankful to be here.  Next blog will be about the children’s villages and other cool ministries of Watoto.