Mission Moroto Stories: Driving With Malaria

Mission Moroto Stories: Driving With Malaria

A couple years ago, we had a mission team from the U.S. visit. They were a family that had visited years before the Bullen family was part of Mission Moroto. They were very excited about going up to Kakingol Village on the mountain to play The Jesus Film for the first time for the Tepeth people, an ancient and remote tribe that preceded even the Karamojong people in the region. The problem was, Rebekah‘s Land Cruiser was the only vehicle that could make it up the treacherous climb to Kakingol and the door of the vehicle had blown closed on Rebekah’s leg the previous week and she was not able to drive with a damaged knee and Papa Matthew, legally blind from a Traumatic Brain Injury and 25 days in a coma years ago, is strictly forbidden from EVER driving anything anywhere 😂. Mamma Lisa knew how to drive the Land Cruiser but had never driven up the almost impassable, steep, switchback rockslide of a road to Kakingol Village but she was willing to try. To compound matters, it had rained hard the night before, all night, and the next morning before the trip up the mountain. So, in four-wheel-drive, Mama Lisa, Rebekah, Papa Matthew, the Visitors, and a pile of Rebekah’s teens bounced and slid and spun and flew up the mountain throwing mud in all directions. We finally made it to the top and the people got to see The Jesus Film, hallelujah. The younger visitors also wanted to travel up higher in the mountain to another village where the vehicle could not go, so our pastors took them on motorcycles. One motorcycle crashed, but thankfully, no one was injured. They made it up and were able to minister on the mountain. All the while, dark rain clouds were rolling in. Uncharacteristically, Mama Lisa stayed in the vehicle the entire time asleep on the seat. At one point, Rebekah went to check on her, and found that she had a fever. We knew the rain was coming again so Mamma Lisa woke up and drove us back down the crazy, twisty, turning, sliding mountainside and took us safely home. The next morning, Mamma Lisa got tested at the clinic and she had Malaria. Dr. David Livingston, the rugged pioneer missionary who first brought the gospel to the interior of Africa was famous for saying, “We walk with Malaria” so we started teasing Mamma Lisa that she drives with Malaria 😂 Later Rubi and Papa Matthew took the visitors to town and they were blessed to speak on the radio. Praise the Lord, the family of Visitors later paid to build a new church building in Kakingol. When the building was complete, Papa Matthew grumbled, “We built this building way too big! We’ll never need this much space up here!” The next week we had a revival there and packed out the building with over 400 Tepeth people and scores were saved and baptized. Papa Matthew blushing, looked up to heaven and said, “Yes, Lord, Oh me of little faith.” 😂www.missionmoroto.org #missionmorotostories