It is hard to paint for you an accurate picture of what is going on in these conferences in Uganda. To quote one pastor at the end of our conference in the first week, "My churches will never be the same. God has transformed my understanding of the complete atoning work of Jesus Christ, my eternal salvation in him, and my new relationship to the law." The keyword that we hear expressed from everyone is "transformed". Is this not the hope and prayer we have as we are sitting under the Word. Many of the pastors have expressed that they have had great fear of preaching through Romans. They were more comfortable to pick and choose which verses they want to speak on rather than approach the book with a mind to understand Paul's full message. I have to admit that I find myself being transformed as well. One cannot help but be overwhelmed by God's enduring love for this sinner!
It is no small task to cover the first 10 chapters of Romans in less than a week, but this is what we have done. For about 8 hours a day we have labored through Paul's teaching and there have been moments where the pastors exclaim outloud, praise be to God. Some were experiencing for the first time assurance that they may have eternal security in the completed work of Jesus Christ. Can you imagine knowing that for the first time having ministered, failed, repented, failed, trusted, failed.... They now rest in him and they have promised this Gospel will now be preached to their congregations. God is at work friend!
We travelled 10 hours to the north to Nebbi to teach to 150 pastors. We are now back in the south in a town called Jinja. We are at the end of the second day of lectures. We will begin tomorrow with Romans 7. Pray deeply for their understanding. They will discover tomorrow how they can rightly think about the law, they will see glorious realities in Romans 8, and discover overwhelming sovereignty in Romans 9. Pray for their understanding! We will leave here Thursday afternoon and arrive in Entebbe where we will wait for the following night when we will depart. They will forget these Muzungu (white men) but will have God's word in their hands. By his grace they will have a deeper understanding of Romans that will remain with them.

Grace and peace,

Nathan McCall