TWIC~ARTS
The Next Generation
Issue III // September 2022
Mjabale! ("Well done" - the standard greeting in both Luganda and Lusoga). Now you respond "kale" (pronounced /kah-le/ not /keil/), which is a catch-all to mean some sort of agreement - eg. okay, yes, you're welcome, I agree, etc... And then you return the greeting, and I'll also respond.
Now that we're both welcome here, I want to talk about our lives with children, which seems to be the largest part of our ministries, both past and present, even though we're not even parents ourselves! As a son and daughter from two large families - 10 and 12 children - we have both grown up surrounded by children. I currently have 12 nieces and nephews from my family's side (with one more on the way, and about 15 honorary nieces and nephews through my in-laws), and Sam's side has one nephew, with another on the way. I've been a nanny, Sunday School assistant, then teacher, VBS staff, puppet team member, and Sunday School worship leader, and I'm currently volunteering with midwives; while Sam is a children's pastor, who meets with the children six evenings a week when they are out of school (including the two years of COVID school shutdowns), and he teaches for three Sunday school services every other month. He also leads and choreographs multiple children and youth dance crews. And he is greatly loved by every child he encounters - because he truly loves them and wants to leave a positive impact in every life. Many of them take him to be more of a father-figure than their own parents. No matter where we go, the excitement of my white skin is soon overshadowed by yells of "ANCO Sam!" as they all rush to be with him. So with all of this, you can see that young people play a big part in our lives nearly every day.
As I mentioned, Sam has a huge heart for ministering to children and youth. He hates to see the potential and gifts in every life to be wasted or diminished by the adults. So Sam created TWIC-Arts (True Worship In Creative Arts). Their slogan is "My talent to nations for Christ." He wants to give the children a chance to display their many talents and grow them through ministry. When I said he was a dance teacher before, I didn't mention that he also teaches them vocals, songwriting and composition, acting skills in drama/skits, and he will soon be reviving the football team (Americans, read "soccer"). We know that every person has been born with a specific purpose for their life, and God has given each one of us special talents and gifts to accomplish our purposes. There are too many households in which parents and relatives diminish and discourage a child's gifting, or even punish them. By simply providing a space for each child and youth to display their talents and grow them under a loving leadership, we have seen amazing results in both the children's lives, and in the lives of those they minister to. Below, I'll post some videos of the incredible talents of these children and youth. We encourage every one to take what they naturally have, and grow it to the next level.
Most of our children attend boarding schools, which is the norm here. The school term starts in January, and the children get their first holiday in April. Many times the children go home, but sometimes they are sent to stay with their relatives in the village for the few weeks, before again returning to school. Sometimes, they can go the whole year (or two, or three years) without ever coming home and seeing their parents; this is often cost/responsibility-driven. Due to this, many students raise themselves, with the heaviest influence from their peers, and discipline from their teacher's canes. The Ugandan law reduced the number of canes allowed to a maximum of three, but it is not at all enforced or followed, according to every student's report. A student can be caned for anything from a bad test result, to group punishment for someone else's behavior [side note: Uganda was British-influenced, not American, and I just wrote "behaviour," before my spellcheck corrected it. My English and my accent have changed dramatically since coming here]. There is a big emphasis on disciplined behavior, and not much room for allowing the kids to just be kids and grow their talents. Students can be woken up at 6am to start revising their books (studying), and they are often called back after supper for more studies up to 9 or 10pm, weekends are spent in more revising, and sometimes extra classes for candidates (those who are in their last year of primary or secondary school). So as you see, Sam's program is an important safe haven for many students. It may be the only time they are truly free.
P.S. I began writing this post in the second week of August, but it's now almost reached the end of September. So it seems this is going to be a monthly blog...
Words by SAM:
Observing the pattern of little children and youths around me as I grew up, many ideas ran in my head. I'm number four out of ten kids and growing up, our parents wanted us close to them. The only time we were away from them was when we visited our grand parents, and we did not even spend a night in the village (country side). Mom always preferred bearing the load of feeding all of us during school breaks (holidays) than to send us to relatives to "share/reduce" the burden of ten kids. The results of this practice worked for us because we turned out to be different from kids around us.
I loved kids from a tender age and I helped take care of my siblings right from my follower to the last born.
Growing up, what seemed to be a desire to just be with kids became even more organized when I decided to join the "sunday school crew". I call it "crew" because at that time, I joined just to have fun with kids, sing, and dance with them before the teacher gave a lesson. We also stood in to help keep order when the children's teacher was teaching. With time, the passion grew and later on, I became the pastor of the children (I don't really think I will ever get used to this title though).
Going back to the pattern of school breaks, I decided to come up with activities that would keep most kids around rather than being sent off to villages to be with their grandparents until school time resumed. Most of them who always went to villages for months eventually changed the pattern and instead went for a week or two to be with their grannies and then came back to participate because they really fell in love with the activities at church.
We do a variety of activities throughout the week (Monday to Saturday) when children and youths come back from boarding school.
We open up the week with games and sports; then we have singing and dancing on Tuesday; prayer and fasting on Wednesday; Thursdays are for drama and skits; we do what we named "straight talk" on Fridays where one teenager has to share their story right from childhood to where they are, after which we all pray for and with them; on Saturdays, we do bible study; and Sunday is church. This cycle repeats throughout the holidays. This started out simply as activities, but going on, I saw a need to make them more structured. So based on what I feel like God has called me to do (mentoring the next generation through shaping their God-given talents for His glory), I prayerfully came up with what I call TWICARTS (True Worship In Creative Arts).
Our vision statement:
《We seek to be a community of artists who offer our talents as gifts unto the Lord and pray that He will use them to bring glory to Himself, minister to the body of Christ, and draw unbelievers to the cross, both in the church and in the world at large.》
We specialize in Dance, Skits/drama, Singing, Musicians, Poets/writers/composers, and Football/soccer.
We have several goals. We want to discern spiritually what people need and to prompt them into taking action in their own lives; maintain a Christian identity through using our unique talents to glorify God; and to select plays for performance which will elicit spiritual growth.
Back to VERO/ VERN/ VERONIKA:
And truly, we see the kids using their talents to reach people and tell them about the Lord. It's been amazing to see each of them realize their gifts and put in the effort to grow them. Sam has been building these great relationships with the children and youths as he disciples them over the years. As the kids grow up, they begin to teach the younger ones - singing, choreographing, skits, Bible study, life lessons, etc. We pray that the ministry continues for many years as the mentees become the mentors!
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