End-Sabbatical Pastoral Letter

This is the text of a letter Peter wrote for the congregation at St Mary’s towards the end of his sabbatical leave.

Pastoral letter to the congregation of God’s people at St Mary’s Wootton


Dear friends

Very warm greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ from Mukono.

As we pack our bags, the words of an old song could be the voice of Uganda: ‘We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go’! We have been so warmly welcomed here, but home is with you in Wootton and it is time to return. It has all passed so quickly – we can barely believe that we’ll be back in St Mary’s on Sunday 15th July. We are so looking forward to seeing you all again.

For me, this sabbatical has been a wonderful chance to see the gospel about Jesus bearing fruit in a different place, to flex some neglected spiritual muscles, and to read and reflect at greater length than normal. I am so grateful to God for all who have taken on additional responsibilities at St Mary’s to enable me to have the break, and also to the many people who in different ways have helped and encouraged us as a family to come here. For us, it has been very precious to be in Uganda together.

We can scarcely wait to share our pictures and stories, as well as to hear how God has been at work in Wootton since Easter. Weblogs and e-mails mean we have been in regular touch, but it is not the same as being face-to-face.

My main commitment at Uganda Christian University has been to teach the gospels to first-year students. The teacher always learns the most: I have been gripped as I’ve seen afresh how, in their own way, each gospel writer tells the good news about God’s love in Jesus. Secondly, I’ve been trying to understand better what it means for us as Christians to be ‘in Christ’, united to him especially in his death and resurrection. (We had a short sermon series on this at St Mary’s last year). I’ve learnt a lot – and there’s more to do.

Third, I have spent some time reading and thinking about parish ministry. Not because we’ve a curate arriving in September and your vicar needs to be on his toes (though I do)! Rather, because I find I so easily lose sight of the pastoral wood for the trees. UCU has been a good place to regain some perspective. For example, among the watering-holes where I’ve found refreshment have been some searching expositions of 1 Timothy about Christian leadership for ordinands every Wednesday morning.

Reading a wise pastor’s thoughts on ministry a few weeks ago, my eye was caught by his intriguing catch-phrase: ‘I am busy because I am lazy’. It rang a bell, because I know I have a reputation for being busy – and it haunts me. Parish ministry is being with people, with the gospel. If you think I am busy - too busy to be with you, with the gospel - there is something wrong. So what is the answer?

As I have thought about this, the threadbare slogan ‘back to basics’ seems to sum it up. When I was ordained – as when Ted Fell is ordained in the autumn – it was to the ministry of the word, and prayer. First, to be sharing the gospel of the love of God in Jesus (and all it means for the whole of life) among you and in our community as we gather together, on Sundays and in other groups. Second, to share the comfort, encouragement and correction of God’s love in Jesus with individuals and families as widely as possible, especially in situations of need and decision and at the turning points of life. And third, to pray – for you and our community. It’s simple, really! This is what the Church of England called me to be and do, and what I committed myself afresh to be and do when I came to Wootton. Disciple-making: the heart of ministry.

And I now realise that I am busy because the heart easily gets edged out to the margins. There is so much else to do at St Mary’s! Meetings, phone-calls, ‘running the church’, and so on, too easily dictate the shape of the week. So preparation to teach and preach - especially the hard task of working out for you week by week ‘what specific difference should this aspect of the gospel of God’s love in Jesus make to our life now? - can get short shrift. Unhurried time to spend with people becomes hard to find. And prayer too often becomes an afterthought instead of the first priority.

So I return to Wootton with a renewed determination to keep the ‘main thing’ as the ‘main thing’. To be among you in church as the one whose main responsibility is prayerfully to teach and apply the gospel, and to be among you as individuals and families prayerfully as the servant of the gospel. There are many other tasks which need to be done. But if I do not maintain the heart of ministry as the priority, and organise life so that it gets the best of my energy and time, I will fail you as the people of God. And betray the gospel of God’s love in Jesus. Next week, when we are back in Bedfordshire, I’ll be spending some ‘quiet days’ praying this through as my sabbatical leave comes to an end.

I love the T-shirt motto, ‘Please be patient, God’s not finished with me yet!’. The greatest gift a congregation can give to its team of leaders is its prayers. I want to thank you for your prayers and encouragement over the last five years. We are returning reinvigorated by our wonderful time in Africa and very much looking forward to discovering what God has in store for us all in the years ahead.

With love in Jesus,





Peter Ackroyd

4th July 2007

Of the reading of many books

One or two of you (OK, just one) have asked what I have been reading while on sabbatical. So, for those of you, like the elephant's child, with 'satiable curtiosity (mindful of his fate at the hands of his relations), here's the list:

A Theology/Pastoral

Ademeyo, Tukonboh (ed): African Bible Commentary
Barth, Karl : The Epistle to the Romans (ET) – Prefaces to 1st & 2nd edns
Bartholomew CG & Goheen MW: The Drama of Scripture (part)
Brain, Peter: Going the Distance
Bray, Gerald: ‘Scripture and Confession: Doctrine as Hermeneutic’ in Satterthwaite and Wright (eds), A Pathway into Holy Scripture, 221-35
Calvin, Jean: Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr Battles (Library of Christian Classics, XX), Book III, ss1-17
Church, Joe E : Quest for the Highest
Denney, James: The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation (part)
Dunn, James DG: The Theology of Paul the Apostle (part)
Ferguson, Sinclair B: The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction (part)
Gaffin, Richard B Jr: ‘Union with Christ: Some biblical and theological reflections’, in McGowan ed, Always Reforming, Leicester: Apollos, 271-288
Goldsworthy, Graeme: Prayer and the Knowledge of God
Gregory the Great: Liber Regulae Pastoralis, NPNF 2nd Series, XII
Hovil, R Jeremy G: ‘Transforming Theological Education in the Church of the Province of Uganda (Anglican)’, unpublished DTh thesis, Stellenbosch, 2005
Kopolyo, Joseph M: The Human Condition: Christian Perspectives through African Eyes
Letham, Robert: The Work of Christ (part)
MacCulloch, Diarmaid: The Reformation (part)
Ovey, Jeffrey, Sacks: Pierced for our Transgressions, Leicester: Apollos, 2007 (part)
Patterson, Ben: He has Made me Glad: Enjoying God’s Goodness with Reckless Abandon
Peterson, Eugene H: The Contemplative Pastor
Peterson, Eugene H: Under the Unpredictable Plant
Purves, Andrew: Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition (part)
Smedes, Lewis B: Union with Christ: A Biblical View of the New Life in Jesus Christ
Stewart, James S: A Man in Christ
Wright, N Thomas: The Climax of the Covenant, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991 (part)

B Africa, travel
Beacon, Tim: The Gap Year Handbook
Briggs, Philip: Uganda (Bradt Travel Guide)
Godwin, Peter: Mukiwa
Godwin, Peter: When a Crocodile eats the Sun
Kapuscinski, Ryszard: The Shadow of the Sun
Moorehead, Alan: The White Nile
Noll, Peggy: With the Eyes of the Heart: One Missionary’s Perspectives from Uganda Christian University, Mukono
Stevenson, Terry, & Friend, John: Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa

C Literature
Heaney, Seamus: District and Circle
McCall Smith, Alexander: Blue Shoes and Happiness
Tolstoy, N: War and Peace (ongoing!)

From Kyambura to Wootton & Odell

Less than a fortnight ago, we walked through head-high elephant grass, over the rim of a crater lake and down towards the large, tranquil, salt-water lake in its base. Our mission? To find flamingoes, confidently asserted to be almost always present in great numbers. Despite powerful binoculars (the perceptive gift of St Mary’s before we left) there was ominously no sign of the birds from the rim - where we had left the 4WD after a rough drive down a little-used dirt track through the Kyambura Wildiife Reserve (a remote corner of Queen Elizabeth National Park bordering the mountainous district of Bushenyi). So, 80% sure that the absence of buck meant a similar safety from their predators, we trekked for half an hour closer to the lake –to be frustrated first by the path’s errant direction and second by the increasing evidence that the flamigoes had flown – long ago. Only the incessant buzz of African insects and the sight of abundant birds of prey and turacos redeemed the morning!



This afternoon I walked through waist high meadow grass, spying the occasional pheasant and rabbit, into the tranquil but almost sepulchral calm of Odell Great Wood, north Beds. The sabbatical is coming to an end, family re-unions have been celebrated, Lucy Alastair and Tom have happily resumed their UK schools for the last few days of the summer term, and we have all settled quickly back in the vicarage in Wootton (where the garden, house and car have all been magnificently prepared by an anonymous and generous team of volunteers). Oh, and we have been re-united with the barking (both senses) family dog, Toffee.

I am spending a final couple of days in quiet prayer and reflection at a converted barn in Odell, away from the phone and post and internet, summing up for myself some of the pastoral conclusions drawn from reading and observation over the ‘rest’ of the last three months. Then tomorrow it’s back to preparation for Sunday and the weeks ahead. Posted later will be my sabbatical reading list, and also a copy of the pastoral letter I composed for the congregation to receive before my return..

Farewell to Uganda

So here we are in the last few hours in Uganda - 5.45pm in the afternoon last Friday, just arrived at the Royal Victoria Lake Hotel in Entebbe.



We'd left Mukono earlier in the day, lunched with the Hovils in Makindye, Kampala, and then borrowed their Land Rover and gardener/driver, Levi, for the 35km journey to Entebbe. Four of our five suitcases lashed to the roof-rack.

Lucy Alastair and Peter braved the swimming pool and then we all shared a great farewell barbecue supper by the poolside, before picking up a taxi for the ten minute hop to the airport.

Flights all on time. Though not much sleep was enjoyed we arrived in Gatwick via Brussels at 7am UK time Saturday morning, just caught the 8.05 train to Guildford, and were in the tranquil calm of JoJo's mother's garden enjoying the English summer sun shortly after 9 o'clock.

So, journey's end - and also, for all of us, a new beginning. Thanks to all who have been following these blogs. This one is open for comments! Hoping to post some follow-up blogs for hardened readers in the next few weeks.

Safari 3: Leaping over Mountains to Tree-climbing Lions

From Kisiizi we travelled across what felt like the roof of Africa to the savannah plains of Ishasha, in the far south of Queen Elizabeth National Park.

We were very glad of our experienced driver Cosmas and the 4WD Toyota Hi-Ace as we bumped along on the three-hour trek over murram (stony dirt) roads in mountainous country. It was really like traversing high passes in the Alps. Except that despite being 2000-2500m above sea level the air was warm and full of dust and every scrap of hillside up to almost the summit of hills is cultivated – matooke (plantain) plots, ‘Irish’ potatoes in the dark earth of valley floors, small stands of timber, tobacco fields, maize and much more. Tin-roofed houses dotting the vertiginous hillsides, occasional small villages (each with its mobile phone air-time stalls) and often on the top of lesser summits a church building, many of which in a fertile and heavily-populated area, lovingly evangelised by the Church of Uganda, are being extended.



And schools too – this was the afternoon, when children often learn crafts like basket-weaving, farming and brick-making, and then towards the end of the long school day (typically 8am-5pm) play football and other games, so the surprising sight in a remote area of a muzungu family passing by caused great wonderment! Many schools are church schools – ‘Rugyeyo Primary School, Church of Uganda’ proclaimed one smartly-painted noticeboard, adding in brackets (for the avoidance of doubt?) ‘Anglican’.

The contrast in the last half-hour was dramatic. We descended gradually from the populous green hills to the empty wide brown savannah plains which I suppose is most westerners’ image of rural Africa. Ishasha area takes its name from the Ishasha River, which here is the border between Uganda and ‘the DRC’. It’s a remote corner of the Queen Elizabeth National Park (named in the Queen’s honour before independence – we saw a plaque in the north of the park commemorating her visit here with the DofE in 1954). Wide and empty plains punctuated by tall acacia trees and sustaining no human habitation but an abundant animal life – antelope of various types in abundance, their predators, elephants, and an abundance of birds. Here we stayed in two ‘bandas’ a stone’s throw from the river and were surrounded during the night by the grunts of grazing hippos.

Ishasha is one of only two places in Africa which is home to prides of lions with a unique habit: they climb trees for rest and shade. We spent a long drive the next morning fruitlessly looking! (There were many other creatures to observe – including lions on the ground). But imagine our excitement when on the road to the gate leaving the park at the end of the morning we found ourselves observed from a wide acacia by four lions! There was further excitement when Tom chose that moment to have a diarrhoea attack and needed to leave the vehicle with his nervous parents . . . but that’s another story. (All is well!)

Safari 2: Kisiizi Hospital

Finally made it to Kisiizi (locally pronounced ‘Chisiizi’) last Tuesday lunchtime.

We knew Adrian Shutt, the chief surgeon with whom Tim Beacon from St Mary’s has forged such a good partnership, would not be there – on leave in the UK with his wife Jane. So Tim had relieved us of the responsibility of extracting medical kit from Uganda Customs in Entebbe and delivering it to him. But it was very good to be able to walk the site and meet a few people.



Despite its remote location in a small trading station two hours over tough roads from Kabale, as a Church of Uganda hospital with longstanding links with the UK through CMS and other bodies, many at Kisiizi have a familiarity with the UK. So we were warmly welcomed by the hospital administrator Moses, his assistant Tony and the chief nursing officer Esther. Turned out that Esther had also been a guest at the first wedding JoJo and I were invited to together (1990 or 1991!) – Jonathan Juckes and Diana Reakes-Williams, who had been a midwife in Kisiizi in the ‘80s.

After a cheap nourishing (but somewhat chewy) goat stew and rice in the canteen, we were given a tour of the hospital by the head electrician, Gideon. Turns out that the hydro-electic turbine wheel which Tim had shipped out here last year was now ready, after some re-tooling, to be fitted this week. Electricity generation capacity will increase from a max of 60kw to 130-300kw (depending on water volume). Gideon not only showed us round the hospital (active chapel symbolically at the centre of the main block) but also gave us a grandstand view of the magnificent 70m drop of Kisiizi Falls.

Safari 1: ‘Tukutendereza Yesu’

Back safely Saturday night from our week’s tour of the SW and W of Uganda. It had its moments – not least both highs and lows of travelling with a ‘Be a Blessing Co’ car and driver/s! Planning to post a series of short blogs as we can – this week is our last week and lots of goodbyes to say and loose ends to tie up.



Picture is of Bwama Island on Lake Bunyoni (‘lake of birds’) in the Alpine-like scenery but un-Alpine-like weather of Kigezi – the south-westerly part of Uganda bordering Rwanda and the ‘DRC’ (Demoncratic Republic of Congo). Tranquil Bunyoni is only a few miles from the Rwandan border and the principal town of the region – Kabale – lies across a steep pass to its north.

We spent a couple of nights at a newish backpackers’ resort on Itambira island, paddling out in a dugout, and then spending the time swimming in the bilharzia- and crocodile-free waters, writing journals, and reading. It was especially moving for me to be in the midst of a classic memoir of the East African Revival, 'Quest for the Highest' by Dr Joe Church.

Kabale was as far as I understand the centre for CMS’s Ruanda Mission - in the late 1920s and 1930s establishing mission stations (comprising hospitals and churches) in what was then very remote country with almost no roads and ‘big game’ not restricted by development to reserves as it is today. They carried rifles alongside their Bibles and medicine chests! (Bwama Island was for forty years a leprosarium run by the mission.)

And then in the thirties and forties Christians in Ruanda and SW Uganda saw the outbreak of dramatic revival, an outburst of spiritual energy bringing many to living faith and reviving churches eventually across the whole East African region and beyond. So it was humbling and moving to read last week near its epicentre, from the pen of one of its great leaders, a Cambridge/CICCU doctor, of the revival’s emphases and energy: its stress on the Cross and the Bible, on ‘broken-ness’, public repentance and mutual forgiveness among Christians as the foundation for fellowship and mission, of lives deeply surrendered to Jesus, of the ways in which some in the churches found it too spontaneous, ‘excessive’ and threatening, but also of the spiritual unity between African and European Christians which it generated and which was such a testimony to the world in the middle of the last century.

The revival has left a noticeable lasting legacy for good in the Church of Uganda, not least in a tradition of encouraging naturally and without any embarrassment deep personal commitment to the person of Jesus. One of the songs still regularly sung here is ‘Tukutendereza Yesu’ (‘We Praise You Jesus’) – originally derived from the hymnbook of the Keswick Convention, one of the spiritual ‘headwaters’ for the Revival:

We praise you Jesus,
Jesus lamb of God,
Your blood cleanses me,
I praise you, Saviour.

Tukutendereza Yesu
Yesu Omwana gw’endiga
Omusaigwo gunaziza
Nkwebaza, Omulokozi