Local Clergyman Follows The Call To Africa

By Jan Howard

After two months of packing household belongings for shipment or storage, on January 31 a Newtown minister and his family boarded a plane at JFK that would take them first to England and then on to Africa.

The Rev William Kessler, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church, has left his church to answer a call from the Presbyterian Church’s Foreign Missionary Committee in Uganda.

“The last two months have been spent packing the family up to get them to Africa,” Rev Kessler said last week. “I will be ministering to churches there, teaching part-time at Westminster Bible College, and helping with church planting in the towns.”

Rev Kessler, his wife, Hazel, and their children, Jonathan, 15, Jennifer, 13, and Owen, 12, said their final goodbyes recently to the church and community he has served for almost 15 years. They left with a mixture of feelings, of sadness at leaving the friends they have here and anticipation of ministering and living once again in an African nation. The Kesslers’ son, Christopher, a freshman at Wheaton College, will join his family for a month in May.

This is not Rev Kessler’s first time ministering in Africa. In 1999, he spent three weeks ministering to the people of Eritrea, a small country bordering Ethiopia, where he had previously served for three months. In 1997, three months after Rev Kessler’s arrival, his hopes for a long-term ministry there were dashed when Eritrea’s socialist/Marxist government revoked his work permit and changed his visa. The actions came about after a shift in government leadership. He and other missionaries involved in a medical clinic and the church in the village of Ghinda, along with members of other non-governmental organizations in Eritrea, had to leave. The mission’s property in Ghinda was confiscated and the clinic taken over by the government.

Rev Kessler became involved in Eritrea through the Presbyterian Church’s Foreign Missionary Committee in 1996 when he was part of a short-term, five-week mission there.

In 1999, he had found himself ministering to many Sudanese Christians who had taken refuge in camps in Eritrea to escape the unrest and brutality in their country.

“I love missionary work,” Rev Kessler said. “I think the Lord is calling us. We’ve been given much, and we will use what we’ve received to give back.

“The kingdom of God rules over all affairs. He has special concern for his church and calls ministers to administer the covenant of grace.”

“It’s hard to leave our friends in the church, but we’re looking forward to going and being with Ugandans,” Mrs Kessler said. “We know God wants us to do it.”

At Westminster Bible College, Rev Kessler will be training young people to be ministers. He will be helping with church planting in numerous villages around Mbali

While her husband will be busy with his duties, Mrs Kessler said she would be home schooling their children because there are no facilities nearby. She will also be going to the market more often because much of the available food is fresh. She also hopes to teach English and hold Bible studies.

As far as cooking goes, Mrs Kessler said she would have to be creative. There will be fresh fruits and vegetables, but the family will have to take calcium supplements to replace the milk that would be missing from their diet. Meat is available, but four hours away in the capitol, Kampala.

Rev Kessler visited Uganda briefly two years ago. Located in western Africa, it borders on Sudan, Congo, Kenya, and Tanzania.

“The area where we’re going is lush forest, with tea and sugar plantations,” he said. “It is a semi-tropical environment, with 70 to 80 degree temperatures all year round.” However, he added, because of its 3,000-foot elevation, the area is not too hot. There are two rainy seasons.

Mbali sits at the bottom of an extinct volcano, he said.

“Uganda is a lush place, very green, with big trees and forests,” he said. “There is a mist over everything. It’s almost like a fantasyland. It’s real pretty.

“A lot will be new for us,” Rev Kessler said, noting the contrast between lush, semi-tropical Uganda and the arid, barren countryside of Eritrea, where temperatures could reach as high as 120 degrees.

Rev Kessler and his family will be part of a team of several families serving Mbali. A larger team of missionaries will have the services of a doctor and will be setting up a mobile clinic, he said. Two other missionary families will be living nearby.

While the country is not dangerous politically, there are always bandits, he said. There are also poisonous snakes. Then there is malaria, making it necessary to sleep under netting to keep out mosquitoes. “You get malaria a lot. You can take a pill, but even then you will come down with it,” Rev Kessler noted. “The first case is always the worse. The worst kind of malaria is cerebral malaria.

“We try to be careful and depend on the Lord,” he said.

There is not much social life in the evening, Rev Kessler said. “People stay in because of the mosquitoes and the fear of being robbed.”

Economically, Uganda has attracted foreign companies interested in investing there. “There is a middle class, but the people in the agricultural villages are poor,” he said.

The people are mostly Christian, with about eight percent Muslim and a similar segment practicing the traditional tribal religion of Animism.

After a few days to get settled, Rev Kessler will begin his work. A typical day will include teaching in the morning, visiting villages in the afternoon, and enjoying family time at night. On Sundays he will be preaching in established churches.

“In Africa, every day something new and different comes up,” Rev Kessler said. “There could be a snake in the kitchen, or someone might need help. You can’t count on anything. Sometimes the phones don’t work.

“What’s predictable is unpredictability,” he said.

Despite all that, Mbali is more modern than Ghinda, with more conveniences, he said.

While people in the villages live in mud huts with thatched roofs, Mbali is a small city that is slated for growth, Rev Kessler said, noting there have been dramatic changes in the last five years.

 Packing took much of the family’s free time the last couple of months, with decisions having to be made as to what would be shipped to Uganda or stored here.

“We had two months to pack up,” Mrs Kessler said. “It’s different from moving to another city. We had a deadline to meet. On Wednesday at 6:30 pm we have to be on that plane.

“Members of our church has been wonderful in helping us pack and fill the container, and helping to clean the house,” she said. “Everyone’s been wonderful. We’re sad about having to leave each other.”

Mrs Kessler said they packed condiments that are hard to obtain there. “They will tide us over as we make the transition from American to African food,” she said.

Books were definitely on the list of items earmarked for Uganda. “Books are very hard to get,” Mrs Kessler said.

Rev Kessler said other items on the must-go list were appliances, including a generator. “The electricity goes off regularly there,” he said. Despite hydroelectric power from Lake Victoria, he said the electricity goes off almost every night because Uganda sells electricity to other countries.

The house they will be living in will be simple and small, Mrs Kessler said. It will most likely be constructed of mud bricks or concrete blocks.

“We have a lot to learn, to experience,” she said. “It will be like camping out.”

“We’ll rise to the occasion,” Rev Kessler added.

After two and a half years in Uganda, the family will return to the United States for nine months. “In all likelihood we will come, if not to Newtown, to somewhere in the area for our furlough,” Rev Kessler said. “We would then go back to Uganda.”

Those months in the United States will be productive ones, with Rev Kessler visiting churches to report on missionary work, possibly taking a class, resting, “and getting strong again,” he said.

Community Presbyterian Church held several going away events for the Kesslers, including luncheons, dinners, and special programs.

“It’s been a really great church,” Rev Kessler said. “It was a fine church to minister to. It’s not easy to leave.”