Personal Toughts

Seven weeks from today I will be leaving for three weeks in Uganda. In Uganda I will be a part of a team teaching pastors who have planted churches. I am very excited about this opportunity. I have wanted to visit Africa for many years. I have been invited to participate in several work teams, but they never seemed just right. Construction teams, medical teams and the like, are not exactly what I do best (or at all).

But then this group came along and it fit perfectly. Our team is composed of six United Methodist Pastors, all from Indiana. We will be traveling to Uganda to lead the Uganda Bible Academy. The Academy is a training program for United Methodist pastors in Uganda who have very little training and limited access to educational opportunities. This is like a dream come true for me.

So, as I always do when taking on a new project, I began to research. I learned a lot about Uganda. I read about the wild life, the government, the weather, the geography and a little about the history. I cannot tell you everything about Uganda, but I am learning. I will continue to read and learn until the trip, I am sure.

One thing about Uganda was in my memory; Idi Amin. I was in school when Amin was in power. I don't remember much about him. I know that he was a bad man. There were jokes about him invading Angola on Saturday Night Live. I remember little else. But then there was The Last King of Scotland.

I do not believe that everything in this movie is accurate. In fact, I have no clue where fact and fiction meet in this tale. But, I am sure that I know more about Idi Amin and Uganda now than I did before I watched the movie. Forest Whitaker channels Idi Amin the way Philip Seymour Hoffman did Truman Capote. He does not impersonate Amin so much as he is Amin. I quickly lost myself in this movie- and I learned something along the way.

Amin began his reign as the leader of Uganda with the best of intentions. He wanted to do right by his people. His desire was to improve the lot of his subjects and his country. When he began to do this, however, he quickly learned how comfortable it made him. He was in a great situation. He received the adulation of millions of people. He grew wealthy. He began to think that he was always right and that there were no limits to his power.

I have never had the kind of wealth and power that Idi Amin enjoyed, but I have experienced a measure of each. I am financially relatively comfortable. Socially, and vocationally, people listen to what I say and sometimes do what I want them to do. These experiences are so potentially corrupting that they scare me every time. Lord Acton made the famous observation "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

When in a position of authority, it is important that all leaders

• cultivate humility
• seek out accountability
• retain previous relationships
• live generously
• continuously seek the well-being of others.