On June 6 [1980] NLC [New Life Church] sent, among others, Alan Smith, Steve DeMoss, and Harvie Conn to join the NLC team already in Uganda.[1] Sempangi has credited Harvie Conn for the idea of “Garbage Truck Evangelism.”[2] Steve DeMoss recalled that Jack came up with the idea.[3] Actually, Phil Gross was originally responsible for using a garbage truck for evangelism. A week later, Jack and Gross met with Kampala’s city engineer to organize the creative approach that so beautifully harmonized evangelism with ministries of mercy.[4]
When the first NLC team had left Uganda four months earlier, Jack had left Gross behind until the second NLC team arrived in May 1980.[5] During that time, Gross became more familiar with the city. In early June, a team made up of New Lifers and Ugandan Christians were preaching in Nakasero Market. No one was listening; they could not possibly listen with the market so full of stinking garbage piling up since before Amin was deposed.[6] Rose Marie recalled how Garbage Truck Evangelism originated:
It’s just hard to imagine how awful the country was. It was just potholes in the streets, bombed buildings, nothing in the stores. The only place to get food was in the open markets. There was one little store that imported cheeses and stuff, but they were so pricey we didn’t even look at it. The women cooked plantain. That wasn’t our favorite meal. But [rat infested] garbage was piling up all over the city…. It was stinking to high heaven. But they had only two garbage trucks, and nobody wanted to go pick up garbage, nobody. So, Phil Gross, one of the young men that was with us, commandeered two trucks. And then I think we put up a big sign on the truck. And he invited all of the [Anglican] bishops to come and help, and they did come. You know they still had their collars. Then Harvie Conn came. They shoveled garbage all day long. [When] Jack came back, he stunk to high heaven.[7]
The sign on the truck read “Jesus is the answer.”[8] The team members rotated climbing atop the garbage truck to share testimonies and preach, while other team members shoveled garbage to clean up the market.
The Ugandan people watched in amazement as white men shoveled garbage all day long. They had seen only a few white men in Uganda over the past decade, but they had never seen a white man shoveling garbage.[9] One reporter accused Jack of having an undisclosed political agenda for what the missionary team was doing.[10]
Gross had gotten away with commandeering the two garbage trucks once, but to continue using the trucks, the team would need official permission. A week later, Jack and Gross visited the city engineer’s office to ask permission to use garbage trucks and volunteer to work alongside city employees to help clean up the markets.[11] The city engineer, a Mr. Achal, had studied at Oxford and spoke excellent English. He greeted the two Americans warmly. The city engineer explained that in 1970, Kampala had over fifty garbage lorries to serve a much smaller population. In 1980, Kampala’s population had increased to over a million people, and now the city had only one working garbage truck and a second one that was undependable.[12]
Gross had stumbled onto a real problem. Jack explained, “When any public service has broken down, [it is] also likely that demoralized workers have given up and/or are using the remaining lorry for their own profit. Happens in hospitals with drugs. Employees sell them in order to eke out a living or profiteer.”[13] Jack explained to the city engineer what they had done with the garbage trucks the prior week. He asked for permission to use the trucks to clean up the markets and suggested the city official allow city employees to cooperate with them as a way of encouraging the city’s workers.[14]
Additionally, Jack asked Achal for advice about communicating effectively with Ugandans. He explained, “It was not easy to get people to understand why we are out there. A reporter … thought we must be supporters of [former President] Lulu. Others thought we were trying to clean up the market because Europeans don’t like all the flies from the garbage fouling the markets where we shopped.”[15] Jack wanted to understand “how to help [Ugandan] people understand our motives.”[16] The city engineer replied,
Here in Uganda we can only understand two motivations: force and money. Amin taught us this for eight years. We learned to do things out of fear of punishment or for money. It’s a deeply-seated way of life now, and we find it hard to understand that anyone would volunteer to do something for another reason. We didn’t [use] to think that way.[17]
As the team shoveled garbage in the Nakasero and Owino markets, Jack, Harvie Conn, and others climbed onto the garbage truck. Like Joshua, the dung-covered high priest (Zech 3:1–5), the white American leaders, stinking to high-heaven, preached the gospel of God’s omnipotent grace to the people of Kampala.[18]
[1] Ibid., June–July 1980. Harvie Conn, Professor of Missions at WTS, attended NLC.
[2] Sempangi, From the Dust, 12–13. Sempangi was deeply involved in government and was not present when the events occurred. DeMoss recalled that it was Jack who first called Sempangi to set up an appointment with Kampala’s city engineer.
[3] DeMoss, in a recorded interview with the author, 29 September 2015.
[4] C. John Miller, “Garbage Truck Evangelism in Uganda,” The C. John Miller Manuscript Collection, PCA Historical Center, St. Louis, MO, Box 1 (Green Book) unpublished (24 May–June 21 1980). On the troubled history between the priority of mercy or evangelism, see also John R. W. Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008), Kindle edition, 40–50.
[5] “New Life Church Newsletters,” June–July 1980. According to DeMoss, as of September 2015, Gross was no longer walking with the Lord and had entered a rehab facility in Pennsylvania.
[6] Miller, “Garbage Truck Evangelism in Uganda.” Dead bodies were found at times under the piles of garbage.
[7] Miller, in a recorded interview with the author, 4–6 September 2015.
[8] Miller, “Garbage Truck Evangelism in Uganda.”
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid. The two working trucks were the ones commandeered by Phil Gross.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid. Jack was delighted when the city employees brought garbage containers, so people could throw any new garbage into containers rather than continuing to dump it on the ground.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
