Gaining permission
As new comers with official mission, permission to set up mission in Karamoja needed to be sought. Alfred Barclay Buxton and Hamilton Paget Wilkes sought permission from the Governor of Uganda, Sir William Gowers who had told them to visit Karamoja which Mr. Wilkes had identified to start a base for the Lake Turkana Sphere – Kakamar in Dodoth. Permission was granted on 12th May 1929.
At Lotome place, Sunday church service for sometime was centered at the sacred fig tree (ebobore) in Lotome cite, they soon built a school which would also serve as church building for sometime to come.
The translation of the Lord’s Prayer and Hymns into Ngakarimojong and identifying God as “Papa” might have led to the Karamojong to think that white man believes in the same God, but he certainly had a different religion.
The church – cum – school was dedicated on 16. 6 . 29 with a record attendance of 250 at Lotome which acted as a base for the whole of Karamoja and Turkana. Reading and writing was started, a football field was cleared, the boys’ dormitory erected, et cetera.
By 1930, Hamilton Paget Wilkes was able to make himself understood in Ngakarimojong. The same year church council of professing Christians was formed to begin a self-governing church from the very start. Mr. Israel Lokong, a Jie was made the overall headman of the station.
Come 1934, Mr. Bob Clark, later called Bwana Clark, was moved from Kacheliba to Lotome to take over the practical (agricultural) side of the work. In September same year he married the headmistress of Lotome Girl School – Ms Doris Wiggins. The ceremony was done in Ngora officiated by Bishop Kitching. Bob was also ordained on 16 . 12. 34 in Ngora.
After trying evangelism for sometime, the missionaries found it difficult to penetrate the Karamojong culture and tradition except for those who joined school. The missionaries somehow changed their mind and avoided direct evangelism.
“We decided that direct evangelism was very difficult in Karamoja,
and so have decided the idea of preparing suitable boys and girls
who would go back to their homes and live the Gospel. These will be
living Epistles known and read by all men”.
Catechism started in schools. This included the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles Creed. They used the Ateso Bible. In Lotome Boys’ school, some boys confessed Christ and the four were baptized on the first Sunday in 1931 by Rev. William Owen. They were Yakobo Locoro Lowok (from Lotome), Thomas Lowot (from Lotome), Logono Looyamoe Eriya (from Jie), and Yokana Chemaswett (from Sebei). Others who later followed included Nuwa Akorio (Lotome), Israel Lokong (Jie), Enos Longole (Bokora), Yepesa Lokolimoe (Dodoth) among others.
Anumber of boys were trained in the leadership code too. But the pull of the old life and the strong Karamojong traditional culture swallowed the first believers. Many who trained to be teachers married more than one wife and drifted away from active church service. But one Jephthah Lokolimoe finished the teacher training course at Ngora, became a teacher and later magistrate.
Yakobo Locoro Lowok, born in 1905 who was among the first four baptised became a teacher for two years but turned to trade selling hides in Soroti and hoes in Karamoja, hence, Ekone a Ngisomol, he succeeded Lomanat as Chief of Bokora County. He became of great help to missionaries though not strong spiritually as he married many wives. He took the title of “Ekapolon’ as he became Paramount Chief. Like other chiefs the Karamojong spoke of him as having ‘gone over” to the British, and children’s songs dubbed him ‘emoit’, enemy as the song attests to this: “Tokutak lelero ka ngijaka, oolelero torama eburi, Akobo Lowok nyemoit ekeri napis, ooleero ...
Yokona Loyep Areman who had been baptized in 1923 at Lokupoi by the very first but unofficial missionaries from Teso attended Sercretarial course at Iganga CMS, he became Etantalait, translator, and Secretary at the District Commissioner’s Office in Moroto.
