Dear all,
Thanks so much to those who replied this week. Your emails are so encouraging and good to read.
It's been a hectic weekend. On Thursday we headed off to Pallisa district which is north east of
The journey down was good fun. Charles, our minibus/taxi driver, had a homemade christian best of album. So we listened to this continually for 3 hours. We heard "These are the days of Elijah" about 12 times (and I still rather like it...strange) and the classics "We wanna see Jesus lifted high", which the whole bus clapped along too (the Ugandans enjoyed the triple claps). We were delighted by many more golden oldies.
So this played loudly while we dodged potholes and admired the beautiful flat landscape of rice plantations and other shrubbery. The open countryside was idyllic and peaceful and calming and serenity.
I suddenly realised this was real Africa- Dusty roads, round mud huts with thatched roofing- and westernised Kampala was far behind.
In Kamuge we met up with the rest of the team of local christian friends who were going to be helping out. I felt like I really bonded with these people even though we only spent 3 days with them. We shortly began going to local primary and secondary schools. Overall we did 2 on thursday and 5 on Friday. We sang songs with them, played games and did our gospel drama. This began at creation and ended at reconciliation. The dramas went down well as they are not used to people acting but also love a good story. We gave a football to each school. This caused some stress. The pumps kept on failing and up to 3 schools were meeting at each one we went to. At a small primary school, while they were introducing teachers I glanced at the minibus and saw Charles (the driver) furiously pumping up balls. He did well and most were given fully pumped. (it seemed harsh to give them a new ball which was flat and not many have pumps).
Above: a little girl at one of the schools
Above: The welcome at the first Primary school we visited
On Saturday we held a rally (they call it crusade, we call it rally) on the field in Kumuge. We were expecting up to 1000 children and had a team of 12 altogether. This seemed madness but we were well prepared. There were 4 teams each with animals. The group leaders, 2 per team and our local translators wore different coloured t-shirts which we designed prior to the event and had our names on them. I was a crocodile and wore a green t-shirt. the others were Red Eagles, Blue Elephants and Yellow lions (We won haha!) This was largely down to a recruitment drive. The children were each given a band on their wrist made of wool of the same colour as the t-shirts. It became a battle to gain the most members and we thrived. Me and Semusam, our cheeky and strangely childlike Ugandan friend had an ongoing battle and would race to new kids-he was an Eagle. I had such fun with Sam on the trip and felt like I got to know him so much better. We hadn't seen much of him due to a bout of Malaria and a mysterious shipping container arriving from
The day went without a hitch until lunch ran late, about 2 hours late, and we were faced with hundreds of hungry, young African children. We feared for the worst- a riot. But somehow, due to the hard work of our local friends we managed to keep some kind of order and a queue was formed. The local translators were so vital. there are many languages in
On sunday I was preaching. This was in a small church in a village I didn't know and had never been to. The church was small with about 20 people. It was made of wood and palm leaves and had one side of the roof in metal. The praise was similar to most here but during the offering goods were sold. I found this quite amusing. An auction in church!? Blasphemy! I liked the look of some maize (corn on the cob) and started bidding with another woman. We started at 200 shillings and ended at 800 (which is about 25p). She didn't go any higher- I had won! I felt excitement mixed with pride then realised I had probably taken cheap food away from the woman. Later afterthought -"Why did I do it? I didn't need the maize. I don't want the maize". I tried giving it to one of our new friends- a lovely man, Pastor Godfrey -before we left and he didn't want it and gave it back. It joined the other gifts we had been given on the minibus floor. (By the way my talk went fine after much nervous build up)
After saying our goodbyes we left with 2 extra local pastors, 2 chickens, a turkey, some maize, all of us (11) and half a tonne of luggage. It was a tight fit. They only seat 14 and 3 seats were taken up by bags.
The christian cd was on repeat again in all its full glory. Hallelujah.
Would like to write more but out of time.
I do read your replies! We only have 1 hour though and the internet is usually pretty slow.
Love you all,
jonny
x
