After two 8 hour flights and an 8 hour drive from Entebbe, we arrived safely in Rukungiri, Uganda!
As our host, Pastor Enoch would say, we have arrived in our “home away from home”. Rukungiri is very beautiful, Ugandans consider this part of the country to be the rain forest. The best way I have found to describe the landscape is that it is mountainous farmlands. Unlike other countries that I have served in, the homes in each neighborhood are a lot more spread out on the land.
Our first day was spent resting, touring the town and debriefing with our ministry host where we learned about all the different types of ministry we will be doing for the month. We quickly discovered that we are going to be spoiled for our first month on the field. Our lodging is beautiful, we each have our own bed and we have real toilets! To top it off, we found out that we are living with another American named Amanda, who is 24 and here in Rukungiri doing mission work for the year. It’s been great having another American to show us around.
The people here have been extremely welcoming. The majority of them speak English, but their first language is Runyakore**, which is one of many dialects in Uganda. As we walk around here, we tend to draw lots of attention as 5 white girls. The area is not touristy, so we hear a lot of “muzungu, muzungu”, which basically means “there’s a white person”.
Our host, Enoch, is extremely organized and has us all set up to do multiple types of ministry throughout the month. Here is some of the different ministries we will be working with over the month:
- Cherished Life Ministries – For this ministry, we will be visiting and having lunch with teen moms and their kids. We already got to do this once on Saturday. About 9 young Moms showed up and we just sat and played with their kids for several hours. Unfortunately, a lot of the Moms were not able to finish schooling, so they do not speak any English, but sometimes just sitting and sharing a smile is all that is really needed.
- Rugarama Health Centre – This is a nearby health clinic, where we will visit with the patients and show them the love of Christ. Not all of them will be Christians, so we are praying that God opens their hearts as we come to spend time with them.
- CBTC (A Training Center) – Here we will help train women (who most likely never got a full education), on how to do different types of trade, such as weaving and knitting.
- Chilli Children – This is a program for people with disabilities. On this day we will most likely be making home visits and hanging out with people within the program.
This is just some of the work we will be doing over the month. On Ugandan time, things are bound to change, but we are very excited for all of the different serving opportunities. God is most definitely at work in this community and we are ready to continue that work for Him.
God Bless,
Ashley
P.S. Unfortunately our internet is not the best. I had planned to post some photos, but they never loaded. I’ll be getting some up on my facebook, so check them out there!
