It is hard to believe our month here in Uganda has already come to an end. It seems like just the other day we arrived at 4:00 in the morning not knowing where we were.
These past couple weeks have been filled with door to door and school ministry. We have had the chance to meet many people who are members of the church here in Rukungiri. At first it seemed like it was very monotonous work, since all I could think about was “why are we talking to these people, they already go to Church”. But as the weeks continued it became clear to me that what we were doing was for sure a ministry and it meant the world to these people that we came by their homes to see them. They would take time off work for the whole day just knowing that there was a chance that we may come by and see them, several people would even have and array of food and drinks waiting for us.
There was one young man by the name of Sam whom we met one day as we stopped by his parent’s hardware store. He is 21 years old and was home from college in Kampala, where he is studying to become a software engineer. I have never had someone so excited to meet me, it was like I knew him my whole life. It was also nice that he spoke pretty good English so we could all communicate with each other very well. This was one of our first days here; we continued to keep a relationship with him stopping by to catch up every time we would pass by the store. One day he asked us if we would all come over for tea one afternoon, so of course we agreed since all of us have become big fans of the tea here. Not knowing what he had planned for us when we got there we were all pleasantly surprised when he sang a few songs for us. That is when it started to hit me just how much our presence here means to these people, that this young man whom we have only known for a week and spent maybe an hour or two of our time with him would take the time to write a song about us, no matter how many miles there is between us we will always have a faithful friend.
I feel the Lord has worked in me several ways this month. He has helped me become bolder, and more outgoing when speaking to people in general and especially about my faith. I also now feel a lot more comfortable knowing where to look in scripture to find a verse for someone and what they are going through, since we did that so many times this month. It has furthermore been amazing to see how the Lord has energized not just me but the whole team as the month has gone on.
Emily, Sarah, Scott and I had the opportunity to go on a Safari last Monday, with our contact and his wife for our day off. We went to Queen Elizabeth National Park, which is about a 3 hour ride from where we are. Even though things did not turn out as we thought they would since the vehicle we had did not have 4×4, and we were not about to pay the money needed to get one. We still were able to see elephants, water buffalo, hippos, antelope, baboons, and lots a birds. But the best part was spending time with our contact, Pastor Enoch, he is a very busy man and it was good to be able to talk with him away from his job.
So far being one of the logistics leaders for the squad has been a good challenge, I have learned a lot about traveling and how to deal with different people as well as patience. However, this next week Tommy and I will start working on getting the whole squad visas for China, which will probably be no easy task. So any prayers would be much appreciated.
I am not exactly sure what ministry will look like next month but we will be in Nyagatare, Rwanda. Please pray for us, that the Lord will use us were He needs to spread His word to the people there.
As always thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. Drew
