Greetings from Uganda! We made it to our location after 27 hours of travel, only to be welcomed by African music, cheering, and a bonfire. I was blown away by such a warm welcome. It has been great to experience the bush of Africa and getting a taste of how the locals live. It is 3 hours to the nearest town with internet, and I am grateful I got to go today…it’s my birthday present =)
So much can happen in one day here, so here are some highlights of this past week:
- Compassion International…There are 230 kids in the area who are sponsored through Compassion. We did some home visits of these children to evaluate how they are doing and what their living conditions are like. We also visited 2 new homes that Compassion built and did a ribbon cutting ceremony. It has been a blessing to see how this organization operates on this end, and I will assure you that people’s sponsor money is being stewarded well. These are the children who are at the top of their classes and love being part of the program. It has only been here for 2 years and growing rapidly. They plan to add 50 more children in the next couple of months.
- Sharing the word of God…This happens not only at church on Sunday. We’ve gone door to door, have tons of people over for fellowship every night, and did some open-air preaching at an area where people hang out and drink all day.
- Gatherings under the mango tree…We had a group of HIV/AIDS victims over and gave words of encouragement and prayer. We did the same with a bunch of women from the church we are working with. And since Mike and Denise, our squad leaders, have been staying with us…they held a gathering for the married couples of the church. This week all the pastors in the area are coming over for us to encourage and share with them. We have all joked about it because we do not feel qualified to do the things that we’ve done, but God is qualified so Amen!
- People travel for hours to come and see us, the “visitors”. We get to learn the language of Luoa (sp?) and hold their babies if they aren’t too scared of us. Sometimes we get a TV and generator, which draws a large crowd to watch African music videos and Nigerian movies.
- Learning how to do daily activiites like milking the cows, fetching water from the well, and killing a chicken for dinner (only Mike did this one).
This week we will be visiting churches in the surrounding villages, talking with the leadership, and praying for them. I can’t believe we only have about a week left here.
Thank you for keeping us in your prayers!
