We have arrived in Mbarara, Uganda for our second month of ministry with the Promise Church of Christ. We again are living with the pastor’s family, Solomon, his wife and their adorable two month old, Sufficient Grace. We are now living the real African lifestyle, no power, running water or anything. I showered today, outside, with my bare back to village, covered by a few tarps and surrounded by Ugandan countryside, it was awesome. A cold bucket of water was all I had. I had gotten used to the warm showers at Gideon’s, but this is a nice change of pace. At night we use a few lanterns and our torches (head lamps) and the church members cook our food over open flame and charcoal. Church members and neighbors are in and out of this small household all the time. They have volunteered to cook our food, wash our clothes, get us water and the like for the entire month we are here, which is a huge blessing! We didn’t realize how much of our time was consumed by figuring out what to eat, how, when, who, where, etc. last month. The girls are separated in two rooms, one with a three layer bunk bed and that is mostly all that can fit in that room. The other has a regular bunk bed and a single bed next to it, along with all of our bags. Then there is a small living room, dining room and a walkway that suffices as a ‘kitchen’. There are no stove tops, ovens, microwaves or anything, all of the cooking is done outside, but the few cups and dishes and leftover food is kept in the hallway to the outdoors. There is also a lovely open porch we sit on to do our devotionals in the morning and read. The latrine at this place is a nicer one, not too smelly and has two holes (for the two kinds of waste we put in them), that makes it easier to aim haha.
Anyways, let me jump back a bit. We spent the last two nights in Busia at a separate house, dedicated to housing our squad. We made them dinner and had such a great time reconnecting with all of them. Rachel realized in those last few nights, while we were packing up, that sometime within the month $220 had been stolen out of our emergency money and had to be taken out of the 50,000 shilling we were giving to Florence to start the orphanage, so we were only able to give 30,000, sadly. We were thankful we had an area to get the money back from, so that we wouldn’t have to sacrifice $220 worth of food, lodging or something else!
We packed up on a huge bus on our trip to Jinja, Uganda. We were stopped at the border for about two extra hours (which I head happens all the time), so the trip took 5 hours. The hostel we were staying at was amazing, paradise actually. We were living in a jungle, surrounded by huts and 50 ft. above the banks of the Nile, looking out over it. So beautiful. We had hot-ish showers, cold beers and good American food, life was good. The entire trip to the Adrift Hostel I had felt sick and a bit queesy, but blamed it on car sickness. That night I spent hugging the toilet and coming from both ends, it was painful and I was utterly exhausted, but I refused to miss rafting the Nile the next day. I loaded up some Immodium AD and anti-nausea meds, was able to keep down a tomato slice and some water and headed out. We rafted level 3, 4 and 5, although I think level 5s in Africa are different than in America… they are INTENSE. We flipped 3 times during the day. Imagine coming up to huge boulders in a raging river, white water crashing down on your boat from all sides, feeling the boat underneath you squeezing and turning from all directions, then being lifted into the air, throwing you from it’s arms into the water. Being tossed and turned without knowing which way is up, hoping you remember to hold your breath, but not really sure what is going on and gripping onto a paddle for dear life. Finally finding air, only to be crashed down on by another rapid, swirling around until it happens again and again and again. Then you pop out in the calm-ish river and trying to swim as hard as you can to your boat, until you realize it is too far away and a little African man in a kayak grabbing you and carrying you to safety. So awesome. That kept happening over and over again. At lunch my body was telling me to go home, find a bathroom and to sleep until I stopped wanting to heave everything inside me, but I couldn’t go home. I kept rafting, got sick over the side of the boat a few times before the last level 5 rapid and called it a successful day, loved it. I am feeling better now, but not quite sure what I was/am sick with. The malaria test was negative and I never was really feverish. My stomach is feeling better and I can stomach food again, but I’m not quite completely healed. I might get an de-worming medicine thing later, we’ll see.
So, now I’m in Mbarara and loving it; Uganda is beautiful. The internet seems okay, so hopefully there will be lots more posts with pictures and the like. I have some videos and pictures of us on the raft that I’ll post, as well as the Tumnus video, but it is so large we are having trouble uploading it. We are coming to town once a week to get online. Have a wonderfully blessed week, my friends! Our squad has seen lots of attacks this week and God has been showing me that His grace is enough. Sufficient Grace. We’ve had a lost passport, lots of sickness and spiritual warfare. Please keep us in your prayers. We are beginning ‘crusades’ and lots of preaching soon, going to wear us out. Oh, and don’t worry, these crusades aren’t like the ones you read about in history class, no death. Just music and sermons on the side of the street, inviting the village to celebrate and worship with us and most people do. Christianity is so open here, unlike the states. It isn’t rude to tell a stranger your religion and the people here aren’t overly PC (especially everyone who distinguishes half our team as the nice, big, fat girls haha and the people screaming MZUNGU, which means white person, every time we are out in public… imagine doing the opposite in America…) Anyways, we have been having prayer every night with our team and God has really been speaking to us through it. This month is going to be a tough one though, we can already tell. So thank you for standing by and being our prayer warriors from afar. Love you all so much,
Emily
