Hey hey people. We have been in Uganda for almost two weeks. We are with a ministry called Ambassadors of Life Ministries International in a district outside Kampala called Nalukolongo. It was started in 2009 by our contact, Pastor Joseph Nasaga. But, for short we just call him Pastor. We have a pretty amazing ministry this month. I guess it’s more like ministries. Our contact was open to ways that we could help his ministry besides door-to-door evangelism. As much as I enjoy the door to door, it was nice to get a change of pace after three months of the same ministry. Since we have been here our ministry has been: Pastoral Bible studies, health classes, budgeting classes, some orphan care, hospital visits, working with street kids, working with some child soldiers (invisible children) and of course some door-to-door/ street evangelism.
Jack, who studied Biblical Languages in college, has been leading an awesome Bible study for all the church staff on Monday afternoons. His wife Loren has been teaching health classes that stress the importance of simple things like washing your hands, drinking clean water, how to care for a sick child, and many other things that almost come second nature to us. Loren worked for living water and taught classes in South America for two years. Kelsey has been teaching a class on the importance of and how to budget your money. Some of the things she is teaching are completely new to some of the church members.
We are staying at an Inn that’s about four km away from Pastor’s house and the church. It is by fart he nicest place that we have stayed since we have been in Romania. The lady who runs the place, who we call Mama, got a huge kick out of how excited we were to find out that we all had actual beds. I don’t want to brag but we have five bedrooms and each has a bathroom with running water. (You know you have been gone from America for a while when you brag about running water.)
Kampala is an amazing city but it’s almost impossible to put into words how badly God is needed here. Rebel groups from the Congo and Sudan as well as people like Kony and his invisible children have done quite a bit of damage to families in Uganda. This recent warfare along with the HIV/AIDS epidemic have left over 2.7 million children orphaned throughout the country. Some of these kids you can find in crowded orphanages and others you can find roaming the streets in small groups. This week we were able to hang out with some street kids for a bit and bring them some food. When one of our translators offered one of the kids some money for food he replied, “I don’t want your money I just want to go to school.”
Here are a few ways that you can pray for us incase you were wondering. Some of the orphanages that our contact has started are in desperate need of funding. Out of the three that he is involved with, one had been closed down and the kids are now living with various church members. Recently Kampala has had a lot of inflation, leaving many church members in financial need, so be praying for them as they try to make it. A gallon of gas here is about $6. This have led to riots in the city and we already been on lockdown once this month. Over 99% of mosquitoes here carry malaria so please pray for the health of our squad. Luckily everyone on our team has been healthy.
