Another month in Uganda has passed and the whirlwind
continues. The beginning of this month
started out extremely rough. Everyone on
the team seemed to have fallen into a pit of brokenness as deep as the Grand
Canyon and didn’t know what to do. It
took about a week for Sara and I to begin sorting everything out and once we
did we saw the bright light waiting for us at the end of the tunnel. After figuring out what was going on with the
team Sara and I spent about two days sitting down with everyone on the team
individually to help them process what was going on. During those two days huge breakthroughs were
made and the team began to process their brokenness instead of fighting it. Since then so many good things have happened
with the team and with our ministry here.
Here are some highlights of our second month here in Uganda:
Church Anniversary
and Parade:
celebrated their 14th Anniversary.
Most of the time a 14th Anniversary gets overlooked- but not
in Uganda. They had a week-long
celebration and people from all over Uganda and the world came to Lira to help
celebrate. For a week straight, night
and day, the church had seminars and celebrations. For us this meant that we really didn’t have
a ministry that week, because everyone was so focused on the celebration and it
definitely put a strain on an already tough first few weeks of October. The week was capped off with a giant parade around
town. For 4 hours we marched around Lira
in the hot African sun. I don’t think I’ve
even been so exhausted and dehydrated.
Painting at the
Primary School:
much to do so we spent a few days sitting around our hotel figuring out what
ministry would/should look like the next 2 months. We started to think we would just be spending
our days at the hotel until we were to fly home in December. One day we got a call from the head of the
primary school asking if we could come the next day to paint murals on the
walls there. In Africa they can’t afford
posters so everything is painted on the walls. We went the next morning, not really expecting how long this project
would take or how much they wanted painted. We got to the primary school and the teachers starting going through all
of the text books writing down what all they wanted painted on the walls and
they gave us pages and pages of lists. Some
of the teachers even started to bicker that certain subjects were getting more
paintings than others. For about 2 weeks
we went to the primary school every other day to paint the giant murals they
wanted- everything from the Ugandan flag to the digestive system. Even with all of those hours spent painting
we are still nowhere near being finished with all of the murals they want.
Mid-Point Debrief in
Nairobi, Kenya
times of the year. It’s just a good time
to get poured into and have fun together as a team away from the ministry and
the every day routine. Our trip to Kenya
started with another bus ride, but luckily it was only 17 hours instead of the
original 31 to get to Lira. We got to
Nairobi and in less than 4 hours Sara’s backpack containing, among other
things, her passport and MacBook, was stolen right from under her feet while we
were hanging out at a mall. So my first
few days in Nairobi were spent at the police station and US Embassy. Luckily within 2 days the Embassy gave her a
one-year emergency passport. Other than
the stolen backpack excitement our week in Nairobi was so refreshing and
needed. I was able to gorge on delicious
American food from Java. The team worked
though so many things that were holding them back from experiencing more and we
were just able to relax together. We
ended up getting an extra day to spend in Nairobi because the bus only went to
Lira every other day. We spent our free
day going to an elephant orphanage outside of Nairobi and then to a tourist
market down the road from our hostel. It
was a much needed day and probably the first time since training camp where we
were just able to hang out and spend the day as a group of friends.
