Jinja & the Bush...& a chicken?

Early on Friday morning, Thanx and I embarked on a trip to visit his mom's village. The task...to take pictures of sponsored and unsponsored kids in the village. We left Kampala around 6 am and arrived in Jinja to pick up his two aunts who knew how to get to the village. Thanx had never been to his mom's village before this trip. We actually ended up taking four people with us: Mom Olive, Mom Irene, and cousins Ben and Paul. I learned that in Ugandan culture, there really aren't any aunts and uncles. They are all called mom or dad instead. Therefore when talking to kids it's important to distinguish between their birth parents and other parents that are just relatives. About halfway through our trip (on a paved road), we stopped to buy some things to bring to the village: rice, matooke (banana), sugar, soap, and meat. I really didn't know how far we were on our trip at this point. But I soon found out that the rest of the trip would be on dirt roads. Take into consideration that I'm driving my "new" van and don't have much experience with driving in Uganda. They warned me that the roads may be a bit tricky. We were cruising along, when I began to see large patches of mud. Really, that wasn't the problem. I have driven through snow storms etc. with 4WD vehicles before. The tricky part was that the road wasn't much wider than the van...on each side...swamp. Luckily, I worked together with Paul helping to direct me through the best way to drive through the mud. We didn't have any problems, but it was a bit tricky and took us another 90 minutes to get from the main road to the village. However, we arrived safely and were warmly greeted by everyone. I was able to meet Daddy Ananias (Florence's birth father), Daddy Joel, and Daddy Andrew, but the blessing was being able to meet Florence's 99 year old grandmother. We took pictures of the kids and waited for lunch. In the meantime, one of the mom's of the kids we took pictures of came back and gave me a chicken.Wow! I didn't really know what to say. i was completely honored. Now I have my first pet...the lady's name was Mrs. Suubi so I named the chicken Suubi. I don't yet have a place for the chicken, so it's at the Dongo house...hopefully they don't mistakenly eat it. Thanx called me today to tell me that the chicken laid an egg. To me, eggs over the course of the week are more valuable than one meal of meat from my new friend.

After returning to Jinja from the village, we went to meet with a friend of ours. His name is Emma and he works at the YWAM base in Jinja. Thanx knows him from his DTS earlier this year and I met him through Thanx and the Williams family back home. Emma is one of the most amazing men I have met in my life. He is a true warrior for the Lord. A man who values Jesus more than any worldly riches. Upon arriving at the base at about 7:30 pm, we sat and talked for a good three hours. I can't believe I stayed up that long, but his company was just too valuable to miss out on. The next day we toured (really just walked the streets) of Jinja which is pretty small, and talked much more. Emma is from Tanzania and we spent time trying to plan a trip to his homeland. November looks good...stay tuned!

Minivan

So on Saturday upon return from the camp, Pastor Dongo was able to pick up my new ride. Not as shnazzy as my pimped out VW Passat at home that Grayson Kemp now enjoys, but it's transportation for me and "my family". Yes, it's a minvan. I'm not one of those who's said, "I'll only get a minivan on my death bed" However, I never really expected to ever own one. After all, I'm single with no end of that in sight. What do I need a minivan for. But I find myself in a situation where I am a surrogate father to many of the children at God Cares School. The four boys and I here joke that I'm "dad" to them. And as much as that is a joke, there is some reality to it. To my knowledge, three of the boys do not have fathers and the other has a father who has pretty much disowned him. They have been living here at the school with me over the past 3 weeks and we pretty much do everything together. Sunday, we were able to drive to church instead of walk or wait for someone to pick us up. Amazing. Hopefully having a car won't make me lazy. I still find the need to walk to places close and only drive when there is a purpose beyond just a few people.

However, driving in Uganda as you know can be hazardous. I've had some problems in my first days of driving my own car. Previously I had driven an SUV around. They are somehow made for these types of roads whereas my vehicle is not in many ways. As a minivan, the engine resides underneath the car. That means...low clearance even though you seem high up when in the vehicle. I bottomed out at least 8 times going to Pastor Dongo's house the second day of having the car. On the third day, I was scheduled to pick up a visitor from her hotel so that we could put her luggage at the school for the day. I have driven these roads plenty of times. However, they are in the process of fixing the road and had somebig rocks in place to keep you from going where they didn't want you to drive. There was a man walking on the road and I kind of went wide around him and in the process ran over a rock which turned around and bit my tire! Death to the tire! Luckily I was close to the hotel, so I pulled up into the parking lot to fix it. Guess what? Used car = not all the parts to jack up the car and change the tire! So I called Pastor to help. In addition, some men from the hotel came to help as well. People are so friendly and helpful here in Uganda. The good news is we were planning to get new tires anyway so now there are five new tires! I'm a little worried about getting back on the saddle though after those first two rough days! I'll let you know what happens!

Camp

So yesterday afternoon we returned from the camp. We had expected about 650 students ages 8 to early 20's. However, we ended up with 788 students total. Talk about sticking a monkey wrench into your planning. We ran short of food on the first night and lacked enough beds for all of the students. Panic settled in and we had to return to God Cares School to pick up more mattresses for those lacking them. Although I went to be around midnight, I know that other people such as Pastor Dongo and Aunt Harriett did not go to sleep until after 2 am. Such is life in Uganda. You might be wondering why our numbers didn't match with the amount that attended the camp. Well in fact, only about 400+ students actually registered for the camp. The remaining just showed up on the day of the camp at the school. Imagine your youth group being ready to take even 50 students and then 80 showed up. In the US we would send them home because they didn't register in time, but here in our ministry, the camp is like Christmas for the kids (a statement that Pastor Dongo made). So how could we possibly turn away students.

The rest of the camp ran pretty smoothly. I don't know exactly how we served 788 people three meals a day without a hitch. And the fact of the matter is, we weren't just serving posho and beans. These kids were eating in luxury with matooke (banana) and meat every night. Otherwise camp was much like any other summer camp you might have been to. There were morning prayers, followed by breakfast. Praise and worship followed breakfast and then lessons were taught until lunch. After lunch the youth had small group discussions and then everyone went for games. I was blessed to be able to play basketball for the first time since leaving the US. Well, it wasn't the prettiest basketball that you've seen, but I got to run around and have fun with the youth. Following dinner, we showed movies or had other entertainment.

I don't know how the teaching went for the children as I was working with the youth, but our speakers were fantastic. They challenged them to discipline themselves and to look to the reward (Hebrews 11:26) that they will receive from the Lord. I think maybe 10 youth dedicated their lives to Christ at one session, but many lives were changed. The most significant was a boy named Ezra. Last year, Ezra, who is like a class clown, was sent home for being a trouble maker. However, this year, you could find him serving etc. and he made a commitment to Christ. Our God is Awesome and you can see the difference that Buyamba makes in the lives of these children.