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!
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