David and Megan's Uganda Trip
06.20.10
Island visit, Bible distribution, and 1 year anniversary!
We have been very busy the last week and a half since our last update. Because we have done so much, since we last posted, we are just going to give an overview of the ministry we have been doing, as well as include a few highlights of the week.
Our schedule for the last week and a half or so has been as follows:
Jinja Preperatory School at 7:20 am every weekday morning. We are enjoying working with this school very much. The head teacher attends Divine Love Church and the students are very attentive and well behaved. Our mornings with them began by the children singing several songs for us in an assembly type setting. We then have about 40 minutes to share a Bible story with them as well as teach them a song or two. On Friday we went back in the afternoon and had a game day with them. Morgan and Megan organized a relay race for the children. It included dribbling a soccer ball across the field to their teamates, then jump roping across the field to the other side, and finally tossing a frisbee to the children on their team who were waiting on the side. The children enjoyed these activities very much. Although it was confusing and chaotic, we had a fun time.
In the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we go to Saint John Secondary School and speak to their Scripture Union Bible club.
Tuesday and Thursdays we go to Wanyange Progressive Secondary School and speak to their Scripture Union club.
Wednesdays we have a home cell group in Nakonyonyi (up the hill from where we are staying). Fridays we have a home cell group in Kikuku ( a small village about 10 miles from where we are staying)
Every evening we have devotions with the children at the home. We have been taking turns leading the devotions. Several times a week we will lead them, and then the children lead devotions a few times a week. We have really been enjoying this time in the evening where we can come together and spend time in God’s word. We have really been inspired by the childrens’ eagerness to participate in devotions. The devotion time is not mandatory, but still more than half of the children attend every evening.
Saturdays have been spent spending time playing with the kids and going into town for errands.
Sundays we have been spending at church and spending time with the kids either playing, or helping with school work etc.
Highlights from the week:
On Monday we were able to go to Kampala to purchase Bibles. We were amazed at how difficult it was to purchase a large quantity of Bibles. Kampala is the largest city in Uganda as well as the capital and even in Kampala, Bibles are hard to come by. After driving for about 3 hours and asking for directions we finally made it to the Bible Society. When we arrived at the Bible Society we were told that they did not have any more Luganda Bibles! Fortunately for us, I had emailed a lady who works there prior to us leaving the states and asked for her to reserve 100 Luganda Bibles for us. The lady I had been comunicated through email was in Kenya so they had to use Skype to communicate with her and figure out where she had placed the Bibles we had requested. After a long while they figured it out. They told us that the hundred Bibles were the last ones in the wharehouse! We could not believe that!
This is evidence of a huge need for Bibles in Uganda. Because Bibles are so expensive in Uganda people generally do not buy Bibles for themselves, so it is very difficult for the development of spiritual maturity. We are really starting to understand the need for Bibles here as everywhere we go people are without Bibles.
We also purchased English Bibles and were able to start giving them out to the children at the orphan home. We are including a session on how to study the Bible and begin a reading plan with the children as part of their evening devotions. We will be handing out the Luganda Bibles to members of the church when they come to a Bible discipleship class on Tuesdays and Saturdays that we will begin this week.
We went to Lingira Island on Thursday morning and returned Friday afternoon. We were able to help purchase mosquito nets and blankets for the children on the island as well as give an English and Luganda Bible to each of the homes of the widows caring for the children.We gave a proclaimer to the headmaster of the primary school who is intending on using it to start listening groups in the community.
The situation on Lingira Island is devastating. The people are living in mud thatched huts with straw roofing. Over half of the Island is infected with HIV/AIDS causing a huge orphan and widow problem. Many widows are caring for ophans, sometimes 6 to 8 people are living in a one room hut. The community survives on fishing. The main source of food for the island is the fish that they can catch and they earn a small income by selling the fish to people on the mainland. The most shocking thing we saw was a twelve year old girl caring for her two younger siblings. Her mother is apparently on another island trying to make some kind of income leaving the girl behind to take care of herself and two younger children. Jane (the headmaster at the primary school and a very important figure in the community) said that the only way the girl and her siblings are surviving is that families will give them resources when they have a little to spare.
Today is our 1 year anniversay! It is great to be able to share this time together in Uganda. Yesterday we celebrated by going to the Source of the Nile and taking a boat ride around the river. We went into Jinja and had lunch and did some shopping in the craft shops. We certainly had an adventure figuring out public transportation, but everything worked out fine and we made it to and from Jinja safely.
We will have much more to say when we return home.We are keeping an audio journal of every day’s events and are taking many photos. Because internet is slow and time consuming we will have to wait until we return home to share many of the details of what is going on.
Until next time Mukama akuwe omukisa (God bless you).
-David and Megan
