The Last Full Day

I know I still have to post about all that happened at St. Thomas Moore, but will do that over the next several days. Instead, I want to summarize what we did today while it is still fresh in my mind. Today we focused on visiting different projects in which WVU is engaged in the Koro-Bobi ADP area. The first stop was at a church in Palanga where about 10 pastors had gathered to meet with us and give testimony to the Theological Education by Extension (TEE) training that they have received through WVU. Many pastors have no theological education. WVU is committed to providing this education and the pastors who had gathered at the church shared their stories about how helpful the education has been for them, helpful in very practical ways. It is providing resources for them to help counsel spouses and families, for example and several pastors shared stories in this area. Another pastor said that he could not speak well in public because he had so many fears. It was surprising to hear him say this because he had the voice of a radio announcer.

As a sidebar, this church is the church that I attended three or four years ago. When I attended, the church was meeting outside under a tree because their sanctuary had recently burned down. They were in the process of collecting money to build another church. If you look at the pictures in Lower Nelson of me christening a child, this is the church where that happened. The new building is lovely and is supposed to be finished in September.

After this meeting we headed out to visit a family that one of the pastors at the meeting had helped as a result of the training. The family lived pretty far out in the bush, so it took a while to get there. After we arrived, the husband shared his story. He had abused alcohol for many years, was not providing for his family and separated from his wive, his children were frightened by him, and he was disliked by his village. The pastor would put him on his bike and bring him home after he was in a drunken stupor or if he didn't have a bike would walk him home. He did this for a long time. Ultimately, the man surrendered his life to Christ, became sober, and as a result of the counseling this man received from the pastor who had received the TEE, he was reconciled with his wife and children. The whole family had gathered for the meeting and you could tell that something good was going on. We all experienced the power of his testimony.

From there we visited a widow with two children who has benefited from a WBU micro-finance program. She is now running three businesses as a result of the loan. A WVU staff worker gave an overview of the program and then the woman, Susan, share a little bit of what she is doing and how it has worked for her. We were all impressed with her drive and business skills. Not far down the road was another woman who benefited from a program that WVU initiated that helps women learn to sew. They provide a sewing machine, teach the women to sew and then the women can begin to earn the money that will support them and their families financially. The dignity and financial means that these programs provide is evident.

The last activity of the day was going to the bead making co-op that WVU helped fund. There must have been 15 to 20 women showing their jewelry and we all stocked up on necklaces and bracelets. Again, I was struck by the industry of the women and the dignity that this business has given them.

We had dinner at 6:00 pm with all of the Koro-Bobi staff. Each of us shared how this trip had impacted us and some of the staff shared their experience hosting us. Arthur gave a concluding speech and we said our good-byes. I have to admit that I was teary as we said our good-byes. I have grown to love the staff and their work, and it was hard for me to say good-bye. It has been a great trip.

A Day at St. Thomas Moore Senior Secondary School

It’s hard to describe the day we had at the school today. It was overwhelming in a good way. We all need to take a day or two to process what happened today. I thought it might be helpful if you heard from a voice other than me, so Steffi wrote the following:

Today was so humbling, in so many ways. UCC Medfield was honored to the nth degree. Pastor Phil was praised again and again for his dedication to the school in helping the Head Teacher, Alex Todo, accomplish his goal of educating many more students in an otherwise struggling school.

Grace, joy, expectation, transformation, welcoming, praising, and prayerful are all words that come to mind as we witnessed the pride of all those involved in providing a wonderful, awesome environment for its 400 plus students.

My own gift was a chicken given by one of the beautiful girls who sang for us.

(She would like to share more, but wants to spend some time reflecting on the day.)

The school has so transformed that sometimes I felt like I needed to pinch myself to make sure that what I was experiencing was real. The campus looks entirely different, there are far more students, far more female students, and they have solar electric and a gas generator. The World Bank has even become involved. They funded the building of the science building (which they call a Laboratory) and my understanding is that they will also pay for the library. It’s just amazing. 

I would like to share much more about the day, but the internet connection is tenuous tonight (and I am afraid I won’t be able to post this blog), and because it is late and I am exhausted, I intend to blog more fully about the day tomorrow.

Visiting Our Sponsored Children

Today was a good and very full day. After devotions at the Gulu Cluster, we used three pickup trucks to visit our sponsored children. The lead truck took the staff, and the other two took us. We headed out around 10:00 am and returned at 7:00 pm. Charlie and Steffi met their sponsored child, Olivia, and Joan visited her sponsored child, Nancy, for the first time. They both found it a very powerful experience. Both of the girls were a little shy, but were also excited with the visit. At Nancy's home, after the gifts had been given to Nancy and her family, about six little children sang a song of welcome to us. It was sung well (Michael, you would love to have them in the children's choir!) and it was the song of welcome that the students at St. Thomas Moore School sing to us shortly after we arrive. It was quite moving and I must admit that it made me tear up.

I loved visiting the children that Beth and I sponsor. Geoffrey is a newly sponsored child and so was my first visit with him and his family. He was dressed in a charcoal gray suit when I arrive. He is a tall 8 year old and was both happy and reserved in our meeting. I received two chickens as a thank you gift from his family. I have often mentioned how generous the families are. Two chickens are a generous gift.

The last sponsored child we visited was Brenda. Beth and I started sponsoring her in 2009 and they were extremely poor with not much hope for the future. But by God's grace, the work of World Vision, and some financial support that we have given them, they are doing much better. It was my 8th visit with them so we have gotten to know one another and there is a kind of comfort level at the visits that I don't have with the children that we have sponsored more recently. Helen, Brenda's mother, is a very hard worker but shared that she has not felt well since August. She contracted malaria and apparently didn't seek medication for quite a long time. In any case, she did go to the medical clinic and is now taking an antibiotic and says that she is feeling better. After giving them their gifts, they gave me a chicken, which means that my chicken take for the day was 3. Another example of generosity.

One of the things  that I try to do when I come to Gulu is visit World Vision staff that I have gotten to know and have either left to work with other NGO's or have been reassigned to a different ADP. This evening I invited the three women who worked at the Children of War center and with whom I spent a good deal of time over the course of several years to dinner. I experienced just a tiny slice of what they dealt with daily with formerly abducted soldiers and felt privileged to learn from them. So I was excited to see Dora, Christine, and Concy. I was surprised to learn that both Christine and Concy had given birth this past year: Christine has an 8 month old boy named Emmanuel and Concy has a four month old girl named Princess. It was the first child for both of them and several years ago I had prayed with Christine about her God giving her a child (I had forgotten about it and she reminded me about it). It was great to see them and learn that they are doing well.

Tomorrow we spend the day at St. Thomas Moore School and it sounds as though volleyball is on the menu. We're all looking forward to that visit!

Kampala to Gulu

Heading to Gulu

It has been a good day, but I would say that we are all exhausted. It is 8:30 pm , we just finished our debrief, and most everyone has headed up to their rooms. If I don’t blog now, I know that I probably won’t have another chance to do it until tomorrow night. The wifi is quite weak and I’m not sure that I will be able to post a blog until tomorrow evening.

We started the day by meeting at the lobby at 6:45 am to drop off our bags in the lobby and then go to breakfast. We left the hotel at 7:40 for the WVU main office about a 15 minute drive a way. We were some of the first to enter the chapel for devotions, but the room soon filled up. It was great to see Vincent who is in charge of spiritual development for WVU and who led worship. We sang a number of songs and then we were introduced. I was the quest preacher and preached about ½ hour (the amount of time that the speaker normally is expected to take).

After devotions I met the new director of WVU, Gilbert, and he welcomed our group to Uganda. That followed with a security briefing and an overview of some of their work. We headed out to pick up some box lunches and then headed north for Gulu. The trip took about 6 hours. The condition of the roads is pretty good the first half of the way, but the second half they are not in good condition. My own sense is that they have gotten worse over the course of the time that I have been coming to Uganda. I suspect that at least in part, this is a function of the large trucks that are using the road transporting goods from Sudan through Uganda whose destination is Kenya. The traffic increased significantly over the last several years. 

After arriving at the Bomah Hotel where we will be staying the next four nights, we immediately went to the market to buy goods of the families of the children that we are going to visit. We purchased rice, maize flour, salt, sugar, matches, onions, beans, cookies, cooking oil and bars of laundry soap. We returned to the Bomah Hotel where we met with the WVU staff from the Gulu Cluster. Freddie, Arthur, and Godfrey greeted us and shared dinner with us at the hotel restaurant.

Tomorrow morning we head to the Gulu Cluster office for devotions, and then we spend the day visiting our sponsored children, something that we are all excited about. Oh, and by the way, we dropped off all of the gifts for the children that members of the church sponsor at the Kampala office in the morning so that they can recorded properly and then delivered to the children.

I forgot to mention in my previous posts that Irene is the WVU staff person who arranged our itinerary and who is accompanying us on the trip. She is a wonderful guide and has done an excellent job. She did a great job negotiating prices for the things that we bought at the market.

First Full Day

Most of us slept pretty well last night--I didn't get to bed until 1:00 am and I uncharacteristically didn't wake up during the night. Fortunately I awoke at 7:25 am. I say "fortunately" because we were meeting for breakfast at 8:00 and then heading to Watoto Church South at 8:45. For some reason my iPhone didn't adjust to the local time and the alarm didn't go off. But I scrambled to get ready and pack and made it to breakfast only a few minutes late.

Watoto South (Watoto means "children" in Swahili) was about a 45 minute drive from our hotel in Entebbe. It is held in a gigantic tent--they are raising money to construct a permanent building. It was full of young people and had a large praise choir and the electronics were pretty sophisticated. It is the same church at which we worshiped last year and it seems that the technology had been upgraded. It was the shortest worship service that I have attended since coming to Uganda: only 1 hour and 40 minutes. It actually went very quickly and we celebrated communion. I always find participating in communion when I am on a different continent powerful, the reality that we are one in Christ.

After the service we headed for our hotel in Kampala where we checked in and had lunch. We then headed to the place nearby where they have a good exchange rate and changed dollars into Ugandan Shillings. The African Market is nearby and we headed there to purchase some souvenirs and gifts. We will spend the remainder of the evening at the hotel.

Fulukas and Miriam, the founders of Destiny Women, the ministry to sexually exploited girls that Michelle Luhrmann has funded should be arriving in a half hour and will have dinner with us. I am looking forward to seeing them. I was also able to contact by phone several World Vision Uganda staff who have since left the organization and are now working with other NGOs. I am hoping to invite them to dinner sometime this week at the Bomah Hotel where we will be staying in Gulu.

Joan, Charlie, and Steffi are all doing well and looking forward to our trip to Gulu tomorrow morning.

Arrival

I wrote the following last night after we arrived, but the wifi in the hotel in which we stayed did not work so I was unable to post it. So it here it is:

We arrived safely at Entebbe around 10:30 pm. The flight was about 9 hours to Kigali, Rwanda where some disembarked and the remainder remained on the aircraft. We were on the ground for a little over an hour and made the 35 minute flight to Entebbe. It took us about and hour to get through customs and retrieve our bags and another 15 minutes to arrive at the hotel. It is different from the one that we normally stay at.

I think I can safely say that we are all exhausted and hoping to get a decent nights sleep. Tomorrow morning we meet for breakfast at 8:00, check out and head for Watoto Church South which is on the way to Kampala and about a 45 minute ride. The service starts at 10:00 and I assume will go for about 2 hours, after which we will head for the hotel in Kampala where we will stay Sunday night. 

Oh yes, I recognized both drivers for our vehicles: Bright was a driver last year and Santos was a driver about 3 or 4 years ago. It is always great to see people that I have met before.

First Leg

We left Logan around 6:30 pm and made it to Amsterdam in record time: about 5 hours and 45 minutes. The captain said that this is about as fast as he has ever made this flight. It went well and we are currently at a nice Starbucks near the end of concourse D, a place I have spent a lot of time during my travels to and from Uganda. Our next flight takes off at 10:05 am and we arrive at Entebbe around 10:30 pm tonight. We fly directly from here to Kigali, Rwanda, but we don't actually exit the aircraft while on the ground there. It is about 45 minutes from Kigali to Entebbe.

Tonight we will stay at the Imperial Botanical Hotel in Entebbe, just a few miles from the airport. We get up early tomorrow morning, have breakfast, and then head to Kampala. We will be attending a Watoto Church in Kampala and then head for our hotel, the Imperial Royale Hotel.

So I hope to blog tomorrow morning from the hotel in Entebbe. This leg is the hardest leg of the trip. Oh, the high temperature in Kampala is forecast to be 81 degrees and the low 66. :-) It's hard but someone's gotta do it!