Lira trip #1 and baptisms at the Ridar

Wednesday 6/22/11

I knew I was heading to Lira so I was pretty excited in the morning. This is what you can buy from vendors on the side of the road. BBQ Maze, an Kasava. the Kasava tastes like french fries..  I could not think of any names in Lira, but I could remember faces.. Faces you can not forget. I went to the Seeta orphanage to try and get some work done knowing that I was just going to be going back to the hotel and pack up my things to head North, so I felt almost like it was a last day of school... but not. So I worked on a retaining wall.. I kept filling old cement bags with the dirt that we were removing from the construction site. The construction side of me is wondering why we aren't actually working on the school right now, but I know that our primary reason for coming is not to work on the school. It is to work on the children's hearts. We were supposed to be finishing classrooms when we got here, but we knew that it may not end up being that way. We don't want to step on toes, we want to show everyone here that our heart is to do the work that God wants us to do, not that we can come and get angry at construction workers for having not completed the amount of work that we had hoped for. Its just the same as the last lesson that I taught the children from Matthew. Blessed are those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy. If we don't show mercy, Our God in heaven will not show us mercy. We will be held to the standard by which we measure. Besides all that, Bruce eventually came on the second bus and let me know that we had about 15 minutes before we were heading back to the hotel to get our gear before we head to Lira. I thought that it might be a good idea to take the filter skid up north when we go so that we can build the pump house around the filter skid, so that was packed onto the bus along with around 8 large duffel bags of shoes and clothes. I got back onto the bus and we took off. We loaded up our overnight things from the Ridar Hotel, and we were soon heading back through Kampala and north to Lira. It took us around 5 hours to get to Lira. we left at 11:30am, and arrived at 4:30pm. 

 We went straight to the orphanage and met many of the children returning from school. The kids in Lira are a little different from the children in Seeta. When they come home from school or greet you at any time, they always come up to you and they touch their knees to the ground when they shake your hand. They are so humble. They show so much respect that I can not help but think even more highly of them. They are adorable. We met with the contractors that night. they showed up and we instructed them on what we were looking for, and a time frame on when we would need it to be completed. We ordered a 3 meter by 3 meter room that would have no windows and a solid locking door. There will be a water tower with two tanks. One on the ground, and one three meters off the ground. The city water will be pumped into the tank on the ground, then it will be filtered and sent up into the tank that is sitting on top of the tower. That way they have water pressure. I saw the three phase power that the government brought in from the street. It looks pretty nice. the community is so happy that Pastor Jackson had that done. all of them are telling us that they would love to begin paying the orphanage to connect power to their homes and businesses in the area. After we showed the contractors what we wanted, we had a few minutes to spend with the children before we had to go check in at the "Gracious Palace Hotel". This is a new Hotel with Christian owners that has started in Lira recently. It was recommended by multiple people, so we thought that we would try it out one night and the Pauline Hotel the next and compare the two. Which ever hotel had the least cockroaches we would call the winner. It was across town, and there were only two rooms. We gave Robert one and Bruce told them that I was his son, so I got to sleep in a bed with Bruce. I don't know if I should say anything about that... Lets just say that he sleeps with his good ear to the pillow, and grabs the sheet when he turns. Not a whole heck of a lot that I can do about it. As a missionary, I need to be able to adapt to different situations and work with what I have to get the job completed. The night was a little longer than they have been since I have been here, but it was quite alright in the end.

Thursday 6/23/11

We woke up around 7:30am and had a little breakfast. We met Robert out at a table near where they were going to be serving, but there was no food ready yet, so we just sat and went over our daily devotional. In case I haven't said it yet, our devotional is on Romans. Its a beautiful way to start a day. The hot water for tea came out, so we all went over and got some tea. I saw Cockroaches darting between the cups and thermos, around the sugar... They are fast little buggers. If you can get past the little guys the tea is actually really good. I think I counted around 5 of them. We checked out after breakfast and headed back to the Orphanage. We met Sam (Our Contractor), and watched a little as they started to break ground. I think Ugandans can dig faster with a Hoe than we can with a Backhoe. its really pretty amazing. There were a few things that we needed to get from town that the workers were going to need, so we got in Sam's car and headed in. We checked out some Water Storage tanks. We figured that 200o Liter tanks should be enough. One tank for city water, and the other for potable water. We also stopped by the metal fab shop, where they weld up the tower. We bought all the materials, and I drew them up a quick sketch for them to follow. So we will see how accurate they can get. When we got back to the orphanage, Bruce was running low on Shillings, so we had to head over to one of the banks to get some more. The first two banks were willing to give us decent exchange rates, but would not give us 50,000 shilling bills. (~2300 shillings / 1 Dollar) they only wanted to give us 10,000 shilling bills which would have been 480 bills; a bag filled with cash... We had to finish paying Sam so that the building would be completed by the time we got back on July 4th. We paid him around 3/4 of the total cost, The rest to be paid upon completion. We ended up buying a few more things. We got a new wheel barrel for the Village, new Hoes for the Mums, and Mosquito nets for some of the houses that didn't have any. When we got back to the orphanage after our second trip into Lira, we spent the next couple of hours hanging mosquito nets over the children's bunk beds. It reminded me of a few years back when we wired lights and switches into the houses.. it was no 125 degrees, but I definitely started to sweat when I got up on that ladder. I think Lira in general is quite a bit hotter than Kampala. I think just sitting outside it had to be in the 90s. The children all come back from school around 5:00.. Once they get back they start their prayers and praise. They all get in a circle and one or two of them take turns leading, and the rest follow. The songs all have moments where the kids do their moves all at the same time. Jumping, shouting. its all pretty awesome. I had a little bit of Francis's beans that he makes for the kids. He makes them taste really good. I would put it up past Campbell soups. its that good. This picture is all the mums in the morning hanging out in the kitchen preparing food for when the children come home. We said our goodbyes for now, and headed to the Pauline Hotel. We got there as it was getting dark, but to walk there literally takes 3 minutes. 

They were happy to see us. I think we were the only ones at the hotel for a while. We all got our own rooms. I was looking forward to a nice nights sleep. They gave me the "royal suite 1"... it was quite a bit larger than the others. the only difference was more closet space, and a nice padded chair. I think Id just prefer a small room. The bed was very large as well. I will say that I took a shower and drank one of my favorite sodas at the same time.. it was nice. We went to get some food. I think the Pauline makes good food. I ordered fried chicken and chips and it only took about an hour for them to make. Score! after dinner we all went back to our rooms. I got all ready for bed, and flipped down the mosquito net, pulled the cover back and saw something move... Threw the covers back really far to see if I could see it again, and sure enough; a cockroach. after strip searching my bed for more cockroaches, I put it back together, tucked the mosquito net back in, and crawled into bed. I figured if I felt something crawl across my chest in the middle of the night, I would just swat it off of me and roll over; go back to sleep.

Friday 6/24/11

So the morning came, there was thunder and Lightning that night. It always amazes me the power of the thunder here. I swear it is louder and rolls longer than the thunder back home. I think the lightning is a little more aggressive too. I woke up and was out of my room before Bruce, or Robert. so I went to the breakfast buffet and poured myself some African Tea, sat down at a table, and did my devotional. I listened to some worship music, and had some prayer time. I wish I could start every day that way. Bruce and Robert caught up with me, and we checked out of the Pauline Hotel and drove back to the orphanage. The children were gone, but we got the chance to spend time with the Mums while we waited for the Contractor to show up.. He said that he could have it done in 10 days, so we are counting on that. he eventually showed up around 11:00am. We had been waiting for a solid 3 hours. We needed to get him funds so that he could buy materials. We handed the money off, and had some grilled maze that the Mums made for us, and we took off. The drive back to Kampala went faster than the drive up to Lira.. 

We passed a pretty nasty looking wreck. It was a huge semi type truck that had been towing double trailers... One trailer was on one side of the road, and the main part of the truck was on the other flipped on their sides. When we drove by, Bruce said that he saw a considerable amount of blood on the back side of it. There were tons of people there around it. There wasn't anything we could do but keep driving by. Another reminder of how short life is... We made record time back to Kampala, but once we started getting into the city we hit really heavy traffic. We passed a few more accidents. traffic, traffic, accident. We eventually got back to the Hotel and I pretty much flopped onto my bed and started to pass out. The team came back home from the orphanage, we had dinner, and then I went back to my room popped my malaria pill, and passed our for real.

Saturday 6/25/11

My feet and ankles are pretty much solid bug bites. The bites that don't itch anymore, I have scratched off to the point that i bleed and a scab forms. then I manage to scratch the scab off because it is so close to another bug bite and it gets collateral damage. It is non stop scratching. 

We were all supposed to have our free day today. This is the opportunity to do a little shopping, see the Nile, see some wildlife, and just relax. so that is what we did. I have to say that I have seen everything that we saw today 5 times now. so I cant say that anything was so spectacular to me, but I am always reminded of the beauty and power of the world that God created. It is just impossible to capture it all on a picture. You cant really grasp the scale and volume of the water that moves through this,, or the size of the rapid... this picture is just the top of it. I always try to take a picture of the bottom where it looks a little more violent, but all you get on a picture is white.. We got to take the interpreters with us to see Bujugali falls, and the source of the Nile in Jinja. It is always fun to take them, because sometimes you find out that even though they live an hour or two away, they have never seen the falls, or the source of the Nile... which blows me away.

Sunday 6/26/11

We got to sleep in again today. We had to be on the bus heading to the orphanage at 9:30, so that gave me some time to wake up and have a nice breakfast. I had my usual morning drink.. 1 scoop of instant coffee.. 1 scoop cocoa powder, 1 scoop sugar, half milk, half hot water. Bam! The agenda was to get on the bus, go have church at the orphanage with the children. Dr. Bruce and Mr. Mark were going to speak. I like to play a part in the messages if I can, so Dr Bruce spoke on distraction. He challenged them to see if they could resist being distracted when God has a message to tell them.. so I got to fly a remote helicopter out over the sea of children to get their attention so Bruce could prove a point. Not only was every child watching the helicopter, as was all of the interpreters, Mums, and our team. I guess it worked. They were held captive to distraction. So Bruce got to roll that into his message. It was all planned of course. I didn't just grab a helicopter and fly it in the middle of a sermon for attention. When Church was over I had an opportunity to hang out with the kids. I was in Joan's house with all of the girls in the house. I got to give Joan her water bottle full of hygiene things. She was so excited to have a new flashlight and everything else that I put into it. I almost missed the bus back the the Hotel. We had to get back for baptisms. We had about 108 children and some of the mums brought to be baptized at the Ridar pool. The whole team had stations assigned to them.

Mine was orientation. I got to welcome the Children and the Mums off the bus, sit them all down and go over the procedures and what it means to be baptized, the meaning of foot washing, pray for them, and send them on their way to the next station. We had 3 buss loads from the orphanage. There were a total of around 125 people baptized today. I got to run up and snag my camera just as they were baptizing some of the last children. This picture is of Pastor Jackson Senyonga pulling a child up out of the water... Washed by the water. I got to walk the children back to the bus, and talk with them for a while as they sat waiting to leave.

 I love those moments. When you get to know the kids on a more personal level outside of formalities. This picture is me with my buddy Godfrey. He has the biggest white smile and huge dimples. I always see him following me around. He is a very sweet kid. When the 3rd bus took the last load of children back to the orphanage, the swimming day started with the interpreters. Like a complete idiot, I forgot my swim trunks... So I haven't swam yet, but I did sit in the sun for a little bit. We had dinner, then there was a game night in my room. We always play games on the trip. They seem to be Mission only games too. I only seem to play them with team members... They are a blast though. Around 10:00pm we shut it down, and I opened my computer and started to type. Most of what I have written has been at night, and I do it in such a quantity that I don't really want to go back and proof read it. So please just deal pretend that you don't see the errors.

Monday 6/27/11

I heard a couple stories tonight after dinner. The team sat around in a meeting and we exchanged stories about how we have seen God working. Debbie shared something that I thought was quite amazing. It may not sound so huge, but I think it is. Part of our team is dedicated to working the the Mums at the orphanage. They are such a large role in the lives of the children and have so much influence that the team is crucial. Every year we do a ladies day out where we take the... I am not on the Mums team, this is what Debbie shared in the meeting. We take the mums out of the orphanage and treat them to something special. In the past we have done hair stylists, manicures, pedicures... girl stuff that really gets them excited. This year they threw a tea party for them. they had all kinds of teas to choose from, cupcakes, candies, fruits, breads, whatever. Someone had donated some money to buy tables that the Mums could put into their houses because many of them don't have tables. The only thing was that there were only enough tables for about 11 of the now 85 homes that are there. So they decided to take a drawing. Debbie mixed up the names of all the mums that needed a table into a jar and prayed over it that God would decide since he knows best. As the names were drawn, someone pointed out that one of the names it looked like Debbie had picked intentionally because of the way she was standing; almost facing the wall. She had seen the name that she had drawn, and decided that its only fair to redraw so that they know it is not us that are making the decisions. So she put the name in, shook the jar, and reached down deeper into the pile to get a for sure random name, and it was the same name... When she told that story I knew that it was God. There was another story about a girl from Lira named Susan. She is one of the first orphans that Christian Life Ministries took in. When you see her now, she is tall and beautiful, and you can see in her eyes that there joy. David Mcintosh shared about when he washed her feet during baptisms, he noticed the scars on her feet from when she was young. they were not scars like that of someone being cut by nature, but scars that were intended to cause pain. He described them as cigarette burns that were done in a line up her feet. For 5 years she ran from the Rebel army to avoid being a child soldier and lived in the bush after her parents were killed. The Government found her and ushered her into and IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp where she was noticed by Mum Betty. Mum Betty took her and told her that she was now her daughter. From that point on she has been under the care of Christian Life Ministries receiving an education and being well fed with a roof over her head. I can only imagine the things that her eyes have seen. She is only about 17 years old now which means that she was probably 9 or 10 when she was taken in. 

That night we had a game night in my room.. It is always a good time. I love to pack the people around the bed and play some cards for a whileThe workers for the school didn't show until about 11:00am today. So, we hunted and pecked for things to keep us busy for the first part of the day. I decided that since the workers weren't there I would put people on helping me clean out and organize the container that we sent last year. After that the workers had showed and they started mixing concrete for the ceiling of the school. Around noon I had to split off to start working on my lesson. As it turned out there were not as many students as there were last week, and we ended up combining the two groups into one. Mark and Spike did most of the teaching and I just more or less watched as they did it. I think for the rest of the week I will just move out to help pour concrete since I think I am needed more out there than in the classroom until our next group. I stayed a little later to take care of a little more business with the kids, and then walked home with the Interpreters as it started to get dark. The soup tonight was probably some of the Best I have had Not only in Uganda, but back home too.. they killed it on my internal grading chart! =) Adam Gosvener is not feeling well right now, so you can pray for him, I am just typing in my room as he is laying in the bed next to mine. He stayed home today because of a migraine. Also there are something like 5 other team members that are not feeling so hot. So just pray for the team.