As I sit here on the porch of our room looking at the sunrise while drinking a cup of coffee (yes, we found a way to make coffee), I am filled with mixed emotions. I keep thinking of the weeks preceding this trip and how I became more and more anxious about leaving my husband and children behind. I am thinking about how hard it was to say goodbye and yet at the same time I was excited about being in Uganda again. We had a long trip over, but the moment we stepped off of the plane and saw familiar faces that had become dear to us, I felt as if I had come home which is a hard feeling to explain.
This trip was very different from the last. For one, Phillip wasn’t by my side, and second, I pretty much knew what to expect. Or so I thought. After our arrival at the airport we promptly went to the Backpacker’s in Entebbe for the night & then were up early to head to Ntungamo. The plan was to be there in the early afternoon for the crusade. That did not happen. Through a series of mishaps (one being that my window fell out of our vehicle), we did not arrive until about 10:00 that evening. A third day of traveling. Upon our arrival at our “motel”, we found that we did not have a few of the basics that we had on our first trip – running water, toilet, shower. All we could do was laugh about it for the next few days. Sandy and I spent the next several days getting to know the people and children in the town of Ntungamo while Danny and Mike spoke at the New Believer’s Conference. It was there that I was able to sit with the children and talk about “Creation to the Cross”. Again, my “ideas” were not quite what God had planned and we compensated for that. We had over 100 children that day and their attention span was quite short. I had the bright idea to try & make necklaces with them all. Not the brightest. The word I have for that craft is: stampede. It was a tremendous amount of fun, though, and I was reminded that I need to listen to God’s plan and not my own. We spent our evenings there at the crusade. Danny and Mike were incredible and we had an opportunity to hear a pastor from Kenya who touched each of us in a special way. Our last day in Ntungamo, Danny and I headed up to the top of a mountain to attend church services with a school while Mike and Sandy stayed in Ntungamo for services there. What a blessed day we had! The children touched our hearts and we were able to pray with them and for them after Danny spoke. Of course, our plans were not God’s plans. On the way back down the mountain, our vehicle got stuck in the mud. By the time we got out (about a mile and a half down the road – and an hour or two later), we had about twenty or thirty men, women, and children pushing us!! Meanwhile, Mike & Sandy were extremely blessed by the church services and baptisms in the river. It is always hard to say goodbye, but we did and headed for Ibanda. Oh, and by the way, thanks to Mike we found a “stinger”, pot, and cups and were able to begin having coffee in the mornings. All we could say was “Amen & thank you, Lord!!!”
Upon our arrival in Ibanda, we were again amazed when we entered our rooms. We had real toilets that flushed & hot showers! It’s funny when you realized that it takes so little to make you happy. Toilets, showers, and a cup of coffee and we felt as if we were in a five-star hotel. At the same time, though, it’s a little sobering when you stop and think that these people that we’re surrounded by in these villages go without running toilets and hot showers every day. We are a very spoiled nation.
Our time spent in Ibanda was amazing. We would wake up early and drive up into the mountains to the village of Miizi (meaning ‘roots run deep’). Once again, we were able to interact with the pastors as we registered them. It was good to see faces that we recognized. After a day and a half of registration, Sandy and I were able to spend our afternoons with the unschooled children in town and our mornings with children from a school not too far away. Our time spent sharing God’s Creation through His Sacrifice with them was one of the best parts of the trip. Toward the end of the week, Sandy had an idea to just sit with them and have a “question and answer” session with each group. The questions they asked were sometimes funny & and sometimes very deep. Each time, though, we found we were able to bring out God’s Word in a way that made it real to them. Again, it was difficult to say goodbye.
I am now on my second cup of coffee and it is time to finish up my packing before we head to the school for the day. The sun is now up and as I look out, I can say that there was not one time on this trip that I looked at our surroundings that I didn’t see just how miraculous God’s Creation is.
I now find that I am very anxious to get home. I have missed Phillip terribly. And my children. Despite the mixed feelings I had just before leaving, I now have mixed feelings about leaving Uganda behind. The country and it’s people now have a permanent piece of my heart.