Welcome to Uganda

We touched down in the early morning on Friday among the mist and clouds of a passing rainy season. After we made it through customs and got our bags we met up with Adrian and Pamela. Pamela is the director of Abaana Uganda and Adrian works with the schools and child sponsorship. We filled the truck with our bags and headed back to the guesthouse. The trip gave us a good look at all of the city. I was quickly reminded of the dirt that is everywhere and the pollution that comes from all of the vehicles. Needless to say they don’t have to pass emissions testing. The city is large but not as busy as Freetown. It is more organized and developed. I find myself comparing Uganda to Sierra Leone a lot. The guesthouse is about 30 minutes from downtown and is in a very quiet part of the world. Once we arrived we met Sarah who takes care of the house. After breakfast we got together as a team and met with Pamela to talk about what it is that the Uganda staff would like to see us do and how we could help them. It was a good conversation. That afternoon she drove us around to try to get us more familiar with the area and to find some of the schools in the city. We first stopped by Christ the King. The kids got so excited to see the muzungas (white people). We really just stopped by to get a really quick tour and see how the school was doing. We did say hello to the kids and tell them that we would be back. Next we stopped by Grace High School. Katie and Mallory really wanted to stop by as some of the boys from the homes are now attending boarding school there. They were so excited to see each other and it was great to hear the high pitched screams of the boys as they hugged. Next we headed off to Strathern Primary. It was on the other side of the city and I think all of us fell asleep on the way. School was out for the day but we did meet the headmaster and some of the staff. Abaana started working on a second section for boarding and a secondary school here. The construction was moving along quite nicely. Finally we returned to the house, ate dinner, and then passed out.
Saturday morning we headed into the center of the city to visit Calvary Chapel’s program for street boys named Frontline. Abaana is looking at starting a partnership Frontline in order to accomplish the goals each one wants to see with the boys. So today we got to sit in and watch what goes on on Saturdays. We meet Andrew who is the director and listened to how the two might coexist and what their dreams are for it. I think this is going to be a great thing. We also met Nathaniel, who is from Indiana and has lived here for the last year and a half teaching at an international school. He lives at the home they have started for boys who could not be reunited with their families and have finished secondary school and does discipleship classes with them. Later Andrew and I had a chance to sit down and just talk. He is really excited to learn about youth ministry from me. I was very humbled by that, and as we just briefly shared he was soaking up what I had to say. We ate lunch as we headed out to the boys home for our first visit. The girls were again excited to arrive, since it is where they spent a lot of time on their previous trip. We introduced ourselves, played some games, Katie lead a Bible study, and then we broke them into small groups to talk further. It was exciting to talk in smaller group with the boys and hear a little more about them. It is also amazing to see how far these boys have come from being removed from the streets. Hearing them share about losing parents, getting run over, and many other heart breaking stories, just shows how much God is into redeeming things. Later we went out and played. Word had gotten out that I was a soccer coach and so they were excited to meet me and I played soccer with many of them.
One of my goals for this trip is to learn stories of people, To stop and listen to their lives and then compile those into word pictures. I will occasionally post some of those stories but will save most of them for later. Now I’m enjoying a nice quiet night listening to Katie and Mallory play their guitars and worship with Ryan on the porch. Ryan and I were talking earlier about how jealous people should actually be of us for being here, and I have those moments about every hour. Feeling lucky and blessed.