Friday, July 9, 2010

Update!

We just finished doing a two day trip just now. We spoke at a church yesterday and then spent the night there, and then we woke up to go to a secondary school and spoke from like 9:30am until almost 2:00pm. Five of us guys slept in a little hut, which was pretty cool. It continues to show how absurd the way we live in the US is. I actually kind of like sleeping in a hut, just the hardest part about living in something like that would be the challeng of cooking/preparing food. They prepare food essentially over a campfire every day, and we actually have two women that prepare all of our food, and it is an all day job. That is a challenge, but other than that the African lifestyle is much simpler and refreshing in a lot of ways. There is also a tension within me though, as sometimes I wake up wondering where I am, reminded that I am in Africa and tired, away from what I am familiar with. I know though that sowing seeds here among those who have been neglected so much will reap many eternal rewards for both us and our hearers. The work has been very good, though sometimes I wonder if we are talking too much.

It usually looks like this: we enter a village and they bring us into a hut and serve us tea and some food, then we go and teach for several hours while songs are mixed in, then they feed us again (usually with their best food), and then they show the Jesus film and we are gone from the village. It is hard to really build authentic, deep relationships with people here except for the youth workers, but these with the youth workers have been really good. I am trying to thoroughly explain the gospel of grace and of great cost, as this is what everything else in the Christian faith flows out of.

On Wednesday we went on a safari and boat ride in Paraa and Murchison Falls. I struggled with the idea of going because of the cost of it, but we took and paid for 7 Ugandan friends to come with us, which gave me a little more peace about it because several of them had never been and it was a way to say thank you to them for all that they have done for us. Plus, it didn’t cost as much for them to get in, so it worked out. We saw hippos, elephants, crocodiles, all sorts of deer, monkeys, baboons, and several other animals. We saw packs of giraffes and even watched two giraffes fight each other! They have horns on their head and they would swing their necks really hard and hit each other in the neck. It was crazy! We looked hard for lions and leopards, but apparently we didn’t come at the right time of day to see them. But either way it was pretty cool to see all of these animals in the wild, not behind bars or in a cage like in a zoo.

The next two days (Saturday and Sunday) we will be doing something similar to what we just did, going to a village to teach and then spend the night, and then going to a secondary school in the morning. I am learning a lot, and continuing to develop as a teacher in a lot of ways. I am learning more how to teach on the fly and without notes, just speaking what the Lord has put on my heart. I’m also learning how to better communicate to an audience when there are barriers, which has been cool. Please continue to pray for me, that this time would be used by the Lord however He wants. Thanks!

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