Report on Trip to Uganda April/May 2008

Well for those of you who kindly read and took in my itinerary you will know that I have been back from Uganda nearly 3 weeks and as my next trip is in less than 8 weeks I thought it was high time I let you know how we got on. As always the best place to start is with a thank you for all who remembered the team and I and prayed for us while we away. We had a brilliant time and on a practical level it all went very smoothly –Godfrey (who we had not met before) kindly came to collect us from the airport and drove us all over Uganda without incident – we only had one stop to repair four punctures in one tyre but fortunately no accident took place!

We reached Kasese (W Uganda) late on Sat 26^th and after a little sleep had a long service at Maliba Church we arrived around 10.30 when the first Sunday school session ended and we remained there all day til around 3 or 4 pm the time being filled with worship led by several choirs, various offerings, lengthy announcements, welcome visitors from other areas who all get a few words, followed by our team being introduced and Pete (my brother in law) speaking. We ended with the food offerings including sugar cane, avocados and bananas being auctioned off to raise more money!

The following 3 days Mon- Wed primarily consisted of the teaching conference for leaders of youth and around 450 people attended. The team from Chorleywood delivered some powerful teaching and there was opportunity to pray for people after each session. Despite the language barrier it was evident that lives were being touched and transformed. It is hard to articulate how encouraging these conferences are for men and women who serve in churches with mostly no training and no Bible even to help them. It is a joy to see so many enjoying hearing God’s message explained so clearly.

For me I had other ‘duties’ so didn’t attend all of the conference. I visited quite a number of orphan’s homes around 12 in total (some included siblings) – it is always humbling to see the deep faith of those who have nothing materially and are often struggling both with difficult family situations and significant illness. One lady Louda had seven children – her husband had been abducted in 1997 by rebels from Congo. He returned home in 2000 by died in 2002. By this time her eldest daughter had got married but to an alcoholic so had returned home to Louda with 5 of her own children. Louda’s son Charles is sponsored to attend St Mark’s school. He walks 2 hours each way to school usually with no breakfast – he has lessons for at least 2 hours before he gets a mug of porridge at breaktime. This kind of story is repeated on some level in every home you go to so when I am presented with a chicken as a gift (worth £3), which I was on two occasions, it is enormously humbling.

I also visited St Mark’s School,which was wonderful. The school had been painted since I was there last summer. I could see for myself the completed latrine block – not very glamorous but a very necessary part of school life with 300 or so pupils attending. Other completed buildings included a room for the night-watchman to stay in, a storeroom for food and a kitchen building. So all in all pretty amazing progress in the last 10 months.

Whilst at St Mark’s, a training session took place for those interested in starting their own business. A lady called Christine came from a charity called Five Talents who primary vision is to facilitate micro-enterprise initiatives. Around 40 people, men and women, came to hear her speak and I will be following up that beginning when I return in July.