The Adventure of Getting To Church

I was scheduled to meet two of the "families" of ten kids and their "mamas" at 10 this morning to go to church. The taxi, as with most things African, was running extremely late. It finally pulled up, and all 23 of us, plus a driver and one other man, piled into the European style white van with blue stripes on the sides (labeling it a taxi).

Traffic was much crazier this morning on the way into Kampala than during the week. People milling about everywhere. It rained during the night, and the roads had all turned to mud. The sights and smells this morning were overwhelming. Riding shotgun, I took in the woman bent over a sewing machine just outside her doorway, the steaming pots and pans preparing the food sold on the side of the road, the chicken wandering between an oblivious man's straddled legs. The smell of rotting vegetation hit me as we idled next to a heap of discarded food parts.

We finally made it to Kampala Baptist Church, where the service had already begun. Sitting on the front row with our boys, I eventually found myself standing in front of the congregation and introducing myself on a microphone, along with the other first time guests. The worship experience was actually similar to an American Southern Baptist service, and I found it fascinating when the conversation turned to missions. We prayed for members of this church in Uganda who were missionaries to the UK. Talk about a shift in perspective.

The trip home was terrifying. At one point, the road, if it can be called a road, was so steep and so bumpy that I took one look and thought, "Surely we won't attempt that. It looks much more like moguls on a red ski slope than any path an automobile could possibly take." We went down it.

This, I have to imagine, had to be some sort of short cut, off the beaten path, litterally. Winding through sloppy, red mud roads, we several times came to a dead stop where the road was blocked by slow-reacting cattle, which we have affectionately named "holler-horns", for their massive, yet nearly weightless, hollow horns curving straight up into the air. Most of the "buildings" we drove past seemed to me to be completely uninhabitable, consisting of little more than a pile of crumbling bricks arranged around a door post and a sheet of metal balanced precariously on top, yet at each one stood a family of Ugandans, enduring the poverty they have become accustomed to. Many taxis have slogans stuck across the top of the windshield, many which say something to the effect of, "Jesus Cares". The message of a God who loves and cares speaks so clearly to a society in so much need of hope.

Where besides Uganda would you expect to see a young goat eating grass happily in the middle of a busy roundabout?

The pace of life is very slow here, and we have lots of unstructured free time in the evenings, and we are beginning to get a little stir-crazy when we are not busy applying ourselves to a task. I'm not the only one who can't sit still, Mum. Be praying that we remember God is using us at all times and that his purpose be our purpose. God bless.