And thankfully we found everything we needed in the time that we had! It's hard on us to buy so many things at once. Even knowing most of our purchases have to come right now at once, it's a constant wrestling match between knowing we have to buy stuff to be able to live in our house, and feeling guilty about buying so much. And now tomorrow, we will have to transport it to Soroti from Kampala in a big truck. It's tough figuring out how to live comfortably without looking like or being the rich muzungus (white people).
We purchased some Bibles today from the Ugandan Bible Society that we may give as future gifts at those times when gift-giving is appropriate culturally. We believe it is best to support the local Bible societies rather than bringing Bibles from theUSA
(which is more expensive anyway). For
those of you who might want to give away Bibles in Uganda
(please do so with care and wisdom because there is still the dependency
issue), please consider this Bible society as an option. The Bible society is easy to get to in Kampala ,
and the Bibles are not very expensive.
There are study Bibles, English Bibles, a few Bibles in regional Ugandan
languages, and even some children's Bibles.
We purchased some Bibles today from the Ugandan Bible Society that we may give as future gifts at those times when gift-giving is appropriate culturally. We believe it is best to support the local Bible societies rather than bringing Bibles from the
Today we bought bicycles and got an excellent deal on them
from the store. Sara was very
disappointed when her bicycle turned out to be bright pink! That was not the color on the box. If you know Sara, you know that this is
pretty funny and ironic. She may have to buy some spray paint. The bikes were boxed up and not ready to
use. Thankfully we found some bike
repairmen. In about an hour four men put them together for us, and also
added kickstands, horns, baskets on the front, a rack on the back, and mud
splash guards. Then they helped us pack
them on our truck. We'll be using these bikes the first few days in Soroti to go shopping for food and household supplies until we get our vehicle later next week.
We had some good conversations with the bike repairmen
during this time. Pluralism is alive and
well in Uganda
as it is in the USA . One man was a Muslim and another a Roman
Catholic and both stated that all that matters is believing that God exists and
that the other differences of belief do not really matter. It was a very friendly and relaxed conversation
and we didn't argue with them. But we
were able to explain to the Muslim man some of the important differences
between Islam and Christianity. We
talked about God's grace, how we are given salvation as a gift we did not have
to earn. And we also talked about how
God's Word is available to all people and can be translated into their own
languages, unlike the Quran which has to remain in Arabic. I'm thankful that in the midst of hectic
shopping and busyness, that God still gives little opportunities like this to
share more about our Lord Jesus.
We thought it was funny seeing this guy hanging out with the bike repairmen and listening to music while sitting on that tiny bike.
And now at the end of the day Sara has still found the energy to learn from Betty and Jane how to properly cook Matooke (plantains), and smoked fish. Betty and Jane are part of Jim and Josephine's family, the people we are staying with. Jim and Josephine are very African in that they've welcomed Betty and Jane (and others) to live with them and they take care of each other. It's wonderful to see. Jim just finished as the country leader for
Great photo documentary. The pink bike is so funny. I also don't like pink. If you have a minute, please share how to 'properly' cook plantains. Wondering if I can find them in Midland.
ReplyDeleteYes! I will share that eventually when I get the chance to type it up and make a blog post about it.
ReplyDelete