Talking to a Muslim Bike Repair Man

Today was a full day of shopping.  Shopping here isn't easy; it's a lot of driving through bad traffic, narrow roads, and few parking spaces.  Thankfully we did not have to do the driving today (that would have been crazy stressful).  We are thankful for our patient driver, Fred, who waited around for us shopping all day and drove us through the stressful Kampala roads.  He's one of World Renew's drivers and he's got mad skill and a gentle, caring personality.  Below is a video that gives you some idea of the driving, but this is far from the craziest traffic we saw today. 

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 the USA (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.

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 Uganda with World Renew and is moving to Tanzania as the new country leader there for World Renew.