Day Trip to Mbale

Last week we took a day trip to Mbale, our old home city to visit some friends.  Unfortunately I had some bad GI issues from restaurant food the day before.  That made the day quite uncomfortable and I was wrestling with car sickness on the taxi, even though I was on pepto bismol and Dramamine.  Probably a lot more information than you wanted to know, yet it's part of life here.  We took a taxi instead of our vehicle as it is so much cheaper than paying for our own fuel.

On the way there, we stopped in Atutur to see our friend Charles.  He was a student at the Pentecostal Theological College.  I even preached at his church in Atutur in 2009.  Since that time he and some friends started a local development organization called Keep Alive Missionary Ministries.  We had just planned to visit him as our friend and hear about what he has been doing with the organization.  But when we got there, we met board members and most of the staff of his organization, as well as 100 or so leaders from the communities they are working with!  We had only planned for a short visit, so it was tough to leave so quickly knowing all these people had come out to see us.  They even had the children of the communities they are working with sing for us.  They sang us about five songs complete with dances.  They must have practiced very hard.  Here are just a couple clips.

In this next video the girl in front on her knees is singing about backsliding.  We didn't catch all of the words but apparently she is supposed to be crying in mourning about life apart from God.  By the end of the song she had real tears streaming down her face which really surprised me.  That girl should be an actress.

In this photo we are giving Charles' organization the digital camera that one of our supporters contributed to us.  They were very grateful!  They will use it to document their work and help raise support.  If you want to see the kinds of trainings they do with the community (HIV awareness, agriculture, income generating skills, etc.), you can follow them on facebook.  Just look up Keep Alive Missionary Ministries.

 Here is the gathering of community leaders that we briefly spoke to and encouraged.

After this visit to Atutur we went on to Mbale and visited our old place of work, Pentecostal Theological College.  It was fun to see all of our old friends once again - the other teachers and staff at the school.  Because our supporters gave us more than one digital camera when we asked, we also gave one to the college to use.  They were very appreciative as well.

We then briefly visited some missionary friends that are moving back to the US soon.  I bought some board games from them which look very fun.  Now I just have to find some friends to play with.

After that we headed back home.  But it turned out to be one of the worst taxi rides of our lives.  Not only was I sick, but we waited in the parking lot for two hours before the taxi left.  It was not a normal taxi, it was almost like a bus, so we thought we would each get our own seat.  Well that didn't happen either.  They crammed a ridiculous amount of people in, and we each got about half of a seat.  On the drive I and a few others in the taxi loudly joked about how the taxi conductor should give me half my money back because I only got half a seat.  No response from the conductor, so then we went on to have a loud theological discussion about how as Christians we are supposed to follow the laws of our country (including taxis not having too many people).   I was informed that there is "no law in Uganda," that there is too much corruption and laws aren't regularly enforced.  One of the other passengers was a pastor so he enjoyed the discussion.  No response still from the conductor.  Then the taxi broke down a couple times on the way back, so we didn't get home until very late.  Maybe next time we'll just take our own vehicle...