Chaya and church in Morulem

By Sara:

Right after bringing Mary and Skip to our home from Kampala, we left yet again for the weekend to visit a rural village church in Morulem, near the town of Abim.  The pastor there, David, was one of our students at the Pentecostal Bible college in 2009 and he has been inviting us to visit him for a long time, so we are glad we finally had the opportunity to go.  On Saturday, we drove the three hours to Morulem from Soroti, then immediately I led a Bible study and training on chaya for various church members who were interested in learning.  I filled the trunk of the car with chaya cuttings and leaves, so there was enough to cook a big pot of it and send everyone home with cuttings.

 

In the kitchen where the chaya was cooking:

 Everyone, old and young, was very eager to taste the final product:

We spent the night at a simple guest house in Abim town, where there was no electricity, but at least solar-powered lights in the rooms.  When we arrived, we asked what food was available for dinner and were told that pork and chips would be ready in 10 minutes.  We figured we could wait that long, so we all ordered, got settled, and came back to wait for dinner.  About an hour later, they said the food was almost ready...  It was definitely a great way to introduce Mary and Skip to real life in Uganda!  Anthony made friends with one of the guest house cats:

There were also goats, chickens, and turkeys staying at the hotel:

Sunday morning, we drove back to Morulem and were a bit concerned when the church building was locked.  But when we pulled around the building, we saw a couple hundred people seated outside under the trees next to the church.  There were several different congregations present and there wasn't enough room for them all to fit into the church building.  The service was very energetic with lots of dancing and special music - almost one choir from each church.  I was glad Mary and Skip got to hear the song "Jesus is a Winner Man". 

And a new one for all of us: "Shoot Satan":

As the service went on, more people showed up until there were over 300 people there.  The sun also got higher in the sky and people had to move their chairs closer together to fit under the shrinking shade.  There were children crowded around our seats and a chicken running through the congregation during the service.

Since Mary is ordained in the CRC, we invited her to be the preacher of the day.  Anthony and Skip mainly got to relax over the weekend, since I did the training on Saturday and Mary did the preaching on Sunday!  It was a very encouraging sermon on Psalm 139, how God knows everything about us: what we do, think, feel, which can be a bit scary since we don't like to think someone knows our darkest secrets.  Yet as Christians we don't need to be afraid of God's knowing since he has given us the righteousness of Christ and searches us in order to find places to transform us more into Christ's likeness.

After church, we had lunch with David and his family after the service since he is originally from that village and his permanent home is there.  We enjoyed meeting his wife (in yellow) and children and his mother (in the white head scarf), as well as seeing where he grew up and now lives.