A change of plan, obstacles overcome, and new life
given
Greetings from Uganda!
I pray this post finds you at peace, blessed, and learning more about
our Lord and Savior. Today was the
day that God decided to show us why we came and what this whole trip, up to
this point, has all been about.
But I will come to that as I recall the days events!
This morning was to be a little different than the last few
days have been in that we went to play baseball in the morning and construct
two rain catches, one before lunch and one in the afternoon. And so we awoke to another
wonderful breakfast and prepared our gear for the trip to the primary school
that we finished our practices at yesterday. Over the past few days, God has shown us how rigid to a schedule
we can become as Americans and when the van was a few minutes behind schedule
we began to work on the lesson of patience. And so we waited as patiently as possible, which has become
easier as the days have passed, and made ourselves ready for when it came. When it did arrive we saddled up
and took off for the day.
Upon arrival we were thrilled to have been given the largest
field at the school for our practice.
Joy, the athletics director, had said she would do her best to have us
on the field in the morning and she really came through for us. This gave us the ability to set up four
fields in a row and have 8 practice games going at once without worry of losing
the tennis balls or having large crowds bearing down upon us as we taught. The next hour flew past as each field 2
teams of 12 that rotated, or “exchanged” as my teams referred to the act,
between batting and fielding.
After an hour or so our time had run out so we gathered up
the gloves, tennis balls, and bats so that we could give them to Ebenezer
School. We were then given the
opportunity to talk to the children about how much Jesus loved them and pray
with them. Then we made the walk
back to the vehicles saying goodbye to the children we had been blessed to be
around for the last few days. This
was a tough moment because we had thoroughly enjoyed spending the time with
them and were amazed daily at their eagerness to listen and play hard at a game
that was completely foreign to them.
Our hope is that the next time that we come they will have been
practicing with the equipment and have furthered developed their understanding
of the game on their own.
We left and traveled directly Ebenezer School where we
dropped some of gloves, tennis balls, and bats to the teachers so that they could
use them in the future. From there
our team traveled to pastor Eva’s house since it was closer to the house that
we were going to be working on first.
After the short walk we arrived at the house. The house we were to be working on was in rough shape and
the joists for securing the guttering to was rotted and one joist in particular
was too short for the overhang of the tin. Since the house was in this state we consulted with the
local carpenters for help with the project. After a few minutes of debate we agreed to remove one of the
mud bricks on the house and attach a new joist higher up on the existing
support. After doing this we
enlisted the help of a few of our younger team members to mix a batch of mud to
fill in the gaps around the new joist.
As half of our team was working on the guttering the other
half traveled with water jugs to the well to bring fresh water back to the
house for the family. Once the
jugs had been filled half of the group returned the house while two of our
members stayed behind with a translator after striking up a conversation with a
woman at the well. The group had
previously been talking with a local Uganda Christian about faith and prayed
with her before she left. The
other woman had sat there quietly and listened to the whole conversation. She began to tell the group that she
was a Muslim and that she wanted to know more about Jesus but that her family
would kill her if she turned from the Islamic faith. The two from our group who had stayed relayed to her that
Jesus came and died for her sins and the sins of the world and that knowing Him
is greater than death. She then
asked that they pray for her and so they led her in a prayer to receive
Christ. After this, since they
were at the well, they baptized her in the name of Christ and told her that
even at the moment there was a party in Heaven because she had now been washed
by the blood of Christ and her name is now written in the Book of Life. This moment was significant for the
entire team because at the beginning of the trip Bubba had said a great truth
about the entire mission: “if only one person comes to Christ on the whole trip
then all of the money spent and the time taken was worth it”. When the two who had met the woman at
the well recounted the story to us later that night we were all moved and
thankful that we had come on this trip.
Praise God that we came and we hope you rejoice with us at the newly
added sister to the Church Body.
Blessings and God’s love on her as she pursues Christ in this life.
After the rain catch had been completed we returned to
pastor Eva’s we met the other team and had lunch together. We fellowshipped for a while and
thanked pastor Eva for her hospitality during the week and for the meals she
had provided. We walked to our
last house to construct the rain catch and began working on the guttering. Again this was a difficult project but
working in conjunction with the locals we were able to complete the
project. It was great to see God’s
provision of local people to work with us to complete the task.
We said goodbye to our co-workers and after encouraging each
other in Christ we departed. We
returned to our temporary home where we were to be hosting the other team for
dinner. We relaxed and cleaned a
small amount. Early that morning
we had lost power and when we returned the power was still off to the
block. As night drew closer our
hosts put up some smaller battery powered lights for better visibility while we
ate. The other team arrived
and brought the food with them and as soon as it was on the table we gave
thanks and ate. Fellowshipping
with the other team was great fun and as we ate we exchanged experiences from
the day. After we had finished
eating the meal we realized that many people from each group did not know
people from the other team so each team introduced themselves one by one. We also had people say why he or she
had come and/or what had already impacted them since coming to Uganda. It was during this time that the two
team members from our team told us about the experience at the well. The moment was impactful to everyone
there and brought back into focus the true meaning of missions for all
present.
After the introductions had been made the children’s team
began to use the internet as the power had returned while we were
speaking. Soon after it was time
for the other team to leave and so we said goodbye since it was the last time
that we would be seeing them in Uganda.
After they departed our group settled in for the night with a devotion
and prayer and then by playing cards until it was time to go to bed.
Today was the day that in many ways defined for us why we
came to Uganda. In our minds it is
no coincidence that it was a woman at a well that needed to hear about Jesus
and that God used the two from our group to reach out to her in His name. While the baseball has been fun and
rain catches have been rewarding to build, nothing has compared to knowing that
another soul will be welcomed into the Kingdom and that we were able to be a
part of the plan for salvation.
And so, after a very long and hopefully not a monotonous blog post, God
Bless, goodnight, and know Yesu Akwaagala!
On behalf of the team, Woody Parramore
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