Today marked our fourth day on the ground in Uganda. We have laughed until our cheeks and stomachs hurt. We have shed tears over the joy of meeting our sponsor children for the first time. We have prayed for the lost. We have had meaningful morning devotions and nighttime wrap-up sessions. We have shared so much in so little time and we all feel as though God orchestrated the perfect team for this week in the Pearl of Africa. It has been a busy and emotional few days to say the least.
Thursday concluded with an absolutely amazing celebration of the wonderful teachers at Ebenezer Primary. God placed it on our hearts months ago that we should do something to honor the teachers at this school. Funny how God works because when the last team was in Uganda, they wrote back that they felt like something should be done for the teachers. We laughed at God’s sense of humor and said we were already on it. We were able to put together a small celebration with simple food and drink. Jill shared 1 Thessalonians 1:2–5 from The Message: Every time we think of you, we thank God for you. Day and night we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope in following our master, Jesus Christ before our Father. It is clear to us friends that not only He loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special.
We all felt that there is something very special happening in Buloba. Those teachers are top-notch, and those kids are smart, hard workers. Each of us shared something special about each teacher, and then we gave each teacher a beautiful certificate of appreciation, a copy of the Jesus Calling devotional and a box of colored chalk and an eraser. It could not have been more perfect. You could look around that tiny classroom and see tears in eyes of many. We concluded Thursday on a Jesus high for sure!
After spending three days at Ebenezer, we used Friday to visit Bethany Village, a home for orphans. If you’ve kept up with Cornerstone missions, you know this involves a boat ride across Lake Victoria. I was totally looking forward to this little excursion but when we got to the lake and many in our group saw the boat we would be taking, you could hear comments like: Where are the life vests? There were no life vests and since we had been talking about being bold, we all climbed aboard and went across the lake. The boat was safe and we had a great time laughing and simply enjoying the scenery that God created. We reached another shore where a group of boda boda drivers were waiting to take us the rest of the way to Bethany Village. I’m not sure any of us realized we would be riding boda bodas so while many of us were beyond excited, there were a few (maybe the same few who were looking for life vests) who were concerned about riding a boda boda. The comments that stood out were: Where are the helmets? Is there any other way to get there besides riding the boda boda?Regardless of our fears, we loaded up and took off and based on the smiles on everyone’s faces once we reached Bethany Village, I would say riding the boda boda would go down as one of the highlights of the trip.
We learned that the vision of Bethany Village is to be a model Christian village that produces self-sustaining adults capable of going out into the world to share the love of Christ. After driving the streets of Kampala for a few days and seeing the harsh conditions under which these people work and live, it was nice to see the Lord blessing the children and leaders of Bethany Village and know that they will continue to contribute to the kingdom of God. We toured the village – homes, garden, and livestock and left with hope for the future of Uganda.
The remainder of the day consisted of low-key dining on pizza, shopping for shoes for some of the sponsor children and shopping in the market. We are full of good food and ready for bed anticipating an excitingSaturday at Buloba Community Church for Center Day where we will get to meet more of our sponsor children and just have fun interacting with everyone. Our hearts are connected to this place, and it will be difficult to leave on Sunday. Until then, we will take advantage of every opportunity God provides to use us as His hands and feet and to deepen our relationship with Him.
On behalf of the team, Ashley Belcher
Beautiful!
ReplyDelete