Easter Sunday

It's actually Easter Monday - we were supposed to start at 2:00 today because it's a holiday, but we're starting at 10:00....I already got some laundry done and wiped up my floor, so I'm here....it's drippy and about 62 degrees - cool by Ugandan stadards. Had to hang the laundry inside, but I need the shirts for the site visit.

Pastor Shem had been invited to preach at a mission church on Easter Sunday and we all went along (Margaret, the kids and me)....we left about 8:50...spent 20 minutes driving on the highway and then about an hour driving down a narrow dirt road....it had rained the nite before so it was pretty slick and a mass of potholes. Every now and then you'd see a road/trail take off into the green.....there were quite a few houses on the road-small homes but very neat compounds.

We got to the village about 10 and had tea with a church lay leader in his home; Church started at 11:00. The church was small but fairly new it seemed. It's brick and plaster construction and it looks like they just punch the windows out w. a chisel....they are just holes. It's all green outside and there was a hibiscus tree in one window. They usually do services w. lay leaders so having a pastor was quite an event! The rafters are small tree trunks supporting a tin roof but it had a cement floor.

The service was in Lugandan but I could pick up a few words. Most adults there (and in most villages) don't speak English (or only a little) - an incentive to work harder on my language. Pastor added a few English sentences to the sermon for my benefit and I could almost follow the scripture readings in my Bible (w. lots of gaps and a few key words). The sermon was about an hour and the entire service took over 3 hours, but it was really enjoyable...the people were SO happy. There were about 35 children aged 1-10 sitting on mats in the front, and while some fell asleep, most were very well behaved. At the end the Pastor got a large branch of green banannas (for matoke), a bag of greens (nakatali - like spinach) and a live chicken!!

It was so inspiring...I was just awed by the effort the people put into keeping their church going w/o support or a minister. Everyone, esp. the children, was all dressed up. The view was unbelievably green and lush. During the sermon it started to pour and you couldn't hear Pastor because of the tin roof so one of the lay leaders started singing - everyone joined in and there was clapping and African drums!

At the end the "altar guild" rolled up the woven mats that had been on the raised platform that formed the sanctuary, folded up the tablecloth and stacked up the white plastic chairs...today it's a school!

We had lunch (about 3) at the home of one of the lay leaders - it was a huge meal. She had 6 children and there were 7 of us in a small room (about 8'x8')....the Rwanda bunch would recognize the house. Very small two room mud and brick structure....one room is the "living room" where we ate around a low table (they usually eat outside on the ground but it was till raining), and the other room is the family bedroom w. a curtain on the door. The kitchen is a 3 sided structure outside. We had mounds of matoke, rice, nakatali, casava, stewed beef and orange juice. It was amazing considering their simple life....very humbled to be part of it all. Such generosity and gratitude! They laughed at my simple (and gramatically awful) Lugandan, but I have to keep trying!

Trip back was a challenge...Pastor has a church car - an older Toyota jeep type thing - and he had it in four wheel drive. It continued to rain and the road was like grease w. lots of potholes/puddles/small ponds! On the way back a man stopped us and we took his 3 adult daughters back to the highway for him. They were very nicely dressed, live and work in Kampala and had been home for Easter - it would have been a muddy ride on a motorbike boda boda which was the other option for them. At the highway they caught a matato to Kampala.

Quite a day - I was so impressed with the church and the people. Lots of Allelulias! The only downer was that it was actually cold (60s) and wet and windy and I was shivering some of the time - I haden't taken a jacket - figured it would get hot and it didn't. I know it's snowing in Minnesota and your sympathy level is probably nil, but I had to whine about something.

Got back about 5:30 p.m. and it was still raining but we had electricity after two days off....with no electricity the water pump can't pump to the tank on the roof so there's no running water in the house. Practiced my bucket baths - actually a "pitcher shower" bath. The goal is to use less than 3 liters of water and I can do it and wash my hair!!! At least we can bathe inside....many people have a seperate stall on their latrine outside for bathing.

I've read some good African books (borrowed) I'd like to share...."Scribbling the Cat" by Alexandra Fuller. It's about Zambia and Mozanbique and the effect of the war in what was Rhodesia. She
also wrote "Don't Lets Go To the Dogs Tonite" (my African childhood) which I'd love to read (hint)...she has wonderfully descriptive language.

"King Leopold's Ghost" by Adam Hochschild.....brutal story of forced labor in the Congo from 1890-1910 and beyond when it was a Belgian colony. Casey (the Minnesota guy) read it in college and when we were in Brussels he commented on "all these beautiful buildings built on the back of the place we're going"......

"Unbowed" by Wangau Maathiai - not a well written but very interesting. Story of the Kenyan lady who woked on the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya and was imprisoned and eventually won a Nobel Prize in 2004.

So, it's not all work by any stretch. Hope all are well....will hopefully add more when I get back Sunday from the site visit.