School Repairs

The repairs have been started on the school. Here is a picture of the front set of classroom buildings with new window and door frames, plaster and security bars so that we can store things in the rooms after we get the doors put on. These were the mandatory repairs to reopen the school. The blackboards were replastered and painted black. The kids can now see what is written on them. The kids started back on Monday with teachers salaries paid up to date, new repairs on the buildings, porridge for breakfast and beans and casava for lunch. The teachers are getting tea in the morning with their porridge which makes them much happier. Can you imagine a teacher in the USA going to school to teach without eating breakfast or having their starbucks?

Boda riding

Those of you that have been keeping up with my blog will remember me writing about the modes of transport here in Uganda. Well, the car that we have been blessed with that was on loan for the past 4 months is now in the shop getting repainted and fixed up for our friends that will be returning next week. We are so excited to have them back It has been too long!
Anyway, we are now back to public transportation which means smoking taxis, crazy Boda(motorcycle) drivers and walking. The walking is good except for when the Boda drivers see how close they can get to you or the taxi's run you off the road. I don't think I ever told you about the Boda's trying to see how close they can get to you. Anyway, they think it is funny to come up behind you and drive as close as they can possibly get (sometimes even hitting you) to you. I haven't quite figured out why they do it but I must confess that sometimes I think about stiff arming them or kicking the bike over as it goes by. WWJD? I struggle with that one:)
I am getting pretty good at riding on the back of the motorcycles with no foot pegs hanging my legs out. There is an art to doing it. If you hang them to far out to the side (mostly to avoiding dragging them or getting your leg burned by the exhaust pipe which I did on Friday and now have a large burn to prove it) you may get them hit by oncoming traffic or smashed between the cars that the Motorcycle is squeezing through. So, this week as I am riding trying to hold on, keeping my legs from dragging or getting burned or hit I was thinking how nice it is to experience the country on the back of a bike. It was really nice until I got cramps in my thighs and we were almost squished between a lory (large truck) and a Toyota Prado (landcruiser) We accelerated at the last minute to squeeze through them.
Never a dull moment!

Bakka Village Crusade

Here is an update on our crusade that we held in the village over the weekend. Sorry no pictures as I took the battery out of the camera to charge it before we left, picked up the camera and forgot the battery. We did get some interesting video though:)

Part of our team arrived in the morning to set up the area for the meeting and the the rest of the team came later on in the afternoon. We started with 3 hours of music then we had the evangelist speak for about 30 minutes, we prayed for the sick watched the 2nd half of the 10 commandments movie with the evangelist narrating the dialogs in Lugandan and then prayed for salvations and other needs.

There were 11 first time dedications which were followed up by the local pastor, 8 instant healings, two demon possessed people manifesting and 1 witch doctor chanting and dancing around. It was quite a night. 4 of the instant healings were of children with malaria which the fever left instantly and no sign of any symptoms after prayer. The others were headaches, stomach aches and one with severe chest pains unable to breath.

The witch doctor was interesting to say the least. He came out during praise and worship with a suit on and animal skins strapped to his body. Had a pipe in his mouth, some kind of animal tail on a stick in one hand and then another stick in the other. He danced around waving the sticks and blowing smoke everywhere. He did this for 2 hours and then decided to give up and go home. Some of the natives were worried and scared and watched to see what we would do. We prayed and laughed under our breath as it was really quite ridiculous to watch. We serve the one true God!

World Orphan Day

Today is World Orphan Day. It is a great time to reflect upon the orphan crisis all around the world. Uganda has 3.1 million orphans and the number is rising. Malaria is the #1 killer of the parents of these orphans and all children under the age of 5 killing more than 300 a day in Uganda alone.
We had one of the children in Bakka village die this past week. We had just seen him a few weeks ago and he was well. He spent several days in the hospital before he finally died. It is a very hard thing for us to see these children die, but for the people here it is their daily reality.