You are fat!

This was our last Sunday. We dressed in our best clothes and set off for Deliverance Church (DC). We love DC! The format is familiar to our own church, but the band is VERY LOUD, and the singers and dancers leap about their tiny space waving hankies.  The worship leader keeps changing, which keeps things moving…. and the music never stops.  The songs are repetitive and simple with lots of ‘call and response’. At DC the words are on a screen so we can quickly pick up songs in both Ateso (the local language), and English. There’s also a translator. The service starts at 8.30am, but at the last minute we decided to walk, so we arrived late. We weren’t the last to arrive.  It finished at 11am.

There’s something uncomplicated about DC – simple faith and belief in repentance, forgiveness and salvation.  There’s no difficult language or words or concepts.  We had a sermon and prayers and an offering. There was also a birthday – one of the leaders was 42 today and had nearly died a few months ago. As we prayed for him then started to sing Happy Birthday, three people came with water which they poured on his unsuspecting head. It was brilliant – spontaneous rejoicing at his life.

We had lunch with Hannah today, who is back from Kampala. Fred came too and we told her about our meetings concerning the Ark.  We went to our friend Sam’s house and visited his wife and children.  There was plenty of laughter and chatter, the older children all have excellent English. In the unlikely event that my sons are reading this, your photos are now in a small photo album in a Ugandan village house. Apparently Chris and I are particularly fat, the other 2 a bit fat! They wanted to keep the pictures. They made us tea and roasted sweet potato.

We’ve done quite a bit of walking today. It is so dusty here. I was filthy again when we got back. We wanted Charles to have an easy day as he has to drive us to Kampala tomorrow. Three of the staff are coming with us, David, Fred and Christine, as they are meeting Paul, Head of Operations from the UK office, then we’re meeting up with all the Ugandan staff at the GC Uganda Conference.

It has been a good day. 
It has been a good week.

We have been reminded of the huge distances people have to travel here, usually on foot. It took us an hour to walk from Sam’s to our guest house.  The heat here is challenging for everyone. You forget how hard it is to walk in heat with no shade. On Friday a grandmother brought her grandchildren for vaccination. They had 7km to walk home – but she kept setting off then coming back because she is old and it was too hot. In the end GC arranged transport for them.

People pass us carrying water, chickens, bags, food.  We’ve seen pigs, goats, chickens on bikes. Yesterday we saw 24 children in a car like ours (Super Custom).  The only cheap transport is a bicycle boda. Many poor people walk miles for water, have no electricity, and often no money for kerosene. Poor people live on cassava or sweet potato – literally, nothing else. This is a hard place to live. Food is expensive because of inflation, and because they are desperate for rain – and drought is affecting the planting of next season’s crops.

We’ve seen disabled children living in what can only be described as squalor. We’ve seen children sleeping on bare earth with only rags to wear – no shoes.  We are tired of watching people struggle to pay for healthcare, and now we have experience of people dying because they can’t afford food or healthcare.  This may be a place we feel at home, where we feel safe, where we can relax, but there are aspects that are frustrating and sad.

On the flip side, it’s been fantastic to spend time again with the GC team, and to take part in the vaccination programme. These people work so hard for vulnerable children, and it’s been a delight to meet children who have been saved by GC. Children who now receive education, safety, food and love, where once they were abandoned or discarded.

This trip has made us even more determined to support the work of GC to relieve the suffering of the most vulnerable children.