Team 25 - Day 1&2

Hi Everyone!  Greetings from team 25! 

Firstly, I’ll introduce the team…  There’s the older ladies – Hillie, Liesje, Leonie and Philippa (all over 40!), and Phil’s daughter Piper, who is 9.  Then there’s sisters; Shae, Elisha and Monique, and Josh – all in their early 20’s.  Andrew’s our leader, rounding us out to ten. 

We’ve just come to the end of our first full day in Uganda.  I think the trip here was longer than any of us expected.  We flew from Melbourne to Perth, then Perth to Johannesburg, then up to Entebbe.  Half the team was on the bus ready to drive out to the plane when they were unloaded because of a problem with a part.  We were told it would be a ’10 – 15 minute’ wait… which turned into 5 hours.   It was a long day, and we didn’t arrive to Entebbe until 7.30pm in the evening.  We met Leonie at the airport, who had been on a gorilla safari for a few days, and Robert picked us up and took us to a guest house in Kampala. 

This morning we drove out to Jinja… it was such a good introduction to a different culture – the traffic is crazy, taxi vans and motor bikes piled with people, huge potholes and bumps giving us a massage as we hurtled over them, hunks of meat hanging in little butcher houses, carved wooden beds stacked for sale right by the road, goats and cows randomly grazing, colour and smells and noise… so much to take in! 

We arrived at Suubi house at about 1pm, where Juliette had a delicious lunch prepared for us with freshly baked rolls and the most delicious fruit!  Even Shae, who doesn’t like fruit thought the pineapple was good.    We hung out for a while, playing cards and settling in and then walked down to the Village of Hope (waiting for Hillie and Liesje who kept getting distracted talking to every local woman they came across), where Andrew spent some time filling us in on the history of the place, and we did a bit of a prayer walk around the property.  The mothers were so welcoming, and it was great to see the kids trickling in from school and meeting them.  Josh instantly had a whole heap of little boys hanging off him!  

Juliette fed us Andrew’s favourite dinner; Irish potatoes, rice and beans, which we all agreed was pretty good.  Andrew is taking us through some videos from ‘When Helping Hurts’ and we’ve spent a bit of time discussing the first instalment which focussed on what poverty is and how it’s much more than a lack of material resources, but rather a lack of opportunity, worth and dignity.  To address poverty we need to address the underlying causes.  

So, it’s been an awesome first day! Our first impressions are of happiness, hospitality, generosity and joy.  We’ve been amazed at the infrastructure at the village of hope, but also by the simplicity.  And Andrew’s testimony to God’s goodness to HopeBuilders over the years has been inspiring.   We’re so privileged that we get to be here and look forward to what God is going to do through us and in us over the next two weeks!

Check out some pics below to get a visual expression of our days so far..