Today has been my favourite day of the trip so far. We had breakfast and then walked to Abundant Life Church for their morning service.
This church is a small shack/shed like building, with plastic outdoor chairs, the windows are open and you can see outside to the greenery, there are children running around and playing outside and the backdrop is made up of colourful fabric pinned to the wall.
Pastor George was preaching in English and he had a Lugandan translator - which made the service very interesting, getting to hear a sermon in a whole other language was something I really enjoyed.
The thing that stood out most to me during the service was the praise and worship, a group of people got up and sang, they didn’t have the ‘best voices’ but they sounded so beautiful, there was dancing and cheering and and pure joy in that room.
It didn’t matter if they could sing, what they looked like, if the key was the right key and if the congregation could sing along, they just sung and danced and praised, freely.
Once church was finished the children from the Village of Hope came and found us, the same kids that we had spent the day with before. It was a pretty nice feeling that they remembered who we were and wanted to come and find us again.
Some of us hung out outside the church and some of us got pulled into the hall for some dancing lessons. It was lots of fun!!
After having lunch at Suubi we walked back up to the Village of Hope. Again we were greeted by the kids we had been spending time with the previous day and that morning and they walked us to the common space. We then separated into smaller groups to join 2 of the mamas as they taught us how to prepare a meal, the Ugandan way.
We cut meat, veg and bananas. We sorted through rice to remove any rocks (this was a thoughtful moment for me, I open my food, cook it and eat it. I’ve never had to search through my food to remove things that’s shouldn’t be there. Something I now know - isn’t everyone’s normal)
We cooked the Posho, meat and the banana wrapped in banana leaves all over the fire. They had stoves at one point but preferred to cook over the open flame - the way they have always done it.
As that came to an end we started dancing and chatting and playing with the kids. They love to use our phones to take photos and videos, I guess it’s a novelty for them, something that they don’t get to do all the time. So we give them our phones and they run around taking photos and videos, it’s really sweet and means we have captured some awesome memories to reflect back on.
When it was time to leave today I think we all felt it was harder than the day before, as we had really started to form connections. I have been getting to know a girl named Ruth, as I left today she said ‘are you coming back?’ I responded ‘yes in a few days time’ ‘No, I mean after you leave Uganda, will you come back to see me again?’
This statement has left me with a range of emotions and thoughts and a huge prayer that the Lord will make a way for me to be able to come back and visit.
We finished the day going out to a restaurant for dinner, which was a wonderful experience to finish the day, keen for another epic day tomorrow.
Peyton D
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