Day 4

6:35 AM (Guest House)

“It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witness in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."

So much on my mind this morning. I had a restless night of sleep (slept well when I was asleep, but woke up a number of times), but was blessed by praying during those waking moments. I prayed that the Holy Spirit would come upon me on this trip and that my words would come from Him. Witnessing to villagers in huts may not come easily, but I trust His will be done. I've started reading through Acts and am encouraged over the joy and excitement of the new church. Wonderful reminders of the power of the Lord and His Spirit!

8:00 PM (Guest House)
Phew. What at overwhelming day.

10:00 PM (Guest House)

We ate breakfast and headed into Kiburara around 8:30 this morning. The children were eagerly awaiting us and I met some sweet girls. It is interesting to interact with them and see how thy treat one another. They are all very careful to look out for one another and they are quite tender. Clearly they learn to be responsible at a young age, as 6 year-olds have babies wrapped around their backs. The older ones are motherly to their siblings and are eager to explain to whom they are related. One little girl, Anook, appeared to have her ears pierced with two little toothpick looking things, but many do have their ears pierced for real. They kept asking if we were going home, but we promised we’d be back after working.

We split into 2 groups to go work on widows’ homes. Our groups included translators named Edson and Andrew; they are young guys eager to serve us and the Lord. Edson asked me if I’m married, and when I said “no,” he replied, “but you’re in the process?” Ha. It struck me since to him, it is probably quite strange not to be married at 24, so the question was natural. My typical response would have been some dramatic sigh (not on purpose) followed by a “no,”but I held back since he probably already thought I was weird. He said “Elizabeth” was a hard name to say and asked if I had another one…So now at least one Ugandan calls me EB!

Edson is 19 and wants to go to school for science to become a doctor, but cannot afford it and needs to care for his 5 younger siblings. He has had 3 moms because the first 2 died, and the 3rd one does not care for the children from the other mothers. His father is getting old and is a banana farmer. It is just so crazy. Many Americans have trouble affording college, but few can blame it on caring for siblings and farming two acres of bananas. He just kept saying he will continue to pray and put his hope in Jesus. A story about him is that about 2 years ago he laid hands on and prayed for a woman on the CLC team who was unable to have children. Soon after they got home from Uganda, they conceived and when the baby was born they named him after Edson :)

As we drove to our village we got pretty far out. You should know that as far as you can see are mountain-hills with beautiful trees and terrain. Every village had children and parents working and very few were too proud to wave. Sometimes all the children would run after our bus with smiles and screams of delight.

We finally got to our destination and the children were the dirtiest we've seen. I noticed some clearly infected sores and some were lacking much clothing.

The guys set to work watching the Ugandans work (ha) and then were able to help add cement to the mud/wood home.

The women of the village sat preparing food (at 9:30 AM) and the children surrounded us. At one point I got down on my knees to teach O-Bo (Mexico fave) and within seconds 20 kids were surrounding me and helping their little friend pick up the hand clapping game while I sang :) It was precious and loved it! They also LOVE having their pictures taken so they can see them on the digital screen. Taking one picture promised having to take 5-10 more.

At one point we joined the kids for the trek down to the well. I guess some CLC $ over the last 5 years has helped build these wells that save them ½ hour trips to water, so that was neat to see as we were nearly swallowed by 12 ft. banana trees and corn stalks. I carried one of the containers back up. Definitely out of breath, but they told me I have “power,” so it was worth it!

We did some arts and crafts telling the Gospel story and also created a bowling game out of dirt, airplane socks, and empty water bottles.

We also taught them a couple of songs—

* Lord’s Army

* Hallelu-Hallelu-Hallelu- hallelujah, Praise Ye the Lord (even the split in 2 groups stand up/sit down part and they loved it!)
* This Little Light of Mine
*Then they taught us one!

I think most schools teach English school, but most people are pretty limited in their vocab. They are good at “Hi. How are you? I am fine.” Some villages know a lot more English than others.

One little girl probably about 10 was lying on the ground the whole time. Tery went to talk to her and found out that she is a Christian and since her grandmother wouldn't take her to the witch doctor, the witch doctor cast a spell on her so that she couldn't walk anymore. I guess now they carry her on a bike to church every week. So young for such hardship and evil! Some of our group prayed over her, but no visible change happened while we were there. For the rest of the day we made sure she could see all of our games/lessons from where she lay in the dirt since she couldn't move at all. Pretty sad.

Thankfully we finished the house before being subjected to a lunch of goat stew that the girls watched hair/skin go into. We made it back to Pastor Moses’ before a rainstorm and wolfed down lunch and chilled until the Pastor’s conference finished for the day.

Came back, “showered” (not as simple as yesterday), hung out, and went to bed too late. Motrin PM kicked in about 10 minutes after I took it and about 2 lines ago in this journal entry where my hand writing started growing illegible!