Monday

Today was our first day on the construction site, called the Lubas Project, which is the East African Headquarters for Mission Link International. The visiting construction crew consisted of David, Caleb, Randon, Charlton, Craig, and Kaila. All but Craig worked most of the day on pulling bricks from a large demolistion pile, and then cleaning them of old mortor with chipping hammers, and then stacking them in orderly rows for future use during rebuilding. Craig and the Engineering Ministries International (EMI) intern, Matt, along with the EMI East Africa Office Director John Sauder worked all day on organizing the crews to start repairing the old theater roof trusses that had been removed. The timber trusses were heavy and aged, being installed originally when the theater was constructed in the 1920's. We all had a great day but lots of heavy work, especially for our backs!

As the rain pours down outside, we (Katie and Alex) are exhausted from a day of playing tag and dancing, but extremely enthused to return! After an endless drive down the dusty red road (or series of potholes rather), we got our first glimpse of the rural primary school at Idoome. Our anxiety rose as we were informed that there were 91 students, ages 5-13, anticipating our program. However, the blessing that we would experience was amazing! Because the children were younger and spoke little english, we decided to run a more VBS-like program, relying on God's direction of our improvisation. Our energy rose at the encouragement of the children's smiles as we played games like "red light green light" (which we attempted to use the Ugandan words) and told Bible stories. We also began teaching them dances to praise songs, which we hope to continue practicing for a performance at the end of the week. Afterwards, we changed venues to a secondary school at Gateway. Here the students spoke some english and were about 14-16 years old. Although the older children (about 30 out of the 2000 who attend) were at first more difficult to keep the attention of, they proved a better fit for the Music Camp. Despite being tired from a day in the sun, with God's help, we found the energy to spend a little over an hour teaching a more complex version of the dances to them. Once they began to focus on what we were doing, they became enthusiastic, some of the older students helping us to bridge the language gap. Apparently we speak quickly!! We are looking forward to a solid night's sleep and then, of course, returning to the schools tomorrow!! Lord willing, we already have plans for the rest of the week.

The rest of the team, Kathy, Rayna, Chris, Bethany and Jenna went to visit and encourage orphans and widows. First, we went to Jinja Hill Baptist Church to meet with the widows. Many of the widows shared their stories of how their husbands died. More than half of them said their husbands died of AIDS. That is very common in Uganda and why there are so many orphans. After we shared, Pastor Willy gave an invitation and two women received Christ as their savior! We also visited two orphanages with many children in them. In the Sonrise infant orphanage the aunties cared for 8 babies at a time. This is hard to imagine but they all seemed loved and cared for. The woman that was the director for Sonrise was a graduate of the other orphanage that we visited later in the day. The second orphanage, Good Shepherds Fold, was a much bigger campus. They have about 90 orphans living there, from babies up to age 17. They also have a school which is open to local children, so there were a total of 200 children attending the school. We had a tour of the campus and then went to visit several classes, where we shared bible stories and shared the gospel.
Laurie is doing better each day and she has an awesome attitude despite her current circumstances and has encouraged each of us!
Please pray that the Ugandan people would hear our presentation of God's message clearly in each situation.