This is the fourth and final blog in my series (In case you hadn’t noticed, the title of the series is Theology, Simplicity, and Social Justice, Oh My!). It is a bit of a hodge-podge of information, but I think it will help to complete the picture of what else I am doing:
In addition to all of these things the past three weeks, we have continued with our normal ministry activities. My team has continued to visit Irma, where we learned to make tamales this week. We have several ATL’s (Ask the Lord), and we have helped finish construction on a single mother’s home in Matamoros. We moved over 1,000 cubic feet of dirt into a house for the base of the floor and spent most of another day mixing concrete with shovels in the street and hauling it up to pour the roof in five gallon buckets. As you can see, along with all we have learned, we have continued to stay busy with ministry work. And, there are many other small things that have been happening as well, as you may well imagine.
One of my favorite things that I have been doing is studying Swahili. Swahili is spoken in all of the areas that we will be-Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania- and is, along with English, the official language of Uganda. I got a book on the language and have been spending as much of my limited free time as I can studying it so that I will be able to communicate even just a little bit with those individuals who do not know English.
Another one of the memories that sticks with me is cooking breakfast for my team a few Saturday mornings ago. I got up, set a table, and cooked breakfast. I made a fruit tray, bacon, eggs (scrambled, fried, and over-easy), and gingerbread pancakes with homemade whipped cream. The food was delicious, and we had a wonderful time sitting down and eating together.
The last of these memories that I would like to share has to do with learning construction last week. We learned how to build “houses”, or rather shelters, and we practiced in our teams making shelters. The process is many-fold, but we learned to pour concrete wall footings, build flats for the walls and roof, and cover the walls and roof. The result is an 8’x8′ shelter-certainly not anything elaborate, but it keeps away the wind and rain. I hope we are able to use this knowledge in Uganda and provide shelters for some people who desperately need them.
As I am writing this, we will be leaving in a few hours for our week of outreach. Our team is headed to a small community outside of Matamoros, about thirty minutes from where we are, called Ejido Santa Adalida. We have a house to stay in for the week; we have transportation to town (via the city busses) to get food if we need it, and we will be working with a church there called Templo El Buen Samaritano and their pastor, Juan Lopez. We do not know what exactly we will be doing, but we hope to be able to minister in a variety of ways. I know God has great plans in store for us this week!
Finally, I have a few details to share about our travel to and living arrangements in Busia, Uganda. On the 23rd, we fly from Harlingen to Houston and then to Dubai, where we have a 13 hour layover. Hopefully while we are there, we will have the opportunity to explore the city a little bit. Then, from Dubai, we will fly into Entebbe on the 25th– a short two hour drive from Busia. This means close to 48 hours of travel time and almost 24 hours on a plane. And yes, I will be in Africa for Thanksgiving (no, they do not celebrate Thanksgiving in Africa, but still…). When we arrive, we are going to be living in a house on a compound (we think that means a fenced-in area containing several houses) with our host family. Their names escape me right now, but they are American, doctors, and a little older (maybe in their 50’s). They sound like a very neat couple, and I look forward to meeting them. To the best of my knowledge, our scheduled ministry will mainly be focused on the Helping Hands orphanage in Busia and traveling to and assisting many of the 68 church plants started by the Helping Hands organization throughout Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. We will, of course, have opportunity for other ministry activities that we initiate, such as building shelters. Our transportation around Busia will be on bicycles that we get to buy when we get there. I can’t wait until half of my stories start with “There was this one time when I was riding my bike in Africa, and…”! Needless to say, I am excited to be in Africa in less than two weeks!
