A Busy 3 Days!

Monday and Tuesday
Every year the team visits needy families in the community to hear their stories and bless them with gifts. On Monday, Wendy, Tiana, Brent and Nigel visited 5 families and Lauren, Howard, Debbie and Allayne visited another 5 on Tuesday. We heard stories that moved us and gave us a true insight into how tough life in Uganda really is; it isn’t all happy worship in church. We gave the children kid packs, lovingly made by people from Peace Portal Alliance Church, and the looks of joy on their faces as they pulled out the new clothes are ones that will not soon be forgotten. The entire family also received mattresses, mosquito nets, laundry soap and other much appreciated supplies.

As well as care and compassion trips, the team spent Monday and Tuesday doing work projects. We helped the mamas wash the mountains of laundry by hand, and half of the team helped fix up the sister church to the one here at the orphanage, Peace Portal Mpigi. Lots of hard work, but we felt extremely accomplished and happy to have blessed the people here.

Wednesday
On Wednesday we jumped head first into Ugandan ministry, beginning our day with a visit to the Mpigi prison. Brent gave a sermon to the 50 or so prisoners, then the girls took on the 8 female prisoners in a rather intense game of netball. The boys tried their chances at a soccer game and surprisingly, Uganda won both netball and soccer. We blessed the prison with gifts of maize, beans and soap and it was incredible to hear how much our visit had brought them hope and joy. 4 men even gave their lives to Christ that day.

We ate our power bar lunch in a nice shady spot in Mpigi and were quite the attraction with the local children on their way home from school. It seemed as if they were all daring each other to get the closest to the Mzungus (white people), then ran away laughing. In the afternoon we visited the Mpigi hospital. That was quite the eye opener. The main doctor gave us a tour of the hospital that serves a population of about 200,000 with a staff of only 20. The male and female wards were very quiet but the maternity and children’s ward had a lot of patients; many women giving birth and children with Malaria. The highlight must have been as we are standing in the women’s ward and a chicken just walked out from under one of the beds. Only in Africa. After leaving Mpigi hospital, we are all extremely appreciative of the clean and well-equipped medical facilities that we have access to at home.

Still no health issues among the team, although Brent has been keeping us highly entertained with his minor mishaps. Please keep the prayers coming. God bless.