this is long but it's a couple days...
Jambo!
There are a few things in need of discussion. First of all, God is at work. Big time. He’s pulling weeds like I’ve never felt/seen before. I’ll explain later…
He’s allowed us to see a lot in a short amount of time. This is our fourth day in Uganda and already we’ve been exposed to the culture in many various ways.
Perhaps the most interesting event thus far was our first church visit to Victory Baptist Church.
Let me tell you something…I’ve never experienced anything so long in my life.
We were told that this Sunday was going to be “special” because it was the 16th anniversary of the church‘s existence. We really had no idea how special it was going to be. Not only did we have regular church, but there was also a two hour testimonial commemorating the actual anniversary, followed by the celebration of a wedding….that had actually taken place 16 years earlier. Ya. From what we understand in Uganda if your parents consent, you can move in together and you’re married. But maybe this couple wasn’t saved when they first started their lives together….? I think. So they wanted an official wedding to declare to their church family that they were lawfully wed. Something like that. But boy did they make up for lost time. The whole reason the testimonials took so long was because the bride was getting ready. And getting ready. And getting ready. Meanwhile, the pastors were desperately trying to fill the time with testimonies. What’s funny is that one of the deacons felt the need for interpretation of each
testimony, so it doubled the length of everything. I guess it didn’t matter though because the bride was ….you guessed it…still getting ready. I think finally the head pastor told someone that she had one minute before they were starting the wedding. I’m not kidding. BUT, luckily for me a small child decided to sit on my lap. It was really cute, until I discovered she was holding a grasshopper which by the end of the message she had completely dissected. Not so cute anymore. First went the legs, then the wings, and that would have made for a good snack had she not dropped it for the toddler next to her to stomp it to death. Thank you Lord, for providing me entertainment.
So finally, after much anticipation (BTW McKenzie, Tj, and I keep checking the time because we didn’t eat breakfast and we were sure that since it was one o’clock we were going to eat pretty soon…right?) the wedding commences. It’s interesting how things are done here. I really believe that the bride and groom had no idea everyone was as hungry and as restless as we were. But that’s ok. At least they were happy to finally get this thing finalized. After 16 years? Can you blame them? The bride was preceded by her seven children. Now I have to try and explain something very difficult, but it’s very important for you to be able to understand what we witnessed. Ok. So first was the flower girl and the ring bearer. After much coaxing to come on through those double doors, the cutest little African girl you’ve ever seen *slowly* ventured out onto the white butcher paper covered aisle. I need to establish the fact that by slowly, I mean it took her as long to cover two feet of ground as it’s takes me to cover two separate subjects in these blogs. Basically, it was slow. After them, the bride and groom’s twenty children (not really) simultaneously swayed to the alter. We call it “The Walk”. It’s kinda like you take a step, rock back and forth on the leg that’s in front, and then you switch, and eventually you make some progress. It’s hilarious. So funny. And we aren’t just weird American white people who think it’s funny. There was a row of guys in front of us imitating the walk and laughing. I guess since it took so long, it spread to the whole church and many different people of all ages tried out their Walk.
Ok. Long service…it’s about 4:30pm and finally lunch time. We get ushered to the front of the line, despite our protesting, where the servers piled heaps of unidentifiable substance onto our plates. We were excited. Before we went back to our seats, I asked Camille where the forks were and she told me to just use my fingers. I looked at all the food and thought to myself, “Uh-oh. This is not finger food.” But we weren’t wavered. We boldly marched back to our seats….no fork, no napkin, and lots of food. It was awesome.
Here are a few things that our plates consisted of:
Goat meat
Goat intestine sauce
Rice
Triangle Tortilla Thing
Yellow Yam
Fried Yam
Mashed Yam
Potato
Mashed/Fried Bananas
Millet Bread
For those of you who don’t know, or haven’t ever tasted, or heard about millet bread, let me enlighten you. Looks like refried beans, tastes like moist cardboard. Feels like sticky play-dough only you have to chew it longer. Slightly gritty, relatively tasteless. Really hard to get down.
Long story not short, the wedding (feast and all) was an experience not soon to be forgotten. Actually, it turned out to be a blessing because we were able to spend a lot of time with kids who definitely appreciated genuine attention from three goofy mozungoos (ps that’s the renown name for white people around here). And it brought us immense joy to lavish our love and share our laughter with them. We might not have gotten home till 7:30 that night, but it was definitely worth it. We discovered the culture. We entertained and held children. We learned that food isn’t always satisfying. We learned a lesson in patience and accepting anything and everything set before us. And we laughed. A LOT. It was totally worth every second, and we wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.
OK NEW WRITER-TJ’S TAKING OVER THE LAP TOP
(Sorry, I am not as witty as Marlee but I’ll see what I can do.)
November 23rd, 2008
Well yesterday (the 23rd) was market day. Get excited.
Camille, three other women from here, and the three of us all loaded up in the truck and headed to Jinja. First stop was to fetch our luggage that was once lost, but had been found. Yay. After that me and Marlee rode in the back with the bags and let the ladies sit up front. It was awesome. Bumpy roads + 4 bags + two people in the back of a covered truck thing = lots of laughs, (when it’s me and Mar) lots of singing, and a few bruises. The thing is I really liked riding back there. Like a lot. Meanwhile McKenzie was making friends with Faith, one of the ladies we’d brought along. She’s from Uganda, she’s really sweet, and she loves Jesus.
After trying to figure out some internet stuff (by the way people, we only get it every couple days so we write these and up load them whenever we can), we moved on to market. Camille went to go get some stuff and Faith was put in charge of us seeing as we’d never been to market and we kind of stuck out…she was awesome and got us good prices on our stuff seeing as she is super street savvy. She picked out our pineapples for us (so so so so good….) and helped us with some other purchases we needed to get taken care of. Then we headed back to the vehicle to wait and sing/talk some more. After that we proceeded to the super market for bread, fresh COLD water, some crackers, lemon cookies, and a big big coke. The water and crackers are for whenever, the coke and cookies are for the most amazing Thanksgiving celebration ever…since that goes down in a few days I think.
You just need to know this one thing. We’ve turned our world into a Broadway stage. It’s brilliant. It started with a little ditty I sang for Marlee about the need for water. After that, we just couldn’t stop. It was like, impromptu songs about everything, all the time, everywhere. Thing is, we’re good at it. We rap, we sing, we dance….really, it’s a beautiful thing and helps when you’re starting to feel a little tired/hot/hungry/whatever…
Anyways, at like 4sh we headed home…yay for bumpy car rides…to eat some peanut butter…
(has anyone noticed how much of your blogs are about food? Cause I have…sorry). Then there was dinner, of rice and beans, and then, we led worship. Yes, you heard me right. For those of you who have heard me and marlee play, you know why this would be amusing, but somehow, because God is good, it worked. It ended up going better than expected out of His mercy and that alone… His presence was definitely in the place, and that’s all that matters. No amount of skill on our part could have produced worship, but worship happened. It was beautiful.
After that, McKenzie decided it was Ice Age time so we crowded around the TV. I don’t think they got all of it, but over all, I think it was a success. We definitely had some good laughs.
But yeah, that was our day. It was pretty joy-filled if you ask me. Thanks people for all your prayers, we feel God’s hand everywhere we go. We know that things would not be going this smoothly if was not for God’s blessing and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We are so so so thankful. I know this probably sounds like a list of what we do but really, we are so blessed, we are enjoying rich fellowship with one another and the people here, and we are daily learning and excepting some good life/Jesus lessons. I think that we are blessing the people here as well, if not with anything else, with our laughter. :)
Jambo!
There are a few things in need of discussion. First of all, God is at work. Big time. He’s pulling weeds like I’ve never felt/seen before. I’ll explain later…
He’s allowed us to see a lot in a short amount of time. This is our fourth day in Uganda and already we’ve been exposed to the culture in many various ways.
Perhaps the most interesting event thus far was our first church visit to Victory Baptist Church.
Let me tell you something…I’ve never experienced anything so long in my life.
We were told that this Sunday was going to be “special” because it was the 16th anniversary of the church‘s existence. We really had no idea how special it was going to be. Not only did we have regular church, but there was also a two hour testimonial commemorating the actual anniversary, followed by the celebration of a wedding….that had actually taken place 16 years earlier. Ya. From what we understand in Uganda if your parents consent, you can move in together and you’re married. But maybe this couple wasn’t saved when they first started their lives together….? I think. So they wanted an official wedding to declare to their church family that they were lawfully wed. Something like that. But boy did they make up for lost time. The whole reason the testimonials took so long was because the bride was getting ready. And getting ready. And getting ready. Meanwhile, the pastors were desperately trying to fill the time with testimonies. What’s funny is that one of the deacons felt the need for interpretation of each
testimony, so it doubled the length of everything. I guess it didn’t matter though because the bride was ….you guessed it…still getting ready. I think finally the head pastor told someone that she had one minute before they were starting the wedding. I’m not kidding. BUT, luckily for me a small child decided to sit on my lap. It was really cute, until I discovered she was holding a grasshopper which by the end of the message she had completely dissected. Not so cute anymore. First went the legs, then the wings, and that would have made for a good snack had she not dropped it for the toddler next to her to stomp it to death. Thank you Lord, for providing me entertainment.So finally, after much anticipation (BTW McKenzie, Tj, and I keep checking the time because we didn’t eat breakfast and we were sure that since it was one o’clock we were going to eat pretty soon…right?) the wedding commences. It’s interesting how things are done here. I really believe that the bride and groom had no idea everyone was as hungry and as restless as we were. But that’s ok. At least they were happy to finally get this thing finalized. After 16 years? Can you blame them? The bride was preceded by her seven children. Now I have to try and explain something very difficult, but it’s very important for you to be able to understand what we witnessed. Ok. So first was the flower girl and the ring bearer. After much coaxing to come on through those double doors, the cutest little African girl you’ve ever seen *slowly* ventured out onto the white butcher paper covered aisle. I need to establish the fact that by slowly, I mean it took her as long to cover two feet of ground as it’s takes me to cover two separate subjects in these blogs. Basically, it was slow. After them, the bride and groom’s twenty children (not really) simultaneously swayed to the alter. We call it “The Walk”. It’s kinda like you take a step, rock back and forth on the leg that’s in front, and then you switch, and eventually you make some progress. It’s hilarious. So funny. And we aren’t just weird American white people who think it’s funny. There was a row of guys in front of us imitating the walk and laughing. I guess since it took so long, it spread to the whole church and many different people of all ages tried out their Walk.
Ok. Long service…it’s about 4:30pm and finally lunch time. We get ushered to the front of the line, despite our protesting, where the servers piled heaps of unidentifiable substance onto our plates. We were excited. Before we went back to our seats, I asked Camille where the forks were and she told me to just use my fingers. I looked at all the food and thought to myself, “Uh-oh. This is not finger food.” But we weren’t wavered. We boldly marched back to our seats….no fork, no napkin, and lots of food. It was awesome.
Here are a few things that our plates consisted of:
Goat meat
Goat intestine sauce
Rice
Triangle Tortilla Thing
Yellow Yam
Fried Yam
Mashed Yam
Potato
Mashed/Fried Bananas
Millet Bread
For those of you who don’t know, or haven’t ever tasted, or heard about millet bread, let me enlighten you. Looks like refried beans, tastes like moist cardboard. Feels like sticky play-dough only you have to chew it longer. Slightly gritty, relatively tasteless. Really hard to get down.
Long story not short, the wedding (feast and all) was an experience not soon to be forgotten. Actually, it turned out to be a blessing because we were able to spend a lot of time with kids who definitely appreciated genuine attention from three goofy mozungoos (ps that’s the renown name for white people around here). And it brought us immense joy to lavish our love and share our laughter with them. We might not have gotten home till 7:30 that night, but it was definitely worth it. We discovered the culture. We entertained and held children. We learned that food isn’t always satisfying. We learned a lesson in patience and accepting anything and everything set before us. And we laughed. A LOT. It was totally worth every second, and we wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.
OK NEW WRITER-TJ’S TAKING OVER THE LAP TOP
(Sorry, I am not as witty as Marlee but I’ll see what I can do.)
November 23rd, 2008
Well yesterday (the 23rd) was market day. Get excited.
Camille, three other women from here, and the three of us all loaded up in the truck and headed to Jinja. First stop was to fetch our luggage that was once lost, but had been found. Yay. After that me and Marlee rode in the back with the bags and let the ladies sit up front. It was awesome. Bumpy roads + 4 bags + two people in the back of a covered truck thing = lots of laughs, (when it’s me and Mar) lots of singing, and a few bruises. The thing is I really liked riding back there. Like a lot. Meanwhile McKenzie was making friends with Faith, one of the ladies we’d brought along. She’s from Uganda, she’s really sweet, and she loves Jesus.
After trying to figure out some internet stuff (by the way people, we only get it every couple days so we write these and up load them whenever we can), we moved on to market. Camille went to go get some stuff and Faith was put in charge of us seeing as we’d never been to market and we kind of stuck out…she was awesome and got us good prices on our stuff seeing as she is super street savvy. She picked out our pineapples for us (so so so so good….) and helped us with some other purchases we needed to get taken care of. Then we headed back to the vehicle to wait and sing/talk some more. After that we proceeded to the super market for bread, fresh COLD water, some crackers, lemon cookies, and a big big coke. The water and crackers are for whenever, the coke and cookies are for the most amazing Thanksgiving celebration ever…since that goes down in a few days I think.
You just need to know this one thing. We’ve turned our world into a Broadway stage. It’s brilliant. It started with a little ditty I sang for Marlee about the need for water. After that, we just couldn’t stop. It was like, impromptu songs about everything, all the time, everywhere. Thing is, we’re good at it. We rap, we sing, we dance….really, it’s a beautiful thing and helps when you’re starting to feel a little tired/hot/hungry/whatever…
Anyways, at like 4sh we headed home…yay for bumpy car rides…to eat some peanut butter…
(has anyone noticed how much of your blogs are about food? Cause I have…sorry). Then there was dinner, of rice and beans, and then, we led worship. Yes, you heard me right. For those of you who have heard me and marlee play, you know why this would be amusing, but somehow, because God is good, it worked. It ended up going better than expected out of His mercy and that alone… His presence was definitely in the place, and that’s all that matters. No amount of skill on our part could have produced worship, but worship happened. It was beautiful.
After that, McKenzie decided it was Ice Age time so we crowded around the TV. I don’t think they got all of it, but over all, I think it was a success. We definitely had some good laughs.
But yeah, that was our day. It was pretty joy-filled if you ask me. Thanks people for all your prayers, we feel God’s hand everywhere we go. We know that things would not be going this smoothly if was not for God’s blessing and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We are so so so thankful. I know this probably sounds like a list of what we do but really, we are so blessed, we are enjoying rich fellowship with one another and the people here, and we are daily learning and excepting some good life/Jesus lessons. I think that we are blessing the people here as well, if not with anything else, with our laughter. :)
2 comments:
you 3 are awesome! don't loose faith! God is good!
-emdev
Hey, this is yo' staka'(I wish I could see people's reaction to that). There is no need to ask how you are doing because I can tell you are doing great! Man, and we think a 25 minute sermon is rough...! I'm glad you found your stuff and that you all have such a wonderfully innate sense of rap and adlib. I can completely picture it all. I just wish I could see everyone else's faces! I'm still exited for and praying for you all. Shaloam.
-Jake Akin
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