This time around I traveled with a friend named Ashley. She shares my desire to participate in as many missions-oriented trips as possible and she actually set this trip in motion. We had a very delayed take off from Newark on December 20th and finally reached Entebbe, Uganda late on the 21st. An Empower-A-Child employee drove us from the airport to the house in Ntinda (Kampala) and thus our mission had begun. We had no sooner walked into the house when we were informed that we would be leaving in the morning for a special Christmas program in a nearby village.
This particular program was headed by a fellow MST (our short term missionary title) who had felt called to lead an outreach to a very needy village. Our team spent three days and two nights in the village, going to the heart of it every morning to visit with families, share the Gospel and the meaning of Christmas and to pray with and for the families. We were so blessed as to leave some small practical gifts with the neediest among them. We also held a program for the children in the afternoons, a time for fun and games and additional Bible stories. The children attended in mass quantities and hung on every word of the puppet shows that illustrated the Bible lesson. They loved their crafts and we were overjoyed to see several children still wearing their construction paper crowns when we drove through the village the next day.
Our hotel facility just outside the village was nothing short of five African stars, what with the Ugandan double bed and the spa-like lavatories (note the sarcasm). It was quite the initiation for Ashley, a first timer in Africa. And while I have been in Uganda once before I can honestly say that this experience was something completely new for me. I won't try to tell you that I was entirely comfortable where we stayed, but I know that if the chance was offered to do it again I would jump on it without hesitating. The smiles and singing voices and hugs and hand holds from the children and their parents made every second of our village stay worthwhile.
I would invite my readers to pray for the children and their families in the small villages that are the bulk of Uganda. We were in one village and reached out to one group of people, but there are so many more. We met orphaned children and deserted mothers and while I can't remember all their names I can remember their faces. They are happy people who love their Mzungu visitors, but few know the peace of salvation and even fewer know the comforts of stability and health.
We returned to the EAC house on Christmas Eve afternoon, relieved to return to the world of plumbing but very touched by everything we had seen and had been blessed to do. We were ready to spend a quiet Christmas day in the house and I was eager to get settled in and do some Christmas cooking!
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