5 weeks to go...

So after I blogged last week, the rest of the day turned into one of the most fun/eventful days of my time so far. I went to a JENGA football match with Michael about 45 minutes out of Mbale in Sironko, a relatively remote town. Just 45 minutes before we were due to set off, Michael told me that I wouldn't in fact be going as coach, but player. We were travelling in a matatu - a crappy little minibus. Michael told Phille, the captain, to arrange the cheapest Matatu he could find, he didn't disappoint. What arrived was the most beat up vehicle you could ever imagine, it get laughed off an MOT test. I took up station at the front in what's come to be known as the 'death seat' as most Matatu crashes are head on collisions and quickly realised how poor this thing was. To get into third the driver had to jam the gear-stick in several times and when it eventually did get in gear, it just fell out again... Every button/dial was broken which was assuring and it smelled bad. An all-round great vehicle, but it all added to the fun. We got there and went for lunch in a shady cafe, which had probably never seen a Mzungu before and then walked to the pitch. The locals got pretty excited when I ran onto the field to warm up in my Reading kit (thanks to Kit AID), they don't get many Mzungus, especially none playing football, they loved it. However because of my lack of prep time I had to borrow some boots. Those of you who know the dis-proportionate size of my feet would probably guess that they wouldn't have my size over here... So I wore size NINEs without any studs and just grinned through the pain. I helped out Joseph the coach in the first half, it turned out that the other team were pretty good and our heavy lunch didn't serve us so well, we came into the break 4-0 down. But then I came on in the second and we played a much more organised second half, eventually losing 5-1. Still great banter though...

To be honest most of the week was taken up by the office, I've been starting the new News Update, helping Tiff with photos sorting, also JENGA now has a twitter account which I'm manning (follow @JENGACDO).

Sunday was also really cool. I got the great privilege of being able to preach up the mountain at Emmanuel Church, one of Bethel's church plants. It was such a great time. I preached on being a 'Holy Priesthood' from 1 Peter 2. I spoke about the importance of seeking the presence of God, how that builds us into being a 'spiritual house' and how that should affect the way we live. Had a time of quiet at the end just listening and receiving from God and really felt holy spirit moving in that time. God is moving up the mountain!! Preaching again this Sunday at Mustard Seed Namatala, Pastor Sam's church, on giving. Trying to get a good balance between sensitivity and following the word of God down the line.

A really interesting observation from CRO yesterday. We had to go down to a different field for football, which meant walking through town. I was walking through with a kid on either hand and had about 10 different Ugandan me come up to me at different times questioning why I was with 'Street boys'. Really opened my eyes to the Ugandan opinion of these amazing kids. Most of them see them as just a nuisance, look past their terrible lifestyles and only see them as an annoyance to themselves. That's just been a bit thought-provoking for me over the past day.

Beginning to ramp up the time I spend thinking and praying about what to do when I go home now, would appreciate prayer for that, but also that I'd be focussed on finishing really well here. :)

God Bless

Dan x

jengauganda.org

Bit of a transition time at the moment, with Sam having left among others who are about to leave or are arriving soon.

So Thursday really signalled the beginning of the end of Sam's stay as we went down to CRO. Sam gave a stonking talk on Matt 16, brilliantly honest as it came from a personal vision that God gave him, he's a good lad. But after he had to say his first few goodbyes to the kids and also Levi and Betty, the two amazing local volunteers who come to help with our CRO ministry. Levi particularly has become a really cool friend to the both of us. At this moment I finally realised that Sam was really leaving and the last couple of days with him seemed to fly by.

Thursday evening I decided to have a little leaving do for Sammo. He's Aussie, so naturally we had a bbq. Tiff brought sausages and burgers from Kampala so we didn't have to eat the luminous pink chicken sausages that  we get in Mbale, and I made kebabs made with Sam's favourite scotch fillet meat from the local market. Really cool night that ended with me dominating settlers and us taking some final group photos. Natalie and Paul were also there... didn't want them to feel left out.

And then the dreaded day came, Sam left on Friday evening. Tiff, Paul, Sam and I went for one final Chat & Chino milkshake and the Natalie joined us to wait for his bus with him. Sam's been so quality, a seriously good guy to live with, so excited for what God has for him over the next few years. Privilege to run this race with you buddy. The cruel irony is that I'm writing this very blog in the coffee shop that we spent most of our time.

Then Saturday I went to Football. It's getting pretty hot now on the equator, around 35 degrees at midday, so playing football in the middle of the day with some properly fit Africans is not so good for my ego. Really enjoying it though, the team's coach, Joseph, has asked me to coach one of the teams from now on. Should be some decent banter.

Then on Sunday we went to what could be my penultimate Bethel church service as from now on Tiff has sorted me out to preach at a different every week. Really looking forward to giving some time to grow in this area. Speaking this Sunday at Emmanuel Church, one of Bethel's church-plants on 'Christ in us, the hope of glory', seems appropriate for the name of their church.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my life, appreciated you all!

God Bless

Dan x

jengauganda.org

Sorry for being lazy/Christmas and New Year

First of all a MASSIVE apology for not blogging for the past few weeks, but to be honest, there’s not been a lot going on, but I can tell you about Christmas and New years.

So just after my last blog the JENGA staff went on Christmas holidays and so did me and Sam. We went down to Jinja, which is a beautiful town just on the Nile, so it has great places to stay and LOTS of Mzungus. We stayed at a backpackers place for a couple of nights. It was a pretty entertaining trip; on the first night we met this quality Canadian couple who were on their honeymoon, we met them at around 6, had dinner with them and stayed up chatting to them about God until around 1:30. They were quality because that was all they wanted to talk about, I really felt God doing stuff, the talk was just so easy and it was amazing how much we all opened up and shared stuff you wouldn’t usually share with people who you’d just met a few hours earlier. We continued to hang out for the rest of our time there.

The day before we left, me and Sam decided to go off on a long bike ride - even though neither of us have ridden bikes since we’ve been here and the heat during the day was hitting 35+. We hopped on a bus early in the morning to go across town to where you can hire bikes. The guy seemed to really like us because Sam is a bit of a Mountain Bike nerd, so he gave us a couple of really good bikes, he even gave me his own! We set off for Itanda falls, which is 38 km away at around 10. We were both doing well around 15 km into the ride, but then it got hilly and hot – also I forgot to bring sun cream, poor shout. I absolutely died. But it was still great fun. I miss Clarissa (my road bike at home)

We had to go home a bit early because there was some final Christmas work that needed to be done for JENGA, which was cool because I was burnt and peeling from the bike ride and so just wanted to bathe in after-sun.

Then that Sunday was Christmas! Now I don’t really get excited for Christmas back home, but this Christmas was awesome! We went to Bethel in the morning in the big new building, which made it feel like I was at a church at home somehow: apart from the rudimentary African church echo, of course. After than I had my first Christmas dinner with the whole church family, we sat and watched some African church video on the projector and ate rice and beef stew. Oh yes. After that we went to Vinnie’s house for my second Christmas dinner, rice, beef stew (again) and Mama Grace’s amazing charcoal cooked chicken, she’s got some unbelievable chicken cooking tekkers. We stayed there for a couple of hours and bantered with the family. I commented about how having eight children is a huge family, Vinnie rejected this claim because next door they have 45 children! That wasn’t a typo. The guy has 8 wives, so there are around 54 people in his family. The banter continued until around 530 and then Sam and I walked back home to prepare our stomachs for a third Christmas dinner. In the evening we went to MJ and Stuart’s house. They are a South African couple who run the cotton ginnery that Ben works for. We went round for Barbeque Turkey and all the trimmings, including Christmas Crackers and Christmas Pudding. It’s fair to say that I was full after that… Paulo was staying the night so just before we crashed we did presents. I got the boys African shirts which went down a treat. Sam made us a picture frame from our time up Wanale. And Paul got me some toothpicks.

Sam, Paul, Natalie and I all went back to Jinja for New years. We sat around, played games, read books and people-watched. It was quality.

So it turns out that my parents couldn’t have come at a worse time than they did. Essentially they made me have 5 weeks for Christmas holiday. Sounds great but it’s not really why I’m here. Sort of feels like I missed out a massive chunk of my time. However on Monday I went back to work. It’s been so good being back at work. It was like a big crazy family reunion on Monday, just a lot of shouting and hugging. Then Sam and I went back to CRO as well yesterday, which I loved, even though it was bloomin’ hot. Sam played in goal so claimed to be Joe Hart, I’m not giving that name to him just yet.

A bit of sad news is that my best Aussie friend in the world is leaving on Friday night. L I will miss Sam loads. We’ve pretty much been attached to each other for the last two-and-a-half months so it will be weird without him. He’s been great for me; he’s challenged me and has become a really good friend. Gonna miss you mate.

A lot more stuff is going on now so I'll be sure to keep you in touch more often.

Dan

jengauganda.org