Challenging and rewarding

Evenin'

Been a bit of a week of 'acceleration' in many ways, God's doing some cool stuff :)

On Friday JENGA had a day of prayer and fasting, like we usually do on the last Friday of a month. We all gathered at Bethel just to seek God for a day. Really cool. I got to lead a bit of Mzungu style worship, really felt free to do as I would usually do and it was just a really cool time of spirit led singing, for me anyway, I think the Ugandans generally think that when I pick up my guitar it's time to sit and be quiet, which is cool in some ways because I can just sing as I like, but I like it when people join in. As an aside to this God is really stepping up my song-writing - or perhaps I'm being more receiving of it - but super excited to show this stuff to the LADS back home. The best bit of the day though was Andrew... and his accordion.

Preached again on Sunday, had to get a boda down to the church at the unkind hour of 8am (ish...) so asked one of the dodgy guys at the end of our road if he knew where the church was, at first he thought I said Malaba instead of Namatala, didn't give me great confidence as Malaba is 2 1/2 hours away on the Kenyan border. But I got on confident in his abilities. We set off towards Namatala, I'm not really paying attention because I didn't have morning coffee, after about 10 minutes I look up to see a sign saying 'Have a safe journey out of Mbale', the guy was off to Malaba. So we turned and asked a lady where it was and she directed us. So I was pretty late, but I gave him a lecture when I got off the bike to show my discontentment. It was a really challenging topic in many ways, but it was a good time of stretching for me as well. I preached on giving (tithing) at probably the poorest church in Namatala. Initially when I got given the topic (which usually never happens) I thought it was pretty inappropriate - a (rich) Mzungu going to speak to a really poor church about money - but I got over my own insecurities and just trusted God for it. I spoke mostly on Deut 26, the offering of the Firstfruits, and just talked about how giving is as much a part of our worship as sung worship is, if we put as much thought and effort into our giving as our singing, perhaps our giving would look a lot different. Felt really challenged as well about my own giving whilst I'm here as well, part of that response will come later!

Got a bit ribbed by the JENGA staff on Monday. Woke up at 8.20 and work is at 8.30 so I had some beautiful bed-head, just left it messy, Vinnie was relentless in his banter, but that's why the office is such good fun! Been working on an internal newsletter this week, just serving as an encouragement for the staff, so they can see what they've achieved over the last 6 months.

Tuesday was a challenging, yet rewarding day. Went to CRO on Tuesday and happily wasn't the only Mzungu there this time as the two Norwegians who work for CRO came to see what we did, along with Lukas, a German guy who also volunteers at CRO and Hannah's parents. My personal highlight was scoring a spectacular over-head-kick. But I also had to split up three fights, very unusual. The last of the three was particularly distressing, after we'd finished playing I went back up to where everyone was sat down and found  one of my little mates lying on the ground crying. It turns out that one of the other kids had called his mother a 'bitch' (probably the most horrific thing you could say to a child orphan) and then my buddy went crazy at him so loads of other kids came and beat him up. The whole way back I was basically just holding him back from going mental. So I finished with him when we got back to CRO and then spotted Stefan, another amazing street kid who I'd actually had a theological debate with about Mormonism a few weeks ago, just loved him since, great yearning for God. He'd been struggling for school fees so I asked him how it was going and he wasn't sure what was happening. I was about to leave and then just felt God give me a little tug back. I saw Mama Janet (part of CRO leadership) and just felt I had to talk to her about sponsoring him through this year of school. He's going in to S1, the first year of High School, which is the most expensive year for fees as tuition fees rise, and they also have to pay a large registration fee. CRO sponsors half of the child's tuition fee for the year and then any family that they find of the child pays the other half, plus registration, plus requirements (books, pens etc). CRO haven't found any of Stefan's family, so he has depended completely on donors so far, but their money isn't coming in. I'm having a meeting with CRO tomorrow about him.

Sorry it's a bit of a long one, thanks for reading it all! No preaching this Sunday as I'm going to Jinja for Paul's leaving :( But please pray that as I enter my last month (!) that I'd keep my eyes fixed on the prize and finish well!!

God Bless

Dan x

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