DAY 18: June 4- Back to Jinja

Back in Jinja, I woke up to the routine breakfast of pineapple, bananas, and toast. After breakfast, I just relaxed until lunch. We took the Matatu to a restaurant called “2 Friends.” It had this beautiful outside seating area and all kinds of different foods. We all got the “2 Friends Burger” except Tom got some good old ribs! YUM it was so good. Like delicious! It was a little taste of America…

After our long lunch (it takes about 45 minutes to get our food), we made our way to The Source by means of Matatu. I sat down at the tables with the rest of the group who was talking to Mark about the families they will be staying with on Saturday. That’s right. Saturday is our “village bonding day,” where each student is dropped off to in a village for the entire day including the night. We might be 30 minutes to 2 hours away from town. This is the chance for us to really delve into the culture. I’m excited. Plus a little nervous.. which makes me anxious.

The Mark said they (the missionaries) put a lot of thought into their decision about where each student should go. They thought about the village person’s personality and each student’s personality, and thought about who would work best where.. They thought about the level of bed comfort, level of toilet hut, and level of cleanliness of the villages and compared it with the students. They thought about the craziest villages and the ones that would ask the students to “break the Bible” aka give a sermon like thing… they thought about the pairing of the village and student in depth.

Mark told me I would be in a village with a man named Paul. Paul was actually the man who does research for Mark, and supposedly speaks pretty good English..so that’s a plus! I think he used to be the governmental head of the village so he knows everyone. So I might be greeting the entire village for about 3 hours. (I better bring my walking shoes). Mark said that’s the reason why they put me there.. they thought to themselves.. who is going to be willing to greet people for 3 hours.. I guess I came to mind?! I think that’s a good thing?! Anyways. I’ll be off to my great adventure soon.. and I’m excited. Keep me in your prayers! THANKS.

Next it was time for service learning. I decided to go back to The Beam of Hope, so I could show the guys I did my homework.. and practiced Lusoga. So I got on my first Piki (motorcycle transportation) with my friend Morgan (oops we broke one of the rules that you aren’t suppose to double up on Pikis… but hey that’s not a Uganda rule.. just like a rule of thumb by the missionaries.. so yah… its not like I would get in trouble, plus it feels safer with two people on back. ANYWAYS). It was fast, a little scary, and also a little fun!

When we got to the place only Joseph was there. He said the rest of the group went to this assembly thing about Disabilities. So unfortunately I couldn’t talk to my guys from last time. But hopefully ill go back tomorrow and see them. Then the founder/head guy of the place came and sat down to talk to us. He told us all about the Beam of Hope, how it was started, its goals, and challenges. He asked us to get involved, to tell people about it.. and basically do something to help.. He kept asking for advice we can give the people, or what they could do better.. but on the spot it was hard to think of something or some skill that we could help them with… that’s the thing about the culture here, they expect us (westerners with education) to know everything or just know how to solve their problems… it’s an interesting thought process.

After talking for awhile, we headed back home. Back on the Piki. Did a little reading from Lucado, and then dinner. After, we had class, and for part of the class the lady missionaries came to talk to us about culture shock and their experiences. They started talking about life in Africa, what they loved and what they hated. They told us about their struggle to come back to America and all the wealth… and I know it will be something that we all wrestle with when we go home. They said they now look at God differently and see a different nature of Him, because of living here. The Bible means something different to them when they are in the Word, in a culture of suffering and poverty. It was pretty intense.. but a good start for me to prepare for my journey back home.. back to the U.S… back to wealth.

 

ps.. So I guess I have a twitter now. dot dot dot. thanks to SOMEONE. and NOT by choice!