Sunday family day

Today started with a relaxing morning. Sarah and I decided to go to the 3pm service in Kampala, so we took the morning to relax. I spent a great morning, sitting on my front porch, watching monkeys, listening to birds, and journaling. Then, we headed over to Beatrice (one of the teachers) house as she just came home from the hospital with her new baby. Baby Noble was sleeping, so next time I’ll get to hold the little one, but it was fun to support a new mommy. We ate a quick lunch and then headed to town: boda to taxi to taxia bit later than “planned”…which ended up being a MAJOR protection plan of God. On our way, going through our town of Matugga, tons of people were standing beside the road, so we knew something was up. As we past, we saw a man, dead, on the side of the road. Turns out he was a theft and MOB JUSTICE had gotten a hold of him. Again, a group of people angry at what you have done will bring “Justice” before th police arrived. They had ended up stoning him with bricks, minutes before our boda would have past. Total God protection. It’s so sobering to see men, women and children watching the killing of a man- guilty or not, they don’t stop stoning until the person is dead. Mob Justice has become such a BIG thing over here...it’s just the way of life.

We arrived at church right now time and headed in. It was SO good to be at church today. Worship was great. I’ll tell you what, I want to be on the African side of heaven if there is one J The dancing, jiving, movements and holding nothing back while singing brings me to be tears everytime. There was one worship song, where each verse, the people were moved to different stances of worship. At one point the entire church was on it’s knees, hands raised, big African smiles shinning and their voices raised. Complete abandoned worship. I love it! The message was on AIDS/HIV…not a sermon you’d hear in the states. But the statics were sobering and the pastor who brought the message held nothing back. It was SO good. They also had a blood drive after church to “give generously” your blood to help out their nation. Love it. Isn’t that what the church is suppose to do.

David, Sarah and I continued our new tradition of milkshakes after church. We walked into the supermarket to find SANTA and a Christmas tree!!! I told Sarah I was bummed bc Santa was white! So SO SO wish he would’ve been black. That would’ve potentially been my favorite picture of all times. Instead, I made David, Sarah and I take a picture with Santa J During dinner we hit many topics: witch doctors (such disturbing truths), learning disabilities and cultures. You can pray, they mentioned how Perez isn’t doing so well in school and come to find out they bought glasses for him a long time ago, but he has lost them. I guess he’s has some trouble seeing. My heart went out to him as I had the same thing around his age. So, I’m going to become an eye doctor tomorrow. I’ll be making the eye chart we have in our optometrist offices, watching and listening to him read and also doing some eye therapy I had to see if that may be part of the problem with him learning. Who knew my embarrassing eye issue as a child would come into play 20+ years later here in Africa. Please pray for wisdom beyond my understanding to help my sweet friend Perez out! If you have any tricks or ideas, PLEASE let me know!

Tonight, we had family dinner. Mzungu and the 7 children… (plus Sarah and David). It was fun just to be together. Everyone was relaxed because it’s officially the holiday and no school tomorrow. Danny and Perez wrestled (boys are the same everywhere)as the little girls are tugged and pulled on my hair. Then, we had a family discussion about AIDS, mind you the kids are ages 3-17…sex, condoms, abstinence…you name it, we talked about it. They want their kids to be aware. Just another typical Uganda evening. We ended with a song and the Lord’s prayer.