Tim and I are still rejoicing over our Uganda adventure. What an amazing two weeks! The first week was spent on remote islands in Lake Victoria where Mzungu (white folk) rarely go. We have traveled in overloaded, wooden boats which rode precariously low in the choppy water.
While we were being soaked by the waves washing over the bow, Tim sat in the stern and faithfully bailed water. We traversed Zinga island in a creaking old Bedford truck from the 1940’s. Tim rode in the bed of the truck, sitting atop a load of sugar cane with the orphans, widows and pastors, alternately laughing, and ouching as they were battered by overhanging branches. Molly and I were safely ensconced in the cab with plastic jugs full of petrol at our feet that supplied the engine via tubes which ran through holes in the floorboard.
We have slept in huts with bats rustling overhead and stepped over marching army ants on our way to breakfast. We bathed with basins of green lake water heated to toasty warmth over the cooking fires. We swapped stories with our traveling companions as we walked for miles under the hot equatorial sun on our way to inland churches. We have shared church services with live roosters who were leg-trussed and waiting under the altar to be given as gifts to the preachers. (One of them became dinner. Another became the “scape chicken”).
Tim has danced a native dance with a fur pelt tied to his behind and we have eaten more matoke (steamed plantains) and pineapples than we thought possible. We have hugged precious orphans to our heart’s content and walked narrow jungle paths at night to visit a precious midwife at her clinic. When exhausted from walking, we rode boda-bodas (motorcycles) over the muddy, rutted roads in the dark, and have eaten whole pineapples like popsicles, dripping sweet juices down our arms while standing right in the field where they were fresh-cut.
We have seen (and inhaled) lake-fly swarms, of Biblical proportions where the tiny flies were so thick it seemed like a blizzard totally obscuring the buildings a few feet away. Amazingly, the whole adventure felt normal. We were happy, right in the will of God and feeling strengthened and blessed.
Our nephew, Brent Earwicker and his wife, Virginia, have started a School of Ministry for the pastors and leaders of the islands in Lake Victoria (www.pleadthecause.org). Many of these pastors are serving their people with little or no Bible training. The school boats them to Bussi island from the surrounding islands three days a week, providing meals and teaching Bible classes for seven hours a day.
While Tim was teaching, Molly (a student nurse) and I stocked the Osanidde orphanage nurse’s clinic with over sixty pounds of medical supplies and two large boxes of medications and showed the nurse how to use what we brought. A persistent head fungus had been spreading among the orphans due to shared wash cloths and bath water. Molly taught hygiene to the children, demonstrating with little finger-puppets posing as germs and we supplied each child with their own wash basin, towel and washcloth.
The children from our church back home made drawings to exchange with each orphan and sent crayons, balloons and treats which were a great hit. I taught the children some new songs and played pied-piper with my flute while they gathered around. Molly, also a lifeguard, trained the “uncles†on the island how to rescue drowning victims and provided them with a float board and life vest. This was an important part of what we did, as one of the children had drowned only weeks before and there is a great fear of the water.
The women in our church sent beautiful scarves which Molly and I passed out to the ‘mamas’ – widows who care for the orphans. Watching the mamas try on their scarves was like being at a dress-up party with a bunch of giggling teens playfully modeling the latest fashions. We opened bags of donated thread and sewing notions and shared some sewing tips; the favorites being patchwork from scraps to make usable fabric and wood carriers. Two dairy cows (one pregnant!) were purchased in Kampala with donated funds and were shipped to the orphanage after we left. Later, we were told the amusing story of their arrival. One cow rolled off the truck and took off in a panic, wildly dashing for four miles through swamplands, villages and graveyards with noisy children and uncles in hot pursuit. Needless to say it was quite an event for the children.
Osanidde Village orphanage was founded two years ago by a Ugandan evangelist, Drake Kanaabo. In the brief time it has existed, God has done a very special thing in their village. When we arrived at Bussi Island, it was almost like journeying to a mythical place. The night was velvety dark under a new moon and soundless bursts of lighting dotted the distant sky. As we approached shore we could see the faint outline of shadows moving rapidly towards the water. Then, dream-like, children’s voices began to rise from the shadows and their song of greeting carried across the water, filling the night with warmth. Brent stood up in the boat and, spotlighted by flashlight, lifted one of the big hand drums we had brought over his head. A jubilant cheer erupted from shore and immediately spilled into the water as the older children waded out to our boat to carry the precious drums back on their heads. When we stepped out of the boat, we were ushered inland by many tiny hands softly touching our arms while gentle little voices whispered from the dark all around us, ‘welcome’.
Every morning, around 5:30 am, we awoke to the rhythmic sound of drums on the other side of camp and began to hear singing that is nothing short of heaven. If you are ever there, I recommend that you get up and follow the sound through the dark. You will soon find a hundred and sixty children ranging from two to fifteen years old gathered outside to pray with no adult in sight. This isn’t compulsory. It is something the children do daily. They sing and pray with a passion, many with tears running down their face as they intercede for Uganda. It is humbling and stirring. You cannot help but feel that you are experiencing the seedbed of revival and a movement that will sweep the nation as these children grow up and obey the voice of their Father…the only father they have and one they love passionately. They are true Ezekiel 16 children. Those who were literally cast on the wayside with no one to love them until God showed up and put his robe upon their backs and called them His own.
When we left this wonderful place we went back into Entebbe where all three of us spoke for two days at a large, multichurch youth camp attended by over three hundred kids. That energetic event was followed by a three day worship conference in Kampala with Pastors Wilfred and Deborah Kaweesa at RUN Ministries. Pastors and leaders from twenty-four churches came with over two hundred in attendance. Dr. Irene Lubega did such a wonderful job of coordinating and leading this amazing event. It was such a God-anointed time and life-changing for many who attended. We had been praying that the worship teaching we imparted would be a catalyst, creating moments of divine visitation and spontaneous salvation. I asked God for a first-fruit – some token of promise that this would be so. The last day of the conference – at it’s very end – Tim invited the pastors and leaders to come up and sing their prayers of intercession over their churches, the city and the nation of Uganda. It was an enthusiastic and very beautiful moment. Meanwhile, outside the church on the street a man was passing by who was captivated by the sound. He came into the church to investigate and stood at the doors listening.
This man was so moved by the spirit of God that he walked in and asked if anyone could tell him how He could become a Christian. Pastor Wilfred led him to the Lord and Tim prayed a blessing over him. My heart’s prayer is that these moments will become commonplace all over Uganda as the sounds of prayer and worship rise like a sweet fragrance to God and spill forth all over the nation.
ps we have been receiving reports that the man who was saved is now bringing his family to church one by one and they are coming to God as well. Who knows where this beautiful beginning will lead in the hands of a passionately redemptive God.