Day Three

    Today I handled morning devotions.
The verse was 1 Thessalonians 5:18

      In everything give thanks for
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

      The analysis was: In everything
give thanks, for everything give thanks, with everything give thanks.

      So that’s what I’m thinkin’
’bout today. I’ll be writing these posts in a journal as the days
progress, and post them at nights with bro. Sam’s (our Ugandan
contact) air card.

      This is the morning news, we
head to the village of Tubur today to distribute buckets and work
with the medical crew.

      We went to a church service, two
men did the speaking primarily, one in the African language, Ateso,
the other, English. But when the pastor spoke Ateso, the interpreter
translated to English, and when the interpreter spoke English, the
pastor translated to Ateso. Both spoke both languages and used them
interchangeably. So at any given time, the English interpreter would
speak Ateso and the pastor would translate it to English and
vise-versa. It was rather comical to watch. We’re off to grab a quick
fruit snack before branching off into groups to work with children or
the medical team.

      If you’ve never heard it before,
you’ve heard it now: African time is very different from American
time. Everything here moves at a relaxed, unrushed pace. Schedules
are paid little mind, basically they exist to be a rough guide of
daily events that may or may not be followed. The children here are
making Andrew the Gospel Worm, an idea thought up by a visual gospel
presentation master by the name of Carl Carrigan. Simply put, it is
the colors of faith on pom-pom-esk things, set on a wide strip of
cloth, antenna and eyes are affixed to the head and there you have
it. The gospel and overall presentation is more engaging when
presented by Andrew. Anyway, we secured a ton of popsicle sticks and
pom-poms for the children to make their own Andrews. Oh, almost
forgot, we had glue too, you can imagine how well this project would
have turned out without glue.

      Flashback. I forgot to mention
this earlier, but we had goat meat. That may seem insignificant to
you, but they killed a goat for us to eat for lunch. The big deal
here is that a goat costs roughly 40 American dollars, for a people
group who average 5 dollars a month, it is a huge deal to kill a
goat. We were very humbled and honored by the gesture of friendship
and welcome.

      On the road again, the bumpy, pot
hole ridden road. I’ll never for the life of me understand, why a
road with so many pot holes, needs speed bumps. It’ll be fun for me
to try and make heads or tails of these notes here when I’m done.
Those of you who know me well, know that my writing is barely legible
as it is(entirely my fault for lack of commitment), add in this road,
and its little better than chicken scratch. Hair is a nightmare, the
bus windows wreak havak to any semblance of style and unglue
hairspray. Given my unique wardrobe, hates are not an option, I’ll
just have to deal with it. If you don’t open the windows you fry like
an egg and they serve you for breakfast the next day. Their rushing
me out the door. Until next time, Jared Allen signing off