From Jinja to the Village!

 Back in Kinoni!

                So we’d almost managed to eventually start posting a blog every week (as we’d initially intended) as we returned to Kinoni on Monday with the blog almost finished to find that our electricity had been cut off and so we couldn’t charge our laptop :( But anyway, we’ll get to that in a bit...

Swimming at Entebbe - James and Ian jumping off the top board with Alice wimping out at the last second!

                December 12^th was a very special day . . . it was the day we had to send in our next prayer letter! Oh yeah, and apparently it was James’ birthday too. He would, of course, never have let us forget this and had been mentioning it every day for at least a month! It was however a very good excuse to have a meal out and so we didn’t mind too much. We went craft shopping that day and all spent far too much for our likings, but did sort out a few more presents for family and friends, as well as getting presents for each other so we all have something to open on Christmas Day! We had lunch at a lovely little cafe called ‘Ozzie’s’ (see below) and popped in again later for a cake.

A selection of incredible African paintings!

                We really feel that we should dedicate a whole paragraph of this blog to Ozzie’s cafe, as it has played a very important role in our time here in Jinja. During break times at the conference, we have ventured down there to enjoy a variety of amazing treats: cinnamon rolls, chocolate cake, brownies, apple muffins, fruit smoothies and coffee thick shakes, all of which are brilliant value and delicious! Its run by a lovely oldish lady from New Zealand/Australia called Judith, who has lived in Uganda for 24 years (something we can’t help but respect her for). In talking to her, we found out that she set up the cafe in order to support her foster children out here, having originally just come out to work with a church for 2 years!

                As you may know from the last blog, we have been in Jinja for the past week, attending the 8^th annual Ebenezer Youth Conference at Nile Baptist Church, whose Pastor is the father of our supervisor Stephen! It was attended by somewhere between 300 and 500 young people over the five days, and apparently there were over 500 on some of the days! A typical day at the conference consisted of 3 sessions of preaching (2 consecutively in the morning and one in the evening), seminars after lunch, followed by games and sports and everything interspersed with awesome worship sessions! The theme of the seminar was a verse from Philippians: ‘work out your salvation with fear and trembling’ and the theme song was ‘This is my desire, to honour you, lord with all my heart, I worship you . . .’

Us (well, mainly James) leading a seminar on 'humility'.

                Something you may also be aware of is that we were asked to preach and lead seminars during the conference which was quite a daunting prospect, having been told to expect to be in front of 300+ young people! We were asked to talk about living a Christ-like life in one of the main sessions, so we split up the topic into 4 parts – intro (what does it mean), living a Christ-like life at school and with friends, with family and in relationships. However, on the first day of the conference, James really felt that God placed a message on his heart to share with the young people at the conference and devoted most of his free time after this to writing his sermon! Alice’s talk about the importance of praying for your family was very good and it prompted Stephen to lead a 15 minute prayer session on it before James spoke. James then did a very inspiring talk, embracing the African style of preaching, about how you can be assured of your salvation and about outreach to the lost.

'Pastor James' preaching at the conference!

                On our day off, we went mountain biking through Mabira Forest. We were picked up from Jinja by a rather unusual, but also very nice, Belgian Rastafarian who runs the company we were going with. We then picked up the bikes and headed off with a local guide. It was soon after this that we realised the quality of the bikes really wasn’t very good (i.e. Jem’s gears didn’t work at all, the others were pretty poor, Ian’s saddle was loose etc.) but nonetheless, we carried on anyway. Soon, we turned off the main track and headed into the forest itself for some fairly slippery and muddy (it had been raining) trails. After about two and a half hours, we came to the waterfall, Griffin Falls, and stopped for a rather wholesome lunch of bananas and bananas and to take photographs and rest. We then headed off again, in the rain this time, and got soaked as well as even more muddy and tired. We eventually finished the ride about five hours and 30km after having set out.

Making our way through Mabira forest, which has monkeys in!

                We travelled back to Kampala on Sunday morning and went to a Pentecostal church (Miracle Centre Cathedral) just to see what it was like. We then spent the rest of the day relaxing at Deb and Dug’s and repacking all of our stuff to travel back to Kinoni for Christmas! So early on Monday morning, Stephen picked us up and took us to a big coach ‘station’ where we were bundled onto a very full coach with all of our stuff. Three long hours later, we were dropped off in Kinoni in the rain and we walked back carrying all of our stuff to find a letter saying our electricity bill was 3 months overdue and that our power had been cut off. We also found three new holes in our sofas which suggested that the rats hadn’t, as we’d hoped, been killed by the poison (or that new ones had moved in). We spoke to Mama Harriet about the bill and she contacted the landlord about it and it turned out that the bill wasn’t supposed to be for us so someone came and ‘fixed’ the power that evening. However, it hasn’t been done properly as we can’t even charge our phones, let alone our laptop which is why we haven’t been able to post a blog until now!

The church at Kaboyo with the kids looking smart!

                So we have been very busy this week getting ready for Christmas. We have been putting up paper chains and banners, Christmas cards and tinsel, and Jem has made us a Christmas tree from toilet rolls and tree branches that her mum sent over. Also, we’ve been to the Christmas party of a local Compassion project called ‘Kaboyo Child Development Centre’. We’ve also spent a lot of the week at Pastor Abel’s house, helping out Mama Harriet with the cooking and Christmas preparations, culminating in James beheading, plucking and gutting a chicken! It’s also been really nice getting to know the rest of their children who are back from boarding schools/universities for the Christmas holidays.

James getting his hands dirty learning that not all chickens come pre-wrapped from a supermarket!

                On Boxing Day, we are travelling back up to Kampala and then heading on to Kenya with the Vickers and the Benns for a ‘mission new year holiday retreat thing’ where we will be helping out with the children’s work there. So we pray that we would have safe travels and no one would get car sick in the 15 hour journey to Kenya!

Decorations in our sitting room, not to mention the tinsel around all the door frames!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Nkwagaliza Christmas ennugi!

Ian, Jem, James and Alice

The Marvellous Uganda Action Team (Thank you Microsoft Word synonyms! :P )

Using our creativity!