January 10, 2010 Evening

Today was incredible!!! I don't even know where to begin or what to even say! Church was amazing! We went to brother Stephens church and it was simply amazing to see what God is doing through him and his church! I only sat in on the first service then after that Chris, Cody, Sean and I went to the childrens sunday school. This is what truely amazed me today. The first childrens sunday school we only had about 6 kids but numbers are not what matter! Two of thee young kids led worship and they let it with more enthusiasm than any 7 year old I have ever seen! Then a young girl named Patricia did special music and it was beautiful! Then they asked me to come up and share a little about myself and then Sean talked to the kids about Moses. After that service Debrah (one of the S.S. leaders) asked me if I wanted to preach to the kids in the second service. I said yes without even thinking twice about it which is very unlike me. So I had half an hour to figure out what to talk to these kids about. I was frantically thinking through the numerous childrens stories I have heard and learned. I was totally relying on my own memory and strength to find something to talk on. So with about 10 minutes until sunday school I just prayed that God would show me what to talk on. Finally after searching I decided to talk on David and Goliath. A classic. I knew this story backwards and forwards but always got something new out of it. My main point to these young kids was that as you are growing up to keep your eyes on God because if you take your eyes off of God you will be frightened and have doubts and will be weak when you face the "giant." So if you keep your eyes on God you can conquer any obstacle! And David was a young boy when this took place so I encouraged the kids to be like David and God will do great things in and through their lives. I feel it went very well. It helped that my interpretor was very good! Then afterwards all the kids were coming up to us saying "Praise God" and "May God Bless You" while giving us the Ugandan hand shake. (I will have to show you all sometime) It was such an amazing moment having all these kids from about 5-12 years old saying these words of encouragement to us. The most special and touching part of all of it was right before we left to go back to the main portion of church, this little girl, maybe 3-4 years old , who I noticed earlier in the service, comes up to me and shakes my hand and says very quietly "May God bless you." Before this moment she had been very shy. She wouldn't wave at me or smile but after she came up to me it was like the ice had been broken and she was smiling and waiting to hold my hand and laughing and copying all my hand movements (we showed them a few hand tricks or illusions like being able to pull your thumb off) It was very fun watching them try to figure it out. There was also this little boy who was fascinated with my watch. He played with it for maybe 20 minutes pushing every button hundreds of times. But this boy, who was maybe 7, was badly burned on the right side of his face and both his arms. But he was the happiest little kid I have seen! What was really sad is when we were driving to pastor Stephens house after church for lunch, Carol, who is the midwife on the team, said that many times when there are more than one wife or step children or ex wives or things of that nature that the one wife will try to burn the children or the other wife with acid! So we think that thats what happened to this little boy. :( So sad to think that this kind of stuff is actually happening! So we went to Stephen and Esthers house for lunch and had a spectacular meal of Irish potatoes, matoke (cooked green bananas with mashed potato like consistency), beef stew, rice, greens, cabbage, pineapple, watermelon and much more that I am forgetting. Stephen and Esther just had a baby and her name is Genisis and she is the cutest thing I have ever seen! Then straight from their house we went to the conference grounds and fellowshipped for a while then went over to Pastor John Mugabis house for dinner. This dinner was very similar to the lunch we had. We met Johns staff that we would be working along side this week. And now I am ready for bed! It has been a long but amazing day! Tomorrow we will get to relax some in the morning and then go to the conference grounds for a short meeting in the afternoon. Overall awesome day and can't wait to see what tomorrow holds!!! Good night all!

January 10, 2010 Morning

I'm sort of rushed this morning to get ready by 7 so I cant write much.  But it sure is a beautiful morning here in Uganda and the birds sing the most melodious tunes down here! It is wonderful waking up to them. Church is going to be amazing today. I can't wait to see what God has in store!!! I can't wait to tell you all about it!