I'm an Excellent driver

It is now Monday afternoon in Uganda.  We are back from Jinja.  I have told you about Thursday and Friday of our trip.  I will give you an update on Saturday and Sunday. 

On Saturday, we went to work with Katie Davis at Amazima's “land” outside of Jinja. 

We were able to attend the bible study and worship service. 

Then we helped to serve the 300 or so Amazima sponsored kids a lunch of beans, rice and chicken.

We got a lot of time playing with and loving on the kids. 

We developed some friendships with some of Katie’s girls.  Katie has a monkey that normally runs around free at this location, but she puts it in a cage on Saturdays, because the kids tend to torment it a little.  She did get it out for Jayne. 

We were there from about 10:30 until 4:00 and we had a good time.  We hope to be able to help Katie again in the future and she has taken my phone number, in case we can help her with any of the fine people with medical difficulties that seem to find her in Jinja.

On Saturday afternoon, we did a little touring of Jinja to see the city and for me to show the family where I stayed with the group from Henderson Hills last January.  We had dinner at a local pizza place that had “real” pepperonis and Dr Pepper!  We see Coke, Fanta, Mt Dew, and Sprite pretty commonly, but this is the first Dr Pepper sighting.

On Sunday, we went to Pastor Henry’s church for worship.  It started at 10:00am and was over about 1:30pm.  We met many people and I was able to recognize many that I had met in January of last year.  One of them was Joyce (girl on the left in the above picture).  She is a little girl who hung out with me quite a bit when I was there before.  She is the "owner" of the hand that is in my hand on our website picture.  The above is an updated picture of our hands.  She was a little surprised when I asked her if she was Joyce!

Our van was not ready to go to Jinja last Thursday.  In fact, it is getting the last of the seats in it today.  Dr Martin was nice enough to send us to Jinja in his personal van.  So I drove from Thursday until this morning, without a Ugandan “proctor”.  To quote the great American philosopher Rain Man, "I'm an excellent driver.  I like to drive slow on the driveway".  Along the roads in Uganda, they have places where the police randomly stop cars for license checks.  I got pulled over once going to Jinja and once after we got back to Kampala yesterday.  I have misplaced my international driver’s license, and could not find it before we left.  So I handed them my Oklahoma Driver’s license and tried to kill them with kindness.  They let me go without any hassle.  Today, I found out from Dr Martin, that he normally only has liability insurance on his van, but when he sent me driving it, he called and increased to full coverage.  It is good to be trusted!

Today, we have worked in a slum area on the north side of Kampala, called Kawempe.  We saw about 100 students, that are sponsored through Africa Renewal Ministries, for health screenings.  We saw one little 1 year old from the community, named Joy, that required IV fluids and some malaria medicine.  Please keep her in your prayers.  We let her go home (still getting use to this) and she will be coming back for a recheck tomorrow, while we are there.

Tonight, we are having dinner with Pastor Peter.  He is the leader of Africa Renewal Minstries and is the pastor of Gaba Community Church.  He will also be hosting our friends, the Gash family, and the rest of the Africa Renewal Ministries team.  We will also be joined by the Fitzpatrick family from Thousand Oaks California.  They are supporters of the Renewal Healthcare Network and are in town for 3 weeks adopting a boy from the baby's home.  We hope to get to know them better and facilitate them meeting the Gash family.  Turns out that their homes are only about 20 miles apart in California.

We will be returning to Kawempe for the next 3 days.  When we have completed the student health screenings, we will go do some home visits in the community.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

Jay