Today was an early day.  I had a short and restless night’s sleep (no jet lag, just late to bed, a lot of noise and an unfamiliar place).  I needed to be sharp for today’s activities so I did my best to be prepared to teach the congregation in Namuwongo as well as play host to for the love feast.

So I drank three cups of fine Ugandan tea.

I may have needed four.

I started the day under the thatched hut in the back of the guest house.  It was early but Sundays must begin even earlier for the Ugandan servants of Christ for praises wafted up the hill as I sat listening to the tropical birds call back and forth their morning greetings.  It is a joy to read the Word while being serenaded not by a radio, but by hundreds of intermingling voices lifted up giving praise to the Most High and nature joining in reply.

We shared a wonderful breakfast with some families who are in-country for adoption.  The food was so good and it is a joy to see new families coming into being.

Our hosts picked us up and transported us to worship at Namuwongo.  The church was excited about the love feast and decorated the alley we gathered in with balloons and toilet paper.  It was a deep honor to be so graciously received.

Worship was hot and long (three hours) and all together delightful.  We sang and jumped and danced together.  I taught about the meaning of the love feast from Acts 2.42-47.  From the very beginning, Christians gathered as the church and shared food.  I also spoke a little about what is happening in the United States.  It is my belief that God allowed our financial meltdown to occur so we may find a new vision of how to spend our great wealth.  For two generations we Americans have pampered ourselves to the extreme and felt dissatisfied we could not do more to self-entertain and self-comfort.  Our wealth is challenged now from within and without.  It is our time to share with those who have nothing, whose lives would be rich to eat twice a day.  I asked our Ugandan family to pray for us to be able to see that we have plenty to share and to obey God’s command to sacrifice of our own comforts for the sake of the expansion of the good news about Jesus.  I am so glad my friends at Main Street are beginning to catch the joy of the call to exchange the temporal for the eternal.

At the conclusion of worship we lined up behind the “head duck” and ascended out of the slum to a small cafe above the area.  Many of the children had not been privileged to move this far from their environs and the joy of seeing orphans and teens and adults eating and sharing fellowship together is heaven itself.

Our host had errands to run and when he returned he patiently waited for us to complete the meal.  There was a mighty discussion about the bill which took about forty minutes to calculate.  We fed approximately 70 men, women and children a fine meal (with colas) for $170.

The ladies supported some of the local artisans by purchasing hand-made bead necklaces.  We then joined our host who was a bit out of sorts.  We discovered the source of his dismay to be that he suffered theft just a few minutes earlier.  His phone and GPS and backpack were taken and his vehicle suffered some damage from pry-bars and screwdrivers used to break in.  He was gracious enough, however, to run us to a suburb of Kampala so I could visit two of our adopted family at their businesses.  This was far and away an extraordinary gift for which I am deeply grateful.

We stopped first at Isaac’s internet cafe.  It was a trick to find the place and Isaac had to ride a boda boda (hired motorcycle) to meet us so he could direct us how to find the place along the narrow dirt roads off the main boulevard.  The ladies got on Facebook and uploaded a few pictures.  The internet connection was slow so the number of uploaded photos were limited.  We then visited Penny at her hair salon (they call it a saloon…which makes me smile every time).  Penny wanted me to see her apartment so we went there as well.  One room, maybe 12 by 14, no indoor plumbing but painted and bright and comfortable for her.

Our host returned us to the guest house exhausted but happy.  It was another good day in Uganda.