Why did I premote an update that I knew would be impossible to communicate? I mean seriously, I lived in an AFRICAN VILLAGE, I don't know what I was thinking.
So here I go.
The experiences and thoughts are many, but I do not know how many I will get down so I will probably begin with telling the basics of what physically happened. I was in the village of Kitukiro in the northern part of Basoga. The minister there is named Samson, he is a beast. As we drove out we began to get onto roads that became smaller and smaller. At one point we had to get out of the car and push away brush because the car could barely squeak through. I was in the boonys of all boonys. I loved it. As we drove up the compound I was staying at consisted of two sleeping huts, a cooking hut and a sitting place with shade. This was my home for the last 3 days.
Samson's wife, Jennifer, was so down to earth and relaxed all the time and I didnt get to spend a ton of time with her, but it was interesting observing up close the life of a married woman in the village. Samson's oldest daughter is about 1 and a half and she took a little while to warm up to me. Her name is Elizabeth and she's going to be a hard-to-get kinda girl, ha but by the second day she was familiar enough with me to not be scared. Samson's other daughter, Zipporah, was born just a week before we arrived and was extremely teeny, Emily later said maybe 6 pounds.
The first night as it was getting dark we were driving into the trading place of the village to pick up some meat from the butchers, but by the time we had left it was dark. I found myself on the back of a bike, with meat in one hand as I gently held it because a bone had pierced the bag and with cooking oil in a cup in the other hand. That in itself was a feat. However, the greater task at hand was the fact that I could not even see the ground, and we were RIDING ON A BIKE. It was SO DARK all i could see was the light of stars when i looked up. It was so funny the second we got off the bike i took about two steps before falling on the uneven road. After that I was officially convinced that the villagers have night vision.
That same night I met with many extended family members and neighbors while watching the GLORIOUS NIGHT SKY. This is just not describable, I finally feel like I know what Abraham felt like when God told him his decendents would be like the number of stars in the sky. They brilliantly scattered the dark backdrop all sparkling like diamonds. There was like a half to half ratio of stars to sky. SO NEAT. And naturally you could see every swooping and rocketing shooting star that swept across the sky. Anyways, that night I milked there cow which was pretty cool. We had to trick the cow into producing milk by letting the calf take a couple sips and then ripping its head away. I'm not so keen on the entire process in general too because it just seems like pulling that hard on a body part has to hurt.
There was also much bath taking over the couple days. Samson asked me about every 20 minutes if I wanted to bathe so I definitely decided he was trying to tell me something. I ended up bathing twice though. Bathing meaning getting a bowl with water dropping the clothes and going behind a hut to wash.
Ugandans eat dinner at about 9 to 9:30 which is insane, but we ate dinner (Samson and I) in my hut. They treated me so well as BOTH nights we had meat, beef the first and chicken the second. I cannot even begin to tell you how well I was welcomed into every home. Visitors are a big deal in Uganda, perhaps the biggest deal and I mean come on I am me! ha.
After dinner Samson and I had a Bible study about Acts because he will be attending the Busoga Bible school session over acts in two weeks. He was especially interested in Pentecost and the moving of the Holy Spirit. HA, the first night Samson said something along the lines of "I like you to much to leave you by yourself" I dont know if that should have scared me either way, but we BOTH ended up sleeping on same same twin tiny mattress. Needless to say, I did not sleep amazingly that first night as I could not move.
Samson wakes up on demand. He is such a machine when it comes to things like that and working. So at about 5 AM he sits straight up and says Heath it is time. So every morning at about 5 we would wake up and pray together for about 30 minutes. Which is amazing, but then I talked him into letting me sleep another hour to hour and a half while he biked for like 5-10 miles to get water and prepare for the morning.
When I eventually got up (apparantly at the Lazy Man's hour) we would eat ground nuts (like peanuts) and drink Chai oh and some banananaananas. Saturday we worked in the fields as it was the season for harvesting his G-nuts, ground nuts. Oh man, I forgot another story that happened earlier so I will insert it here. We then went to a school and it was so cool. The kids all talked to me in a rehursted english and speaking format that was very neat. After about 15 minutes of english they sang for like 30 minutes, songs of praise and other school songs. I met the headmaster and some of the teachers and then spoke and encouraged the school.
Then the traveling began. I think I will shorten this up for the sake of time. We went around to two older women and prayed for them as they were physically hurting. We also went to 3 newborns and blessed them. I taught a lesson for the family of the headmaster at his house and we prayed over his family as well. I think the lesson was over suffering, hope, raising children and maybe something else. Oh and by the way everytime we went somewhere I was fed. This meaning before the time of 2 pm i had eaten 6 TIMES! This included 6 cups of Chai so I was feeling it. From Paul's house (headmaster) we went to his town center, his village was Gumpi. There we met some people like the mayor and some other important folk, I felt slightly like a circus and not so happy about it at this point, but whatever thats a whole other thought and story. And also I mean I am a big deal. Ha, some old men also tried to get me to drink alcohol which I didnt know what it was at the time, but Samson gave me a funny look so I declined.
We also went to Samson's uncles house and this was the first time we stayed somewhere for an extended period of time. Naturally since we were there so long we were fed TWICE!!! After much fellowship we had a Bible study about unity in the church. We prayed over the house and said many things. Then Moses, the uncle, named me his 13th son. That was pretty neat. Moses says (as many Ugandans) they want to come to the US to encourage the churches here so that they be encouraging in the same way as we have been.
That night I co-helped in killing a chicken (however i was not the one who actually cut its head off) and then we ate it! I milked the cow again. Oh, also before the night we traveled to a massive rock. It was so funny cause we rode on bike there and right when we got to the base the three guys i was with jumped off and we SPRINTED up this thing. I was SO EXAUSTED. On the big rock we also encounter many monkeys so that was really cool too, we kinda chased them up the rock and then they chased us back down. Yeah thats right i said monkey cause I'm IN AFRICA. ha. We went to the town center again and I was kinda paraded around again, but all is well.
Sunday I had a little downtime in the morning so that was much needed and very nice. Oh, Samson did not sleep with me this night cause Elizabeth really wanted to sleep with him and was crying until he came to be with her. His quote was like "she's loves me so much I must go." Sleeping was absoluely no problem however I think when I woke up therewas a frog or lizard or something on my feet. Anyways, church was a huge story in itself. I was asked many dotrine things over the entire stay, including though as I was standing there and had to be quick on my toes which usually meant getting out of the way and asking them what was culturally important, more on that on a later update perhaps, because i think it is an important issue. Anyways, I preached on the 4 soils as well as church unity which also sprouted some spur of the moment preaching and it was great. Then naturally after my killer sermon, someone decided to baptized, they asked me to do it but i declined and spoke to the church why I thought so, I can explain to yall as well if you would like at a later date. But we walked like 3 miles to a water hole and back so we could baptize her and then back for communion. I want to bragon them for a moment because up until a few weeks ago they looked at communion and decided they would meet after church at someones home and have a meal together including the lord's supper which I think is dead on as to what we are to be doing. I could go on that for a while, but I am not sure if ANYONE is still reading at this point.
Wow, there's so many side stories, relationships to talk about, issues that came up, ideas about life. Oh wow i didnt even talk about the Choo. OK i will end with this. So the choo consists of a little hut that is WAY TO SMALL, not standable in, just very small. Anyways I could describe it in so many vile ways but i will not and only tell you it is a hole where all the waste goes and there are swimming maggots sparkling at the bottom. So one night I'm going out there to the wonderful choo and I am looking down at the hole in case something jumps out and devours me and also because a few years ago it gave way and someone fell in a little bit before catching himself on the walls. You could litterally die in a deep hole of poop, urine and maggot. We have decided it is worse than Hell. Anyways I step inside and a horrifying screech sounds and a BAT HITS MY HEAD. at that point i backed up and retired my trips to the choo. It would be the most difficult thing about being a missionary living in the village.
Well I suppose story time is over for now. I hope you enjoyed, smile. I hope I am able to talk about you further about the stories and idea and thoughts about living in an African village. God is truely in this place, he is in the hearts of these loving people and he is so good to us daily. Well done (Jabale) to any of you who made it this far in the entry. Until next time.
So here I go.
The experiences and thoughts are many, but I do not know how many I will get down so I will probably begin with telling the basics of what physically happened. I was in the village of Kitukiro in the northern part of Basoga. The minister there is named Samson, he is a beast. As we drove out we began to get onto roads that became smaller and smaller. At one point we had to get out of the car and push away brush because the car could barely squeak through. I was in the boonys of all boonys. I loved it. As we drove up the compound I was staying at consisted of two sleeping huts, a cooking hut and a sitting place with shade. This was my home for the last 3 days.
Samson's wife, Jennifer, was so down to earth and relaxed all the time and I didnt get to spend a ton of time with her, but it was interesting observing up close the life of a married woman in the village. Samson's oldest daughter is about 1 and a half and she took a little while to warm up to me. Her name is Elizabeth and she's going to be a hard-to-get kinda girl, ha but by the second day she was familiar enough with me to not be scared. Samson's other daughter, Zipporah, was born just a week before we arrived and was extremely teeny, Emily later said maybe 6 pounds.
The first night as it was getting dark we were driving into the trading place of the village to pick up some meat from the butchers, but by the time we had left it was dark. I found myself on the back of a bike, with meat in one hand as I gently held it because a bone had pierced the bag and with cooking oil in a cup in the other hand. That in itself was a feat. However, the greater task at hand was the fact that I could not even see the ground, and we were RIDING ON A BIKE. It was SO DARK all i could see was the light of stars when i looked up. It was so funny the second we got off the bike i took about two steps before falling on the uneven road. After that I was officially convinced that the villagers have night vision.
That same night I met with many extended family members and neighbors while watching the GLORIOUS NIGHT SKY. This is just not describable, I finally feel like I know what Abraham felt like when God told him his decendents would be like the number of stars in the sky. They brilliantly scattered the dark backdrop all sparkling like diamonds. There was like a half to half ratio of stars to sky. SO NEAT. And naturally you could see every swooping and rocketing shooting star that swept across the sky. Anyways, that night I milked there cow which was pretty cool. We had to trick the cow into producing milk by letting the calf take a couple sips and then ripping its head away. I'm not so keen on the entire process in general too because it just seems like pulling that hard on a body part has to hurt.
There was also much bath taking over the couple days. Samson asked me about every 20 minutes if I wanted to bathe so I definitely decided he was trying to tell me something. I ended up bathing twice though. Bathing meaning getting a bowl with water dropping the clothes and going behind a hut to wash.
Ugandans eat dinner at about 9 to 9:30 which is insane, but we ate dinner (Samson and I) in my hut. They treated me so well as BOTH nights we had meat, beef the first and chicken the second. I cannot even begin to tell you how well I was welcomed into every home. Visitors are a big deal in Uganda, perhaps the biggest deal and I mean come on I am me! ha.
After dinner Samson and I had a Bible study about Acts because he will be attending the Busoga Bible school session over acts in two weeks. He was especially interested in Pentecost and the moving of the Holy Spirit. HA, the first night Samson said something along the lines of "I like you to much to leave you by yourself" I dont know if that should have scared me either way, but we BOTH ended up sleeping on same same twin tiny mattress. Needless to say, I did not sleep amazingly that first night as I could not move.
Samson wakes up on demand. He is such a machine when it comes to things like that and working. So at about 5 AM he sits straight up and says Heath it is time. So every morning at about 5 we would wake up and pray together for about 30 minutes. Which is amazing, but then I talked him into letting me sleep another hour to hour and a half while he biked for like 5-10 miles to get water and prepare for the morning.
When I eventually got up (apparantly at the Lazy Man's hour) we would eat ground nuts (like peanuts) and drink Chai oh and some banananaananas. Saturday we worked in the fields as it was the season for harvesting his G-nuts, ground nuts. Oh man, I forgot another story that happened earlier so I will insert it here. We then went to a school and it was so cool. The kids all talked to me in a rehursted english and speaking format that was very neat. After about 15 minutes of english they sang for like 30 minutes, songs of praise and other school songs. I met the headmaster and some of the teachers and then spoke and encouraged the school.
Then the traveling began. I think I will shorten this up for the sake of time. We went around to two older women and prayed for them as they were physically hurting. We also went to 3 newborns and blessed them. I taught a lesson for the family of the headmaster at his house and we prayed over his family as well. I think the lesson was over suffering, hope, raising children and maybe something else. Oh and by the way everytime we went somewhere I was fed. This meaning before the time of 2 pm i had eaten 6 TIMES! This included 6 cups of Chai so I was feeling it. From Paul's house (headmaster) we went to his town center, his village was Gumpi. There we met some people like the mayor and some other important folk, I felt slightly like a circus and not so happy about it at this point, but whatever thats a whole other thought and story. And also I mean I am a big deal. Ha, some old men also tried to get me to drink alcohol which I didnt know what it was at the time, but Samson gave me a funny look so I declined.
We also went to Samson's uncles house and this was the first time we stayed somewhere for an extended period of time. Naturally since we were there so long we were fed TWICE!!! After much fellowship we had a Bible study about unity in the church. We prayed over the house and said many things. Then Moses, the uncle, named me his 13th son. That was pretty neat. Moses says (as many Ugandans) they want to come to the US to encourage the churches here so that they be encouraging in the same way as we have been.
That night I co-helped in killing a chicken (however i was not the one who actually cut its head off) and then we ate it! I milked the cow again. Oh, also before the night we traveled to a massive rock. It was so funny cause we rode on bike there and right when we got to the base the three guys i was with jumped off and we SPRINTED up this thing. I was SO EXAUSTED. On the big rock we also encounter many monkeys so that was really cool too, we kinda chased them up the rock and then they chased us back down. Yeah thats right i said monkey cause I'm IN AFRICA. ha. We went to the town center again and I was kinda paraded around again, but all is well.
Sunday I had a little downtime in the morning so that was much needed and very nice. Oh, Samson did not sleep with me this night cause Elizabeth really wanted to sleep with him and was crying until he came to be with her. His quote was like "she's loves me so much I must go." Sleeping was absoluely no problem however I think when I woke up therewas a frog or lizard or something on my feet. Anyways, church was a huge story in itself. I was asked many dotrine things over the entire stay, including though as I was standing there and had to be quick on my toes which usually meant getting out of the way and asking them what was culturally important, more on that on a later update perhaps, because i think it is an important issue. Anyways, I preached on the 4 soils as well as church unity which also sprouted some spur of the moment preaching and it was great. Then naturally after my killer sermon, someone decided to baptized, they asked me to do it but i declined and spoke to the church why I thought so, I can explain to yall as well if you would like at a later date. But we walked like 3 miles to a water hole and back so we could baptize her and then back for communion. I want to bragon them for a moment because up until a few weeks ago they looked at communion and decided they would meet after church at someones home and have a meal together including the lord's supper which I think is dead on as to what we are to be doing. I could go on that for a while, but I am not sure if ANYONE is still reading at this point.
Wow, there's so many side stories, relationships to talk about, issues that came up, ideas about life. Oh wow i didnt even talk about the Choo. OK i will end with this. So the choo consists of a little hut that is WAY TO SMALL, not standable in, just very small. Anyways I could describe it in so many vile ways but i will not and only tell you it is a hole where all the waste goes and there are swimming maggots sparkling at the bottom. So one night I'm going out there to the wonderful choo and I am looking down at the hole in case something jumps out and devours me and also because a few years ago it gave way and someone fell in a little bit before catching himself on the walls. You could litterally die in a deep hole of poop, urine and maggot. We have decided it is worse than Hell. Anyways I step inside and a horrifying screech sounds and a BAT HITS MY HEAD. at that point i backed up and retired my trips to the choo. It would be the most difficult thing about being a missionary living in the village.
Well I suppose story time is over for now. I hope you enjoyed, smile. I hope I am able to talk about you further about the stories and idea and thoughts about living in an African village. God is truely in this place, he is in the hearts of these loving people and he is so good to us daily. Well done (Jabale) to any of you who made it this far in the entry. Until next time.
posted by Heath at 10:36 PM
3 Comments:
Found the website Heath, you all are doing a great job. I'll sit down and read the post sometime this week. Keep up the Lord's work bro. Peace
hey Heath I just wanted you to know that everytime I read your blogs I am encouraged and it really uplifts me hearing about the way God is working in Africa and through you. I'm praying for you and can't wait till school starts and you can tell me all about it!
Hey Heath!
Sorry for the delay, after much chaos we finally got moved from the austin area... though right now we are officially homeless I hope it will not last long... more on that and other personal topics when you get back... for now, let me just say that I am so happy for you and the team... read all your posts today... I'll read brad's blog tomorrow and sarah's after that... Can't wait to catch up with y'all! I know Jesus is rocking your faces off right now! Tell all my family there in Uganda that I have Much Love for them! You are all in my prayers. Later bro,
J
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