Chief

This morning I was one of 5 people who preached in church. Yes that's
right 5 people preached, and that was a short service. Two days ago I
was searching through the bible looking for something to speak about.
I was clueless as to what to do. I came across the good Samaritan and
instantly knew that I needed to speak on that. Well back to church
this morning. I was the second one to preach. I was introduced as The
Chief of the mzungus (white people) The first spoke on Isaiah 6 "Hear
I am send me". which fit perfectly with the Good Samaritan message. I
encouraged them to love their enemies and those they don't get along
with. The people received it very well and expressed their happiness
for us being in Uganda.

It hasn't rained in 3 weeks and many of the plants in the garden
planted by Luke and Adam. Please pray for rain and that it comes this
week.

Tonight we had a lot of fun taking pictures, here are a few.

Photos

When it rains in Africa it really comes down, I took this photo right
outside of where we are staying in Soroti. The cat is Cat-Lin's new
best friend, we named it shim because we don't know if it's a boy or a
girl and don't care to look.

Brian

Just another Friday morning

Its Friday morning here and I probably got like 4 or 5 hours of sleep last night, I must still be suffering from jet lag. We will be hanging out in Soroti until Saturday morning when we we head to Kapelebyong. So far this has been a really fun trip filled with very clear visions and prophetic words regarding other team members, and tons of well needed laughter with and at each others expense. Taking it easy today will turn out to be very nice, hopefully we can get out and climb Soroti rock.

Yesterday Joseph told us that one of us would need to preach on Sunday in KP and when he asked who would do it everyone immediately pointed at me. Seeing as one of the major goals is we are trying to accomplish is building community perhaps I will speak on something about loving others. 

So there have been many funny things that have happened and I will try and share those things with you every time I post something. Lets call it the Quote of The Day, I know super original isn't it. You may not find it funny but the 6 of us likely think it's hilarious. 

Quote of The Day: (those who know Joseph, the Childrens Hopechest rep in Uganda will enjoy this)

Joseph: Does anyone have any gum?

Deb: I have some...

Joseph: Thank you, can I have the rest of the pack?

Deb: Sure

Joseph: Does anyone want some of my gum?

Africa

We made it safely in Africa and after and after 7 hours of driving today we are currently in Soroti. All of the traveling was pretty uneventful except for the last leg of the plane ride. While descending into Uganda the plane sudenly dropped about 100 ft. Everyone was lifted out of their seats, people screaming all around and flight attendants trying not to hit the ceiling head first. It was pretty cool.

Now we are just going to lay low in Soroti and head to Kapelebyong on Saturday. The weather here is awesome, it was in the 70's all day long.


All of our team is posting on theriveruganda.blogspot.com be sure and check it out as it will be updated more often than this blog

Tick, Tick, Tick

Our time in the US is slowly ticking away. We are leaving Kalamazoo at noon on Tuesday July 20 to head over to Detroit Metro. We have two 8 hour flights, one from Detroit to Amsterdam and one from Amsterdam to Entebbe. You can watch the progress of our flights by going to http://flightaware.com/ Here is our itinerary:

On The Way There

Depart - Jul 20 - 5:40pm

Detroit, MI (DTW) on Delta 242 

Arrive - Jul 21 - 7:35am

Amsterdam (AMS)

... connection time: 3 hours 25 minutes ...

Depart - Jul 21 - 11:00am

Amsterdam (AMS) on Delta 9318

Arrive - Jul 21 - 7:50pm

Entebbe (EBB)

On the Way home

Depart - Aug 20 - 9:50pm

Entebbe (EBB) on Delta 9319

Arrive - Aug 21 - 5:15am

Amsterdam (AMS)

... connection time: 2 hours 45 minutes ...

Depart - Aug 21 - 8:00am

Amsterdam (AMS) on Delta 272

Arrive - Aug 21 - 10:35am

Detroit, MI (DTW)

Real Life, Real God, Real Change

Video created by Jeff Jones using photos and footage from my first trip to Uganda

Just another ordinary day... then God showed up

Today started off like any other day. Wake up and hit the snooze 3 or 4 times until 45 min later I finally roll out of bed to get ready for work. But this was in no way an ordinary day because today the Mission 6  (thats what we are calling ourselves) were buying plane tickets to Uganda. After weeks of waiting for tickets to drop we finally gave in and decided to make this trip official. We leave July 20 out of Detroit Metro and return August 21. But that's not even the best part of my day. 

I am in complete shock after the events that have occurred. I am a regular attender at the small group that a friend of mine named Jeff leads on Thursday nights. Usually there are about 4 of us who go. Well tonight the Holy Spirit had other things in mind. A guy who I will choose to keep anonymous, lets call him Joe,  just randomly showed up at our group. I have never met Joe before or even seen him. The bible study went really well and at the end of the study Jeff felt led for some reason to pray about me going to Uganda. I said a few words about everything that is going on over there and how we intend to help Oditel. Joe seemed very interested and asked me how much more I needed to raise and at the time I still needed $1500. I thought nothing of the comment as many people have asked me that question and we moved on to praying for Uganda. After we finished up Joe pulled me aside and asked me if I could wait for him a few minutes outside. I had a few things to do in the church so I agreed to meet him in a few minutes. When I was done I walked outside and Joe was nowhere to be found. I thought I had just taken to long and he needed to leave but as I was walking to my car he drove up in his car, got out, and handed me an envelope. I didn't want to be rude and open it right in front of him because there was clearly money inside of the envelope so I put it in my pocket. We chatted for about 10 min and then parted our ways. After he left I took the envelope out of my pocket and noticed that it was cealed shut and had "Emergency" written on it. Inside was 15 $100 bills!!! I was shocked and at a complete loss for words. This was clearly a plan orchestrated by God himself, everything from Joe saving of the money, randomly coming to the bible study, me needing $1500, Joe having $1500, and Joe feeling led to bless Oditel by giving the money to send me. Words cannot describe how thankful I am for what you did today Joe. I pray God blesses you more than you could ever imagine. God truly does answer prayers and the best thing is that he chooses to use the people around us to do it.