Saturday we taught them all about the love of God and the love we should have for our friends and neighbors. Then we helped them to make bracelets that tell the salvation message. We used five different colored beads. Black represented our hearts before we accepted Jesus as our Savior. Red represented Jesus’ blood that covers all sin. White represented our hearts after Jesus’ blood makes our hearts as white snow. Green represented growing in the Lord by reading our Bibles, praying, and going to church. And finally, gold represents the streets of gold that are awaiting us in heaven with Jesus. They were so happy to have the bracelets as a way to remind them of the salvation message.
The people here are all so friendly to us. Everywhere we go we hear children call out, “Muzungu! Muzungu! How are you?” It is really cute how the little children run after us as fast as they can, just wanting to touch our skin. :) We either walk or ride booda boodas wherever we go. We are a lot better at riding them now. We don’t get quite as scared anymore. :) I even tried riding on it sideways, which is what all the ladies are supposed to do. I almost fell off and died when we went over the bumps. :)
It is kind of Uganda’s winter season now but it is really hot!! There is a lot of humidity too.
I love the food here! There main food is called Matooke. It is made from green bananas. They peel them, boil and cook them until they are like the consistency of mashed potatoes. I really enjoy it. They also have a lot of beans and meat that they serve with it. Everything is fresh in Uganda, because they don’t have refrigerators. You just go and buy fresh food before each meal. For example, today they wanted to have chicken for lunch so they bought a live chicken and slaughtered it and cooked it. When they were going to slaughter it Sarah and I couldn’t watch so we went for a little walk. :) After they cut it’s head off and plucked out the feathers I helped Harriet clean and prepare it for cooking. Oh! I almost forgot! I ate bugs!!! They are called white ants and they come up from the ground in the early morning and you can go catch them. Then you take off their wings and fry them with some salt. Then they are ready for eating. :) I actually really enjoyed them besides the fact that they were a little bit crunchy. Tea is a big thing here. Every morning and evening we are brought hot cow’s milk with some tea bags. We love our teatimes!
Last week when we were in Kampala we had a great time. They drive crazy in the city! We almost got hit like ten times! Then if we thought bicycle booda boodas were hard to ride, try riding a motorbike booda booda!! Talk about scary! They weave in and out of traffic, on and off of sidewalks, and they swerve around the people crossing the roads. When I was riding them I just put my hand over my eyes so that I couldn’t see. That way I didn’t scream. Everyone just pointed and laughed at me including the driver. We barely made the taxi to go back to Busia. By the time we got there, there were only two seats left. But there were three of us plus all of the Bibles, books, balls and the guitar. So we squeezed in and piled all the stuff on top of us. The road from Kampala to Busia is extremely bumpy and bouncy. So for five hours we were bouncing up and down trying not to squish into the people next to us. We were laughing so hard. About half way through we stopped for a bathroom break. Everyone piled out and lined up on the side of the road. All except for Sarah and me, who were left in the taxi bus laughing our heads off as quietly as we could. :)
Wednesdays are our community outreach days. Ken said that we will be going to prisons, hospitals, really poor sections of town, and just sharing the love of Christ with hurting souls. Please be praying for us, especially on those days.
Sarah and I want to thank you so much for you prayerful support. We can really feel it. Today we are expecting two new volunteers from New York to work alongside us. We are excited to meet them and pray that God would use us as His vessels to do His work.
Sarah and I with two Ugandans
Sarah and I with the directors son, Jordan.
