July 5, Kampala, Uganda
I awoke this morning to the crow of a Ugandan rooster and the mixed five-part harmony of a dozen song birds. Beautiful. Truck noises intrude. Honks. My eyes adjust to the early morning light in the small guest house room, noticing the tent of mosquito netting hanging over me. My first thought: Lord, I am so thankful that all of the bags arrived in country. After thirty hours of travel, twenty-three youth and adults arrive for a mission trip with the poor of Uganda. They are all excited to see what God has planned.
The weather promises to be dry but muggy-hot. Sharing my bathroom with two small geckos, I have a cold hand-shower–bracing!–and then a breakfast of toast and fresh pineapple. Our discussion around the table is of sleep, hot water, worship singing last night, and our training at the YFC Merimba (“peace”) house.
Yesterday, the team learned to dance several modern dances and put together a couple of skits. They will open their performance before three schools today, and work on loving the kids. Al and David and I are headed up into the mountains over 6 hours of rough roads to visit an medical mission we support in Piswa. Can’t wait to see old friends. Planes canceling and long waits — it has been difficult to get here, but the tapestry unfolds in glitter and faith. Photos don’t want to attach yet. Patience, Brad. Welcome to Uganda.
celtic straits 
[…] It was a money pot, a bank at the most rudimentary level. Each member of the village regularly tries to add a few cents to the pot, with amounts carefully noted in the large notebook the village elders kept. If a nickel remains from buying seeds, it is sacrificially added into the pot for the village. From the-pot-with-chains, as it was simply called in Ugandan, village families could draw a small short-term loan. A few dollars, perhaps for a widow to buy flour for baking bread to sell, or for a new mother to purchase a bolt of fabric to sew shirts for the market. In a village where people bought tonight’s dinner with the money they made a few hours earlier, the-pot-with-chains offered new possibilities for tomorrow. A chance to get ahead a bit, or to feed a child when rains had closed the market. To overcome a year of poor crops. (More about this village here). […]