Uganda Mission August 2019: #3 Anna's Account

Welcome to our third team blog!

This time Anna Walton will be sharing her personal account of the weekend.

Saturday

I have just had another wonderful day here in Jinja. It was very rainy yesterday though; it rains very heavy here & everything comes to a halt for a while. So we arrived later than planned at the school we were visiting & it looked particularly poverty stricken on arrival. The little classrooms were just propped up on the side of a hill. It was simply the most joyful place; the children were so smiley & adorable as we pulled up & they love Jesus. They love to touch our hands & skin; the most humbling thing is when they bow to us, it’s quite overwhelming. We then gathered with the whole school in an open sided building that was flooded with puddles. We had brought a bulk supply of lollipops for them which they devoured eagerly. The welcome to their ‘msungo’ visitors was beautiful with great love & warmth; we lined up on a makeshift stage of wobbly bricks to introduce ourselves. Neal then told a wonderful story using a large wobbly wooden prop: the children had to walk over it & would eventually lose balance and fall off; the exercise was then repeated with Rob & Anne holding the children's hands to demonstrate that we need God’s support in our lives. Rob also told his magic book story to an audience of excited children! We then gave lunch of chappati and soda to the many many children, some as young as 3 who possibly may not have eaten that day otherwise. Just as we were leaving, a beautiful young lady called Mercy asked for prayer. She shared that she was orphaned & lived with her Grandmother but she was often on her own. I felt quite sad when we left but knew we had blessed them greatly with the love of Jesus. On our return journey we stopped off for tea for a traditional meal of rice & beans - don’t think we’ll be returning!! 😜

Sunday

So into Sunday’s church services. We split into 3 groups & went to 3 different churches where members of the team shared testimony and prayed with local people. What a service ours was, a truly anointed time of worship & we witnessed God's presence in a mighty way. Anne, myself & Aidan (the triple A's as we called ourselves!!) were a team. We danced & jumped & shouted out the Lord's name. The worship was something I have never witnessed before & won’t forget for a long time. An older lady stood & hadn’t walked for many years, so she had been healed. The presence of the Holy Spirit was very tangible, this went on for over an hour & a half! Then it was our turn & we were invited to the stage. After introducing ourselves, I sang ‘O Praise the Name' which was a very special time for me & it was greatly received. Aidan read the lesson & we then went to speak to the Sunday school of 60 children; Anne stayed behind to preach her awesome sermon. It was quite challenging, although the Lord was so faithful in His words as I preached God's word for the first time, with an interpreter, and the children hung on my every word. Meanwhile the other teams were at two other churches: Livingstone and Namulesa. At Livingstone, Neal preached the word, beginning with a demonstration to show how Jesus came as a bridge between man and God, Cheryl then shared a powerful testimony and Vicky performed the song 'Take Courage'. At Namulesa, Rob, Gill, Sarah and James began by leading Sunday School which included songs with actions and signing and a special time marching around the chapel as they sang 'We are marching in the light of God' - a real ice breaker for them. Gill was asked to start the main service in prayer and there followed a time of worship and testimony from the local people. Before Rob began to preach, Sarah had the opportunity to give her testimony. The service ended with a time of prayer and healing ministry. It was all an incredible and spiritual experience.

We then went up into the hills to a gorgeous little small holding where Peter & Rose live (friends of Neal and involved in running Firefest this weekend). Peter is also the General Secretary of the Baptist Union in Uganda. We had a tour of his farm & community project: a water source for the local villagers. We also had a beautiful lunch there & afterwards we sat in their garden under a mango tree & praised God for this beautiful place & family. On our return to the hotel we had drinks of tea with toast & reflected on a wonderful day with prayer & praise to our Lord.

Monday was our day off 🤗🤗, so we were able to have a lie in! After breakfast we could choose what to do & I decided to go with Gill, Vicky, Aidan & James to see the local markets, looking for fabric in particular. It was fascinating walking round the hive of activity in the markets; we saw many ladies sat lined up sewing on old Singer sewing machines. All eyes were on us as we wandered round & I felt reassured that our driver Andrew had stayed with us! The lads bought themselves traditional African shirts (and Ugandan football shirts) which are very smart.

We bought some beautiful African design fabric with view to getting the seamstress at the hotel to make us some trousers & bags.

On returning to our hotel, we had a light lunch & then Neal, Joanne & Cheryl came back from NVI (Nile Vocational Institute) accompanied by Neal's sponsored child, Juliet, who studies there. She is beautiful & joined us for a short time of prayer & worship. All too soon they had to set off to take her back & I just happened to ask Neal could I join them on the journey as I also have a sponsored child at NVI so wanted to see the place. Neal mentioned it would great for me to see Kintu but I knew it would probably have to be pre-arranged. However, as we arrived the question was asked via one of the students & next minute I saw Kintu walking towards me, at this point all I’d ever seen was a photo of him. It was very moving to meet him & he was particularly overwhelmed when I told him who I was. He was so softly spoken & hardly looked up, but then his face lit up with a beautiful smile & I told him how we pray for him & he’s very precious & how much Jesus loves him. It was a very special moment, I’ll never forget how subservient he looked on first meeting, it was such a time of affirmation for me realising how precious the gift of motherhood is.

Cheryl will be writing all about today's adventures in tomorrow's blog, so keep a look out for that!