Uganda - Mission Rwentobo / where Ben gets paid in eggs...

After not much sleep on our last night in Zimbabwe we woke before sunrise and headed to the airport to board our flight to Uganda. We were sad to be saying goodbye to our friends at CBF but equally we were really looking forward to our two weeks joining the Mission Rwentobo team coming from Tonbridge Baptist Church.

Proving opposites attract, North/South, Bossy/Laidback.... ;)

Mission Rwentobo, in its third year, was formed out of a partnership between members of my home church (TBC) and Rev Dr Medad & Connie Birungi, founders of Worldshine Foundation which exists to provide children in Uganda an education and a chance to 'Shine for Jesus'. This would be my second time visiting Uganda as I was part of the debut trip in 2014, but for Melissa it was another first on our journey, a new country and a new experience.

We both had expectations about what the trip would become, for me, a chance to see the change in the time since I was last there and an excitement at seeing the children's lovely smiling faces again. For Melissa, a chance to see all that I had been banging on about for the last two years, but also the promise of extensive dry shampoo supplies being bought out from the UK courtesy of Amazing Grace. However most of these were about to be turned on their head somewhat.

The whole team having a meal in Kampala.

We had a great Sunday in Kampala including a trip to Watoto Church where we squeezed into a large & lively congregation finding only room to seat ourselves on stairs and in the isles, and hearing a powerful and on point message about 'The Next Step', a cracking meal at a petrol station cafe, a quick splash in the hotel pool where our tennis ball game disrupted several private swimming lessons and an evening spent at Dr Medad & Connie's oldest son Barnabas's graduation party. We spent the Monday on the day long drive from Kampala to Rwentobo which is in the very South West of Uganda, fairly close to Kabale for any of you who like to get your geography tuned in.

Crossing the equator on the journey from Kampala to Rwentobo.

The journey bought memories flooding back of the beautiful green and lush mountainous countryside, banana trees almost everywhere you looked and friendly smiley faces waving back at you in each village we passed through. I should add here that the Chinese have done a good job of building roads through much of Uganda meaning our journey was relatively smooth. We arrived early evening at our hotel, which I can't really explain the existence of in rural mountainous Uganda (but I'm not complaining), and after a dinner of chicken/goat with one of seemingly endless carbohydrate options on offer, we had a meeting which very much changed the whole trip and our expectations entirely.

View from The Satellite Hotel.

Uganda has just been through an annual election, a topic which could take up a whole blog, let alone blog-post, itself! To summarise, the country's current president, 71 year old Yoweri Museveni, has been in power 30 years and has yesterday (at time of writing) won another 5 year term. Unfortunately like many of the countries we have already visited or plan to visit, politics doesn't seem to be a fair sport, and so quite how many of the 5m+ votes Museveni actually got remains to be seen. The election was the hot topic of the news, the people and staff at the hotel and also our conversations with the locals, however it was hard for us Brits, used to a fair democratic system, to understand how everybody seemed to know Museveni had already won before the whole process started.

Anyhow the election, as interesting as it was, wasn't the reason we came to Uganda. Mission Rwentobo works with the Worldshine Primary School in the town and a highlight of the trip is spending time with the approx 700 children at the school. Imagine our shock and initial upset upon hearing that schools would be remaining closed for the next two weeks whilst the election took place. I say remaining because half term was due to finish as we arrived, however the kids, who I'm sure were delighted, were being granted two additional weeks school holiday.

I think the whole groups initial reactions were quite negative, many had come hoping to teach, run assemblies, visit sponsored children, and just generally enjoy time with so many happy children, but to be told that many of these things now seemed very unlikely it was quite a bitter pill to swallow.

He didn't mind, so neither did I!

BUT, and it's a big but, because we serve a God who is faithful and who goes before us, we committed the next two weeks to him and acknowledged that He had plans for us during our time in Rwentobo. Plans which at the time might have been different and not what we had hoped for or expected, but plans which we trusted were good and prosperous, as it says in Jeremiah 29. Melissa and I have already learned on our trip that God's plans for us are always better than our own, and despite not being easy, trusted in what was to come.

Each person on the trip will have their own tale to tell, and it would be unfair on them for us to try and share it in detail for them. Whether it was Reg proving invaluable with his surveying expertise in the constructional planning of the new community clinic, or Jackie, who 'couldn't talk up the front', delivering her testimony powerfully to several thousand people, leading to many getting saved, whether it was Gordon our team leader, proving time and time again that God put him in charge of this trip for a reason, demonstrating his ability to handle each and every curve-ball thrown his way, or whether it was Arabella whose simple fun nature and love of Jesus proved irresistible to be around for both us and the children she wonderfully acted through the bible with, God used all of us uniquely.

I'll just share a couple of personal stories, and a few photos to try and give you a flavour of what our trip was like. If you want to know more then the best way to do so is to check out the Mission Rwentobo Facebook page here: Mission Rwentobo Facebook

If Carlsberg did afternoon walks....

As I mentioned above, we visited Watoto church where we heard a really good talk about 'Taking the next step'. This meant different things to each of us on the trip, but for me it came at a time where I have been considering what I am doing with my life, and what God may be saying to me and what he has in store for me.

The trips to Rwentobo include so many opportunities for you to step out of your comfort zone that you would hardly recognise the person you were at the start of the trip if you took them all. For me, I had felt God prompting me to use my ability to lead from the front (those of you at TBC know I sometimes lead the evening services) and my personal love of Jesus, but on a different level. I felt that he wanted me to preach! However I kept very very quiet about this because, quite frankly I was terrified. What on earth would I preach about?! Was I even qualified to do so?! Did I even know the Bible well enough to turn to the right testament when asked to look up a passage?! The answers to those questions were probably 'no idea', 'In God's yes, man's probably not' and 'maybe just about if I flicked through the pages slow enough' but this feeling remained, despite how hard I tried to bury it.

It's easy to appreciate the creative majesty of God in Rwentobo!

Imagine my relief, when Gordon, who had the night before told the group we needed 6 people to preach at 6 different churches on Sunday, announced he had allocated 6 others in the group. Phew, I was off the hook. Although I felt quite relieved, I actually felt quite disappointed in myself. Had I let God down? Had he really being asking me to preach? Had I tried to make my own plans again? I had even kept quiet when Gordon, after listing off the 6 preachers, asked "Is there anyone who would really like to preach?" Can you believe that? I was really having a Jonah moment (for those of you wondering about my earlier Bible knowledge statement you can rest assured I did have to re-read the story of Jonah to check that he did in fact try to ignore God's calls on his life, and thus I could semi reasonably compare my situation to his, just with less big storms and whales) and I didn't know what to do.

The thing is with God though, he has a way of coming after us, he comes in love, wanting the best for us. Imagine my reaction when Gordon approached me the next day and said we needed an extra preacher because Rev Medad wasn't available. It was like one of those God moments, where you know He is speaking straight to you, giving you another chance at what He wants for you despite your clear and obvious attempts to ignore them. And I knew what I had to do. "Of course Gordon, I was hoping you'd ask!"

So the 'easy' part was out of the way in agreeing to do it, I now needed to find a topic to preach on and, excuse my French, the balls to do it! I can't really explain how it came, but I just knew I had to preach on Jesus telling the parable of The Lost Son in Luke 15. It wasn't like I even took myself away from the group, and spent hours in deep solitude with God seeking what he wanted me to do, instead I just had this feeling that this was what God wanted me to talk about.

Because I've never preached before I had no idea how you're supposed to prepare, but 20 minutes seemed a long enough time of reading the parable, jotting down a few notes and sending out some prayer requests to close family and friends, so off I went ready for anything, expectant that God would show up.

I prayed quite simply "Lord let it not be me speaking up there, but you" although I'm not sure I phrased it quite as eloquently as I have managed to here. With Tim and Emily for company, along with Bridget, a local volunteer with Worldshine who would translate (did I forget to mention that for my first ever sermon the congregation would need my fairly rough and ready not quite Queen's English translated into their local dialect?) we set off to the rural Church of Uganda who would have the 'privilege' of hearing me speak.

The Church of Uganda in very rural Rwentobo.

Church was due to start at 10:30 but at 10:45 with less than 20 people in attendance, most of them children, I thought I had made the whole thing up, God wasn't speaking to me, he didn't want me to preach and I was a fool for believing so. I sat there quietly disappointed, in myself for seemingly believing God would actually have had something serious for me to do in Uganda beyond what I thought I could do, but also in God for bringing me to such an empty church when I knew there were so many full ones out there. I wasn't where I wanted to be, this wasn't how I had imagined it.

As I sat there however, not knowing what was happening due to the language barrier and the Church of Uganda service style, something strange started happening. People started coming in. And they kept coming. Every time we stood to sing, which was delightful in itself, more people came in. They came in from the sides, they came in from the back, there were even kids climbing through windows at one point. I couldn't believe what had happened, when, at around 12:15 I was invited up to speak.

The congregation.

Before me was a packed church, not a seat spare in the house. There were even people stood at the sides and the back. I honestly don't believe for a moment that they had come just to hear me, they would very unlikely have known before hand that a 'Mzungu' was preaching, but it seems to be the style of how things roll out there, with people arriving as the service progresses as this was evident in all 6 of the churches that the team visited. I do believe though that it taught me again how faithful God is, how he has plans to prosper us, and how wrong I was to doubt him or to be disappointed. I quickly prayed under my breath for forgiveness for ever doubting.

I did apologise for wearing shorts!

My talk seemed to be well received and was aided so well by Tim's powerful testimony (thank you Tim!). I kept it short (unlike this blog-post, sorry!), partly because I felt I had said what was needed, but also because who can seriously hold their bladder after drinking 1.5 litres of water to try to prevent their mouth drying up when speaking. I needn't have bothered though because after me the service continued for at least another hour, including the children singing to us, the offering procession and subsequent sale of donated fruits and vegetables (one man bought an egg from this and gave it to me, as a gift to say thank you for my sermon), a woman seemingly ranting at the congregation but apparently saying it was humbling to hear that the white man also needed Jesus Christ and then several other things which I didn't understand.

The 'Great Goat Giveaway' 2016.

All in all it was a great experience, one I thoroughly enjoyed and, even if nothing else comes from it, I will cherish the egg I was given meaning at least one person was impacted by it. I have however, for obvious reasons, not brought it any further on our trip.

Aside from this step into the unknown for me, the trip was full of experiences and opportunities for both of us as part of the whole team. We helped transform the new staff room and resource centre simply by painting them. Melissa and a few others, along with help from some of the keen local children, painted a wonderful mural in baby class and decorated the steps and window frames to make the whole thing much more appealing.

Chating with Soloman, a favourite from two years ago.

We also visited several homes of children at the school, coming across all sorts of different circumstances and hardships that they suffer. Our walks took us through beautiful banana plantations and really got us into the community. Some of the team focused on getting the approval of a brand new community clinic to be built on the school site, and put together detailed proposals for work to start. Others helped run bible stories for the older children in the school, and we did run a couple of assemblies to 200 or so of the children who turned up.

On a home visit, I'm feeling happier than I look, honest!

The mural painted by the girls and children in Baby Class.

Letters from the UK to a sponsored child.

The Resource Centre before painting...

...and afterwards.

A walk through the banana trees on a home visit.

The list of things we did could go on and on, I haven't yet mentioned the full day youth conference that some of the team attended followed by a half day one that we all went to the next day. I haven't mentioned that Lydia broadcast a live message on the radio about mental health awareness to a potential 6m listeners. I haven't mentioned the presents and goats we were able to pass on to sponsored children and their families, or the endless hours spent playing with some of the children from nearby who were an absolute delight to get to know and spend time with.

Brightening up Baby Class!

I haven't mentioned the litter pick we did around the school and entrance road, trying to improve the appearance in the community and I also haven't mentioned the projects we were able to initiate by providing funding generously raised before the team left the UK. All of this was also done with a wave of sickness taking down most members of the team at one point or another in our two week stay, so it made it all the more impressive the amount of work we were able to get done together.

Playing with some of the delightful local children
(who all cheated at running races)

Walking through market day returning from a home visit.

We did enjoy a nice rest day at the stunning lake Bunyoni including a boat trip, some hilarious non selfies from Arabella and a lot of confusion over breaded fish.

Lake Bunyoni, we even got a few of the Worldshine boys to swim!

Making a splash!

We spent the final morning of the trip reflecting on what God had done through us as a team, and there was also some prophetic messages from Medad and Isaac relating specifically to Melissa which was really really exciting. We have another thing on our prayer list now! The long journey back to Kampala was problem free, an answer to prayer due to fears over trouble surrounding the election results, and as we said our goodbyes at Entebbe airport we once again reflected on how quickly time had passed when we were engaged with others doing God's work.

Once again we were overwhelmed by the generosity and welcoming spirit of the people we encountered. We have made a lot of new friends including the Worldshine boys, the staff at The Satellite Hotel and many of the staff and people at the Worldshine Primary School. Thank you all for your encouragement and support, it really does mean a lot.

We are now in Kenya, having eventually managed to get a coach out of Kampala to Nairobi, and then after a 12 hour wait a separate coach down to Kisii where we are spending the next 10 days or so working with Harambee for Kenya, a small charity helping street boys in the town. We hope to write at the end our our time there before embarking on a mammoth 75 day overland trip from Nairobi down to Cape Town. This is something we're incredibly excited about!

Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long!

Ben

Prayer requests

• Safety in Kisii, an unfamiliar place to us and a place where some of the children are still learning right from wrong.
• Guidance as we seek God's will for our time with Harambee.
• For a safe trip back to Nairobi and on to the start of our overland trip.
• For good strong relationships to be built at the start of our overland trip.
• That we can take Jesus with is wherever we go right from the beginning, and this trip may be an evangelistic opportunity for the both of us
• For confirmation and guidance regarding the prophetic words and images given to Melissa on our final day in Rwentobo.
• With thanks for all God did during our time in Rwentobo.