We started off the day with the muslims broadcasting their prayers to us pre dawn (we hope we are so tired today that we will sleep through it on Friday). Then we headed off to Buloba for prayer walk and work on the church building. And man what a day it was!
As we started off down the street we waved to a man over at a house to the right of the road. George came over to meet us and explained that he wanted to be a Christian like us and wanted to accept Christ. He then explained that his wife (Rose) had a mental illness and he wanted us to go and pray for her. He has been living with his father and his children are off living with relatives. His wife rarely comes out of the house. We walked up to the house and we prayed for his wife. She would not come out of the house and would not allow us to go in. So we prayed on the porch for them.
Then we went to several other homes to pray for people who were ill. Miriam was a muslim but professed Christ. Pastor Eva said that church members had been praying with her and meeting to teach her things. She has a liver ailment. Down the road we came upon some guys loading bricks into a truck. I stopped to take a picture and one guy started pointing at me and hollering. I thought he was mad so I kept walking. Eva talked with them and they were saying “You are the brick tossing Muzungus!” They joked that they wanted lessons. Josh had not tossed Ugandan bricks so he went over and helped. Fun that they knew us by our brick throwing at the church!
Another gentleman was sick and has been out of work so we prayed for him.
The last house we went to broke our hearts. We found a gentleman and his 2 year old child outside their home. We discovered that the child is very sick and the father is too. He went to the clinic/hospital last month, got xrays and found that he has an illness that requires extensive treatment which he cannot afford. His child likely is sick with the same thing. Eva gave him some money for food and we prayed for them. It is heartbreaking that we could/cannot do more. Odds are that the father and child will eventually die and possibly contaminate the other family members. We finished up the prayer walk with a trip back to George’s house to pray with him individually. Becky said she was praying this morning that we could see we are being used. Last year our prayer walk was not like that. And she said it was neat to see how God is working through us and an impact is being made.
We were met by some children from the church we have not seen yet. They ended up being troopers and helping out during our work time. We enjoyed lunch and no siesta so we could get to work. The rookies went to the well to haul water back up to the church…they LOVED It (the experience, not the weight, nor the carrying back up hill). Tony said “the water was cool, how you have to find your inner strength to get back up the hill. And to see a child pass you- is humbling”. Josh shared how it was sad to see a little girl carrying water from the well alone. The little girl was an age between his son Benjamin and his daughters Liza and Grace. She was all alone carrying water ½ mile away from home.
We worked on leveling out the foundation on the side of the church they are now expanding out. And digging out the footings. One of the footings we will need to dig down about 3 feet. Some of the children helped shovel, wheelbarrow and cheer us on. Toward the end of the day we (Andi and some of the kids) had a game of “1-2-3” to leap back and forth over a portion of the footings. English skills for the children and fun for all. Much discussion was had about how we are doing things the “slow” way for a multitude of reasons. Simply paying $100 a day for a Bobcat (a few team members were willing to pay the fee) to move our dirt is not the way we are doing it. It is hard for us to comprehend.
You may remember the muslim family next door to the church that Rusty visited in February. There are 13 people in the home- 2 adults and all children. The grandmother is keeping the children because her children have died. The goal of the October 2007 team was to get the children to come over. That was accomplished. Now one of them Mustafamir walked with us all day. And later he brought several of us eggs, a precious commodity. He is looking forward to spending time with us again tomorrow.
Looking back on what I have written- it fails to compare to the day we have had. It has been amazing. It has been heartbreaking. It has been glorious and wonderful. God is at work in Buloba and it is a blessing to be part of it.
Leave a Reply