Sunday in One of My Favorite Villages

Today we went to Kyampisi again for service. Kyampisi is the village we started building the school at and the church I went to the first weekend I was here in Uganda. I love Kyampisi. It’s without a doubt my favorite place to go to church here in Africa. The people are so friendly and loving and open.

This morning I ran Sunday school. I had asked if I could help, and last minute Cockroach (Robert, a Ugandan) asked if I would run the whole thing, so this morning about 30 minutes before we left I went into the office and grabbed some stuff and made up a lesson.

When we got there we sang some songs and listened to Kevin speak for a while. He did a really great job. He had to talk for almost 30 minutes and it was his first time to do such a long talk. I was really impressed. After he talked we sang a few more songs and then I took the kids outside for Sunday school. The Emilys, Brett, and Rachel also helped me.

We played a bunch of African games, sang some songs, and then I told the story about Joseph having dreams that I did from the primary school last week. Afterwards we colored pictures of our favorite dreams. My favorite little girl told us about a dream where she worked as a night dancer, the Ugandan version of a stripper. It cracked me up.

After we had been doing Sunday school for close to 2 hours, I was pretty much out of activities and we still had 30 more minutes. We played a few more games, and then it got hot so we just sat in the shade with the kids for a while and passed out some toys and stickers.

After Sunday school we went and looked at the school that we started building the last time we were in the village. Empower A Child and the church offering paid for workers to finish it and it looked so good! 30 kids are already attending school there. It feels really good to know that our hard work paid off.
We then went to the same church member’s house that we went to last time and had lunch. It was just as good as last time. After eating we played with kids for a little while before heading out.

On the way home we stopped at 2 family’s houses and gave them coffee seedlings. John had paid for 2 of the families to get the coffee seedlings so that they could have a source of income. We delivered the seedlings and prayed for the families and then we headed back to Kampala.

Once we arrived in Kampala we decided to do Rolexes (Ugandan version of the breakfast burrito) for dinner. We found a stand on the side of the road and ordered 40 which took about an hour and a half. Emily, Katie, Amy, Brett, Jovan, Jessie, LaTisha, and I had a great time just sitting around and talking while we were waiting. I had a great talk with Jessie about life and relationships and I’m really glad I went with everyone to wait.

After we got back, I took a look at Nathan’s hand. Nathan is the married guy that came in last week. He broke his thumb joint (called a Bennett fracture) while he was in Kosovo. The doctor put an easily removable cast on it, and it was ready to be removed. We took it off and looked at his X-rays, and we talked about what I am going to do therapy wise on his hand. Tomorrow we are going to make him a soft cast to wear when we aren’t doing therapy and start doing exercises. I had no idea I’d have so many therapy opportunities while I am here!

I also did some more work on my paper tonight. I plan on working really hard on it this week. Hopefully I stick to my commitment.

In other news, the bite on my foot is getting worse. It’s greener and redder and bigger and more painful. Jessie (another nursing student) is going to try and drain it some tomorrow. Say a prayer that it’s successful (and maybe that it doesn’t hurt too badly).

Hoping for healing,
Jenna