Alive.  That is the word that best describes Uganda. Life is everywhere - whether it be in the green, wild, insect-filled world of the bush, or in the city of Kampala where humanity seems to be bursting out from every crevice as millions wander the streets, there is life and movement from life everywhere. I saw a bicycle with a dozen dirty canisters carrying water latched on every possible way being pushed by three small children up a hill. I saw a motorcycle carrying an entire family of five piled on front to back. Even in the most remote parts along the highway there are people walking up and down the road. Cows and goats wander the streets eating whatever they can find. Even in the pitch of night the world is loud with insects and birds calling out. Uganda is alive.

So into this world Heather and I were dropped. When we exited the airport we met with Hakim, one of Maggie’s most trusted staff members and Mathias, a hired driver. Driving in Kampala is like some sort of supercharged version of driving in New York City, a New York City with hundreds of thousands of motorcycles thrown into the mix, and Mathias just rammed his way through the traffic.

Maggie doesn’t get into town often so she had a list of supplies for Hakim to pick up for the upcoming party. So we navigated the labyrinth of streets in Kampala to find Hakim’s favorite street vendors. We also stopped by a “Mzungu” (westerner) grocery store that had armed guards patrolling the entrances and parking lot, so that Heather and I could buy some basic supplies. Once we had picked up everything in Kampala, the SUV we (and our nine assorted bags and backpacks!) were in was pretty much filled to capacity. We drove north out of the city and then stopped at a huge fruit market in Luwero where we bought bags upon bags of fresh fruit and vegetables. Since there was no more room we simply carried them on our lap. Mathias bought us a bunch of mini-bananas that were super sweet and his face beamed with pride as he told us how Uganda had the best fruit in the world (don’t tell Wenatchee). Then up to Kakoge, but wait - Hakim had one more stop in a small town between Kakoge and Luwero.  We pulled off into a small market literally in the middle of nowhere behind a Taxi that had the words “Air Force One” scrawled across the windshield. Hakim hopped out of the car and disappeared into the crowded street market. We sat in the car for a long time eating mini-bananas and talking to Mathias when finally Hakim darted back out of the market (somehow from the opposite side of the road though I never saw him cross) carrying 5 or 6 LIVE chickens.  Hakim threw the chickens on the floor in the passenger seat, completely unaware of my shock, while Heather was bursting with laughter from my wide eyes. We rode off again to Kakoge where we turned down a dirt road full of potholes. Every time we hit a pothole the chickens would squawk and flap and get upset and Hakim would gently kick them until they quieted down.  We drove a long ways deep into the bush from Kakoge, passing mud huts and rough brick houses in various states – nearly all marked in some way by the deep poverty that exists. We finally came to a sign marked “Ekitangaala Ranch” and Maggie came running out with several AHI Staff and students behind her shouting, “They are here”! Indeed we were.

In these first few days it has been a mix of highs and lows, there are times where I think there is no way I can survive this for an entire year and then there are times where I feel so blessed and excited to be able to be doing this. I spent much of these first few days with the short term mission team from Eastside Foursquare, but they are about to leave and I will really miss them.  On the day we arrived, we drove off (hanging on for dear life at 60+ miles per hour on the back of a flatbed truck) to a primary school near Nakasangola and showed a Jesus film to students. On the ride I had a funny conversation with the Pastor who was guiding us. We were talking about Nuns and Monks and he was talking about how he believes it is not biblical because they do not produce. I thought he was talking about witnessing to others and discipleship and we began to talk about it when before too long I realized some miscommunication, the Pastor was not talking about producing disciples but about producing babies!

When we arrived I bounded into one of the classrooms and started talking to the children.  They were laughing and giggling and a few were interacting but for the most part they were quiet. Then one student raised his hand and informed me that I needed to leave because their teacher had told them to be quiet and I was making them disobey and talk. The class erupted in laughter as I mockingly shamed my way out the door. As we watched the film most of the kids stood; I figured if they could do it so could I, but man, by then end of that movie my feet were killing me.

 At the end the Pastor drilled the children with questions about what they saw, and they were quick to answer.  Then he asked me if I had any questions for the children, clearly wanting to demonstrate their knowledge.  Instead I asked them which part they liked the best.  One kid shyly answered “when Jesus calmed the storm.” Then I really confounded them by asking “why did you like it?” He didn’t have an answer but another kid answered “because it showed the power of God.” The pastor asked me earnestly “Was that the right answer?” I said yes but there was no one “right answer.” Then I shared with the class that it didn’t matter how much knowledge you had about Jesus, it didn’t even matter if you memorized the entire bible, knowledge did not make you a Christian.  What made you a Christian was the condition of your heart and how you react and live with Jesus. I don’t know if that made any sense to the children but I hope the Holy Spirit was able to translate what I desperately wanted these children to understand.

The next day we drove out to a village to fix a “borehole” in a tiny village. A borehole is the pipe that brings the water up in the well.   The pump had gone bad and the village had been without fresh clean water for two years.  The Eastside team had already done one borehole so they had some experience. Basically you have pipes - one large one and one smaller inside the large - and you connect each 10 foot piece of pipe, lower it down, vice it off so it doesn’t fall and then connect another section of pipe. Sounds easy enough except that once you have 12 or 13 sections of pipe connected you are lifting a huge amount of weight that you are lowering under the ground. Here I found myself useful with my height, able to stabilize the pipe high in the air while they screwed it on. Speaking of my height, I have found it immensely valuable here not because of anything physical but as an ice breaker - people are excited to talk to the “tall mzungu”. It was a fantastic moment as we sat around the village eating fresh pineapple and jack-fruit while they pumped out the first fresh water this village had seen in years.

That evening we went to a school for young men here on the ranch called Cornerstone Leadership Academy, to eat dinner with the students.  They were all so excited to see us and we spent almost an hour meeting and greeting before we sat down for dinner. I particularly got to know two young men, one named Patrick who was elated by my coincidental name (it means Noble he told me proudly) and another named Eric. They called me brother and insisted I sat at the table and eat with them.  These men eat one meal a day and it is literally nothing more than a bowl of rice and beans.  When I told them all that it was my birthday they sang Happy Birthday to me and I pretended to blow out candles on my bowl of rice.  We shared our favorite verses as I broke out my bible and we had a great time discussing scripture, our testimonies and just life.

For the most part everyone is so sincere that it can be confusing to someone like me who is used to lots of sarcasm.  It makes sharing and opening up with each other so much easier though, and I am starting to really appreciate how genuine everyone is. Every day has been an adventure - I have no idea how I will be able to fit everything in on the blog, but I will do my best. Pictures should be coming as well. Check out the Blog in a week or so when I tell you more about AHI, our Ministry here and the huge celebration we just had for AHI’s 5 year anniversary.

--PHD

“…and when do you plan to leave?”

Heather and I looked at each other uneasy about the answer.

“End of March.” Heather said quietly.

“So you have about 8 weeks to raise $28,000?”

I awaited the doomed diagnosis, already beginning to cringe a bit. Heather and I were sitting across from John Shimer a friend of Maggie’s who had been professional fundraiser before retirement; this was not going to be good news.

“…No problem, you’ll be able to raise that easily, God will provide.”

And with those words John had cured something inside of us, doubt. I think before that I wasn’t 100% sure we were even going to Uganda, but those simple words of encouragement changed something in Heather and I, God WOULD provide, and so we could lean full tilt into this thing and trust that God was not going to let us fall.

John wasn’t done though. He was working hard on a book with a Maggie about African Hospitality Institute. He had asked if we could help on some level as field agents gathering information for the book. My Journalism brain was buzzing with the opportunity, and Heather was excited that she could practice her craft of Photography. If we were willing to help, John offered to support us in a big way. I didn’t know what a “big way” meant but with $0 raised it sounded helpful.

We met with John again a few weeks later to get an idea of what this book was and what our role would be in gathering information. We also spoke with Maggie who was extremely supportive of us being involved. All the pieces were coming together but to be honest I can’t say I was genuinely on board, at least in heart with the project.

Now it’s a well known fact that I hate, on a general principle, Christian books. I can be a bit overzealous in my passions for things and I have been known to go into a rant about this topic or that. Some of these rants my dear wife has had to hear a multitude of times and there are some key topics that I am sure she now winces at when any stranger dares to bring them up. One of those rants if reduced to a sentence would be that Christians read too much Christian living and not enough Bible. Now I’ve been a retail manager for nearly a decade and often we will look at our sales mix, a breakout of what category of product is selling and not selling, and reorganize the store accordingly. Now imagine you walk into any Christian book store, and based on floor plan and space you tell me what the sales mix roughly is for Christian Living books vs. Bible Study. 80/20? Maybe…. If your lucky, and that is my problem.

So I was having some concerns about working on this book, and then Maggie sent us an e-mail addressing her vision for the book. I’ll quote a small edited version for you:

"I have read or pretended to have read, many other self-published books by friends / peers in ministry. Most of them are boring and sit in bookshelves collecting dust. Most of them are so steeped in 'stained glass' 'holy talk' 'christianeze' that no one but friends even try to read them. I want this to be so much more.
I guess what I am hoping for is something that helps to answer the universal questions of 'Is that all there is?" and how does one find true joy and purpose in this life, how does one build a community, how do we dare trust a God that has so disappointed us in the past.

 I believe that there are many people out there looking for the answer to these questions - many that have been disillusioned by the empty promise of financial success, many that are looking for God, but have been so turned off by the Christian community that they can't even imagine that Jesus really is the answer.

I would love for it to be a book that Christian or non-Christian, or least marginal Christian would read and perhaps  see themselves in us as they watch us struggle with these same issues. I think its the 'struggle' to trust - God, friends, strangers with our lives, with our disappointments and the empty promises and then the 'struggle' with stepping out in faith, though that feels like free fall - that in sharing the 'struggle' - my struggle, your struggle, the struggle of donors to support something that seemed doomed to failure, the struggle of even staff to trust this crazy white woman.  It's in the asking the hard questions and struggling through answering them and overcoming huge challenges that this story gets interesting.”

Hopefully Maggie doesn’t mind me quoting her, but the real thing to know is my passionate, anti-christian book mind was dramatically turned by her words. Maggie’s vision for this book wasn't a Christian living book so much as a Book where people’s lives and Jesus are seen, for Christians and non-Christians alike. This was a book I could, and am very excited to be involved with.

So I’m posting this to announce a second part to our mission in Uganda. This is not to distract from our original mission at AHI to support Maggie and build community. In fact I suspect gathering information for the book will better enable us to do those very things. God does not work in confusion, and I am super excited about what He plans for us to bear witness to in Uganda.

As for Christian living books, I am learning from friends not to be so stubborn and have been slowly reading a few Christian books. Some like Total Church and Radical have had a huge impact on me, they opened the Bible to me in new ways that (and I shudder to say this) may not have happened just in Bible Study. Right now I’m reading “When Helping Hurts” in preparation for our mission, and I love the heart of the Author Brian Fikkert.

On the topic of fundraising God WAS faithful. Based on Pledges we have raised slightly MORE than we needed and with 2 weeks to spare! God is so faithful and has made it clear to us time and again that this is HIS mission not ours. 16 days until we depart from Seattle, this blog is about to get MUCH more interesting so stay tuned.

--PHD