June 24

Once again – up at zero dark thirty. This morning Ken and I both woke up around 3 am. This is pretty normal for me, although I’m not used to having other people wake up at the same time. As usual, the dogs are barking outside. There’s one other piece of the morning cacophony that I don’t think I’ve told everyone about. About 5 am the Muslim call to prayer starts up. I’m not exactly sure which direction it is coming from, but it is there nonetheless. The reason I mention it is that it just isn’t something I’m used to hearing at home – it’s just another aspect of the atmosphere here.

As a matter of fact, I’d like to take a moment to just give you some examples of some of the small details here. If you find it boring, I apologize – skip past this! Let’s see… As you drive down the roads, you notice that there are women’s clothing shops interspersed in the mix. Most of them have mannequins out front displaying the wares. All of the mannequins are white. I never really thought about the fact that any manufacturers of mannequins would be in “Western” countries. The predominant building material over here is brick, and there is a relatively large amount of construction going on. The scaffolding, frames – everything requiring wood at these construction sites – is unfinished wood – large sticks. You’ll see an entire building frame work that looks like somebody went out into the woods, chopped down some small trees and brought them in. Which in all likelihood is exactly what has happened – I’m guessing they don’t have many sawmills. Plumbing in much of the city is non-existent. Every home has one or two yellow 5 gallon plastic jugs. They take these to wherever and fill them with water – I’m guessing on a daily basis. The other day we drove by a row – the equivalent of about a block long – of furniture stores, selling beds, upholstered chairs, and coaches. All of the wares were sitting out on the dirt.

On the roads that ARE paved (not many of them) there are numerous round-a-bouts similar to those cropping up all over the Portland area. Not nearly as controlled, of course. These traffic circles all run clockwise due to the fact that they drive on the other side of the road. The “middle class” neighborhoods contain homes that are all surrounded by walls – usually about 8-10’ high. Most of these walls have razor wire, barbed wire or some other deterrent to climbing along the top. The most common is one that I saw in Mexico several years ago – when the wall is built, empty glass bottles are put into the mortar at the top of the wall. The bottles are then broken, leaving a topping of jagged glass that would not be particularly comfortable when trying to put your hands on it.

Okay, back to the activities. Yesterday was basically the same as Monday, except we weren’t distributing food into Texas City. The teams were just venturing into the slum and talking to people, sharing the Lord. All of us Mzungus are getting much more comfortable with that – frankly we all had some difficulty with it. The people here, however, are also much more open to hearing about it. They’re much more open, much more hospitable than what we are used to in the US. We continue to see heartbreaking things. Branden encountered one family who had a boy perhaps 8 years old who had been in an accident. He had a compound fracture of his femur, and the family had no way to pay for surgery. If something isn’t done, the child will probably never walk again. The medical facilities here are limited, and most don’t have money to pay for what they do have.

But there were numerous people accepting Jesus Christ as their Savior. This is exciting, but I continue to believe that the really exciting thing is that the KIU students are committed to following up with these people. These students are on fire for the Lord!

An cool side note involves one of Lance’s sponsors. This person had given Lance some money, with the condition that he use it to help someone directly over there. Lance distributed the money to all of us and asked us to use our imaginations – and then tell him what they did with it afterwards. Sam, Katie and Alex encountered a woman who did not have the money to pay for her children’s (2 of them) school fees for the upcoming term. The three of them pooled their money and gave it to the woman who now has the money to pay for her kids’ schooling. At this point I’m planning on holding my assignment for Gulu, but we’ll see what happens.

In the afternoon we went to another high school and held an assembly. The venue was more roomy this time – basically a pole barn that serves as their “auditorium” and there were only about 50 kids in attendance. We were able to perform the Set Me Free drama (finally!) and the kids knocked it out. Erika and Cameron shared their stories and both did a wonderful job. Branden spoke with passion. And yet it was a very unresponsive group. I guess some days it works and some days it doesn’t. I am amazed at the growth I’m seeing in our kids, however.

One uncomfortable episode was at the end when one of the teachers or principal (not sure his position) from this particular school got up to speak. He apparently thinks Mzungus mean money and lots of it. He was being quite insistent that we come back to his school to build a chapel for them to enable them to provide guidance and counseling to the students. Before we leave. Pastor Kennedy explained to me that there are some over here who have this image that if a white person comes they have unlimited resources and time, that all they have to do is ask and it will happen. While his school would be condemned in the US, it was actually quite nice and spacious for the standards over here. It may sound a bit callous, but I know that I can think of many other things that need to be addressed before building a chapel for his school.

Let’s see, we’ve also discovered that these folks refer to the scourge of the earth as “squitos”. They leave off the “mo”. Apparently they think of malaria pretty much like we think of the flu or bad colds – it is just something you live with. You get it, you go to the doctor and you get through it. Sometimes you don’t. Malaria is the number 2 killer behind AIDS over here.

Speaking of AIDS, I continue to wonder why I don’t hear it discussed. It is not nearly as big of a topic of conversation over here as it is in the US, and the damage from it over here is so vast. The only times I’ve heard the topic discussed has been moments when I’ve brought it up.

This one is a little abbreviated - at least in comparison to some. I didn't manage to snag anyone else to write anything last night, and I was dealing with a little exhaustion. Since I'm posting this at 5:10 pm local time, however, I can tell you that I'll have quite a bit to say tomorrow. The first visit to a school this morning was... interesting. How's that for a trailer?