Uganda Recap: Day Ten

Today, I was ready to return home. But, thankfully, it was a better day of ministry. We took the older kids again and this time they were happier for our arrival than the others had been in the past two days. It was a nice change of pace and helped to keep our momentum going. We told stories, played games and sang songs. There was a distinct smell of urine in the field where we played. There were many babies here with no clothing on their bottoms. We watched one little guy sit in the dirt and pee on himself, a very sad thing to watch. Many children were coughing. I wondered how sick they were.

I had the chance to take lots of pictures of the children today. As soon as I took a picture of one, another wanted theirs taken, so I just kept snapping.

In the afternoon, Chad, Matt and I went hut-to-hut with Pastor Stephen. Some of the people we talked to were already Christians. One told us that she would be saved later and one younger boy refused to listen to the story.

While at the hut of the woman who said she would be saved later, we had our first taste of village food. Praise God it wasn't anything mysterious, but still, I wasn't excited about the fact that I had to eat it. When we arrived at this hut, the woman was shelling g-nuts. G-nuts are like our peanuts. They call them g-nuts because they are a ground nut. Makes sense, doesn't it? She had a large bowl sitting on the ground next to her and we asked if she would like to hear the greatest story ever told. She said yes. At that point, all I wanted to do was sit down, so I knelt on the ground. Well, let me tell you that if you ever go to Uganda, do not sit on the ground at someone's home. If they don't offer you a seat on a chair, bench or mat, it's because they don't have one for you. But whatever you do, don't sit in the dirt! As soon as I knelt down, the woman flew up, flailing her arms around. Yikes! I had forgotten about their custom. She ran inside and came back out with a mat for me to sit on. "I won't make that mistake again", I thought to myself. As Matt started to share the story, the woman gave me a handful of g-nuts. My heart sank because I knew that I had to eat the entire handful. Selfish. Instead of my first thought being about how this woman was sharing her food with us, I thought about myself. Instead of thinking about how poor this woman is, and the fact that she doesn't have much to eat, yet here she is, handing us heaping piles of nuts, I wondered if I would get sick. I waited for a moment and glanced at Matt who shot back a look asking "are you really going to eat those?" I was trying to wait it out, hoping she would hand some to the others. She did. She handed Chad some g-nuts and so we both ate what we were given. I did not care for them. I don't care for raw peanuts here. I definitely don't like raw g-nuts in Africa. I tried to eat slowly, but she handed me a second helping. She gave three to to Chad. On our way out, she handed Matt some from her bowl. He thought he was going to get away with not having to eat them. At least it wasn't a mysterious meat, right?

We left the village at 4:30 because we had a long drive back to the guesthouse. But before our team left, the pastor of the village asked us all to come into the church building to express his gratitude for us coming to teach his people.