So, here’s my first entry about Uganda. I went there with a group from the Church of God in Western Canada. So there were people from a few parts of Alberta and a couple of parts of BC there. Three people from Ontario showed up later. (I actually found out I’m sort of related to Carroll, one of the Ontario people. She’s my mom’s cousin’s husband’s cousin. We German Canadians have ways of figuring these things out.)
The main reason we were there was to do construction on a dorm building at the Church of God headquarters in Kampala, Uganda (the capital city). So we laid bricks and mortar for several days. These were big, cinder-block-style bricks. (If you want to see pictures before and after, check out my photo page using the links on the right side of the main page of this blog. Go to the Uganda album. Picture number 1274 shows the building when we arrived, number 1410 shows it when we finished working on it, and number 1736 shows it after some other people worked on it.) We also went to a smaller village called Kasaroza in the southwest. There, we attended a church building dedication, played with the kids, walked to the top of a big hill where we could see Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which, ironically, isn’t democratic), and painted a couple of buildings. After we left Kasaroza, we spent a couple of days in Queen Elizabeth National Park seeing wildlife, and we went white water rafting on the Nile one day.
I didn’t personally know any of the people in this group before the trip started. I’d seen and heard of the group leaders (Stan and Marion Hoffman) and a few other people, but I didn’t know them personally. When we arrived in Uganda, we stayed at the home of Tim and Colleen Stevenson, two missionaries who I had also seen and heard of before, but again, I didn’t know them personally. But there was one person living in Uganda that I knew before I went there—Glenna Phippen. She’s a missionary from the church I go to. She’s a friend of my parents, so I’ve known her all my life, and in 2004, she went to Uganda as a missionary. This was the first time I’d seen her since then.
Although I didn’t know most of the people at first, it didn’t take too long to get to know them. We’d sometimes sit close together on the plane (depending on what seats we were assigned), we’d work together all day, eat together, hang out together in the evenings, and ride the matatus (taxi vans) together. So we had many chances to discuss just about everything, from theological issues and politics to relationships and sports. (Yes, this was during the Oilers’ amazing playoff run. We checked scores online quite regularly, and we even got back to Canada early enough to see the last five games.)
One thing I liked about this trip that my previous short-term missions experiences were missing was that I was already acquainted with this ministry beforehand. The Hoffmans are semi-retired missionaries who I’ve been hearing about all my life. They actually got the Church of God in Uganda restarted after a brutal dictator got defeated. I’ve been hearing about the Stevensons for many years too. And for the last couple of years, someone I actually knew has been a missionary in Uganda. And now I get to see the fruits of their labour and contribute a bit to the continuing work there. The Church of God has grown from one church to about 549 churches since the early 1980s, and I could see how effective they are at providing education, health care, and other forms of help there.
I also saw some of the joy that people seem to get when they get into a real, loving relationship with God, rather than just performing a bunch of rituals. Overall, I’d say the good effects of Christianity are quite a bit more visible in Uganda than at home in Canada. I suppose it could be because I was around Christians all the time there and didn’t pay much attention to the media, so I didn’t hear as many complaints about Christianity as I sometimes hear in Canada. But I think there’s more to it than that. But that could be a topic for a future blog post where I go on a rant about religion.
(I know I’ve only been talking about the Church of God and I’ve been ignoring other denominations. I am sure many other denominations are making a significant difference in Uganda too, but since I spent all my time in Uganda with the Church of God, I just don’t have much to say about these other denominations here.)
I’m planning to post more stuff later. Today I’ve given you an overview of my experience, but I would like to tell you some stories about people I met and other interesting experiences. So keep checking back at this blog.
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