The thief has come...

We have just completed day 3 here in Uganda.   Today started out with our team excited about what God had planned for us today.  We left the hotel early to visit the village of Pugwini to check on the progress of this village to see how it has grown since the last team was there.  Pugwini is about 10 minutes past Lagutu.  The road from our hotel to Lagutu is a dirt road and although it is only about 10 miles from our hotel, it can take at least 30 minutes to get there.  Shortly after passing Lagutu, we encountered a problem with the road.  The water had washed out a portion of the road and it appeared that it was impassable.  But after surveying the situation, Robert, one of the SOI leaders and Wilfred, our bus driver decided we could make it across, but we needed to make one final adjustment before we attempted to cross the water.   Scott, our video guy, decided he wanted to film this adventure and mounted a small camera on the front of the bus.  With camera in place, Wilfred took off and after spinning wheels, we made it across and on to Pugwini.  Upon arriving at Pugwini, we were greeted by many people who love to see the white people.  We had a tour of the village as well as the piggery and one of the huts.  As we headed back to Lagutu, we were met by even more people along the narrow path from the main road.  Pugwini is growing and now has their own well and their piggery has many pigs and piglets.  Once we arrived back at Lagutu, we started working on the project of making cement for the floor.  Yesterday we completed one section of the building and today we were working on another section.   The process of making cement is very interesting as you have to mix 4 wheel barrels of sifted clay, 8 wheel barrels of sand, 20 wheel barrels of crushed stone (that is the really hard part of the job) and 4 wheel barrels of cement.  You mix it all together several times then add water and mix.  Now the real fun begins as you shovel the mixed wet cement into wheel barrels and deliver them to the area of the church being cemented.  You need to do this quickly as the cement starts to harden.  With a system in place, we built teams to move the cement and the whole process start to finish was under two hours.  After that job was done, we broke up into smaller groups and did home visits in the village.  Pastor Jeff, Aaron and I went together with Robert, an SOI staff member and had the opportunity to meet people and pray for them.  This was an awesome time as we met an older man and his wife who had given the land for the Lagutu project.  They had spent 20 years in concentration camp and lost all of their sons.  The visits were moving as we got to see how they lived and survive on so little.  This is a life changing experience when you realize how little they have but how much to rely on God.  After the home visits, we were entertained by some of the youth of the village with powerful skits, music and dance.  We also were entertained by the ladies of the village doing their customary singing and dance.  Aloysius, an SOI staff member and leader in this area then had a chance to ask people if they wanted to accept the Lord and two ladies came forward.  Did I mention that there were over 200 people and many of them walked miles to be there.  Next came the soccer game between the LifePoint/SOI team and the local young men’s team.   Under the superb leadership of coach Aaron, the LifePoint/SOI team had the game tied at 1-1 with 10 seconds left, only to lose on a great shot as the game ended.  We felt proud that we held it that close.  After all, they were wearing the new uniforms that we gave them the day before.  You would have thought that they would let us win.  The game was a great distraction from what these people deal with every day and we were glad we could be a part of ministering to them though sports.  We returned to our hotel and shared a great steak dinner. (Aaron had thirds even) After dinner we experienced a small piece of what it means to have the thief try to come in and steal our joy… details on that to come later. We claimed John 10:10, “The thief has only come to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”.  The thief was trying to steal the joy that we had and all that we saw as good today and wanted us to focus on what happened to us rather than the good that we were able to do.  Our night finished with a time of praising God for all that He has done on this trip.  Tomorrow will be an awesome Sunday as Pastor Jeff will be preaching the word at Lagutu.  Our service time will be 9:00 Uganda time which is 1:00 AM your time.    Thank you for your continued prayers.   You may not be here but knowing that you read this blog each day is an encouragement to us.  Please take time to post comments as words of encouragement from you helps lift us up each day.

George