Friday, June 09, 2006


The rest of my brain arrived this morning (Wednesday) and I managed to make it through an entire day without fading into that state where your eyelids turn to lead and you receive unwanted visions in the middle of the afternoon.

Today (Wednesday) was a full one for the entire team. Kelli, Jenna, Courtney, Diana, and Andrea accompanied Spencer on a prayerwalk between the edge of the city and Bishop Stuart University and around the university campus where Spencer is seeking to disciple students. They climbed a high hill that overlooks the city and prayed for the kingdom of God to come fully in Mbarara.

Pamm went with Naboth and others on Words of Hope visits in the morning and is now teaching the women’s Bible study meeting in a large pavilion with a thatched roof on the campus of the University Inn.

Melinda worked with her Go and Make Disciples group, helping them learn to make greeting cards. Twenty-two of them produced eighty beautiful cards to be sold in the states. The people in this group are Christian believers who are living with HIV-AIDS. They work to help prevent the spread of the disease in the country. The sale of the cards will provide their group with some income to do their work and to minister.

Patrick and I continued to teach at the Pastors’ Conference, leading four sessions through the day. The pastors have been incredibly responsive to the experience. Aloyisius, a young pastor who leads a Runyankore-speaking congregation at UBC, translated one of the sessions for me. As we were talking through the material, preparing to teach, he asked: "Do you want to know what the men are saying about these sessions?" That’s a loaded question. "Sure," I said, "tell me."

"They are saying that these are very good and that they are very happy to be here and that they will take the things you and Patrick and Skip are teaching them back to their churches. They like this very much." That was good to hear.

Patrick and I went to lunch with Barry Wilks and two of his children, Jared (12?) and Sarah (10?). Sarah interviewed Patrick about space travel the entire time, asking really good questions. I learned a lot listening to his answers. She has a great future as a journalist.
At this moment Patrick is at Bishop Stuart University speaking to students. I wanted to be able to go hear him, but my last session at the pastors’ conference did not finish in time. Tonight he’ll be making that same presentation to the pastors, and all of us will go with him.


Tonight we expect the power to go off at 7:00 PM, for 24 hours. We have not yet had to deal with the planned power outage because a major trade show has been going on here in the city, and the power has been left on for several days in a row. Power will return at 7:00 PM tomorrow night.

That Wednesday’s report from Mbarara. More later, when power is back.

Addendum: Posting has been more challenging this year. I'll do the best I can. We have now (Friday morning) completed our first week with great success. We're on our way to visit a game park today and tomorrow. Sunday we'll be leading worship and beginning our university student conference in the evening. I'll probably not be posting again until Sunday or Monday. All are well, healthy, and still getting along.

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