Uganda Thursday 6/19

Our second full day in Jinja started not exactly as planned.  Sometime during the middle of the night I was able to hear team member Les talking with his wife via Skype.  Upon waking up early in the morning, Les knocked on my door asking for some additional bottled water.  He had the African stomach junk and had been up all night getting sick.  Ugh!  We quickly got him started on the meds we carry for such an event.  Adam had additional meds for nausea and also gave Les those.  Unfortunaltely, my recommendation was that Les stay at the travel hotel for at least the morning to ensure a good recovery.  We would be able to check on him at lunchtime.  Our first "in country" bump in the road. 
The rest of us met for breakfast and after breakfast we headed back to the tree farm.  It's amazing how much the local men were able to accomplish in just one day.  We set to work carrying what they had cut from the previous day.  Pastor Andrew wanted to keep as much of the wood as possible for use as firewood at the school, so we stacked it in such a way that it would dry.  We noticed that in a few locations on the property there were sweet potatoes planted.  Pastor Andrew explained it was essentially what we would call "squatters" planting their crop on someone else's land.  He was able to talk with the locals and let them know that after they harvested this crop, the land would no longer be available because of the tree farm.  During this day of work, we encountered a few children who wanted to work alongside us. What a special treat for us!  There was a language barrier, so I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing they ranged in age from 5-11.  I posted a picture of them about 2 posts ago. 
We again left around lunch time.  We checked on Les back at the travel hotel and he was still "under the weather" so he decided to stay the afternoon in bed.  We drove to Bethel Junior School to have lunch and hang with the children.  As yesterday, lunch was awesome!  Below is a picture of the school kitchen and the cooks.  When I was growing up some of my favorite people were the school "lunch" ladies!  I have more favorite school lunch ladies now! 

Bethel Cooks

Bethel Kitchen

 

After lunch we returned to the Masese community to continue our conversation with the men.  Our focus was more on the role of the man as a husband and father.  This lead to some very interesting conversations.  At one point, a young man was presenting us with a hypothetical situation in which he didn't necessarily agree with or believe our Biblical response.  Kenny simply asked him if he was a Christian. His "no" response opened the door for our presentation of the Gospel.  I love how God works!  This lead to the best part of the day.  Jim presented the Gospel and at the end of the day we had 36 men pray with us to accept Jesus into their lives.  We learned later in the trip that many of these men attended church at Pastor Andrew's church the following Sunday.  None of them had done that before.  Please pray for these men that they continue to follow Jesus.  It was an awesome day, the day the Lord has made!