11 On Safari

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

Happy Easter from all of us,


The beginning of this week we said goodbye to Chris Ashton after his week long stay with us. He had had brought with him a glimpse of home and lots of fun including trying to kick the rugby ball clear over the house and his own brand of volleyball. He certainly helped us to be reminded of all the cultural differences that make Uganda so interesting which we had become almost used to. He helped us to see life in Kampala with fresh eyes again and was very refreshing to have him around. We spent the Monday at the edge of Lake Victoria in Entebbe’s stunning botanical gardens and the world most laid back bench. We left him at the airport, which was strange to be back at exactly halfway through our trip.

This week the work in schools is progressing further with bible clubs and prayer meetings in the schools starting to gain momentum. Guys from Kiti and Glory are organising both netball and football inter school matches for later in the term. John has become quite the strict coach and has spent days selecting a fit and capable squad. Teaching is going well. Kiti had an Irish group from fields of life came to Kiti during the week. The guys found it very strange to have other white people at their school leading activities with the children. Also Col/President Gadaffi visited town this week from Libya to open the new mosque in Kampala which looms over the landscape a top of one of Kampala’s hills. The journey into school for the children’s corner guys was different as many roads were closed we had to get a taxi into Kampala then walk through the closed streets, due to Gaddaffi giving a public address. It took over two hours instead of the usual 45 minutes into school. The streets were filled with eerily silent Muslims flocking to hear the address, very strange to see Kampala like that.

Easter weekend has been a change from the usual celebrations any of us have. After a change of plan we made a seven hour journey to Queen Elizabeth national park. Seeing the landscape change dramatically to flat expanses in contrast to Kampala’s rolling hills. The weekend has been a great one; we made several game drives around seeing hippos, Ugandan Kob, warthogs Hyenas, water buck buffalo and even a female lion munching on an unfortunate kob. We also saw elephants from a distance. On Saturday we also had a boat trip down a channel between Lake Albert and Lake George. There we saw large schools of Hippo and even catching a few yawning. We also say a few Nile crocodiles and buffalo herds along with these really funky little pied king fishers. Lunch was interrupted by about forty mongooses running riot in the restaurant. All in all it was a great trip even with the rather confined sleeping quarters, tents. Listening to the wildlife around us including the odd hyena was great. I did have a close call almost walking into a rather large spider in the dark luckily I shone a torch in that direction t reveal the huge web and arachnid I was about to plant my face into!

Prayer requests this week. Further progress in all the little projects taking place in each school. Like the teacher prayer meetings at Kiti and the painting at Children’s corner. Also I would ask for a prayer for patience when our plans at the schools do not happen as we would hope and that we would not get frustrated when we are unable to see much progress. I think one main prayer point is that as we start to look into the latter weeks that the time left here would be spent wisely we will be able to start to see great progress in all that we are involved with out here. We would like to thank again all who are praying for us whilst we are out here.

Sorry this is quite abrupt it has been a very busy weekend but hopefully you have a flavour of the past week.

God Bless,

Tom