rarely a dull moment...

This little girl's name is Mary. She is the daughter of one of the teachers at the Kibbuse school named Madam Olivia. I love her.

I'm playing a little catch-up on the ol' blog, so bear with me here...

NOV 17

Today turned into quite the interesting day...

We took two truckfuls of people to Kikumoro for a Bible study training seminar. And when I say "truckfuls", I mean like 7 people in the cab made for 5 people and 11-12 people sitting in the bed of the truck. It was basically a seminar training people on the basics of how to lead a small group Bible study. It was a good training, but what was NOT so good was when it got to be noon, then 1:00, then 2:00, then 3:00...and no lunch. The seminar ended and we soon found out that the seminar leaders had requested us to have lunch at 1:00 but the hosts didn't even go to buy the food until 1:00. So we were served "lunch" when the seminar ended at 4:00.

Matt, Amy, and I were taken into the church reverend's home for lunch and after eating, Bob and Brenda left to take the first truckload of people back. We stayed in the house to talk with people a little more and eventually decided to go back out because we knew the truck would soon be back for the second load. And when we walked outside, we saw no one - no teachers, no students...no one from Kibbuse. We couldn't imagine where any of them would've gone.

So we walked into town, found no one, walked back to the church and waited...and waited...and waited. No one. And of course our cell phone were getting no coverage in that area so we couldn't call anyone. We had waited for a good couple of hours with no sign of anyone from our village. I'm not gonna lie...I started getting a little worried. Especially when it started getting dark. We decided to walk back into town to try and find a phone. While standing in the middle of town trying to get through to someone, we turned and saw that blessed red truck coming down the street with a bed full of people. We were quite happy to see them, needless to say.

But the excitement of the evening wasn't over.

It had rained hard that afternoon, so the roads were awful. The first stuck car we came across forced us to go completely off the side of the road to where we were almost completely on our side. Matt said if we'd driven another 6 inches, we would've tipped over. It forced everyone in the back to jump out of the truck.

Toward the last half of the drive, we found ourselves face-to-face with a big truck that had gotten stuck. Once again, everyone had to jump out and we had to try numerous "routes" of getting around that thing. We were halfway in the ditch with the other half in the grass and bushes (on a steep hill at that).

Needless to say, there were plenty of cheers and applause when we got on the other side of that truck. Something I've noticed: with all of the uncomfortable, annoying, frustrating, and difficult situations we've found ourselves in, you never hear any of the Ugandans complain or gripe. They typically just laugh their way through it all. Amazing the way it changes a situation.

NOV 18

We had to get up early this morning, because it's off to Mbale we go!...one end of the country to the other.

We left Nyamarwa at around 7:30 AM and headed to a nearby town with Bob and James. On the way, we stopped to pick up this little boy who James was taking to the hospital in Kampala. Apparently this little boy has been having eye problems (bad vision, itching, watering) for the past year or two and none of the local physicians have been able to figure out what's wrong. I fell in love with this little boy almost immediately. I don't think we got a word out of him the entire day, but we did catch a couple of smiles. He was perfectly well behaved and had the sweetest eyes. I'm anxious to hear what the doctors said.

We arrived at Mityana (Bob's stopping place) and the rest of us boarded a taxi to Kampala. Taxis here are not like taxis in the states. Taxis are like these mini vans that are supposed to seat around 15 but we crowded at least 17 in. They're known to be quite a wild ride, but our driver took it easy on us.

When we got to Kampala, all chaos ensued. It was worse than the first day when we came. It was just this massive mangled mess of vehicles, bicycles, motorcycles, and people all over the streets. There was no order whatsoever. And we got stuck in a jam where literally people were just turning off their cars in the middle of the street waiting to move. It was hot, loud, and I was ready to get out of there.

We eventually made it to our car rental place where we had a car and a driver ready to take us the rest of the way to Mbale. We dropped the little boy and Rev James off at the doctor, grabbed a DELICIOUS lunch at Java's (had some good ol' American food...) and then took off on the 3 hour voyage to Mbale.

We arrived at our hotel in Mbale right around the time it was getting dark. We were ecstatic to find that our hotel has hot water...I'm about to take the longest hot shower of my life....