Our 7 New Residents!

We have 7 new residents at River of Life Church, and they are of the furry nature! Last week Jack the dog (named by one of our boys who obviously didn't bother to look at its bits and see what sex it was!) gave birth to 7 puppies. I now have 6 new bredrins and 1 new sistrin! Brap!





I may however be one of the only people that is excited about this as Uganda is certainly a country where the phrase "a mans best friend" would never be used of a dog, and animals are often not well looked after. this has therefore provided me with a great opportunity to try and teach our boys to treat animals with a bit of respect! So far a couple of the boys are doing a grand effort, feeding Jack so she can produce enough milk, keeping the puppies locked up in a store and protected from wild animals and even helping me build a kennel for them to sleep in.

we're not sure what we're going to do with them all yet, but I would like us to keep one and then give the rest to others who will look after them. Anyway, I haven't named them yet so once again the challenge is set down, 7 names are needed, so let me know your ideas!

The Wonders of Technology!

This last Saturday we had our very first River of Life Church Film Night!

We showed the film Coach Carter using the projector and our PA system in the front garden of the church which is right off the main road in Nyendo. It was a fantastic event and showed what a difference to our ministries a piece of equipment like a projector can make!

The night wasn't without a few technical hitches but this is Uganda so these things are part and parcel of life. The main problem we had was that the DVD player wouldn't play the DVD so Mukisa had to race off up to Bwala to get Duncan and Mary's DVD player. Finally however, it worked!

The best thing was that over 200 people came and watched, and after I gave a short evangelistic message. It has shown the potential of such film nights and we look forward to making it a monthly fixture.

All I can say is Brap Brap and serious respec' to those who helped me get that projector, God is going to use it big style!

The Best & Worst of Uganda!!!

Well, having been back in Uganda a few weeks now I have settled back into to the swing of things. Whilst it's wonderful to be back, there are the usual challenges that go with living here such as another spell without any water in Bwala (where i am staying at the moment) and the readjustment to the wonders of Ugandan timekeeping!

This last weekend was a classic example of both the best and worst of Uganda. It was the engagement party of Emily, one of the elders of the church, so a bunch of us squashed into a coaster and trundled off to Kampala for the day.

Where the best of Uganda comes out was in the traditional badboy Ugandan 3 piece band made up of a geeza banging an African drum, another playing the traditional Ugandan guitar and then a complete nutter going raggo on a one string Ugandan violin (see the photo). It was brap-ting, I'm tellin you, serious booty shaking sensations! Of course Emily was looking lovely and then we feasted on a wide range of the best of Ugandan cuisine! Lovely jubley!




HOWEVER....I also experienced the worst of Uganda this day in the form of the classic Ugandan timekeeping! Now River of Life Church is pretty good at time-keeping, unfortunately the rest of Uganda isn't. This meant that we arrived at 11:30am, half an hour before it was supposed to start and then proceeded to sit around for 3 and a half hours waiting for everbody else!! When it did finally start 3 hours late at 3pm, the whole thing was angonisingly slow. The PA kept on breaking down, there was some guy trying to pass the time by cracking jokes that were so crap I wanted to smack him and we didn't eat until about 6:30 (having not eaten anything all day!). I drifted off more than a few times! Finally we left having been there for almost 9 hours and drove back to Masaka. I was NOT amused!!



Thankfully, church was only 4 hours long the next day!!!