From Jinja to Tororo

May 15, 2010

I woke up this morning to a beautiful breakfast of very sweet bread, bananas, pineapple, mangoes and fresh brown eggs. The fruit here is AMAZING! And most of the team is raving about the coffee. We left Jinja and our currently on the bus to Tororo. As soon as you leave "the city" everything looks like what I imagined Africa looking like. The landscape is scattered with one room huts and buildings that look unfinished. Everyone is outside working or sitting around talking. The kids yell "mazungo" - white person - as we drive by. Everyone stares, most wave. The cows are tied to the side of the street or wander freely. It's beautiful here, much greener than I expected. I definitely have seen the government at work here in Uganda, multiple soldiers and police, mostly carrying AK-47 type guns. Reminds me of the Invisible Children videos.

Our guest house was next to a secondary school. Primary --> Secondary --> College. School is very expensive. The kids wear uniforms. The boys wear shorts until they are mature enough for trousers.

We stopped at one of our National's, Moses', village. The kids were adorable and curious, especially about cameras. Afterward we headed to our hotel which is really nice! Jen and I are rooming together. I think we are warming up to each other and I cannot wait to get to know her more. She has been to Uganda once before, originally from England. She will be staying in Uganda when we leave to work with kids at a school. We had an overabundance of food again at lunch. I was pleasantly surprised to see sodas in glass bottles waiting for us...yay caffeine! :)

We than headed to the Rock Baptist Church for our "kick-off". We met our church planting team. It was awesome to see just how excited they were to get an Ecube. Tomorrow we will attend church at our mother church and than go to the church plant site and also around the surrounding village. The people in Uganda are so welcoming and willing to learn.

We headed back to the hotel and I think it's about to rain here, which I am excited about because I love the rain. It has been a pretty relaxing evening - dinner, ecube/discussion time, shower :). I did make a phone call out to Mom and Dad which was really nice. Tomorrow should be awesome going to our mother church to worship and than the guys are preaching at the service. We will have another relaxing day when we get back from out mother churches before we start our "in-field" evangelism. I am still feeling super jet lagged but I am hoping tonight's sleep catches me up a bit.