Uganda part 1

I have just arrived back from my first mission trip to Uganda, Africa.  I don't know where to start...it was amazing!  I will use this post to give a brief overview of the trip as a whole and then use the next couple of posts to look more specifically at the projects we were involved in.

On the 5th of October, James and myself joined two lovely people from Bolton and we flew out to Entebbe, Uganda together.  We had met Carla before as she works for PFJ (the group through which the trip was organised) and she preached at our church earlier this year.  We met Martin for the first time at the airport, he is a very nice guy with much knowledge - he's a builder/preacher/rubber expert....just try and find a topic he doesn't know about!
We left Carla's house in Bolton at 2.30am, headed to Manchester airport and after a change in Amsterdam then a quick stop in Rwanda we finally landed in Entebbe at about 11.20pm that night!  From there we drove about an hour to Kampala where we stayed with Mama Sarah who looks after orphans at Blessed Hill.

My first impressions on landing in Uganda included questions like "How can a place look so stunning even when it's pitch dark and I can hardly see anything?!"  and I was really taken aback by the smell!  It has a really strong smoky smell which you soon get used to but when I first stepped out the plane it gave me a real surprise.  It amused me that on our return journey I had gotten so used to it that I couldn't smell it any more until we arrived back in the UK and suddenly I became aware of it again and realised all my clothes (and myself!) were oozing of the scent.  I could still smell it in my hair after the first wash once back!  The humidity and heat were also incredible considering how late at night it was (definitely not Orkney temperatures!) and the noises were amazing...crickets and all sorts of creatures must have been hiding in every plant and tree!

Mama Sarah is a lovely lady, very gentle and kind.  She welcomed us into her house so warmly and looked after us very well.  It was a shame we didn't get to spend a huge amount of time with her as we soon headed on to Buwasunguyi where we spent most of the trip, but we did go to the new Blessed Hill site with her and she gave us a tour of the land.  They are building a new school on this land and it was great to see - they have pigs, chickens, goats, various fruit trees and vegetables which are being planted and will soon feed the children that will live there.  The building work was incredible and Martin was very impressed.  He said he will need to take his boys over to learn a thing or two from the Ugandans!

While the new Blessed Hill is being built, the children from this school have joined with a school next to Mama Sarah's in Kampala and we visited them with her.  They welcomed us by singing three songs and the teacher's played drums...it sounds ridiculous but it was so beautiful I really struggled not to cry!!  The children were really wonderful and they were so happy to see us.  We had passed on gifts for them from various people back in the UK including school uniforms, toys and letters and they were thrilled.  I really hope we get to visit them again, hopefully they will get to move into their new school in January and we will see them there.

Next we headed to Buwasunguyi (pronounced Bwa-sun-gooey), a village on Mount Elgon where we spent the rest of our trip.  James and I mainly painted school walls and played with and taught the local children.  We got to see the medical centre which helps 9000 people and on the Sunday we went to the church service.  Carla did some preaching and taught the women crochet and patchwork crafts which they will hopefully be able to sell to earn a little more money, and Martin visited other villages of Uganda where he preached and had Paster Michael as his guide.

Thanks to PFJ Ministries for the map.

 I will be going into a lot more detail about this place in the next few posts but if I had to give a quick summary about it I'd say this:  It is the most beautiful place I've ever been, with some of the most beautiful people I've ever met (inside and out!) and our trip to this area was the best thing I've ever done.