Overwhelmed by Gratefullness

7-28-13

The people of Kachungwa really know how to show how grateful they are for Gods' blessings!

We drove from Adonai House to Mubende, which is a bigger town than I expected. It's bigger than Canby, but a tiny dot on the map. The Town View Hotel lives up to it's name! It has a courtyard, an eating place, and lots of stairs to drag your suitcases up. I'm glad the stairs are pretty symmetrical at least!

After dropping off our luggage, we went straight out to Kachungwa. The drive is about 45 minutes from the hotel. It is located off the main paved road, off the main dirt road, and off the secondary, etc., etc. dirt roads. There are signs posted for all the schools here, and at the "Grace Christian School" sign, we were greeted by so many singing kids in green uniforms. It was pretty overwhelming! They all wanted to touch us through the windows as they ran straight through bushes with the bus until we reached the school grounds. It was a very festival atmosphere and mothers were ululating while the kids cheered.

The school buildings are near the top of a hill and look small on the outside, but the classrooms are actually close to our classroom sizes. There is a new building being built between the two school wings and the church, which will eventually be a pre-school/nursery/early education building, but it has no roof yet. I think everyone eventually found their sponsored children and we all hugged pretty much every mother/grandmother there. They are so sweet! I was immediately given a pink bead necklace and earrings by a mother upon exiting the bus.

We had introductions, ate a lunch, received a report on the school with goals for the future. There are over 500 kids at the school now. I don't know how they fit them all into about 7 classrooms. There was a fun surprise Birthday celebration for Shari, set up by Alex. She was so embarrassed!

After that was some time to visit more. One of my girls pulled me around the campus showing me the swings and trying to introduce me to some of her 18 relatives. This was difficult since they speak quietly, the music from the church was blaring, and she writes better English than she speaks it.

I got to have a quick discussion with a P-6 teacher as we were leaving. Didas Twine (twin-ay, not the string) took my hand and we talked about the school year. He also asked me about our nights. He explained that they have 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. He wanted to know how our nights changed length. He seems very intelligent and (I think) understood right away. That was fun! I never thought I'd teach a teacher something. I hope we can have other conversations.

Please pray for a few things here. It is very dry and the only reason they have water right now is because of the rain catching tank that was installed. There is also a banana blight going around and that is a staple. Sunday we start preaching/teaching. Please pray for the Holy Spirit to intercede and cause real understanding from us and them. We are doing a parenting class as well...enough said!

Love in Christ, Danelle Chase