Gulu

Yesterday was a day filled with many new adventures.
We were up at 4:30 AM as we were traveling to Gulu in the northern part of Uganda and needed to get an early start. We picked up one of Greg’s colleagues around 5:30 and got started on our long journey with five of us packed into our little Rav 4.
The road to Gulu is not great anywhere, but there are parts that are absolutely horrible- one can barely even call it a road at times. It certainly has deteriorated greatly in the last year since our last journey up that road.
On arriving in Gulu, Greg’s colleague took us on a tour of the school he attended as a young man- an all boy’s boarding school that houses 1250 young men. Thanks to some government grants and Invisible Children’s Schools for Schools program, the school is getting some much needed work done, including a new metal roof. We learned that during the insurgency in Northern Uganda, boys were kidnapped from this school by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Fortunately, all the boys that were taken from this school returned alive-  they are very thankful for this, as it was not the usual outcome.
On arrival in Gulu town, we went for lunch to a restaurant that serves some of the local cuisine. Greg and Mike played it safe having chicken and beef with fries. Lorenda and Tanya were a little more adventurous and had their first taste of goat meat. It was good- didn’t really taste much different than beef.
Next we were off to Laminadera, the Watoto children’s village in northern Uganda. The major people group in the north is the Acholi tribe. I talked in an earlier post about the two Acholi nannies from the babies’ home who described the Acholi as loud people who love to sing and dance and have fun. As we arrived at Laminadera, the moms and at least one (maybe more) community women welcomed us with amazing dance numbers. We had the opportunity to chat with Mama Christine who is the Watoto mom for Richard, the boy that we sponsor. She remembered us from last year and was glad to see us. She is such an incredible woman who has been through so much in her life, but loves the Lord with all her heart and has the huge smile on her face to prove it. We were then treated to lunch in one of the homes (because we weren’t full enough having just eaten). The deacons and maintenance teams (including Greg and Mike) then went to look at the new buildings in the village. Lorenda and Tanya then set out to find Raphael (our Watoto “grandson”)- he is sponsored by our oldest daughter and her family.  Lorenda had a great idea to have Raphael meet our grandson “face to face” via Face time. Our internet is via a mobile modem and the package is called Internet Everywhere. Well, it seems Orange (our internet provider) has been lying to us- there is not internet everywhere, there is no internet at Laminadera! Tanya took several pictures and video of Raphael to take home to Canada, but it sure would have been great if the two of them could have met “face to face”.
Prior to leaving Laminadera, we went and checked out the classroom that we built a year ago. Children are now able to stay in this village for high school and Watoto now has the ability to accept children from the community to attend their schools. There is still much to be done in Laminadera village- only half the needed children’s homes have been constructed. If you or your church is looking for a missions project, please consider and pray about the possibility of putting together a build team to help raise future leaders in Uganda. Go on the website www.watoto.com and check it out.
After driving through a Gulu rainstorm ie flashflood, we arrived at Watoto Church in Gulu and celebrated with our brothers and sisters there.
Then it was back to the guesthouse to meet our friends who work there. The staff is almost all the same as last year and remembered us from our visit just over a year ago. George was especially excited to see Greg and was disappointed to know we were only staying for one night. By 9:00 we were all in bed- exhausted from our long day.