Uganda 2014; Day 4

Today is Sunday! I cant believe it! When we arrived at Saints Gate Church our group split into 5 or 6 teams and went to lead at other churches. My group consisted of Algena, Sarah, Joe, and I. We went to a church near where the Destiny Orphanage is located. We will be there tomorrow. Joe gave the message for the service and us girls did City Kids service. On the drive up to the church, we learned that all of us were going to give our testimony. I thought of one idea and then another as a back up. When we arrived we walked down a little alley way to the church. They were already in the middle of singing and had us sit in the front on these nice chairs covered with lace. Then the brought us cold bottles of water. The choir came up and sang. It was so beautiful! When they invited us on the stage they called us angels. I was the last to give my testimony. When I was done with my little intro I completely forgot what I was planning to say. I felt so silly. I looked behind me at my team and Joe said to tell them a blessing that God had done for me. I decided to tell them about how God provided me that chance and money to come to Uganda. I told them that I pray that they will have that much faith and more in God with their lives.

Next Joe started his message and us girls went into the small alley with all the kids. We danced to two songs and sang them with the kids. We kinda forgot the words to parts of it so we just made it up. It was crazy because us three leaders were pressed close to the side of the church and the kids were close to us as well with very little passing room behind them for people walking by. We gave them some rules after we prayed and the had them do an offering, but not an offering of money. It was an offering of hugs, kisses, smiles, and high fives. After the offering we could not do the game we planned. The game was two bags of articles of clothing they would run to, put on, then run to the next team member and take them back off. So, since we had the product we put the silly glasses and hat on the kids and took pictures to show them. While Algena and I did this, Sarah did face painting. We took pictures of their face painting to show them as well. Dressing up became boring to them so I kept taking pictures of the paintings and Algena gave a message about David and Goliath. The kids were so well behaved. They sat there and listened while also rotating through the painting line. We were so impressed with them. Even the big kids helped the little ones through the line and sometimes even held the little ones face still. When Algena finished with the sermon she also did an alter call. Almost all the kids raised their hands to ask Jesus into their lives. God is so good!

By the time we got back to Saints Gate Church in Katwe, the rest of the team had gone to the mission house without us. Our driver was nice enough to take us there. I was pretty hungry by this point and was thankful for the wonderful meal mama Esther made us. We had to head right back to Saints Gates Church not long after for service. The two people on stage were talking about keeping virginity and how it is better to wait and have one spouse. I agreed with everything the said. At one point while they were talking about virginity and sex I leaned over to Ben and said that we would never hear anything like this at our church services. The worship team did so good. The Ugandans even knew some of the songs. Actually when they sang the first couple words of one song they all cheered because they love it. There were three speakers, Hannah, JB, and Heather. They did good! I feel like they kept everyones attention well. While Heather was speaking I kept thinking that she could speak at a big conference because she was doing so well. She also did an alter call and had a bunch of people come up. For the last song Sarah (Lead singer not JB’s) had some of the kids come up and we were jumping and dancing with them while praising God. It was an amazing experience and defiantly in the run for my favorite part of the day.