As John Grisham says...

Much to my amusement, life seems to be moving in two different directions. On the one hand, lots of things about this place seem highly familiar now. I can navigate the hallways in the pitch back (which is handy when power cuts hit at weird and wonderful times) and can even give some directions to places in town these days. At the same time, life gets increasingly varied and different. At the root of the second thing is that I’m decreasing the number of general jobs that I partake in, letting Rose and Joan have more of the fun. Part of this is due to the oft-promised efficiency savings that come from knowing a few tricks on Excel which have meant there’s less to go around (in a good way) and some is because the backlog of jobs that had provided for a rainy day (where work dried up) is starting to disappear. All this is a long way of saying that I’ve been doing lots of different things this week. Lots of them have been fun; lots of them have been tiring.

Joshua (on the left) has moved from crying when seeing me, through smiling
and now on to the apparent boredom. I've obviously settled.

Wednesday came along with the interview candidates. One was a little too keen and turned up 4 hours early (she got the job, but it wasn’t due to this overwhelming keenness (we told her today and I’m sure I was more excited about telling her than she was about hearing!)). I quite enjoyed my first experience in recruitment. I got to ask the personal questions and was astounded at what one could get away with asking in countries where the law on discrimination in employment is still developing. Remembering what it’s like to be interviewed and looking ahead to future ones of my own, I adopted a sweet and friendly demeanour. Pulling this off took quite a bit of concentration so I promptly forgot several of the questions I was supposed to ask; thankfully, the team (aren’t teams great) came back to the important ones later. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the Ugandans adopted a slightly less polite approach (not that the candidates seemed to expect anything different). I winced a few times at the absence of niceties and the fact that people didn’t make use of pleasant understatement but was left wondering if my determination to be nice had actually amounted to a confusing pile of words that no one else quite understood. Oh subtle (or not) different uses of the same language, what a joy.

Thursday was supposed to be my day at the bank filling out forms and I did indeed spend nearly two hours there. The low point of this was sitting on the other side of the desk waiting for one of the staff who was caught up watching a soap on the tv to make eye contact with me. Again, it might be that politeness was a little unproductive. Much of the rest of the day was spent in pursuit of the bits and bobs they hadn’t previously told me I’d need to gather, but in fairness it wasn’t the drag I thought it might turn out to be.

Friday was a real break from the usual as I went with Aunt Bex (a previous administrator at the Hospice) to see the project she now runs with her husband. We went to the school and I got to see the progress on the 2^nd and 3^rd floors as well as interrupt every lesson that was going on at the time.

The school yard

 Child of Hope works in the largest slum in the town which is located about a 15 minute walk from my house. Despite this, I’d never been there until now. The slum is predominantly round mud huts, like they have out in the village, into which up to 10 people are often squashed. Many of the people who live in the slum have left their tribal areas due to violence and have come to the edges of the town, hoping for work that often did not materialise. It was really challenging to walk through these areas, often marred by alcoholism and violence, and hear the stories of some of the families. One could see that, without Child of Hope, the vast majority of the children at the school would have no options open to them and would have either sat at home or been sent to town to ‘pick’ (collect things that may be of value from the street or just to beg). To see the joy in the faces of the mothers of some of the kids who have been given a place at the school was a powerful thing. The school aims to take a child from each family in the nearest two of the six parts of the slum and ensure that their educational, physical and emotional needs are met. It does so in an explicitly Christian way, but does not discriminate against religion (or tribe which can be a greater source of tension among these displaced groups). I could talk for much much longer about it all, but it was a really interesting and challenging morning.

We had guests from Kampala staying for lots of last week which was nice as it added some noise and hubbub to the place, plus we had some great food! Saturday was their last full day so we went on a trip to Sipi falls (yup, again. I did try not to duplicate photos, but who knows!). We also went with some of the guys from town so I got to drive quite a full Land Cruiser up and down quite a steep road. It was good times. I remembered a coat this time so avoided some of the soaking!

All of the Sipi Falls

 

Finally Sunday! In theory, the service in Malera was to start at 8 so we were to set off at the outrageous time of 6:10. A few delays pushed that back to 6:30, but we still arrived, ready to rumble, at 7:55. Of course, the meeting didn’t start until 9:30; still, be had tea and gnuts (peanuts) whilst we were waiting so it wasn’t all bad. After a few songs and creeds, it was my turn. I spoke on the parable of the Unmerciful Servant (always a cheerful message), stressing the implicit gospel at the start and the impossibly high standards of forgiveness that God calls us to after we have received impossible forgiveness from Him. I really enjoyed the opportunity and did most of it without complication (I found the interpreter gave me time to think, that and some suitably dramatic pauses). However, I realised I didn’t know how to summarise the message or deliver it as a personal challenge/invitation. Thankfully, Charles (a trainee Rev responsible for the youth in the diocese) stepped in and caped it off with three minutes in Itesot that I didn’t understand; then some people responded to become Christians which is always cool. Brilliantly, three of the five were pensioners who’d clearly been in the church for a long long time. One was even the leader of the choir! All in all, it was a great learning opportunity; good to see which bits I’ve still got to learn!

There are some benefits to being up at 6

 Not too sure what this week will hold. I’m trying to chase some funding for the Hospice to finance long-held dreams of moving to a purpose built facility instead of the current converted bungalow which works but is far from ideal. Plus we’ve got someone coming to restart auditing the accounts which should be fun.

Amongst general prayer requests for guidance, wisdom, health and safety, it would be really helpful if people could pray for the Dr. She’s in the UK, but has fallen and hurt her back quite badly which threatens to derail some of the important things she needs to do whilst she’s back in the UK. Please pray that God’s plans will not be hindered or disrupted.