Uganda 2008

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers and support. We had a great trip to Uganda. I thought I would create this blog to give everyone a report on the trip all at once! So, here are some of our favorite moments and stories from the trip, unfortunately it is all in reverse order, I am still learning how to lay out this blog...

A Couple Other Highlights

- My mom's oncologist was our team doctor. I had never met him before the trip and he was so amazing. His life was completely transformed by the trip and he re-dedicated his life to Jesus.
- I have never eaten so many starches and carbs in my whole life! Lunch was always pb&J, dinner was usually pineapple (delicious!), with rice, beans, potatoes, plain pasta, something fried, a meat, and if we were really lucky- a vegetable! There was lots of food, but not much variety.
- Micah spoke briefly at a Ugandan Pentacostal church the day we were flying back to America.
- We rode a Boda Boda together- a Ugandan taxi which is really just a motorcycle.
- Our hotel in Jinja was right on Lake Victoria.
- Our first day of ministry we took a boat across the river to a prison to do medical and drama outreach for the prisoners. After the drama, I offered to go with two shy missionaries to pray with someone who had come forward to receive Christ. They both came to me later on their own to say, "thank you" as it was their first time to ever pray with anyone.
- We stopped in NYC on the way there and back. It was our first time there together and we got to see the new 14 Tony Award Winning Broadway play, In The Heights. It was GREAT! (thanks Pam!)

Micah

This was a different trip for Micah than years previous. He was less in day to day ministry with the teams since we were project directors, as he had to be more focused on making sure the missionaries were taken care of. One of my favorite pictures though is when we did go door to door in a village in Masaka. We were invited into a young man's home and Micah was able to pray with him to recieve Jesus in his life for the first time. This was one of many personal ministry opportunities Micah and I had, even though it was fewer for him directly than years previous. That seemed disheartening at times, but God spoke to Micah abot this. Most evenings, we would have a service with just the missionaries or our contacts and us. We would often open up the floor for anyone that wanted to share a story or experience of theirs from the trip. It was frustrating at times as we didn't always feel we had these incredible stories to share as we weren't as involved with all the Ugandan people at every moment as some of the other missionaries. Then, during our final evening meeting while people were sharing their testimonies, God spoke to Micah and told him that all the stories the missionaries had told us as a group, Micah had a part in all of those moments. So, in a way, Micah was able to accomplish alot more this trip than he had in any of the years previous.

White Water Rafting the Nile and a Safari

We were so lucky to have two incredible free days while in Uganda. Half way through the trip we had the option of white-water rafting the Nile River. It was so amazing just to be on and in the Nile, but then to raft it was incredible! While floating we would see village children playing or out washing their laundry, people fishing, monkeys, eagles, and a cobra, and of course class 1-5 rapids (equivalent of class 2-6 in America) I, Cheryl, was flipped out three times and was completely terrified the first time. Everyone had the option of whether or not to go on the very last rapid, The Bad Place, you get out and walk over to look at it. Micah and I decided to go for it and go down the toughest path. We were thrown pretty quickly from the boat, and I lost track of how many times the water sucked me down into a whirlpool of water, or a wall of water just crushed me. Fortunately our guide told me to count to 10 each time so that I wouln't panic as the rapids would keep you under-water for about that long before shooting you up and then back down again. It was crazy, fun, rough, but I think we would both do it again in a heart-beat.
Our second free day was the last day full day in the country. We went to Lake Mbura National Park on a mini-safari. We saw tons of Zebra everywhere, a hippopotomus as it was getting out of a mud hole, impala, baboons, monkeys, mongoose, wild boar, water buffalo, Crested Crane, and half our team also saw a leopard. Unfortunately, Micah and I missed spotting the leopard. It was really amazing to see all of those animals in the wild.

John

This is my (Cheryl) personal favorite story from the trip as it was the heartstring pull for me in Uganda. I went out with the Outreach team one day (the other teams were medical, construction and orphanage), and we had gathered children who live on the streets to do a craft with them (paint a new t-shirt) and feed them. While there I saw a little boy off to the side with one of our team members; he had an injured foot and could not play with the others. When I saw the injury I decided I would take him to our medical team right away as his toe was completely split open. While our medical team was working on his foot, we talked with him and learned his story. John Simpija is 11 years old, he has never been to school, his father died when he was young, his sisters were significantly older than him and lived a few hours away, and his step-mom didn't care for him, in fact she had tortured him. So, John ran away and was living on the streets, spending his days stealing, fighting or communing with other street children. I was told due to his injury and infection that if he did not get a tetanus shot and take the antibiotics we had just given him that his infection could spread to his blood stream and he would die. Without shoes, only dirt roads, no clean water, and the likely chance he would lose or sell his antibiotics, I knew that by taking him back and dropping him off where we found him that it was a death sentence for him. I just couldn't leave him. If I could have taken him back to Tulsa with me, I would have as I knew he needed some sort of intervention to save his life. I know this sounds dramatic, but I just knew that was the case for this boy. Through tears I just prayed that somehow I could save him, I volunteered to God that I would take him in. However, one of the local pastors we work with, his wife, Queen Betty, was interpreting for our medical team that day. She heard his story and offered to take him in to her own home with her other children and one other child they had already taken in a few years ago. I made it back to the outreach team only to find there were two other boys with serious foot wounds as well (also no shoes). I took them to our medical team, and the story was repeated. They had horrible up-bringings, beaten, abused, one was living with a prostitute so they all turned to the streets. Queen Betty offered to take in all three of these children, however only two would go. Hussein, 12, had been taught to hate Jesus and we were Jesus followers. We asked him to return to our clinic the next day just so we could love on him and treat his foot again. He returned, and John, who had just been introduced to Jesus the first day I brought him over, convinced Hussein to live with Queen Betty and to invite Jesus into his life. Now all three boys have been rescued from the streets and and know Jesus. I am so grateful God let me be a part of that. John is just the sweetest kid; the day after he received Christ and when we saw him at church later, he would just hug me and had the biggest smile. John is now our Ugandan sponsor child.