Today was what is called Center Day at Buloba Church. It is where all the sponsor kids from the different schools come to Buloba where they get breakfast, an porridge that is made right there over some wood coals, a bible study, and then some singing, lunch, and today voting for their school leaders. I have so many great shots from the day but these here are just a look at how they do the breakfast, it was that amazing.
I came here, in part, with the hope of being able to tell some stories through pictures, now, with a few days left on this trip I don’t even know where to begin. There are a thousand stories for every scene and situation that we come across. If I have time, I’m going to post a few here tonight while we still have power (it’s off and on). Yesterday we went to a few houses to install rain catches. I know nothing about installing these things but the lady of the house came out to get water in this 50 liter jug(?) thing and I couldn’t believe she was going to do this by herself. As you can see below I couldn’t even carry it by myself. This lady, and several others were around the front of the house and they got to laugh at the two white people trying to carry something a woman did every day. There were really sweet ladies. For some reason I haven’t figured out yet, the kids when you take their picture (for the most part) grin from ear to ear but the adults go stone-face when their photo is taken, so many of the adults, like these three woman in the photo below were laughing with us and smiling until the second we took the pic. They are pretty amazing.
The first shot below shows the rain barrel that was partly full of rain runoff. I am filling the blue bucket with a pan to take it back to her house. The second shot and third is just trying to life the can which had to weigh something like 70 pounds at a minimum. The lady in the shot below is who we were taking the water to and if you look in the back behind her that house (the lady sitting in the opening) also had a great story. The shot of me with the little boy actually ended up being Tonya Styles sponsor child who was watching us install the rain catch systems (so if anyone on Facebook can tell her it’s over here that would be great).
Here is the second edition of the Friday Feet post. It was amazing to see these guys play with no shoes, broken shoes, shoes with no laces, and everything in between, and no body seemed to care, the only thing any of them cared about was getting to play soccer. It was an amazing day, can’t wait to share more photos with everyone. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day so I’m not sure if or when my next post will be but I and the entire team really appreciate your prayers while we move ahead over here. I know for myself I have seen God work in ways I never dreamed possible before I left Auburn, and I can’t wait to see what the next few days will be like.
I just couldn’t figure out how to eliminate some of these photos so I am going to just do a special two part version of my Friday Feet post. Because we are basically a day ahead these images (except for the one above) were taken yesterday when we went to St. Francis College to play football with the “kids”. These actually ended up not being kids but 17-24 year olds that have lived and breathed soccer-football since they were born.
I never could have imagined how we would be able to connect with the kids and these guys at St Francis and other places just by setting down some goals and bringing a bag of soccer balls. People came from all over the place to play soccer with the Mzungus (the white people), not just from the local schools but from all over the city. From what I hear they are putting together a team in Buloba to play our guys some 4 full 90 minute games over Saturday and Sunday afternoon. It has been so amazing to see doors being opened by God that probably never would have been before just because of a common language of a soccer game. It has never mattered that we don’t speak the same language when the soccer game is the connection.
I have a ton of images I want to post but for today I’m going to do my traditional feet post but I can’t wait to post others. Earlier today we went to Buloba and put up rain catch systems for some “houses”, which needs it’s own post. The rain catch systems are vital and one house we installed I saw a 65+ year old lady carry a 50 LITER container of water by herself that both Jason and I had trouble lifting (we did carry it for her, that was too much to watch). Tomorrow we are headed back to Buloba for Center Day, which is when all the sponsor kids from all the schools come to Buloba Church for a meal and bible study and other things. I’m REALLY looking forward to finally getting to meet Jonaita, our sponsor child. Stay turned for part 2, sorry the pics might take a while to load but I am doing this on a cell connection from African lol.
This first post is from the soccer field when this enormous storm came and no body was going to leave. The only reason they stopped playing was because there was pretty strong lightning around the field. The second post coming up is just feet, that’s it. I wish I had taken a photo of the guys from Buloba who played with no shoes on. Some even played with flip flops (and were great).
I wish I had hours and hours to explain what we did today. I really can’t even yet comprehend what we did but I know we played a TON of soccer with the kids (some very big and fast) today. We started out at the Bethany Village orphanage which was an amazing place with amazing people. It is already almost 1am here local time so I am going to have to just post a few pics and call it a night. Wish I had time to post 100′s more.
This day was so packed full but it was such an incredible day I’m not even sure how to describe it yet. I had to post a photo of the traffic because it is the most unreal thing I have ever seen, not even the photo does the slight justice to the actual experience of traffic in Kampala. Our day tomorrow is even more packed full and I will I could post a thousand photos, but here are a few since I may not be able to post tomorrow. In total I took 4,209 photos TODAY so I haven’t even really gone through them at all, I just picked a few as I scrolled through them. Until next time, God bless.
Well, I’m not actually sure if this is day 1 or 2 or 3 or what but that’s how everyone else over here starts counting. We were able to get to the guest house last night about 1am local time and we did get to sleep around 2am. I am not sure I have ever taken a longer set of flights from one starting point to the next. Combined I think it ended up being almost 38 hours from house to house. It was great getting to travel with a group of guys and that part of the trip made it much easier than if you were trying to traverse all this alone. I have a tons of photos already but I will leave you with my favorite from the day so far, my roommate and resident neanderthal man, Mark Fuller. The two wonderful ladies who made and served us breakfast is Lillian and Jennifer, they had a great time with the team that just left, looking forward to getting to know them as well.
The trip from the airport at midnight to the house was something of shock overload and sensory explosion. I have been all over the world and been driven around in rickshaw’s in Bangkok and haven’t seen anything like the “traffic flow” they have going on over here. It was quite something at night, looking forward to actually being able to see the road today (they were on power blackouts all over the city last night so it was VERY dark).
As I write this we are all getting ready to head out. It’s 9am local time and there are more soccer (football) balls, goals, and everything else ready to head down to Buloba. Until tomorrow or whenever.
So, yes, that was an incredibly long flight, wow, and only a 10 hour flight to go. We are sitting here at the gate all glad to be on the ground for a while, even if it’s only for an hour. Wouldn’t have been all that bad except for the several thunderstorms we trounced through out of Atlanta all up the east coast. One of the rougher flights I have been on in a while. Unfortunately a girl in the front of the plane lost it but we weren’t too close to her. I had a ton of pics to post but no plugs in Amsterdam anywhere (or on the plane for that matter) so I’ll post more later. Next stop Africa. Thanks for your prayers.
The day is finally here, we are actually driving down I-85 as I type this out heading for the Atlanta airport. Next stop will be approximately 5,000 miles across the Atlantic into the Netherlands where we will spend a few hours before heading south. I know our team pictured above is collectively so ready to get there and get to work. Just this morning I read an update on the Secret Church blog, called Secret Church 10 – Uganda, Africa – Part 2, that talked about the issues of telling people about Christ in Africa, and particularly Uganda. As one person put it, “their beliefs have a mixture of several different types of religion. For most because of their illiteracy and limited access to a bible, they cannot confirm what the Word of God really says, so they believe what everyone tells them. You share the gospel and they add it to all the other beliefs they claim”, it’s only through an actual changed life that God’s salvation work is revealed.
I’m really looking forward to seeing God move among this group of guys for the next 10 days and I look forward to bringing some of the story here soon, so stay tuned. I will be updating my blog as I can and our team leader will also be updating his blog as well so you can read up on Brian’s over there too. I will most likely be updating Twitter far more often than my blog, so if you are wanting to see the most current updates please head to @scottfillmer. You don’t have to sign up for anything you can just read updates right from that site. See you back here soon.
Please be praying for our team, which consists of from left to right in the photo Brian Johnson, Myron West, Chris Mills, Rush Hill, Mark Fuller, Jason Welstead, Bo Morrissey, Jordan Ross, and me, Scott Fillmer.
This week for my Saturday Summary I don’t have a whole lot of pics that weren’t already published in some form or another, mainly because the week has been so incredibly busy I haven’t had time to take as many shots this week as I have in the past few weeks. After going back and forth with what to take to Uganda and what to leave here, I’m finally packed and ready to go.
I think one of my favorite pics in this set is the one from the Atlanta airport I took on Thursday as I drove around in circles and my camera gear spread out all over my desk. I was really looking forward to hearing all about the team’s trip but as usually in Atlanta you can’t stop for one second until someone can actually put a bag in your car. Hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend.
