This has been a trip that really is hard to describe in words, really. It took 66 books of scripture to go over God’s plan for His people, so trying to describe how God moved in and around our team over the last week feels almost impossible. I’m glad I had the ability to take photos on this trip since to me words are often not enough, but a photo sometimes says so much more.
We leave to go home tomorrow and I leave you with one of my favorite shots of the trip (from the ones I have been able to look at so far). I took approximately 12,000 images over the last week and if I had to look back at one image that means a lot to me it’s the one above.
On Saturday I was able to meet our sponsor child, Joanita, and she was very shy. She didn’t seem to want to play too much with the kids and didn’t have a whole lot to say to me either, but I really wanted to spend some time with her. So, that particular day the kids held elections for their school offices and every single child had to vote (it took quite a while and if you look at the photo closely you will see the little boy resting on my shoes has a purple thumb, colors from the voting process).
I asked her to sit down with me and pulled out one of my notebooks and the three colored pencils and three colored pens and just handed them to her. She said there for about an hour and colored while I read my bible. We said nothing the whole time, she wasn’t interested in my camera like the other kids were but she sat there as content as one could be with something as simple as a piece of paper and a pencil.
Of course it never takes long to have a large crowd of kids nearby so I was soon gathered by 40 or 50 of her closest friends and we all sat there and watched her draw. I loved the shot I got while they just sat there, resting on my shoes, as calm as could be, perfectly happy to be caught up in the moment. It was a great memory from this week I will cherish.
Can’t wait to get on the plane tomorrow and see Deborah and everyone else on Wednesday but I also will miss those we are leaving behind.
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It’s about 7am on Monday morning over here and since I couldn’t get the internet to work last night this post is actually from yesterday afternoon. As time has gone by on our trip over here the news of a soccer team from America has grown to where Buloba High School (17-21 year olds) challenged the team we could put together between our guys and Buloba Community Church, and they were serious. This was a full 90 minute match, with refs, on a regulation field at the high school with about 1,300 to 1,500 people who came just to watch our team play the local high school.
We had church in the morning, sorta. We went to Gaba Church (Buloba’s parent church) for their service, then headed to Buloba for their service which lasted from about 9am until about 1pm. Brian gave the sermon (via translation) at Buloba Church and Mark Fuller led the men in a leadership talk after the service was over. In between all that I was able to meet my sponsor child’s mother who came to church yesterday because I was there, that was so cool. I can’t wait to come back again in October and see both of them again.
Around 2pm we went over to the High School where we thought we were going to go immediately to the soccer field but first… into the high school for a testimonial time, worship, and then Pastor Isaac gave a sermon (I’m thinking it was his 5th of the day at that point). This was not a Christian High School but the schools are all basically private paid for schools and there is no separation of church and state over here so they basically had an hour long church service before we left for the soccer field.
The photos below are just a few from the soccer game, I think it was probably the highlight of the trip for the guys who actually play soccer. One of the hardest groups to connect with on a Christian level over here, and really anywhere, is the male ages 17-20 and up, and because of the game of soccer these guys were able to make an incredible connection with these young men over here. I didn’t play because I blew out my knee in a soccer match 2 days ago (still hobbling around but not writhing in pain anymore), but it was probably best I didn’t play since I was able to get a ton of great pics from the match. Unfortunately Bo pulled his hamstring towards the end of the game so he is out of commission now too. He says he will be fine in a few weeks but he is hobbling around now too.
Today we are doing more rain catches in Buloba so please continue to pray for our team as we have two more days before we get on that long plane ride back home.
