Its Ok! We're alive!

Hey Everyone! Oli- ot-tee-a! (How are you?, phonetically, in Lugandan). Team Smile 09 and landed in Uganda and is making waves. Everyone is well and spirits are high. Our flight was problem free and we are now, after 5 days, very much used to our new home in the suburbs of Kampala, in Makindye (Maa-chin-de). The girls are in ajoining rooms of two and the boys an in bunk beds. In addition, we have a dining room with a nice large table and chairs, a sitting room with some cushioned bamboo based furniture and a small balcony, the location of many games President/Bin Man and Jim and Phoebs' ongoing attempts to site all species of Ugandan Birds (and the ellusive Velvet Monkey!) Much time is also spent playing volleyball and catching games in the amazing garden.

Kampala, as a city, is a just alittle bit on the crazy side. The roads are packed with minibus taxis and the streets are filled with people, basically all of whom are black africans. We visited on Thursday and went in two groups with two Ugandans from Calvary Chapel Street Kid initiative, Derrick and Andrew (whom I'm sure you will here more about later), undertaking a small challenge to help orientate our selves withe the important surroundings. What quickly became apparent was that no matter wherewe went, we stood out, beinjg the only whites visible and we soon became used to calls of 'Mzungu', local dialect for 'white man'. Its not an offensive term, merely a very general one. The taxi park made the streets of London look like a picnic, it was quite literally crawling with interlinked taxis. You have to be quick and assertive to cross the roads and on no curcumstances should you wait politely for the traffic to let you go. Like Barney.

Owino Market was similarly busy, with large numbers of people selling there wares of western clothes and brands and also food. There is of course, one price for the Ugandan and then another considerably higher one for the Mzungus. It was certainly the busiest and most cramped market any of us had seen before and was often quite intimidating with lots of salesmen trying sell us there wares. It should be noted however that the Ugandan people are incredibly welcoming and polite. In the same market, high fives and fist bumps were shared with shop owners who happened to be wearing England Shirts. Two days afterwards we also played some barefoot beach football against some local kids and although our untested feet were fairly' savaged' we played well and had fun (though we lost horribly).

On the Christian side of things, we have started our Seminars and Bible Overview and attended Calvary Chapel this morning, which treated us to a very different kind of service. Although it is a very Westernised Church, with the sermon taken by 'Pastor Brian' a white american from Southern California, there was none the less an hour of amazing hymn singing, led by the church choir, before the sermon was even begun. Pastor Brian spoke strongly of the need for Christians to love one another, drawing from 2 John 1 7-21 and spoke in a familiar style, even throwing in 80s pop references. It is quite likely that this will be our main church for our time here but we will also try out others. We talked with many of the congregation afterwards and this resulted in our invitiation to two boys, Moses and Sammy, for lunch back at our house. After dinner, Sammy, a street kid with no family, stood up and thanked us so much for our hospitalityand his impressed on us his immense gratitude that a group of Mzungus had shown him any kindness or love, something that he had been without for much of his life. For all of us, it was a special moment and underlined just how much we could be achieved here, even with a simple meal and some compassion. We will hopefully see more of the two of them at Calvary.

So, the week head. Teaching should start mid week and in three near by school. we'll be teaching in 3 groups (2 3s and a 4) and appear to have the chance to teach English, Maths, Social Studies (History, Geography etc) and Sciences. Many ideas and plans have been formulated and the team are excited to get started. We will also take evangelism seesions once a week. On friday eveing and Saturday monring, we'll work with the street kids (or in orphanages) and have Sunday for Church and rest and Monday as a preparation day for the school week. It should be a 9-4 day.

We are all so greatful to God for this chance to come here and do his work. And it looks like we will have the time of our lives in the process. Please try to include us in your prayers as we start out teaching during the week.

God Bless

Jim

P.s. we will try to keep the blog as updated as possible. watch this space.