A World of Difference

"Everyone should travel. It broadens the mind. Seeing all the differences in the world is a good thing." After 24 hours of plane rides and one sprint through the Addis Ababa terminal for our transfer, we were about to land in Entebbe, Uganda. The woman next to me was a mother who hadn't seen her children in two years because she was working in Saudi Arabia, but was finally returning home. I couldn't fathom having to make the choices she did over the last two years, but I empathized with her excitement and trepidation at being reunited with her family in a few hours. Her words on the plane that day continue to prove true as we explore Kampala. It's pretty different here. English is spoken but so are more than two dozen other languages. People drive on the left side of the road unless you are on a Boda Boda, a taxi motorcycle, in which case you drive wherever you want. It's cooler than in Macon and the birds are vibrant and varied. Time is more of a suggestion than a schedule, but really the people are relaxed about most things. Even Passport Control jokes with us!

We've gotten to see Amani Sasa's facilities and meet most of the staff. The social workers on staff took our team to the market to attempt to buy a day's worth of meals for a family of four on three thousand shekels (less than one dollar). It required haggling with mixed results. I was laughed at by one of the social workers after my first attempt. Dianne Fuller was easily the best. In the afternoon we met Bridget, or Mama Pastor, as she is known by her congregants. Depending on the weather between 50 and 80 people come to worship at her church each Sunday in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Kampala. Yet for this Congolese refugee, much of her ministry is done during the week when she packs her two room home and her church with children who have no place to lay their heads. They get to sleep, to rest, in a place of relative safety and to find food when there is none to find elsewhere. The stress of her life and of her ministry causes her to have headaches, so she asked us to pray for her before we left. It was in this praying that I was reminded that, for all our differences, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4:4-6). Thanks be to God for this Spirit that binds us together across oceans and who makes the similarities matter more than the differences. Please pray for our team this week. Please pray for Amani Sasa. And please pray for Mama Pastor Bridget.