Uganda Mission Trip 2011
As our van bumped along the red earth track up the hill to Sibanga, looking out through the window the view across lush green vegetation towards Mount Elgon in the distance was spectacularly beautiful. It looked like a scene straight out of the book of Genesis just after the world was created. I half expected giraffes to stride across above the tree tops, while elephants waved their trunks.
But beauty is beguiling and it was not long before we found that this beautiful land holds a terrible secret. It’s not in the newspapers, the headlines or flashed across our TV screens, although if it were in our own country it would be. The shameful secret? Sheer, grinding poverty. Sickness and disease with no healthcare; education without books, chairs, water or food and a land where crop failure means famine. Children die young…
Our van arrived at its destination. Children rushed on the van excited to see us. Our team piled out to meet the children and dance with them to the music. The crusade had already begun for the evening. A rickety stage in the middle of the grass was surrounded by over 200 people as the loud music blared out across the village. Pastor Bob got up to speak across the crowd as the African sky darkened into night, retelling a familiar Bible story. An altar call was given and tens of children rushed to the front to give their lives to Jesus. Surprised? Half the population of Uganda are children. They are the next generation. They are the future and they need Jesus.
As darkness fell the large screen showed the Jesus Story. An extraordinary experience watching this outdoor film in luganda beneath the night sky in a remote African village where this was the only ‘television’.
We came every night of our stay and many children particularly were saved. The sick were prayed for. Extraordinary miracles. Notably an old woman who we had known from previous visits who walked long distances to be at the meetings but whose back was bent over double was prayed for. She stood up straight. A woman whose husband had been sick for a long time brought him to the meeting. He was well now!
