Last month, my mom came to visit. I have to say, I love hanging out with my mom. It’s really cool that we’ve gotten to the point where she’s not really my mom—she’s one of my closest friends. Anyway, back to the story…
The adventure began before she ever left America. Turns out, there was some kind of issue with the plane coming to the States from Amsterdam, so her outgoing flight was delayed for around 3 hours. She almost didn’t make her connection in Amsterdam, and there was no way her luggage was going to make it on that plane. She didn’t get reunited with her bags until five days later!
I had flown down to Entebbe to meet Mom at the airport on Friday, and we stayed the night with Amanda and Larry, some colleagues who live there. They took us back to the airport Saturday morning and we flew up to Arua on the smallest commercial passenger airplane ever—only 19 seats, less if they have extra baggage to carry! Mom’s jaw started to drop as we landed on the dirt runway. Oh boy—welcome to Africa!
Mom had never been anywhere like Arua. And if you’ve never been to Africa, there’s really nothing to compare it to. The sad state of our roads, the thousands of bikes and pedestrians, the random goats and chickens crossing the road. (Yes, it really does happen… and the punchline is true!) There’s just no preparing for Arua.
On Sunday we walked to Awindiri Baptist Church. It just happened to be Eid, the holiday that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The calls to prayer were louder, longer, and more frequent than normal, and we passed a huge gathering at one of the mosques on the way to church. What a great opportunity to be reminded of our call to prayer—for the salvation of those around us!
Church at Awindiri was great—very African, very different from home. I love worshipping with Africans!
Mom was able to go on campus to all the schools where we’re working, including Vurra Secondary, where we presented True Love Waits for the first time. When we got to Modern on Tuesday, we were sitting and waiting for the secondary students to finish classes when we heard singing at the primary school next door. We walked around the side of the building and found about a hundred primary students singing a traditional song. We sat down to listen, and before too long some of the neighborhood kids wandered over to investigate us. They were so excited to greet the three white women, and some of them were singing along with the bigger kids. Well, it didn’t take long for the kids in the choir to notice us as well, and when we realized we were causing a distraction, we tried to make a discreet exit. Some of the smaller children followed us back to the tree where we usually have our meeting. But once the primary kids were dismissed, they came looking for us—and we got mobbed! Everyone wanted to greet us, to touch our hair, and to thank us for coming. About 50 of the primary kids wound up staying for the story group with the secondary students—what a great day!
Some of the other highlights of the week in Arua: lunch at the coffee shop, Africa by Boat; lots of naked babies; conversations with students; dinner with my friends Billy and Joanna; tours of school campuses; women’s Bible Study; and a day off at White Castle (sadly, NOT the hamburger chain). And yes, Mom did get the full “Arua Experience” while she was here: no power, no hot water, and we actually completely ran out of water for the first time!
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