Posts

Latest developments

I've been here in Kampala for over two months now, and just like every other African place I have lived in or visited, I'm hooked. The ministry is nothing short of fantastic. I feel pretty good about it, considering that my monthly return visit total has gone from 1 (in the U.S.) to 25 here. Also, I started my first Bible study earlier this month! People here hang on every word you read from the Bible. One girl that my partner was preaching to even wrote the scripture on her hand! So I decided, why not just get to the point and offer a Bible study on the first call? That approach seems to work well. The only challenge is getting the potential students to show up for appointments. Patience is required! Everyone here speaks English, some better than others, but since Luganda is also a major language in the capital, you need to determine whether someone prefers one language over the other. After a few visits, you can usually tell which it is. For example, my barber (10000 UGX = $2...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drowning in bodas

Image
 So...the primary mode of transportation here in Kampala is not cars or buses, but motorcycles. These are known as "bodas." Sometime back (I don't know when), East Africa got the brilliant idea to import bodas mostly from India and they came to be all the craze. Because if you can ride a bicycle, you can ride a boda, is the thinking. And bodas proved to be the answer to the unemployment problem especially among young people. All you had to do was get one (registered or not), and solicit riders for hire (again, whether or not you have a license). Now more than 90% of bodas in Uganda are used for income purposes.  So, now Kampala is drowning in bodas, millions of them. Though there are traffic laws--the usual ones that apply to cars--as well as laws about wearing helmets and not allowing more than one passenger, mostly these are disregarded. The fact is that Kampala has major traffic jams, and so if you take a minibus (known as a "taxi," not to be confused with a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Back in Africa!

Image
 After a year and a half hiatus, I'm back in East Africa! My brother and sister-in-law, now that they are retired, have decided to spend half the year in Germany. So, we have an arrangement whereby I can be half the year in California, close to my folks, and the other half somewhere else. Now that the Chinese congregation in Kigali, Rwanda, is dissolved, 😞 my aspirations have turned to Uganda, which is the subject of this blog. You may recall that I visited Kampala, the capital, three times, during the first of which I spent two weeks preaching in Chinese. This time I'm staying here for six months (with a three-week break in January to visit friends in Rwanda and Belgium), and associating with the Kampala Central English Congregation. This congregation has downtown Kampala in its territory, which means that it has a higher concentration of Chinese people. It also has Makerere University, one of the most prestigious in Africa. So...I arrived late in the evening on Sunday, Octob...
Post a Comment
Read more