Back in Africa!

 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, October 16, and was picked up by a brother, David, who took me to the place of Jesper and Camilla, a Swedish couple who have been missionaries in Uganda for a total of 15 years. I stayed with them until this past Saturday, when with the help of my real estate broker, Jacob, I moved into a two-bedroom apartment along with a local brother, Allan.

I didn't want to live alone, and so Allan and I have a nice deal: I get security, a companion, a shopper, and the use of Allan's furniture, and he gets free rent and a pretty decent upgrade in his living conditions. At this point all I have is a mattress, which they say will soften up after a few weeks (let us hope), but will be getting a bed frame, chair, and small table if the latter will fit into my bedroom. 

It has now been almost two weeks here, and despite (1) jet lag, (2) heat and humidity, (3) walking for hours, (4) sensory overload, and (5) an intestinal problem for the last two days, I've managed to survive!

I mention sensory overload because Kampala, particularly the town center, is one of the most congested, noisy environments I have encountered. You are literally in a sea of people. After a couple hours there, I have to come home and decompress. 😬

But the ministry is incredible: Conversations are easy to start, and people are willing to discuss the Bible. Last Sunday at the university, my partner and I did 4 doors in a dorm building and started 4 Bible studies! If we worked the entire floor we would be there all day, literally. My field service reports are going to look a whole lot better from here on out! 👍

Also, the congregation of 90 publishers has only 3 elders and 4 ministerial servants, so there is need both in the territory and in the congregation. I've been pressed into service almost immediately, substituting for the CBS conducting this week (which was a challenge with names) and having a part almost every week in the midweek meeting for next month.

But it will take some time to get used to the African lifestyle once again. We have gotten branch directives about washing hands frequently, not shaking anyone's hand, and being ultra careful in view of the Ebola epidemic that has affected several provinces in Uganda. There was only one recorded Ebola death in Kampala, which was a person who came from one of these provinces and was already sick. But he was isolated in hospital and though there have been a handful of other cases here, the authorities believe the epidemic will be over by the end of this year.

Nevertheless, one must be careful about hygiene even under normal circumstances. Today I passed by a vegetable stand where a goat got ahold of a cabbage and was munching on one of the leaves, prompting the lady proprietor to take the rest of the cabbage and throw it back on the stand. Ha!