"Let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us..."

After a rough travel day yesterday, the team was left tired.  Some members were even struggling with health issues.  We still hit the ground running today.

We knew the enemy would show up to try and distract us. At devotions this morning we talked about how we are surprised when we are surprised an attack comes. Our trip has gone so well. The team has been amazing and so supportive of each other. We have stayed centered on God and grounded in scripture. Of course, the enemy would look to throw us off course. But God is good! And the team went forth to serve today.

We headed out to the Mayuge district to the village of Kikubo to His Mercy School for Orphans and Vulnerable Children to hold a medical clinic. Usually our trips include several clinic days and after about a day and a half we hit our stride. Holding only one day of clinic left us curious how quickly we could turn chaos to order and get a flow going. God is good!  It took us a short time to get things going and the team was amazing!

      Jody, Matt, Benson, and I took over crowd control and ushering. Great job keeping the patients flowing where they should.  Go gents!

      Julie was in the prayer room.  I saw many hugs and celebrations!

      Ashley and Katie handled wound care. They were not as busy as usual, but this gave them plenty of time to engage the children! They both led cheers, call and responses, dances and a game of tag!

      The pharmacy was run by Cheryl.  She is amazing. Cheryl had things set-up with the flow going smooth. She was our captain!

      Kariel, Olivia, Beth, Chris, Naomi, Diane, Allison, and Leigh manned the pharmacy. Captain Cheryl and these ladies rocked! They kept things flowing and filled.  Scripts for at least 250 people. All this in 5 hours of clinic time. God does amazing things!

We had to slow things down a little bit when an African rain storm blew in and drove everyone under cover. It was heavy at times.  I enjoyed sitting under cover talking to the children. Then the kids started playing the drums and a choir broke out. It was a blast. The red dust became red mud!

I also got to fulfill a dream I have wanted to do at the school for a few years. The school has a kitchen and the ladies cooked a traditional Ugandan meal for lunch. I donned my chef pants and jacket then went to town making chapatti (fried flat bread). It was incredible! I have wanted to cook at the school for the kids and today was all I thought it would be! The teachers and cooks loved that I was there and helped me learn how to do it. All of them came by and wanted to try the muzungus chapatti! I got rave reviews! Fantastic!

As we finished the clinics we got the chance to stop by Mama Jessica's house. This is the family with two kids my family sponsors- Viola and Reagan. Kariel has been writing letters to Viola the last 4 years and this is one of the things she has been excited to finally do! When we saw Viola in the clinic, Viola wasn’t herself. She told the interpreter she was not feeling well. She is quiet already and today even more so. But later in the day she was feeling better and ecame the same shy but smiling girl I first saw out the bus window in 2010. We looked up when Kariel and I got off the bus, Mama Jessica came running, hugged us and danced!  Mama picked up Kariel and twirled her around in the air! It was a blast to see the excitement! Mama Jessica prepared a meal for the team of brown rice, gravy, matooke, and chicken. It was delicious and such an honor. One of our hosts told me that chicken is a huge honor. Also when you visit someone's home you cannot ask them to prepare a meal for you. The home will prepare one and you cannot turn it down, so everyone joined in and ate. The goat our family got them last year had twins. One of the twins a female. The goat from last year is pregnant again! The gift that keeps on giving! Before we left I had the chance to lead the team in a prayer over the family. I was honored. This little family in a village in Uganda is special to our family. I loved being able to spend time with them. As we left Mama Jessica handed me a hand woven mat that she made as a gift for her daughter in America (Kysia). I was about to lose it. How sweet and special. Here this lady who has nothing compared to the worlds standard and she spends the time to make a gift for my wife as a thank you and to say she loves us. Humbling.

Today was a good day. After such a rough day yesterday we stopped and prayed last night. And prayed again this morning. We stayed in scripture and made sure to be ready to be used by God. And He is faithful! Today went smooth and we were able to be the hands and feet of Christ.

Tomorrow the team splits up into two teams... One will spend time at Ekisa which is a special needs orphanage and the other will go to the prison to minister and then back to the school to work on some of the new buildings.

Keep the prayers coming. The team is almost done with the ministry portion of the trip.  They need your prayers and support to stay focused.

God bless,

Chris