Ktonga Island and Church

Yesterday I traveled to Ktonga Island with Andy, Keeky, their 2 sons David and Jonathan, Papa O and Mama O, and Auntie Jen. We went to a one year old birthday party. There are only birthday parties for 1 year olds and they are even rare. It is more of a dedication service. This even was extra special. It was a dedication for triplet girls! This is a miracle not just because the mother gave birth to triplets but because they choose to keep them. In Uganda, for some reason multiples are not good. I was told by Keeky that twins, especially girls, are sacrificed to their gods or done away with. Sometimes they kill both or just one of them. But this family, because they are saved choose to dedicate their girls to the Lord, thus creating an amazing cultural shift and testimony to their neighbors. Some people even came to them saying they can’t keep the girls, it’s bad. I’m not even sure the exact reason why they are bad. So we arrived on the island before 10 am some time. We sat a lot. The service was forever long. Haha. Speech after speech after speech. Great music though. The music is always good no matter where we go. After that we were taken out of the church building where it felt so nice outside and we thought we were going to be able to eat outside, but then they ushered us into this little concrete room with no windows where it was literally a sauna and they served us food. We washed our hands in lake water and Keeky quickly squirted germ-x in our hands. She has a quick draw on that bottle. The risk of parasites is so great from the lake water that I can’t step a foot in it. As I ate though, I couldn’t help think of the parasites I might be partaking in when all their dishes are washed in lake water and the pots they cook in and the girl’s hands were dripping in lake water when she served our food…. It’s exhausting to be mentally thinking about everything you do. We ended up leaving the island around 4pm. That’s right the service was from about 11 (they said it started at 9) til about 3 or so. It was such a long day.

During the service, Papa O and Mama O spoke on the importance of marriage and family. They run the family ministry department of SHIM. I can see why after hearing them speak. They are called to address the issue of marriage in Uganda especially the islands. See here, they just leave with each other and there is no public covenant made. Then the men are free to leave when ever they want. They are unfaithful most of the time. The men also never ever share with their wives how much money they have. When she needs something he will give her the exact amount for that item. Often men will just leave for a period of time and the women do not know when they will return so they have to find a way of income to survive because the man doesn’t really support them. Now you think, well sinners will behave this way… lost people don’t know the truth… The men I’m talking about are the pastors of the islands! A lot of them are just living with a woman and children they are not obligated to and since it’s not legal they can leave whenever they want and most of them do. So Papa and Mama O reach out to these pastors about marriage and that if their house isn’t right, how can they pastor. They are making an incredible impact on the people they meet. 

Today was my first church service on my island. You know when you ask when church starts and the reply is, when you can hear the drums, you know it’s going to be good. Of course as a new visitor, I had to stand up and state my name and reason for my visit and share some words. Of course I gave them greetings from my home church. This is really important. You always give someone greetings from where you just came. It means that someone is thinking about them enough to send a greeting. I also told them my home church is called Living Hope which is the name of their school. They loved this! Church was about 4-5 hours long today. Whew… I’m wiped. 

Ok, time for a fun cultural something or other. Here in Uganda, they actually call manure or poop, ‘shit’. No joke. It is a legit noun to them. When Julius said this to me the other day, my eyes got real wide. He was just talking about stuff on the farm and pointed to this bin and said, “we will put more soil in there and more shit.” I just stared at him. Like did he just say what I thought he said. Yep, he did. To them it isn’t a cuss word, just a word for poop. Haha.

Tomorrow I will be constructing a nursery bed that will be planted very soon as the rainy season has begun! It’s been pouring every day. It rained all through the night. I’m also starting to plan a trip to Mbale which is a 2 hours drive east of Jinja by private car. It would take all day by bus. Haha. There is a missionary couple there, Mike and Deb, who have a farm and are doing several things I would like to see. I met them at the ECHO conference in Florida last December and they asked me to come and help them. They are doing aquaponics there and I would love to see it. So maybe next month or something I will be able to go check that out and do some traveling about. I didn’t think there would be such a mental cloud on me with the knowledge that I’m on a small island. It’s messes with me a lot of the time. Especially when in the states, it’s so easy to move about and go places. Well, I’m off again. 

P.S. I would love to be posting pics with these posts, but it's proving difficult. Sorry!