After completing our two closest outreaches to Lumuli and Iguluibi, as well as having our Jinja youth conference and my voice being shot. I had to cancel our last close outreach because of my voice, but that gave me a chance to get ready for the biggest undertaking of them all... traveling hundreds of miles to host four conferences in a span of four days.
Bright and early Tuesday morning Ryan, two of our youth group boys Otim and Isaac, and Jen and Makenna Long packed up and headed to our first conference in a village near Pallisa which was about three hours away. We drove past some beautifully rocky landscape and reached the church where about 50ish students had gathered for our conference. My voice was still on the mend and Ryan taught the first couple of teachings for me. We rocked some question time, did the second teaching, more questions, lunch, the third session which laid out the Gospel message and then we headed out and pulled into Soroti at around 6ish. We settled into our hotel had some dinner and gave our boys a taste of "muzungu food" with spaghetti and then it was time for bed. (On an added note, I got a call today from our pastor there and he informed us that 15 people gave their lives to Christ this morning and a bulk of them were youth from the conference so that was really cool).
On Wednesday we headed out for the village of Ogongora by 8ish and got there a little late but made it none the less after some fun driving. Again the students were there waiting, this time it was over 100. It was a cool group and the pastor there is really legit and so it was neat time of getting to hang out with the students and going about pretty much the same program as the day before. By 3 we pulled out and decided to make the trek to Pajule. Originally I just was going to drive on the highway to Lira since the road from Lira to Pajule was not so great but as I turned out I drove the whole way and I won't lie my poor little blood pressure went up about 100 points a couple of times as I had to straddle rather large ruts in the road, but we made it just as the sun was beginning to set. It was awesome because in Pajule we were able to reunite with JB and his whole family of Grace and all the kids including Kenny and little Bev. After dinner we headed to the guest house for our special accommodations :) and were asleep before 9.
Thursday morning started with coffee and Rolexes at JBs and we got the conference under way at around 9 where we had about 150 students. It was definitely very interesting shifting to another language area and dealing with changes in programs but it worked out and again the students got to hear the Gospel. When it was all said and done we left at 5 and were absolutely exhausted. We took showers, had an amazing dinner and sweet fellowship with the Too-Lits and then time for bed.
Friday was a day for goodbyes as we left at 7 bringing JB's oldest daughter with us since she goes to school in Jinja. It's also when we had to part ways with Ryan as he went to go to Kitgum for the next three weeks. After we left Ryan, I drove on the worst road I've ever driven on when we were traveling from Pajule to Gulu as we fishtailed our way through some very muddy terrain I was very thankful for 1) God's protection and 2) His allowing 4 wheel drive to be invented. We also passed over a rushing river that was basically touching the bottom of a not so sound bridge. We reached Gulu at 10 for our final conference. It was definitely different as the students were from several different churches and older than we had worked with at the other conferences. After the third teaching we were ready to head out and settle in to our guest house. We partook of of the glories of the Coffee Hut and then a huge down pour hit and we were soaked to the bone and Peace, the boys, and I (and later Jen) watched a movie in my room. That was quite possibly one of my highlights of the trip for me just getting to hang out with them as they really are awesome students! After Peace and I tried to calm down and get to bed, it was lights out.
By 4:30 Saturday morning we were having our rather glamorous breakfast of bananas (although I didn't have one), coffee, and donuts that we had bought the day before. We piled into the car and by 5:15 we were on the road. This again was a drive that may have taken a year or two off of my life, but it was a learning experience as I dealt with oncoming trucks coming at me in the dark with their brights on (one guy only had one light and had looked like a motorcycle from a distance and then it turned out it was a semi truck :) ). At one point there were seriously like 20 trucks stuck in an array of situations in a 100 yard distance where we had to weave in and out of them like an obstacle course and by day light we came across the scene of a terrible crash where at least 4 people got killed as a bus and a rock truck had impact, it was really sad, and definitely a reminder about the roads here. Finally by 10 we were in the outskirts of Kampala (Kampala traffic was another driving first for me) and by 12:30 we were home.
Over all, it was an awesome trip. With the ministry, I'm resting on the fact that "God's Word doesn't return void" and that throughout the whole trip God's hand was so clearly evident. The weather was perfect when it needed to be, we never had vehicle problems, and we all got along really well. I definitely learned a whole whole lot from this trip and I look forward to what God has planned next to reach out even more to the youth of Uganda.
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