Day 6 entry. 3.23.08: HE is RiSEN!

Celebrating Easter in Uganda has been an incredible experience. Our day began with a morning service at a local church. We took boda bodas from town to the neighborhood church, which I found to be terribly inconvenient with a skirt. When we arrived at the church, there were massive crowds waiting outside and in the halls to get a seat as soon as the sanctuary cleared out from the previous service.
The church service was mostly in English, with some worship songs in Ugandan. Choir members waved brightly colored flags as the congregation of hundreds sang to the LORD. The sky continuously darkened, indicating a rainstorm. As one of the pastors preached a message, loud thunder cracked above us and the skis opened, spilling rapid rain. The beating of raindrops on the roof was so loud that it drained out the voices of the leaders of the church.
The beautiful service lasted just over two hours, and I dreaded walking out in the rain that was still bountifully flowing off the edges of the building. We had to walk to a taxi, and the orange dirt roads caked my flip flops and splattered my legs and skirt with mud. We walked with a crowd of girls in uniform from a Muslim Boarding school nearby. Amanda told me that the school allows for the girls to come to the Christian Church for worship. When we finally got into a taxi van, I was soaked and freezing. Sarah, the Ugandan administrator for ICY, invited us all to her father’s house for Easter, so we had to take a taxi to bus that traveled the two hours outside of Kampala to Sarah’s neighborhood.
I am still getting used to being packed into public transportation, but it should not have surprised me as to how many people are packed into a coach-style bus. The rain and winds which we had walked in earlier made me especially uncomfortable throughout the duration of the bus ride. When we finally made it to Sarah’s neighborhood, we had to take boda bodas in the pouring rain. With only a tank top and mid-length skirt on, the speed of the boda boda through muddy paths, and fierce rain slapping my face, I was miserably shivering. We got lost on the way to Sarah’s and I was just praying that we find somewhere to go that would be dry and warm. After turning around several times, my eyes squinted shut and head down in the rain, we found Sarah’s house.
I was so grateful and anxious when Sarah brought out a sweater for me to put on over my sopping wet clothing, that I accidentally wore it backwards for the entire time we were at her house! Sarah is the fifth sibling of eight kids in the family, and most of them were there to celebrate with us. We had a very traditional and delicious Ugandan holiday meal, with goat’s meat, chicken, pork, matooke [boiled plantain], rice, beans, g-nuts sauce [similar to peanut butter], chapatti [like a tortilla], greens, fruits salad, and Irish potatoes. There was so much food, and we all indulged completely.
It was heart-warming the way Sarah’s father and siblings opened their home to us for Easter. We had a wonderful visit, worth all the trouble and challenges of getting to her place. When we traveled back by bus and taxi to our ICY home, I was exhausted and ready for bed. The love of Sarah’s family, the enthusiasm of morning church, and beauty of Africa has made this an Easter I will always remember. Praise the RiSEN LORD!