A Week in the Life: Sunday

Sunday

As part of my breakfast, I had some fresh fruit. How do you safely eat fresh fruit in Uganda? Well the method used by most people I know is to add a little bleach to a bowl of water, add the fruits or vegetables, and then rinse it with filtered water. I’m not the biggest fan of using bleach with something I’m going to eat, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

The church I go to is pretty Western, and actually starts on time (gasp). Well, really they have 3 services and they all just run back to back, so I guess in that way it keeps them on schedule. If you come late and miss worship, hey just stick around for the next service! My church has a lot of similarities to a church in the US. The music is Western, the preaching style usually has 3 points that start with the same letter, and they’ve got things like a snazzy announcement video each week. We do meet under a tent though, since they’re still raising money for a building. And the fervor of worship (and the occasional song in Luganda which makes them really get going) and the slightly pentecostal nature of the prayer segment of the service always bring me back to the distinctly African nature of the church. 

But the teaching is usually Biblically sound, which is what’s important, and I like the church for a lot of different reasons. This week though, we had a guest speaker, and honestly I didn’t really care for the message. I wasn’t necessarily against anything he had to say, but I opened my Bible for just a few seconds of the sermon, which is a big problem for me. I think the Bible should be priority in any sermon, and the message should flow from the Bible. When you start letting it be about your personal opinions and quote Scripture when it’s convenient for the point you want to make, you head into dangerous waters quickly. But anyway.

After church, Cassandra and I went for lunch at a very Western restaurant, which is a nice break from matoke and rice. On the way home it started to rain a little bit, but since I’ve now been caught in the pouring rain a few different times on a boda, a little sprinkle doesn’t phase me. 

The afternoon was spent doing laundry-- I know, again, not interesting blogging material. But I wanted to just mention that we’re blessed enough to have a washing machine in the building! I did hand-washing the first few months I was here, which I didn’t really mind, but recently one of the other long-term missionaries in the building got a machine that they let the rest of us use. And hearing that  beep as it turns on and says “let me do the work for you” is such a beautiful thing! But then again, you have to have both water and power turned on in order to use it, and that’s always a challenge! 

For the rest of the afternoon, I moved into another room in our apartment because it’s bigger than the one I had been staying in. I’ve now lived in all 3 rooms in the apartment!