Finishing up
I think i should first point out and then apologies for the fact that there are two posts today. However I have put the first one below this so the chorological order is still ok, so even though you are reading this one first, please go a bit further back and read the last one. Or on the other hand if you really cant be bothered to read two, I wouldn’t blame you…
The reason I have been so behind with my emails and Blogs is because I have been busy and sometimes absent from the New Hope scene in the closing weeks of my stay. After P7 week was the second week of the Investment years mini business course. The first week clashed with P7 week but I was able to join in with the second one. The team from North Dakota, otherwise known as the Cowboys, (see this is why you need to read the last one…) was a multi skilled team and in the afternoons of these two weeks they would teach the investment year guys their skills and also give them some business tips.
The week after was another week at the retreat centre in Gerenge. More faithful readers of the Blog may remember Gerenge was that place we went after Kumi with the last investment year. For those who don’t remember or didn’t read it, Gerenge is right on the lake even has a little beach. I'm told that the lake is a significant body of water that it actually has waves, which explained my initial confusion. The Food at Gerenge is usually excellent, most days we had fresh Tilapia from the lake. But there was another reason for going apart from swimming and eating, (although admittedly they were my personal highlights…). In Jinja there is a retreat centre for spiritually exhausted missionaries and those who want some reeducation and rest…or something like that. The week was called ‘Transformation of the heart’ and to be completely honest I found it very hard to get my head around. My problem was all the fancy pants language and jargon and terms and names for every situation under the sun.
The basic format was that we would sit down and listen for about an hour about this or that that we needed to repent for or people we needed to forgive for this and that and all the while we were peppered with intellectual words for this event and that event that may or may not have happened in your lifetime that you probably should repent for…so I found it somewhat difficult to digest. One of the things they did was forgiving your father and mother for mistreating you as a child. Now personally I got quite annoyed at this because they said even if your parents are alive and love you, then you still need to forgive them for something. I felt like I had forgiven my parents for the miniscule things that might possibly have happened and was feeling rather pleased and proud of my upbringing only to be told that my parents in fact have wounded me beyond repair and my spirit is therefore doomed. I didn’t take that too well. However, and it’s a very big however, the point of the week was the investment year students who have have horrible things done and said to them by their parents. Some have never known their father and some knew them only a few short years before he died. I was so pleased to see that even though I in my cynical English mindset I was getting nothing out of it, the guys who really mattered were doing some business with God. So although I thought the week was a bit OTT and I didn’t really get much out of it, some of the testimonies are really powerful. The students were telling stories of how after years they were able to forgive their fathers and mothers and start again with God as their parent. So even though it pains me to say it, I thin the ‘Transformation’ guys must know what they are talking about.
Swimming was also fun with a few rather stark exceptions. One day we were playing in the water when Ibra, a good friend of mine who likes to swim out as far as he can until he physically is too tired to move, then swim back, turned to me looking slightly confused and worried. This is basically how it sounded,
Ibra: Mr. Dan, (yeah I have no idea where Mr Dan came from…) something is entering me
Mr. Dan: Ok Ibra
Ibra: No, Mr. Dan, something is entering me, in my foot.
Mr. Dan: In your foot? Whatever! Show me!
(Ibra lifts his foot out of the water and points to his foot where a little brown worm about an itch long is wriggling and digging its was into his foot)
(Dan is nearly sick in the water and considers leaving his friend to be eaten by the work and run away)
Ibra: Mr. Dan, get it out! Get it out!
(Dan tries to brush off stange wormy thing but its already burrowed in too far)
Ibra: Pinch it! Pinch it!
(Dan does so and yanks the beast out, saving Ibra from what would be a rather nasty wormy death. Both Characters swim off as fast as they can)
Blackout
All those who need to run to the bathroom and throw up, be my guest
I also got to know the rocks on the bottom of the lake rather well. More then once I trod on one only to slip off cutting yet another ole in my feet. So that by the end of the week my feet looked like someone had tried to carry out surgery on my feet whilst rather drunk and working in an earthquake.
Oh yes, while were on the subject of earthquakes, this deserves a mention. A few days before Gerenge, New Hope got shaken by an earthquake. Doors slammed and the shutters crashed open and closed. Everyone was in bed at the time and woke up to feel the ground below them shift and wobble. Everyone, that is except me. By some rubbish fluke of absolute and monumental bad luck, I managed to sleep through a category 4 earthquake. For once in my life I wished I didn’t sleep like a log ever night.
Anyway another swimming event that by all stretches of the imagination was absolutely and completely rubbish was the breaking of my glasses. For six long months I have said to the children who frequently find pleasure in climbing on my face and doing their best to bash me into a fine pulp, “No! Not the glasses! They’re the only pair I have!” six long months! And though I can’t fully blame Moses because I was the one beating him up, he did play his part so, here is my attempt at passing the buck…
Moses was beating me up in the water…mercilessly. He was picking me up and throwing me and splashing water in my eyes and generally being annoying…ok this isn’t working, just making me sound like a pansy. Here’s what happened, I was beating up Moses in the water…mercilessly. I was picking him up and throwing him and slashing water in his eyes and generally being annoying, it’s good for him I'm sure. Anyway I was just thinking I should take off my glasses when Moses started attacking me (see it is his fault). I picked him up and flipped him over and then waded back to take my glasses off. I noticed the world looked a bit funny and whipped the water off the left lens but when I went to wipe it off the right…the right one wasn’t there. Pants. So I spent the next five days fumbling around like a blind man. Luckily and very much as an answer to prayer the optician in Kampala was amazing. I went in for an eye test Saturday afternoon and insisted that the glasses be ready by Monday. Looking back, giving the optician two days, one of them being a Sunday, was pretty unreasonable. And when Monday came around and they kept telling me sorry the glasses aren’t ready yet, come back in an hour, come back at four I got impatient. It was so frustrating not being able to see that I really had no patience to wait whatsoever. So when the glasses arrived last thing before we left Kampala on Monday I was overjoyed. Overall they cost me about £45, took two days to make, are perfect and also came from Nairobi. To get a pair of new glasses for that little in that amount of time in the UK is unheard of so I was very thankful to God for helping things along.
So as I write this on Friday, my last Friday. In the time it has taken me to write this Blog the Wireless internet has been set up and is officially online. I haven’t tested it yet still it’s rather exciting. I planned to write a kind of debrief looking back type thing about my stay but since there have been two posts today I think I will leave it there and continue to write when I am back in nice cold England. I fly Monday morning and I have very mixed feelings about going. Everything has kind of ground to a halt. I haven’t been doing much since Gerenge except packing up and saying goodbye to my friends which I doubt will ever be easy. I am of course looking forward to seeing family again and various luxuries we take for granted like clean running water but I will write more about all this when I'm back.
Although it seems very bizarre to say this, see you soon!
Mr. Dan
The reason I have been so behind with my emails and Blogs is because I have been busy and sometimes absent from the New Hope scene in the closing weeks of my stay. After P7 week was the second week of the Investment years mini business course. The first week clashed with P7 week but I was able to join in with the second one. The team from North Dakota, otherwise known as the Cowboys, (see this is why you need to read the last one…) was a multi skilled team and in the afternoons of these two weeks they would teach the investment year guys their skills and also give them some business tips.
The week after was another week at the retreat centre in Gerenge. More faithful readers of the Blog may remember Gerenge was that place we went after Kumi with the last investment year. For those who don’t remember or didn’t read it, Gerenge is right on the lake even has a little beach. I'm told that the lake is a significant body of water that it actually has waves, which explained my initial confusion. The Food at Gerenge is usually excellent, most days we had fresh Tilapia from the lake. But there was another reason for going apart from swimming and eating, (although admittedly they were my personal highlights…). In Jinja there is a retreat centre for spiritually exhausted missionaries and those who want some reeducation and rest…or something like that. The week was called ‘Transformation of the heart’ and to be completely honest I found it very hard to get my head around. My problem was all the fancy pants language and jargon and terms and names for every situation under the sun.
The basic format was that we would sit down and listen for about an hour about this or that that we needed to repent for or people we needed to forgive for this and that and all the while we were peppered with intellectual words for this event and that event that may or may not have happened in your lifetime that you probably should repent for…so I found it somewhat difficult to digest. One of the things they did was forgiving your father and mother for mistreating you as a child. Now personally I got quite annoyed at this because they said even if your parents are alive and love you, then you still need to forgive them for something. I felt like I had forgiven my parents for the miniscule things that might possibly have happened and was feeling rather pleased and proud of my upbringing only to be told that my parents in fact have wounded me beyond repair and my spirit is therefore doomed. I didn’t take that too well. However, and it’s a very big however, the point of the week was the investment year students who have have horrible things done and said to them by their parents. Some have never known their father and some knew them only a few short years before he died. I was so pleased to see that even though I in my cynical English mindset I was getting nothing out of it, the guys who really mattered were doing some business with God. So although I thought the week was a bit OTT and I didn’t really get much out of it, some of the testimonies are really powerful. The students were telling stories of how after years they were able to forgive their fathers and mothers and start again with God as their parent. So even though it pains me to say it, I thin the ‘Transformation’ guys must know what they are talking about.
Swimming was also fun with a few rather stark exceptions. One day we were playing in the water when Ibra, a good friend of mine who likes to swim out as far as he can until he physically is too tired to move, then swim back, turned to me looking slightly confused and worried. This is basically how it sounded,
Ibra: Mr. Dan, (yeah I have no idea where Mr Dan came from…) something is entering me
Mr. Dan: Ok Ibra
Ibra: No, Mr. Dan, something is entering me, in my foot.
Mr. Dan: In your foot? Whatever! Show me!
(Ibra lifts his foot out of the water and points to his foot where a little brown worm about an itch long is wriggling and digging its was into his foot)
(Dan is nearly sick in the water and considers leaving his friend to be eaten by the work and run away)
Ibra: Mr. Dan, get it out! Get it out!
(Dan tries to brush off stange wormy thing but its already burrowed in too far)
Ibra: Pinch it! Pinch it!
(Dan does so and yanks the beast out, saving Ibra from what would be a rather nasty wormy death. Both Characters swim off as fast as they can)
Blackout
All those who need to run to the bathroom and throw up, be my guest
I also got to know the rocks on the bottom of the lake rather well. More then once I trod on one only to slip off cutting yet another ole in my feet. So that by the end of the week my feet looked like someone had tried to carry out surgery on my feet whilst rather drunk and working in an earthquake.
Oh yes, while were on the subject of earthquakes, this deserves a mention. A few days before Gerenge, New Hope got shaken by an earthquake. Doors slammed and the shutters crashed open and closed. Everyone was in bed at the time and woke up to feel the ground below them shift and wobble. Everyone, that is except me. By some rubbish fluke of absolute and monumental bad luck, I managed to sleep through a category 4 earthquake. For once in my life I wished I didn’t sleep like a log ever night.
Anyway another swimming event that by all stretches of the imagination was absolutely and completely rubbish was the breaking of my glasses. For six long months I have said to the children who frequently find pleasure in climbing on my face and doing their best to bash me into a fine pulp, “No! Not the glasses! They’re the only pair I have!” six long months! And though I can’t fully blame Moses because I was the one beating him up, he did play his part so, here is my attempt at passing the buck…
Moses was beating me up in the water…mercilessly. He was picking me up and throwing me and splashing water in my eyes and generally being annoying…ok this isn’t working, just making me sound like a pansy. Here’s what happened, I was beating up Moses in the water…mercilessly. I was picking him up and throwing him and slashing water in his eyes and generally being annoying, it’s good for him I'm sure. Anyway I was just thinking I should take off my glasses when Moses started attacking me (see it is his fault). I picked him up and flipped him over and then waded back to take my glasses off. I noticed the world looked a bit funny and whipped the water off the left lens but when I went to wipe it off the right…the right one wasn’t there. Pants. So I spent the next five days fumbling around like a blind man. Luckily and very much as an answer to prayer the optician in Kampala was amazing. I went in for an eye test Saturday afternoon and insisted that the glasses be ready by Monday. Looking back, giving the optician two days, one of them being a Sunday, was pretty unreasonable. And when Monday came around and they kept telling me sorry the glasses aren’t ready yet, come back in an hour, come back at four I got impatient. It was so frustrating not being able to see that I really had no patience to wait whatsoever. So when the glasses arrived last thing before we left Kampala on Monday I was overjoyed. Overall they cost me about £45, took two days to make, are perfect and also came from Nairobi. To get a pair of new glasses for that little in that amount of time in the UK is unheard of so I was very thankful to God for helping things along.
So as I write this on Friday, my last Friday. In the time it has taken me to write this Blog the Wireless internet has been set up and is officially online. I haven’t tested it yet still it’s rather exciting. I planned to write a kind of debrief looking back type thing about my stay but since there have been two posts today I think I will leave it there and continue to write when I am back in nice cold England. I fly Monday morning and I have very mixed feelings about going. Everything has kind of ground to a halt. I haven’t been doing much since Gerenge except packing up and saying goodbye to my friends which I doubt will ever be easy. I am of course looking forward to seeing family again and various luxuries we take for granted like clean running water but I will write more about all this when I'm back.
Although it seems very bizarre to say this, see you soon!
Mr. Dan
posted by Daniel at 11:15 PM
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