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Uganda’s greener than you might think.  It’s also very beautiful.  After having only spent a week there I’m conscious that any description or analysis of Uganda(ns) I attempt will be shockingly ill-informed and incomplete. So I’m not really going to try. (I recommend this blog post if you’re looking for that!)  What I am hoping to share with you is how God used our time there in February to both confirm his call on us to go to Uganda and start preparing us for life there.

We had a wonderful week seeing round Kampala and the surrounding area, meeting EMI staff and visiting Acacia school where the girls now have school places, praise God! The highlight of the trip by far was being able to visit some of the ministries that EMI serves and see how they are working on the ground to reach people with the love of Jesus.  I think that, until now, we have in some ways felt called to join the work of EMI generally and working in the Uganda office ‘made sense’ rather than God particularly putting the Ugandan people and nation on our hearts.  But that is slowly changing and I think it’s down to meeting real people with tangible needs to be met, but who ultimately need Jesus.  We’ve had a taste of Ugandan life and culture, yes, but we have also just begun to scratch the surface to see some of the poverty and suffering experienced by so many Ugandans.

It’s hard to describe the wave of emotion that swept over me as we arrived at the Gem Foundation – a home for around 40 children with special needs who have been orphaned, abused or abandoned by their families.  The staff at the Gem Foundation look after these kids and give them a home- the love in that place is palpable.  As we go to serve with EMI, we are partnering with wonderful ministries like the Gem Foundation – in this case EMI is designing a new ‘village’ outside the city to replace the cramped quarters where the children are currently living.  We don’t join this work based on an emotional reaction to some cute kids, but since we are both people who tend to make decisions fairly rationally (at least we like to think so), it is encouraging to see how God is beginning to turn our hearts to Uganda as well as our minds.

We left Uganda eager to return – in some ways it is now much easier to picture what life there will be like, but there are still a LOT of unknowns!  We are conscious of the huge ‘to-do’ list to get through before we set foot there again – the danger is that we try to accomplish that in our own strength, rather than God’s.  So please do pray for us to be humble enough to rely on God for everything and to make space for him to share his heart for the people of Uganda with us.

[Please note: I’m planning to put some more photos on this post at a later date!]