A Day for New Experiences

I can't remember the last time I sang along to Sunday School songs performed on a goat skin drum.

 

 

Nor can I remember the last time I've enjoyed a traditional plate heaping with rice, matooke and ground nut sauce without the assistance of any silverware.

 

Yeah--Sunday was a day for new adventures.

 

(To access the story of the full day's events, please click Read More.)



How did it all start? With a taxi ride, of course. Alyssa and I rode off to a church in a village towards Entebbe with Anita, a caretaker at the Baby House, and one toddler-sized charge. This time (unlike my first experience at a church here) when I was asked if I wanted to "help out with the kids," I knew that it actually meant "teach the class." Opting to teach the older kids, I thus found myself closed in a small concrete room along with twenty or thirty kids and that goat skin drum.

 

We started with a very fun worship session led by the kids. Next I told the Jonah and the Whale balloon story, followed by more songs, followed by some string figure Bible stories. Running out of ideas, I asked the kids which other stories they wanted to hear. "Moses!" someone shouted. Here we go again!

We started talking about faith, reading the Hebrews 11 account of Moses and tying it in to Proverbs 3:5-6. "Can you think of other stories in the Bible of people who had to trust in God instead of lean on their own understanding?" You wouldn't believe the answers they gave. Gideon, Paul, David, Daniel...those kids nailed it. Then the students shared their own testimonies about relying on God for provision for food and school fees. It was pretty neat.

 



Samosas are triangular pastries filled
with beans, peas, veggies or meat
 

We broke for snacks, and the teacher invited me to sit on the drum and share in the samosas. After teaching the younger kids one song with Esther, another friend from the Baby House, I returned to the main church to catch the last of the service.

Upon taxiing back again I had only enough time to eat lunch and attempt to wash a puddle of spilled porridge out of my bag (leaky sipper cup) before walking to a graduation party with Anita. All of the Baby House occupants came along!

 

A large group of family and friends sat in the well-decorated
yard in the shelter of a tent to enjoy the festivities.
I hardly understood a word of it, but I caught enough to
 know that thankfulness for God's faithfulness
filled every speech and segment.



 

It was in this place, after I'd listened to a series of
speeches in Lugandan and witnessed the cutting of the grad cake that someone passed me a plate.  Rice, Irish potato, cabbage, greens, pork (I assume) and matooke--cooked, mashed banana, remember?--with ground nut sauce were all piled high on it.



I soon realized that tonight would be my first chance to practice eating with my hands! Sitting in the dark with colourful music swirling about, a baby with whom I would be sharing my plate perched on my lap, I looked down at the plate. Then I looked down at my baby-handling, toddler-toting, mud-stained hands. My Western little mind wished I'd brought some One-Step. But hey--I was hungry!

Finger Food!
At first it was all I could do not to get rice up my nose, but
after a while I figured out the usefulness of the "scoop and
slide" finger move technique I'd seen the babies use over
their rice at home.