“They need to be
encouraged to live in a consistently Godly way despite peer pressure,” the
pastor’s wife explained to me as we all leaned over our plates of goat Saturday
night, “and to keep using their God-given talents.”
We were each going to be speaking to a different group the next morning, Sunday, during a first session. Out of the groups--men, married women, youth and kids, I had been delegated to be with the kids. We were now
discussing the needs of the audiences to learn what issues we were supposed to
speak about. My topics? Godly living and using your talents. These are the
things I would need to be prepared to preach on for two full sessions of Sunday
school teaching…in just over twelve hours! I remember asking God one thing that
night: help!
(For the whole story, plus pictures of Sunday school teaching, equator crossing and zebra watching, please click "Read More.")
That evening as I discussed my task with Dr. Pysar, she gave
me some good ideas of stories and illustrations to work with for teaching those
two topics. I still didn’t know entirely what was going to happen, but had
enough of a plan to feel (somewhat) equipped as the land cruiser pulled up in
front of the church the next morning.
As soon as I stepped out of the vehicle, something hit me.
It was a child. “Good morning, teacher!” she said brightly, squeezing me like a
favourite pillow. Picking up my hands, the gathering children commented on my long nails. “How do
you trim them?” I showed them the swiss army knife clippers I happened to be
carrying and before I knew it ended up with one very short right thumb nail.
Still fingering the blunt stub that had once been my thumb nail,
I walked with my swirling cloud of kidlings into the church building for
worship. I stood beside my initial Greeter for the first few songs—well, I stood; she danced—until being
dismissed for the first session. A stream of departing kids was flowing past
the front side door of the building, so I found a gap and merged. Coming around
a corner, we arrived at a patch of grass behind the church. And there it was: a
shelter of wooden poles overlaid with blue tarp. The Sunday School.
Thus I stood at the front of the little building; its
framework walls open to a banana plantation on the right and endless hills
stretching out to a place where they met the sky on the left. The kids began
with a few worship songs, moving energetically and singing until the mountains
fairly rang with praises. Not that I could understand what they were saying.
When they had seated themselves on their benches, their teacher—my
interpreter—looked over at me and smiled serenely, motioning for me to begin
lessons. O-okay. I looked out over
the crowd, breathed in and just started talking.
First we reviewed what we had talked about Saturday
night—becoming someone God can use by practicing serving people. “Today we’re
going to look at two more ways to become someone God can use…” I began after
that, and launched into the story of David. We talked about using the talents,
skills and equipment that God has already given them. (In David’s case it would
have been his shepherd’s tools and his harp.) The balloon props that went along
with the story were a hit! A few kids acted out parts of the story to practise doing
drama as a talent, after which we sang a song accompanied by a balloon guitar
(the prop for David’s harp) to put our musical talents to use. We had exactly
finished this when Jordan came over to help with the second kids’ session,
indicating that the first session had ended already. And I only talked about half of what I was going to!
The teacher wanted us to continue with lessons, so we moved
onto the story of Daniel and the theme of godliness. The kids had to stand up
and sing songs to shake off their restlessness a few times throughout the
session, but we all made it through regardless. We even had to cut our teaching
short! So much for not having enough
material to fill two hours!
After the service we went for a “snack” at the pastor’s
house that turned out to be another delightful traditional feast. Six pineapples—one
for each person—lay on the table before us as gifts on behalf of the church. We
packed these in amongst ourselves on the long drive back to Masaka, retracing
our path through the beautiful hills and many villages we’d passed on Saturday.
As the lush green plantation land along the highway gave place to a drier
landscape, we began to scan the hills and trees for glimpses of wild zebras.
Most of the black-and-white animals that happened to be grazing in the fields
were spotted and rather ordinary, but before long some sets of telltale stripes
caught our attention.
 |
| A truck-full of cattle |
Not until dark did we arrive back in Masaka. The power being
out again, we sat around a lantern-lit table with a card game and a bowl of
grasshoppers until enough chapattis had fried for supper. Am I gonna sleep tonight! I decided.
All through the pancake breakfast the next morning, everyone
was conscripted to play roles in a rambunctious imagination game that Andrea
more-or-less came up with. It started with my being her “Sarge” and her being
my "Special Agent" who I’d send on missions. But every time she reported back to
me the story grew more and more unconventional, until the entire weekend
ministry team had morphed into a bizarre ensemble of characters. (And I
thought my imagination was random!)
The remarkable breakfast time completed, a remarkable drive
home began. What made it so extraordinary? That would be the opportunity we
took to pull over at the equator and pose for photos taken in two hemispheres simultaneously!
By the time the well-traveled land cruiser drove back up
Seguku hill, I was more than ready to unbuckle my seatbelt, dislodge the gift
pineapple that had spent the trip making an impression on my feet, and go to
bed. But instead of tiredly stumbling up to bed as I had originally intended, I
actually ended up spending the evening excitedly swapping stories about the
weekend over supper at the guesthouse. Alyssa had some cool stories to share
from her school ministry trip, and Jordan and I couldn’t stop talking about Mitooma!
So thank you for your prayers this past weekend. We had a
safe, successful trip, and God stayed with us faithfully through all of it. And
through your answered prayers, you’ve been a part of the ministry too.
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