Day 21: Happy Birthday, Daniel John Pettipas!

When it is somebody's birthday, the Ugandans we had been hanging out with thought it fitting to pour water on the head of whomever the celebrations were for. After Mass in the morning lots of water was aimed at Daniel's floppy locks while mischevious smiles were plastered on the beaming faces of the perpetrators.
The day, however, had much focus as we had two events to organize for the students at UMU; this would be the first time we would have the new students to ourselves in a classroom setting. Great opportunity! Before this point we had spent much of our time sharing the Ultimate Relationship and had spiritual conversations over meal times, and we Canadians had been focusing our attention on the leaders we had trained the week before, ensuring they were comfortable leading their faith studies. Knowing we were have an audience allowed for greater cooperation between everybody involved in the mission: Canadians, NETers and UMU students. We had two events planned, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The afternoon session saw Andre give a talk that brought the dead to life, as many students were falling asleep but paid special attention to the Westerners in their midst. We also had all the Canadians and four of the UMU students share quick 45 second testimonies. The students that atended this session were impacted and responded.
The evening session was a “fun night” which turned out to be full of surprises. There is a storehouse of freedom in executing evengs here in Uganda, it seems, and this tendency towards 'improvisation' took advantage of us tonight. Eloisa's Co-MC disappeared a couple of times with no warning, we had an impromptu 15 minute testimony shared by one of the students, and a lot of singing took place at random junctures during the evening. The funniest thing about it all was in the fact that it worked: people really enjoyed themselves and took the testimonies shared by Megan and Sylvia (her disciple) to heart. It was a night only a Ugandan could truly understand – in other words, what would have been a disaster in Canada was taken all in good fun here.

Pray that this freedom translates to the faith studies the students will be leading over the next six weeks!