Well, here we are almost at the end of our trip. Today was a sad day because we had to say good bye to all our friends we had been spending almost every waking hour of the last two weeks with. It is also a challenging time because we are now leaving the gospel, the faith studies, and the mission for the kingdom in their hands – and for myself that involves a lot of trust. But I also have faith that these students were trained the way that Christ wanted them to be trained and I know God will be faithful.
So we went on the bumpy road (something a lot of us will not miss) on to Kampala, the capital city. We arrived at “Mill Hill”, which is a very beautiful mission house. This is where we are going to spend out last nights in Uganda. We set ourselves up, relaxed, and changed into the traditional clothes we had bought because we were off to our friend Stella's “Introduction”. She is part of the Bugunda tribe and in Bugandan culture the Introduction is where the fiancé is introduced to the family. Unlike in Canada where the engagement is official right away, in Uganda a couple could be engaged for almost a year before the fiancé is introduced.
We went to the introduction and it was an amazing expierence, first to see Stella and Fred so happy, but also because we are able to expierence a truly Ugandian expierence. Four and a half hours of glorious Ugandan experience. This is not a normal, touristy thing, believe me, we were the only Muzungus there. The ceremony was all in Lugunda (Bugandan language) so we had to have interpreters, and the most amusing part of the event was when Fred (the fiancé) had to bring the dowry and gifts for her family. This included a fridge, a live goat, a live chicken he had to hold for 10 minutes or so, copious amounts of pop, and around fifty baskets of food. To bring all the gifts up took around 10-15 minutes of ten people carrying things in. Pretty cool.
After the Introduction we went back to Mill Hill where we had a relaxing night just talking and shareing with each other, which quickly evolved into a spontaneous affirmation/confirmation session where the Holy Spirit was clearly moving in each of us. We talked about how we felt about everything that had happened over the past three weeks. From this night people were healed, lifted up and just became closer as a team. It was a great way to end our last night in Uganda. We will all miss this country – a part of our hearts are here.
Pray for all the students we leave behind with the mission to proclaim the gospel and build other multiplying missionaries on their campuses
