Day 13: Midnight Encounters and Dance!

“I am so sorry...”. These were the words uttered by Josh when he was caught in Eloisa and Kristen's room in the middle of the night. Josh was inspired to use the washroom in the dark, on his way back to his room he overshot his room by a couple doors and attempted to crawl into Kristen's mosquito net thinking it was his own. At the realization of a body in the bed, Josh planned to get away quickly but was stopped in his tracks by Kristen, awakening, wondering what was happening. Eloisa shone her flashlight onto Josh who was standing in the corner – he was so embarrassed.
It was our second day going through the Commisson study with our students, and we covered lessons dealing with a heart for the lost, understanding “Timothy” (those who we are building into) and seeing opportunities for evangelization. The excitement towards the mission increased two-fold this day as realizations of what the possibilities in fact were. What was interesting was the focus of concern for the Ugandan students. As Westerners, we usually concern ourselves with those Catholics who have a negative perspective of the church and see it as a 'house of condemnation', while the Ugandan students had a heart for the Catholics who would attend Mass regularly, but once they percieved that the Lord was not providing them with what they wanted they would go to the witch doctor. This is a major concern for the students here, who have seen many family members affected in the worst ways by occult activity. In the end, however, the unhealthy results of both mindsets are the same: perspectives need to change for those who see the Church as something other than a place of freedom and relationship.
The end of that evening was an amazing encounter between Canadian and Ugandan culture: dance party! We hosted what we called a “Canadian Fun Night”, where we taught various Western dances to the Ugandans and they taught us the traditional dances of their different tribes. After a night of two-stepping, chicken dancing, heavy stomping and hip shaking, our relationship with our friends was solidified – they love us and we love them.

Please pray for the students as they begin planning for missionary action on their campuses!