Waiting at the airport in Entebbe was Bishop Kamye and his friend-in-Christ Sa’ara. With there help I arrived safely at my hostel accommodation in Kampala after first walking about a mile, then taking a mini-bus, a second mini-bus, and going the last bit by motorbike. Before saying goodbye I was told that I would be addressing three congregations the next day, and that I should have a sermon prepared.
Thee next morning Kamye picked me up around 8AM and we began our two day tour. Uganda has many contrasts to Ethiopia which sounds obvious, but might surprise some who think of Africa more as a single country than a collection of 47 contiguous nation states. In fact, it is probably even more advantageous to conceive of it as a continent with thousands of people groups, each with their own unique history, present position, and future needs.
Two of the three boys shown here on this bench have lost their parent to the AIDS epidemic, for example. Their needs are unique, though not exceptional. A quick web search will show that there are somewhere between 2,500,000 and 2,700,000 orphans in Uganda alone. If these two were to find a family, there would be between 2,499,998 and 2,699,998 who still need to be as fortunate. It will take courage in millions of people to face this crisis, not least of all in the children themselves.
I preached Psalm 139, because it is the passage I know the best. The ramifications of this song of David are probably as difficult to believe for me, and my audience as they were for their author; a man who was betrayed, hunted, hated and persecuted; a man who would see many of his own children die before him; a man for whom death was very familiar. In the States we tend to look at our technology and our hospitals and medicines and think “the world is a different place than it was in biblical times.”
The he world has not changed so very much as that.
albaniacalling 