Sunday - 

A more straightforward day. Jim and Valerie were going to the Cathedral service and Grace, Heather and Andy were off to Rugandu to join with the fellowship there. Breakfast was taken at 8.00am and then we were off.

The cathedral service lasted three hours and forty-five minutes which is fairly standard. As well as the normal selection of choirs, they had a visiting singer from the pentecostal church who happened to sing some songs from his latest CD (available from any good Christian bookshop?)! Jim preached (not from his latest CD) on the Ethiopian eunuch's conversion, which Valerie was able to understand without the help of an interpreter.

The journey to Rugandu was in a normal car, which was not kind on the car. The rattles seemed to get worse as we progressed, but we made it there. A welcome from Pastor Robert included some cakes that had been made in his wife’s bakery along with African tea. Very pleasant.

The church building is being updated with a new concrete floor as well as other things to bring it up to the standard required by the government. It will be re-opened by the Bishop on July 28th. So we were meeting in the school next door. The room was packed and a huge welcome met us as the people sang and danced us in. Children were squashed in at the front next to where Andy was sitting so he had lots of eyes staring up at him, perhaps seeing a white person for the first time.

We introduced ourselves and gave the parish a DT text card. Andy preached on the text from Colossians, encouraging the Christians to live with Christ Jesus as Lord. For his talk the lectern had been moved to the side so that he could walk about and see everyone. It was a tall lectern with a large white cloth over it. After the sermon, during a song, one of the servers picked up the lectern to bring it back into the centre, in front of Pastor Robert. The server was not much bigger than the lectern and as he lifted it up, the cloth fell over his head, limiting what he could see. He continued his task and staggered in the right direction, but only to bump into Pastor Robert. He struggled to stay upright, but managed to place the lectern down on the ground - facing the wrong way. As he emerged from under the cloth he could see his error and, to the accompanying chuckles from the congregation, the lectern was turned around. As the server returned to his position there was impromptu applause and he duly took a bow. 

In the evening we enjoyed supper and conversation with Bishop Emmanuel and his friend Bishop Augustine, recently retired.

Tomorrow Valerie and Heather are off to King Solomon Academy, Hannah Ministry and the Mothers Union. The rest of us will be visiting three more SAP-linked parishes.

Thanks for reading and goodnight.