Adults Day Out & Worship at Kasubi

Saturday became adults day out as the ladies went shopping and the men went golfing, while the girls stayed at the Stevenson's and took naps and played games. Everyone seemed to have fun with the change of pace and the younger ones enjoyed their time alone.

Us guys experienced something very different. On the first hole Zach hit a shot that almost clipped a monkey that was scurrying across the fairway. We teased him that the goal was to get birdies and not monkeys. On the second hole we saw a rhinoceros! Only in Africa. Actually, the course was next to a zoo and the rhino was fenced in. Nonetheless as we walked up to our ball and saw a rhino grazing to our left it was a bit disconcerting. The most interesting part of our excursion though was having our own personal caddies. These guys have eagle eyes and between the four of us, we only lost 1 ball! That doesn't mean we played exceptionally well, but our caddies were masters at finding stray golf balls. We all felt like we were professionals with someone carrying our bag and giving us advice on what club to use, where to hit the ball and how to read our putts.

This morning, we went to church in Kasubi, which is the same place where we participated in the ordination service for 17 pastors in our second day here - it seems like a lifetime ago! It was a really nice service with lots of music, a wonderful children's choir which was preceeded by some of the kids reciting scriptures they had memorized from the Psalms. I preached again, and there was a wonderful response at the end of the message. Several people stood, asking for special prayer for God to work in their lives, and our team members divided up and stood by those individuals, laid hands on them and prayed for them. The service was then brought to a close when the pastor asked all of us to come forward and he prayed a powerful prayer that included the Scripture which tells us that through Christ we have the power to bind on earth what is bound in heaven and loose on earth what is loosed in heaven. He bound the volcano and loosed our ability to be able to fly home safely on Tuesday. We left very encouraged and renewed with the power of God!

Tim and his son Logan then took us to an Indian restaurant where we experienced authentic Indian food. For most of us it was our first time. After naps, Nancy led us in a great devotion on patience, quoting the fruit of the Spirit passage in Galatians. She reminded us that God wants us to learn to wait on Him, to trust Him, and how patience - even in times when we feel we've lost all control - is one of the characteristics that God wants us to learn.

Each one of us have had our down moments this past week, but overall, God has done a wonderful thing in teaching us to lean on each other, to encourage one another, and to love each other, even when all we want to do is be reunited with the ones we love, sleep in our own beds, and be able to get back to work and school.

We do not yet know completely why God allowed us to be here for a third week, but we are learning to trust His ways even when they don't coincide with what we think is best. After all, His ways are higher than ours and His knowledge is greater than ours.

Again, thank you for your prayers, your words of encouragement, and the love we have felt thousands of miles away.

Tomorrow, we are going with Tim to one of the island villages on Lake Victoria. We will be going on a 2 hour boat ride to the island, visit one of the churches and schools as he meets with some of his colleagues, and then we will take the 2 hour trip back to Kampala.

Tuesday we are planning to leave by 5 pm for our 9:50 flight to Amsterdam. We are excitedly counting the hours until our plane lifts off for home. We have an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam before flying to Newark. We are scheduled to arrive in Buffalo at approximately 8:30 pm on Wed night. Please pray that we are able to make all of our connections.

We love you and feel very blessed having each one of you as our prayer partners!

With love,

P. Roy