Almost Arrested Abroad

Got your attention, didn't I? It wasn't that close but we did get stopped by the police today. We go everywhere in a 14 passenger Jimmy. I don't believe that I covered that particular vehicle the day I described the road to Uganda. It looks like those safari toyota van and it is supposed to carry 14 passengers. Well, you may guess that Africa has it's own idea of proper passenger load.

Each day the Jimmy arrives here with a driver, Jenna Doud, and Rose. They are here to pick up our team of five. We are joined by Miriam, a house mother, her daughter, a child mother and son. If you are counting, we are up to 12 passengers. Along the way, we pick up interpreters, and more child mothers. Usually we end up with up 19 passengers. We decided, at Scarry Mary's urging, to go for a world record and had 21 this afternoon. And that's when the police stopped us. The policeman was very friendly and polite. He told us that we had too many passengers for the vehicle. Little did he know that before he stopped us, we had dropped off two and while we were waiting for him to walk up to us, one more jumped out.

Rose told him that we were coming back from some training nearby. He asked what kind. She told him we were working with child mothers in one of the camps. He asked if any of the women in the van were child mothers and when we said yes, he waved and began walking backwards away from us. So we escaped a arrest. Rose said it would not have ended up being a problem anyway. The "custom" is to get out, with money hidden in hand, and either pat the policeman on the shoulder while apologizing, or shake his hand while greeting him and then he would tell us to get out of the way.

Today, we saw the results of the girls first experience with tie dying. They brought in their samples that they did yesterday. They were all sitting and Marianne asked them to show us their project. Oh, how proud they were to show us! They all did a great job. I've taken a lot of pictures but haven't had time to see if I can upload here. If I get a bigger block of time, I will try to figure that out. Otherwise, I will post them after we get back to the states.

Today I spoke on prayer and we shared the gospel. One girl raised her hand that she had accepted Christ for the first time today. Praise God! One of our interpreters said that it is probable that more did as well but in general, the girls are afraid to raise their had to show that because they might be ridiculed back home. They will show their decision by telling Rose or Christina privately later.

Denee was the first to break the mazoonga curse. A little girl of about 18 months old, grabbed one of her fingers and held on for a really long time. Then, she was slowly able to entice her to sit on her lap. We were all afraid to go for our cameras in case our movement frightened the little girl. It was a miracle.

Tomorrow is the festival day with the children. We expect 300 children from various camps. We have several activities planned. Sunday, we are going to church with Rose and then to one camp that is not able to participate with us on festival day. We don't know for sure how long these two days will be, so I may not be able to post until Monday. So, farewell for now.