Beating the Changes

The Missions we helped with continued over the weekend. On Saturday we went with teams to visit people’s homes, particularly those unable to get to church, in order to tell them about the Mission and to pray for them. For Malcolm in Busozi this meant climbing up steep, muddy, ‘mountain goat’ paths which would have made a challenging ramble in England. Part way up would be small homesteads where an elderly woman might live with her family. The old ladies, unsteady on their feet, are totally unable to get down or up the hillside and are therefore captive in their own home. There aren’t any facilities, like cars, to take them out and even if there were there are no roads anywhere near their homes.

On Sunday we each spoke at our different churches. Here the tradition is that the congregation is summoned by the beating of drums instead of church bells. Occasionally we have seen a brake drum of a car being used which, when hanging from a tree and struck, makes a fairly reasonable bell sound.

There have been some changes at Potters Village Home for Vulnerable Children. Because the home is designed for babies up to about 2 years old there comes a time when they need to move on. For many this means moving back to their families or to foster parents. However, some need to be transferred to homes for older children. This week five children under the care of the Local Authority, including Pius who is about 3 years old, were driven to their new home for older children at Fort Portal. Unfortunately there are fewer children homes in Uganda than in the UK so the choice is limited. Fort Portal is over 150 miles and a day’s drive away, which means the children are moved away from any family they might have. What is more difficult is that the language spoken in the new area is completely different to the tribal language here so they will need to learn another language.

The landscape in Potters Village is changing as progress is being made to the new babies’ unit. In Uganda there are as many women working on building projects as men, and they often seem to do the heavy lifting and moving of materials around the site.

In order to complete the babies’ unit Jenny Green has gone to the UK for fund raising visits to a number of churches. This means someone has to look after her children, Hannah and Jojo – Guess who!!!!

We have therefore moved up the hill to Jenny’s house. Fortunately we are not the only ones here has Jenny has a number of staff to cook and care for the children and the 2 toddlers who are ‘baby sat’ during the day for a working couple. We are more or less live-in grandparents, trying to relearn how to look after a 5 and 11 year old. So far, so good; 3 days gone – 3 weeks to go!!