Pics, Pics, & more Pics!

Here are more Pictures from our time with Justice Ogoola at his home in Busia in Eastern Uganda. Enjoy!

Here is a picture of Chris the death row inmate who leads the worship and organizes the men in the condemned section that I wrote about in a previous post. He is the one in glasses third from the right in this January 17th photo (permission received) when our first soap project from Lethbridge brought 2600 bars of soap into the Prison.


Here you are Sophie....This is "little Sophie" !!


In Sophies village we went to meet some of the neighbors including this elderly old man who is a local authority on the history of the people in the village. He is 82 and has spent his entire life on that 2 or so acres he calls home. Sitting out on chairs and visiting is the thing to do in the villages so we spent time visiting this fellow and his wife and family.



Here is the man's wife


The old man then grabbed his cane and said follow me and he took us down the trail to the nearest village source of clean water which is a borehole and pump put in 5 years ago.



women and girls carry water all the time and they are walking all over to bring water to their huts. They carry these big containers of water on their heads! No hands holding it too!!! I didn't believe it when Douglas told me they carry water on their heads till I saw it (and video recorded it) myself.


This dear lady was a lot of fun. I greeted her in LuSamia at the water source. Well!! You'd think I hung the moon. She loved me then and wanted a photo taken with me.


Here the children and I are pumping water together and Douglas is recording on my video camera. Then I would rewind the camera and play the video to show the children their own images on video! They squealed in delight and pointed at each other at the sight of that.



before the borehole well was put in this was the water source. Sickness and disease occurences went way down after the borehole was installed.

Here is Stella, Sierra's friend in Sophie's family. Sierra will email Stella when I get home. Right Sierra?



Sunday Morning at St. Peter's church with the Judge and their lay reader. Justice had me preach to the English service here, and then over to Redeemer church (Bishop Haddington memorial where I preached again) In Africa you just have to be ready in a moments notice to preach without knowing they wanted you to preach. Preaching the Western way with notes and long preparation doesn't fly here. You have to live by the Spirit and be ready to preach and trust that God has something to say through you. I hate notes anyway, so this works well for me. And you better not be boring or Africans will politely listen but that's it! They won't clap or cheer if your boring!



The Choir at St. Peter's Church.


Here is the judge addressing the congregation and making the announcements.


Then he introduced me and it was time for the sermon. and yes Dana, they paid attention and were spellbound because ....well,..... hey you already know it.....you have the best preacher around ...muah ha ha ha ha.


This was my favorite part of the weekend. Heidi Heavy Shield back home gave me this authentic Calgary Flames Jersey she had for me to give as a gift to Justice Ogoola. I presented it to him during the sermon and the faces of the people just lit up. It was the same for the judge. He was like a kid in a candy store! Then I turned it around and showed this....



He was so impressed with this jersey. He played a little bit of hockey when he studied in New York and so he knew how important hockey is to Canadians. He insisted that I thank Heidi so deeply, and by extension, the Aboriginal people back home.





I learned the "Grace" in the LuSamia language and that really made a connection with the congregation. They loved it that the Mzungu pulled it off (albeit very slowly) in their own language.





Here's a funny story. Anglicans like to be all dignified and move around in procession. When the service was ending the lay reader and I processed over to the sacristy door to go in. When we got to the door it was locked and he had no key! We looked about as dignified as George W. Bush did in Russia with President Putin when he tried to go through that locked door just off the stage!!!


He leads his people no matter what venue he is in, church, judiciary, politics, community development, or around the dinner table.




This dear old gent has been in this church since 1951 and confiemns that i was the first visiting guest mzungu to preach there.


Here the judge presents the mother's union of the community with a series of massive pots. There must have been 15 of them in reducing sizes.





Here we are arriving at Redeemer Church (Bishop Haddington Memorial). When we got there the kids mobbed us and wanted to hold my hand as I walked into the church where, by the way, I was told on entry that I was preaching again.





This church has a very significant history. It's very old and has been around since the missionary days of Bishop Haddington in the 1860's. The Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey visited here and preached about 11 or 12 years ago.







They packed us all in, including the children and began the awesome African singing with drums.






I preached and the judge translated.


Collection plate and offering time


At the end they take the offering for today and as a fundraiser auction off all the vegtables, sugar cane and items that were donated. I and another man were appointed as auctioneers.


I bought a broom! (for Lisa... Ha ha haha ha ha ) boy I'm gonna pay for that!!!


Then we were off and walked along a trail from the church to this tree. The Bishop Hannington memorial tree. In 1885 he and 48 LuSamia Christians were martyred (speared) and buried somewhere. Two Samia escaped and came back a year later to exhume the Bishop's body to send home to England. The village people would not let them into the walls of the village with the dead body so they camped outside the walls. To protect the body from lions and hyenas they put it up in this tree until they could make the trip to Kenya's coast and send the body home. Another King claimed the body and wanted to bury the Bishop in Uganda instead of sending him home.

The villagers out of respect for the Bishop and others killed donated a large tract of land in his honor. Today descendants of these families wanted the land back. Justice Ogoola instead nogotiated with them one by one and bought all the land, the original walled fortress site and the area nearby for a memorial on which he wants to reconstruct the archeological record of the fortress, protect the Bishop's tree and build a Bible College that he one days wants to be a University for the education of the Samia People.

On july 26 here at this church and memorial site 2000 people will gather (bishops, politicians, cabinet ministers) and local villagers for the launch of the LuSamia Bible by the judge. They will come from Kenya as well as all over Uganda. The judge is working really hard with all the district governments for this historic occasion where he will also explain the vision of the University, the new church building, Compassion International's location (he gave them land there to build on). He is a visionary dreamer.



left to right; District Chairperson, Justice Ogoola, me, Speaker of the house, and Archdeacon Martin

Here I accompanied the judge to the session of the Busia District council of Uganda's Government as he presented to them the launch event of the Bible and asked for their governmental support and logistical help and involvement. The elected leaders are all going to be at the launch and have to provide for everything from seats to armed security for Government V.I.P.'s. He asked me to say something so I told them that even though the Bible in Samia launch was religious in nature, as elected officials they were part of history in terms of governing towards the preservation of the LuSamia culture.

I explained the Blackfoot and Aboriginal history of language loss and resulting identity loss and applauded them in their enthusiastic support of the launch as they sunk their cultural roots down deep in the LuSamia people who may spread out throughout the world but due to the revival of the language, they would keep their culture. I think by their applause that they liked my remarks and want to meet the Blackfoot people.

We finished that session, raced to Tororo to meet the Anglican Bishop (I had met him in Jerusalem), then the Catholic Bishop's staff, and then race to Bugiri to meet the District politicians and leaders. (in this photo their District Chairperson). We finished all this and then made the 3 hour trip back to Kampala. It was an exhausting weekend but full of very meaningful experiences.

Tuesday after I was scheduled to go with Adreda to her project near Kampala called "Helping Hands" and visit the brand new school project. I'll post mor pics later!

Sunday July 13th I am scheduled to speak at Luzira Prison's Correctional Staff and families church service, followed by an interview on a catholic radio station.....stay tuned (no pun intended)