Good morning, friends, and family. The marriage conference for the pastors and their wives began Monday at noon. But first we had to get there! It was just a short trip from the guest house to the conference. Driving through the town of Nebbi, we passed hundreds of people walking along brick shops that sold everything from minutes for your cell phone to piles of pineapples and avocados. Dozens of boda bodas (taxi motorcycles) wove in & out of traffic sometimes carrying 3 adults and a child, while many more of the drivers lined up in the shade of a nearby tree waiting to carry people home from their errands.

As we arrived at the little conference center, men in traditional African shirts and women in vibrant colors & patterns warmly welcomed us with shy, bright white smiles. Plastic chairs filled the small cement walled classroom. Barred windows with no screens or glass were designed to let air in during the day and keep intruders out at night. However, they did nothing to keep out the noise & dust of an active road construction project right in front of the classroom OR the rumble of the buses taking people to distant towns OR the beeping of the boda bodas OR the grinding gears of the fuel trucks traveling to the Democratic Republic of Congo (we’re just a few kilometers from the border).

Originally, we were supposed to begin with lunch, but the caterer was delayed so Wendell kicked off introductions and the first session and we ate lunch around 2 PM. The food in Africa has been really good… pork, beef, fish, goat. Meats are prepared in rich sauces to accompany the rice, potatoes, chapatti (fried flatbread) or matook which is boiled mashed unripe plantains. One “interesting” dish (pictured at the top of the food table to the right) was “kwen”, which is a mixture of boiled millet (grain), sorghum, and cassava. It looks like a giant dark brown meatloaf, and served by using a plastic plate to scoop out your portion.

They served us as honored guests at a separate table, which was a little uncomfortable but Pastor George insisted this is part of their culture and a way of showing honor. As a compromise, each day Steve & I invite a different couple to come share the meal with us.

Steve & I are team teaching and trying to fill our sessions with visuals and small gifts (from those precious ministry bags) that illustrate teaching points- magnets demonstrating how God sees us as one in marriage, a nail for sacrifice, a little towel for servanthood, an inexpensive flashlight and saltshaker for our marriages being light and salt, etc. By the end, each couple will have a nice little gift bag of simple reminders of our time together.

Our snug hotel room doesn’t have screens or air conditioning, so it gets a bit stuffy at night. Sleeping under a mosquito net is to keep out mosquitos but every night we’ve had one or two somehow get through. It’s amazing how something so tiny can be so disconcerting when you hear the high pitched buzzing in your ear. Usually, an oscillating fan keeps things bearable, but each night we’ve had intermittent power outages around midnight, and it gets HOT. But it eventually comes back on, and we’ve been sleeping about as intermittently as the power until the rooster wakes us up at 6:30 AM.

On Tuesday, due to the dust and noise from the construction project we moved the conference to a nearby church. Built to seat @150, the cement auditorium was a pleasant improvement to the crowded classroom we had on Monday. The one major drawback was that the church only has open latrines, and yes, it’s as bad as you think. But as needed, Pastor George insisted on driving me back to our nearby guest house to use a flushing toilet.

Precious moments so far include:
*Listening and participating in Ugandan singing
*Watching the joy and laughter of the couples playing the simple games we brought, like hot potato
*Q & A time with the women outside under a large shade tree
*And holding hands together in prayer

Thank you so much for praying! We’ve seen God answer specifically and can sense His peace in such a real way. Please continue to pray against the enemy who does not want marriages to have hope & healing & reflect Christ & His church. We know our God is great!

Love in Christ, Pam