Another fun day on home visits....

Today was another interesting day out visiting patents. The day started off in a very poor area. We entered into a lady's home who had substantial hearing loss from the AIDS virus. And to make matters worse there were about 20 children standing in her doorway that kept saying "Muzungu bye" over and over (I guess that was the little English they knew)! It was so bad we couldn't talk to the patient and I had to go outside and physically push the children away. For those of you who didn't know I AM a celebrity here in Uganda. Everyone wants to see me and touch me and talk to me! 

Next, we went to an area near the Army Barracks here just outside of town. We were having trouble locating a new patient's home (which is very common because it's almost impossible to give directions here since there are no street names and many people live in these 'slum' areas). As we were looking a man came up to my truck and asked what we were doing. We said we were trying to find a friend's home (we try to keep some degree of confidentiality for our patients) so the man just went away. We finally found the patient's home and entered. A few minutes later the same man came back and asked us what we were doing. We told him talking about Jesus with our friend...then he left again. So we carried on talking to our patient and her husband who was a new believer, but the wife was not. It was interesting because the wife spoke better Runyankore but the husband spoke more Luganda (language spoken in Central part of Uganda) Although most Ugandans can 'hear' many languages, which amazes me!

Then another man came in, a friend but he spoke only Swahili (which is used mostly with military people here). So I encouraged Juma, the husband, (a former Muslim now a new believer) to share with his friend about the TRUTH. He took out a gospel of John he had in Swahili and began to share...it was pretty cool to watch. Then I shared some with them which was crazy because we were having to translate from English to Runyankore/Luganda to Swahili....4 languages! But Praise Him both the wife and the friend accepted Christ as their Savior. Thankfully God knows all languages. Pray that Steven and Charity will grow in their new faith. 

So after visiting them a lady who lived across the road asked us to come visit her. She said she was HIV+ but not a patient at our clinic. We sat encouraging her to come for treatment and talking about her faith when the man who questioned us twice earlier came back (it's not uncommon for Africans to walk into each other's homes without invitations especially since the doors are always open) and told us we were not welcome in this area to share 'these things' (the gospel). He had a large stick in his land and said we had no permission to be there and that we had 5 minutes to leave...he was pretty upset. I being the confrontational person I am asked..."who said we can't be here". He said we hadn't talked to the local chairperson (although we had) to inform them. Uganda is a free country and has freedom of religion so this man had no right to come into someone else's house and tell us to leave! These people are crazy at times. There is so much corruption in the government and people take any 'power' they are given to extremes. 

 Even though I did not want to, the other counselors said we should leave. We had no formal documentation that gave us clearance with the local chairman. As we were going, the lady we were visiting said this man was apart of the Uganda People's Defense Force; whatever that means. So we will be doing some investigating on this one...I think it was probably because we were near the military base and they keep a close watch on everything and because a white person was there (I just can't blend in for some reason). 

Can you imagine though if you had friends in your home visiting maybe praying together and someone came in your house and told them to leave?! There is freedom of religion here, but at times there can be some persecution from friends and family when people get saved here, although this man supposedly has no specific faith. So after we left this area we stopped at a hotel for the restroom and found military men with guns outside the gate. I was like "what is this now?" We were told the President was going to be coming through! Imagine that, like it was no big deal. If President Bush was coming through a town the whole town would know and be going crazy. But then again Uganda is the size of Oregon so not quite the same as big America. I wanted to hang around and see President Museveni, but unfortunately I couldn't. So that's a typical day in my life...being followed by my "fans", trying to witness through 3 different languages, getting chased out of a home, and almost encountering the President! :)