You may or may not know that Christina and I visit Mulago Hospital(the national referral hospital) every Wednesday, and we have witnessed God doing amazing things in the hearts of many people there.
We go with a young pastor friend from Kawempe named Deon who serves as our translator, and is a great guy. When we arrived there this past Wednesday the 19th of August, Deon told us that his uncle 
had been brought there the day before and was very sick. We walked into the ward where he was with his wife and two grown sons and everyone was visibly upset, Paul was rapidly going down hill, he was unconscious and having seizures, and as normal, there was nothing being done to help him. We tried to comfort the family and we prayed with the family and Christina held and comforted his wife while she cried. A nurse came and said that they wanted to move him upstairs to a different ward, so I and the eldest son lifted Paul onto a gurney and rolled him up to another ward, and at that time we decided that we should go so the family could get him situated. Shortly thereafter, we received the call that Paul had died. Deon asked if I could please go with him to their village the next day for the burial.
Yesterday morning I picked up my good friend and co-laborer, Joseph Essiana and we went to Kawempe and got Deon and headed out to the village. I believe that his entire clan was there, he was a well respected and loved man. I was not asked to co
nduct the service, but I was asked to speak to the people twice, it was a great honor. The service and burial lasted about five hours, during that time I visited with alot of the elders of the family, I visited with the men that volunteered to dig the grave, and I prayed with the widow.
The grave was very interesting, after they dug down about four feet, they lined it with bricks and mortored over the bricks, basically making a concrete vault for the casket. The most special part for me was when I learned that Paul had prayed to receive Jesus, last month! After the burial, we all walked back to the house for the installation service of the leader of the family. Paul's heir was his eldest son who is also named
Paul. I was asked to offer some words of encouragement,
so one of the things that I told him
was to not only be a good leader for the family, but most importantly be a follower of Jesus, I then gave him a Bible. I believe that this will be a day
that I won't soon forget and am very grateful to have been invited to be a part of this family and to be able to share the love of Jesus with them.
Today, August 27th 2009 a new house church was born! While visiting a Manna Ministry recepient in Biina Zone a couple months ago, Christina was asked by Jjajja Ester if we would come and start a fellowship at her house. Several different events delayed our going until today, but it was worth the wait. The Jjajja did not know that we were coming today, but she was so happy to see us, she called some of her neighbors and we had our first Bible study at her house. We will be going every Thursday at 10am to teach and learn together. I think the highlight of the day was when I gave Jjajja Ester a new Luganda Bible. She was upset because her Bible had been left in a taxi and was lost. She told us that she had been selling mango's from her tree to try and save up to buy a new Bible, but now she has a new Bible and she was overjoyed and praising God. We praise God for bringing us to this place and pray that God will bless this house church and all of the people that come to it. Please be in prayer with us for this group, that they would all draw closer to Jesus and become bright shining lights in this community.
