An Unforgettable 24 Hours

It started simply enough at about 4:30 p.m on Thursday.  Noah, the President of the Lutheran Church Mission Uganda, picked us up at our Hotel.  We were planning to go to his house, about 3 hours east of Kampala, and come back the next day on public transportation.  With him was Henry, the past president of the LCMU.  He had just been visiting in Minnesota.  It was fun to hear his impressions.

Noah had come to Kampala to buy tires.  The first place we went to did not have the proper size.  We then went to another place near downtown, but is was all blocked off by soldiers.  Had been some demonstrations.  I do not understand it all, but in Uganda there are many tribes which do not always get along with each other.  The Buganda people were upset over how their king was being treated by the government.  Since some roads were closed, it took forever to get out of town.

Finally, we got out of town, but as we approached a smaller village (maybe 10 miles out) we saw that traffic was stopped because  the road ahead was closed.  We could see black smoke coming up from a huge fire.  Noah turned off on a side street to go around.  When I say “street” keep in mind I use that term rather loosely.  We traveled (perhaps 25 miles) over some of the roughest roads I have ever experienced, frequently asking directions of those along the road.  I wondered if there was some kind of stream or other natural barrier, that we could not have turned back sooner.  And of course it was dark.  Well, we finally got back to the main road, and got stuck in traffic.  There was a loud noise, and everyone in our van ducked.  We thought it was gunfire, but it was just a rock that had been thrown.

Then we started to learn what was happening. Everyone in the van had been speaking rapidly in the local language.  The fire had been set by rioters to stop traffic.  They had also strewn rocks and logs on the road.  Some of the people had given good directions, others false.  Now, we were soon into the next district where peace prevailed.  Then just to make life interesting, when we were stopped at a service station, all kinds of smoke gushed from the engine.  Turned out to be just steam from an overheated radiator, but our nerves were pretty shot by then.

Our three hour trip took twice that.  We got to Noah’s house about 11:30 p.m. and met his wife Susan, the only deaconess in the LCMU. They were wonderful hosts. The next morning was very, very interesting as Noah showed us ministry in that area.  “Redeemer Lutheran Church” is on their property.  They have 50-60 communicants.  Noah and his wife have also started a vocational boarding school at their house.  They house about 10 boys learning carpentry and 50 girls learning tailoring. These are mostly orphans.  They also have a HIV-AIDS outreach.  We visited three other churches in the area.  One of them has a school for 250 children, about 3/4 of them orphans.  On this day they were moving into their new facility, about 1 mile or so down the road.  We saw the students carrying their benches down the road.  We then took part in a spur of the moment assembly in which the teachers told of their work and I had a brief word of greeting to them.

Unfortunately, as we were doing this, we were wondering how we were going to get back to Kampala.  We kept in touch with the Trumps and Gillards, who warned us not to come into downtown Kampala.  We were considering staying another night, but also heard that the next day might be worse.  We were going to eat lunch with Noah and his wife and son, and then see the source of the Nile.  But we decided to cut short our visit that we might get back before dark.  We learned that the buses were going through, and eagerly accepted Vicar Shauen Trumps offer to pick us up at a site before downtown to avoid the worst of it.

While we were quite anxious setting off, the trip was blissfully uneventful, and we arrived back at our hotel about 6 p.m.  We could not correspond that night since we had left our computer at the Gillard’s house for safekeeping.

It is now Saturday afternoon, and we are at the Gillard’s awaiting the celebration of Evangeline’s 3rd birthday.  I will be preaching at the Kampala church in the morning.  I am not sure if the riots are continuing, but we are in a very “non-political” part of town, far from the action.

We appreciate all your prayers.  While we would not have gone on the trip if we had known of the danger, we both agree that it was quite an adventure, and 24 hours we will never forget.

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