Richard (with Bill from UT) picked us up at 9:30 am to go to Dove Church in Wakiso for worship.  About halfway there the road was closed.  Richard said it was because of the huge accident that occurred during the night.  A gasoline tanker collided with a car and turned over spilling gas onto the highway.  Many people, including many motorcyclists, stopped and began trying to scoop up the gasoline, .  The gasoline ignited resulting in a huge explosion.  Thirty nine people were killed and many more injured.  An almost incomprehensible accident.  Please pray for the people who were injured and for the families of those killed.

Richard took a round-about route and got us to Dove very close to our original schedule.  Today was ladies day with the ladies were in charge of the service.  They did a great job, including some hilarious skits.   Check out the very active worship in the Videos section.

We had lunch at Pastor Davis' house and then headed farther out of town to Pastor Patrick's mission church in Namayumba.

Many of the congregation at Namayumba stayed around after worship this morning to welcome us and worship with us.  This was a very different experience from Dove.  There is no electricity, so their only instruments were drums and a soda can filled with rocks (I think I could play that one).  It was awesome.  The Spirit was present in the hearts, faces, and feet of this very special group of God's people.  Especially moving was corporate prayer with everyone crying out to God (loudly) in multiple languages. I have been invited back to preach, probably in three weeks.  Check out the video of our worship at Namayumba.  Also check out the photos of our experiences today below. 

Thanks for your prayers,
Edd

Richard (Mr. Chicken City/Poultry School) and Bill Park (Ag professor at UT) picked us up at 9:30 am and we headed outside the city to visit two successful chicken farms.  These farms are both run by Cornerstone Business School graduates.  It was interesting and educational to see the differences in the layouts and the way the businesses were run. Richard was very interested in the "drinkers" at the second farm.  The design is what he wants to utilize at Chicken City.  In both cases the husband has a day job out of town and the wife has the main responsibility for the chicken business (actually, egg business in both cases).

We then went back to Focus for a brief tour and a couple of home visits since Bill had not been there before.

Probably the most enlightening experience of the day was catching the last hour of the monthly business forum at the Cornerstone office building in Kampala.  Once a month several Cornerstone graduates come together to share their business experiences and expertise and hear and interact with outside speakers.  Today, a couple of businessmen from California were sharing a new concept to me.... instead of ROI (Return on Investment), they suggested ROL (Return on Life).  Good stuff!

Below are some photos taken during our journey today.

It was great to be at home today to be able to catch up on all that work I haven't been able to do the last few days due to being on the road.  I've been working on this webpage, reviving our friend Geoffery's computer, and trying to mark a few things off my poultry school list.  The best thing is that I don't plan on driving anywhere

You are awesome to encourage and pray for us,
Edd

Today, Richard (Mr. Chicken City) and Bill Park (Ag professor at the University of Tennessee) and I worked together on the curriculum I am working on this summer for the poultry school.  We made some very good progress, in that we pretty much nailed down a book we want to use as the textbook for the course. 

The three of us, plus Kathy, joined a professor from the university here for a delicious meal and a lot of shop talk tonight.

We got back to our apartment at 9:00 pm just in time to write this note to you and go to bed.  I'm exhausted.  It has been a grueling week.  One of the Ugandans described our week as "emotionally expensive."  I thought that was a very good choice of words.  The Jackson, Tennessee team heads back home tomorrow.  It has been well worth the emotional expense to travel around with this very spiritually mature group...and they e fun too!!

I'm looking forward to staying at home tomorrow and having time to get some
great photos up for your enjoyment and, of course, work on the curriculum.
Tonight, before we went to dinner, we finally got our internet back.  We had a few minutes so we drove down the street to the mall and purchased 3GB of internet capacity at the kiosk.  I It will be interesting to see how long it lasts, especially the way Kathy has latched onto my new iPad.  We also purchased 50,000 shillings worth of electricity.   I'm go to write down the meter numbers to see how long it will last us.

Thank you for your prayers today.  Someone was praying for my driving 1:00 am last night (8:00 am here).  I soloed (without my navigator) for the first time this morning driving over to the guest house where the Jackson team is staying.  The traffic was horrible and I made a wrong turn.  However, because of your prayers, I was able to stay calm, figure out what I had done wrong and got turned with very little difficulty.  Oh, and by the way, I forgot my phone.  You are a real blessing to us every time you pray for us.   Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Blessings on you all,
Edd

P.S. I'll try to do a better job with the last two entries tomorrow.

Toured with a team from Memphis.....

Quicky Picky Market - One of the first micro business loans was made to Quicky Picky.  There is now a third Quicky Picky under construction.

Cornerstone Academy for girls - Awesome program for helping deserving girls succeed.

Poultry School - Toured the campus (two buildings under construction at this time); delivered 9 TivaWater filters.

Cornerstone home for boys - An orphanage sponsored by Cornerstone.  Two of the boys from this home will be among the first students in the poultry school.

We continue to be blessed by your prayers,
Edd

This was a special visit to the church plant of Dove Church where Kathy's interpreter the last four years is the mission pastor.  His name is Patrick Omwene and the church is in Namayumba. 

We also delivered 10 TivaWater filters to members of the church, including two that had been donated by one of our MHBC families (see Stories).  I hope more of you will catch the vision and donate a filter.  Check it out at www.TivaWater.com.

Below are some photos of Patrick, his church, and the TivaWater filters we delivered.  Click on the photos to enlarge them and see the captions.

Most of today was spend with Richard (head of the poultry school) laying ground work for the curriculum I am writing this summer.  Afterwards, we asked Richard where the Garden City Mall is in relation to our apartment.  We found out that it isn't very far at all (just three turns), so later this afternoon we decided to check it out and pickup a few groceries.

On the way there, a uniformed officer motioned us to the curb.  [We had already been coached on what to do/say if we got stopped... Never give them your drivers license because you will never get it back.  Never give them money (the police are very corrupt and that is all they want).  Tell them to just give you the ticket.]  Fortunately, I had already made a copy of my drivers license for the glove box and stashed the original at the apartment, as instructed.  It was like this guy was working off of a script.  He kept asking, "What are we going to do?" and I kept saying, "If I broke a law, give me a ticket."  Then he said he needed water.  Kathy showed him her special water bottle filled with TivaWater and said, "This is all I have."  He said, "No, money for water."  I told him that wasn't going to happen and he started all over again with the "What are we going to do?" routine.  Finally, he figured out he wasn't going to get anything out of this Tennessee redneck, gave us our piece of paper back and motioned us on our way... Just another day in Africa. 

The rest of the story... later I found out he was a security cop.  Oh, well, at least I got some good practice.

Thanks for your continued prayers,
Edd

Today we worshipped at Dove Church, Wakiso where we have been 4 times for medical clinics.  Go to videos to see the worship experience.  The children's choir is still using the Mt. Harmony VBS shirts from 3 and 4 years ago. Too bad I left before VBS this year!  

The pastors brother got saved today.  We have been praying for him for a very long time.  So glad we were there.   There is a picture on Kathy's fB. 

Trey Hutchins' handicap chair was delivered today.  Go to "Stories"  and "Videos" for visuals.  Kathy

Today started early.  We left our apartment at 7:30.  Drove across town (fortunately not much traffic on Saturday morning) to the Adonai Guest House where a team led by Danny and Mary Lawson Day is staying.  The Days are the couple responsible for building the clinic at Dove church where we have been conducting the medical clinics the past four years.  We delivered water  filters to homes in Kikubamutwe, the slum area behind the new TivaWater  retail  store.  Then, we traveled to Focus, a program for  at-risk children and played with the children and visited homes where water filters had been delivered a few months ago.  Check out the new Stores page (above) for some neat stories of our experiences today.

Also, check out the new Prayer requests page (this one is really important) and the new Videos page.

Blessings, Edd