Geoffrey took us back to his home church today, Calvary Temple in Bukasa.  Bukasa is two hours from Kampala with lots of traffic along the way.  After we turned off the main road, I lost count of the number of different dirt roads we turned onto after eight.

It doesn't matter whether you are early, on-time, or late, you have to go by his mom's house for tea and a snack before going to church.  Yesterday, we had bread and fresh fried eggs with our tea.

Worship was very lively and so was the preaching.  Geoffrey preached today (We have always wanted to hear him preach.) and he is very animated.  He preached on faith and made the comparison of faith to air time on our cell phone.  If you run out of air time, there is no communication.  At the end of the service, he asked for all those who needed healing and had faith that God could heal them to come forward.  Several people came forward and Geoffrey began to pray for them one at a time.  I'm sorry (but really not) that I don't have a photo of this part, but Geoffrey asked me and Kathy to come up help him by laying hands on some of them and praying for their healing.  The power of the Holy Spirit was there and was felt by everyone present.  What an awesome experience!!!

About the time church was letting out, a really big storm came up and we were all stranded at the church for a while.  Kathy did her thing by keeping the kids occupied singing Sunday School songs.  However, the fun ended when she tripped over a bench and got her "boo boo."  Get the full picture in Stories.

 After church (after 2:00) we had lunch at his mom's house, which is always a feast.  Kathy prepared some Mazungu (white folks) food to add to the mix and it was really great.

After lunch, we were able to deliver five donated water filters thanks to our friends and family back home.  You can check these out in the Stories section of this webpage.

We didn't get home until after 8:30, but it was a great day, "boo boo" and all.

Blessings on all who pass this way,
Edd

I was invited to teach Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages to some young couples from Daniel and Wilter's church this morning.... or was it still night?  We met at Daniel and Wilter's house at 7:00 a.m., which means we had to leave our house at 6:30...not our typical Saturday morning, but it sure  was worth it.

The response of the group was overwhelmingly positive.  Some had a pretty good idea what their spouse's love language was going in, while others were very surprised.  What we did together today will have the greatest impact on the marriages of those who were surprised.

One couple, Kephous and Rebecca were running late, primarily because Rebecca had been out of town and just arrived home this morning after traveling all night.  From their testimony, our discussion was extremely helpful to both of them.  Afterwards, Kephous told us he had a vision a few days ago about being at Daniel's house and there was a white couple there.  A few minutes later, Daniel called him and invited him to today's class.  Of course, he immediately said yes, believing God wanted him to be there.  That's why they did not allow multiple barriers keep them from being apart of the 5 Love Languages class.

It looks like I may have a chance to do it again next week.  The ones who were there want to gather some more friends next Sunday evening and have another class. This  time they are thinking about having it at Cornerstone where there will be more room.

Please continue to pray that we will see and accomplish God's purposes while we are here.

Blessings,
Edd

The Hancock kitchen turned out another Southern home cooked meal tonight.  Isaac's grandparents, Dantes and Beatrice and Uncle Gracious came over for some Mazungu food.  Isaac stayed home with his auntie.  Dantes was Edd's interpreter in the first medical clinic five years ago.  After that, Edd had to find another interpreter because Dantes wanted to do his own evangelism groups. 

Of course I taught Bea how to fry chicken and make sawmill gravy.  To my surprise I had bought English cucumbers instead of zucchini.  FYI, they do not fry well!  The cucumber zucchini didn't work out too well, but the banana pudding was a hit. 

It was really fun for them to be able to meet Frances through Skype.  The only down side was that on their way here, they had to take their daughter, Hilda, to the hospital. She has malaria, we think. All of us were so disappointed. Pray for Hilda that she will be well and home soon. 

After knowing Dantes and Bea for five years, we never thought we'd be entertaining them in our home. Katunda Mlunge... , all the time!

Thanks for keeping up with us,
Kathy

Yeah!!!  Kathy didn't have to cook tonight!  We were invited out to eat with Daniel and Wilter (TivaWater) and Tim and Kathy (Cornerstone Development).  Tim founded Cornerstone way back in 1981 and, since that time, it has grown into multiple Christian-based people-empowering ministries in and outside Uganda.  Most of the initiatives we are working with here are connected in some way to Cornerstone, e.g. Daniel and Richard (the poultry school) are both graduates of Cornerstone Academy.  So this was an awesome opportunity and privilege for us to get to know Tim and Kathy. 

By the way, we ate at The Mediterranean, considered one of the finest restaurants in Kampala.  Kathy and I both had the grilled mushroom chicken...delicious!  Be jealous, very jealous.

Thanks for dropping by for a visit,
Edd

Seeing a big need, David and Jeanne Burnell from Fellowship Church in Knoxville, donated money for shoes for some of the kids at Focus. Flip flops or sandals are not permitted at school and several of the kids had been sent home due to improper foot wear.  

Focus is a ministry for around 200 "at risk" children from the Mulago slum.  You can sponsor a Focus child for $300 a year.  This pays school fees, all day classes on Saturday in Bible, life skills, as well as the 3R's plus breakfast and lunch.

Doug Harris asked me to assist in the buying and distribution of the shoes.  Today Sylvia, Enoch and I boarded at taxi van with 20 other strangers and rode to the downtown market district.  If you need it, you can buy it there (see pictures below)!  Sylvia had negotiated the price yesterday, because the presence of a Mazungu makes things more expensive!  We bought socks at two stores,  and went through forty to fifty pairs of black shoes at three different stores to find the twenty six we ended up with.  Some were new; some were gently used.  It seems as if locally-made shoes do not last as long as quality used shoes from America!  Audrey, the director, was very pleased with our selection of sturdy school shoes.  

Saturday I am going back to distribute the shoes and help with classes, so stay tuned to this station for the rest of the story!

It was a another great Ugandan adventure!  Thanks David and Jeanne for the opportunity to serve God here in Africa!  Thanks Sylvia and Doug for the adventure!

Blessings to all who pass this way, 
Kathy

Yesterday I did customer service training with 20+ business owners and today I had the opportunity to train the staff of the three Quicky Picky Supermarkets in the Top Ten World Class Customer Service Rules.  The Quicky Picky stores are one of the big success stories of our business development team.  Sam, the owner, has gone from one small store with maybe one or two employees to three stores with 12 fulltime employees and a few part-time people.  In addition to my customer service training, they also received training in marketing and human resources. 

This group was very responsive (about 10 times more responsive than many of the pizza folks I've trained the past eight years) and had lots of questions.  There was some really good feedback afterwards, so I'm marking this one up as "God did good....again."  I know this isn't the main reason God brought me over here, buy it sure has been great to be able to use my experiences over there to make a difference over here.

Blessings on all who pass this way,
Edd

Since I am training the Quicky Picky Supermarket staff this afternoon, we attended church at Victory City again this morning.  It's fairly close by, the worship is awesome and the service is in English.

I recorded a couple of songs for you so you can get a taste of worship in Africa.  You will enjoy How Great Is Our God, but you will get a kick out of Thanks Be To God.  Check out the kids in front of us.  Wouldn't it be awesome to see our young children that involved in worship.

We are having a snack at our apartment and then on to Cornerstone for the training.  Sam, the owner, said we should be there at 1:00 for lunch, followed by the training.

See you later this evening,
Edd

Last month, we sat in on the Cornerstone Business Forum (a group of young business men who have been helped and/or influenced by a group of business men from Fellowship Church, Knoxville).  While we were there, Richard asked my to respond to one of the questions.  My responses came from the Papa John's training I have been doing for the past eight years.  Afterwards, they asked me to come back this month and talk to them about customer service.

So, today was the day for my Africa training debut and, according to the comments afterwards, it must have went pretty well.  There were more than 20 folks present and I talked to them about the Top Ten World Class Customer Service Rules, one of my first pizza classes.  Of course, I had to make some adaption to make it applicable here, but good customer service looks the same in any language.

It was awesome to be able to utilize the preparation and experiences from my years with Papa John's to help and encourage young entrepreneurs here in Uganda.  God is so good to use us in the areas of our interest and experience.

Tune in tomorrow for another report.  Tomorrow afternoon, I will be doing the same training with the employees the three Quicky Picky Supermarkets.  Oh, by the way, we are worshipping at Victory City Church again tomorrow.  Be jealous.  Be very jealous.

Blessings on all who pass this way,
Edd 

Many of you have asked questions about African life.  As you have probably figured out from previous posts, there is a lot of diversity here.  There is affluence and there is extreme poverty, seen many times right next to each other.   Up the hill in front of our apartment is mostly affluence.  A couple of blocks to the left and to the right are slums.  The poverty in the city is different than the poverty out in the villages.  But it is still poverty and it breaks your heart.

Each morning Kathy and I go on our morning walk....have to stay healthy, you know.  We have pretty much settled on a route that we take every morning.  So, I thought you might enjoy going with us this morning and see some of the diversity we see every morning.

You will see very affluent houses with tall walls and razor wire and some not so affluent.  You will see construction, some currently on-going and some long abandoned.  You won't see much of the slums on our walk, but you will see some scenic views of the city.

Thanks for walking with us this morning.  I just wish you could actually be here to experience it with us; to be able to talk about what God is revealing to us as we walk.

Blessings,
Edd

You can click on the first photo and then progress through them at you own pace.  I've added captions so some of the photos which you will see in the enlarged view.

Tuesday, Daniel and Wilter Ololia had us over for dinner and cooking lessons were included!  We made peas and carrots in a cream sauce, African stir fry chicken (my description), fried rice, a fried flat bread and fried plantain bananas and, of course, fresh pineapple for dessert.

Wilter's daughter Lorraine, age three, was a big help.  She chopped tomatoes, rolled out flat bread and washed dishes.  Everything was delicious.  Wilter is from Kenya, so it was very multicultural. 
We will be having them over soon to teach her how to make "Southern Fried Chicken!" They also have a one year old, Lexie...so cute!  I taught her how to "patty-cake" (you know, baker man) and she caught on quick... smart like her parents!

We love how our Ugandan friends go out of their way to keep us from being
lonely! 

Thanks for continuing to lift us up in prayer,
Kathy