back from Kabale, off to Kitgum.

For the next week,
I'm going up to Kitgum, its about 20-30km from the Sudanese border, up in the north where the war with the LRA rebels has been ongoing. We are visiting high schools to conduct HIV/AIDS awareness sessions and to talk about purity and faithfulness. We will be visiting some IDP camps hopefully and encouraging church leaders too. Charlie, an intern who has been in the office for a few weeks now (one of the 'summer' interns), is coming with me also. Today I will travel to Mbale, then travel with Marianne tomorrow to Gulu, then Kitgum. You can be praying for a fruitful time with the youth up there. The Ugandan man who is leading the trip is named Chris. He seems like a top guy, Marianne knows him a lot better than me!

BACKTRACKING:
The Kabale project trip: Revival Tabernacle Ministries.



We went to Kabale for a week to do a short project. The ministry is revival tabernacle ministries, a growing pentecostal church in a slummy area of Kabale known as Bugongi.

Bugongi has traditionally had lots of drunkenness, theft, prostitution and child mothers / young children with little provisions or care.

The church currently has 200 people in its main congregation in Bugongi, and has planted 25 other churches in the surrounding 20 kilometers. (Usually here when it becomes too far to walk to a church, another one springs up.)

We were designing a bigger church building for them for their main congregation, as their existing structure was very temporary and already being outgrown. We also designed some classrooms and offices as they want to make their headquarters at the site.

At some point in the future they want to also build a school and orphanages.

I took plenty of photos, so here we go!! (the first photo being a picture from the bus coming into Kabale.)



This was our team with a few people from the church, standing at the existing church entrance. Because it was a small project, there weren't many volunteers from abroad. Mainly interns. Out team from left, Megan (architect), Jean (civil), Me (civil), Chad (civil) and Melody and Lewis (both architect.)



As per usual, there were many children who were interested in us. This shot shows me with them. They are excited because I was taking shots and showing them their photo. Many of them are from young child mothers and can't afford to go to school at all.



This is the senior pastor, Pastor Johnston. Its funny to me, because while he looks like a cool dude, his clothing and motorbike are the norm rather than exception. Most African pastors wear suits and the motorbike is a boda that belongs to the church, a very common way of getting places here in Uganda! He was really friendly, passionate about reaching the lost in Bugongi and a compassionate man who has adopted 8 orphans from Bugongi to live with his family.



Part of my work was to conduct percolation tests of the soil, to establish drainage rates for design of septic tanks and soak pits. We have a hand auger so I dug a few 11 feet holes. We then saturate them and test the absoption rates. This is shown above as Jean measures the depth to the water while Chad is recording the data.



This is the local river where we filled jerrycans for the percolation tests. We took almost 1000L. I didn't count the trips but there were a lot!! Needless to say the water quality tests from here came out septic!



Another job was to survey the site and transfer it to AutoCAD so that the architects could begin to do their work with the buildings. In the above photo, the guy on the right was helping me measure distances for the survey. He couldn't speak any english but was very helpful. I thought it was a really cute photo that Jean took of them.

So a few more odds and ends!!


They fed us very well, some of the nicest meals I've had in Uganda! A couple of ladies from the church were cooking for us, and we were staying in a house that the church had managed to get for our use.



During the saturday, 3 of us took time out to go and watch Nigeria VS Uganda in an African Cup soccer match. Uganda won, which resulted in much cheering and dancing. This photo is of all the people crowded in to watch a small television in the corner of the room.

Some animals to wrap up the photos. When we went to an island on Lake Bunyoni for a day after the project trip, this is a crested crane, the national bird symbol. Before I left, Alison from my church had the national symbols at my "sending service", so here it is in the flesh.



When we returned from the island, this little baby goat was near the landing dock. It had just been born the night before. Never one to resist taking photos of something really cute, I seized the opportunity.



These little piglets (and the mother) belonged to Joseph, an orphan who has been adopted by Pastor Johnston. He is now ~18, and uses these pigs to provide his school fees. He wanted to show me his pig, so we went and saw it, just living in the middle of a swamp. It went roaming before giving birth, so it was quite a while before he found it again.



This final shot is another scenery one, but has a small story. It is taken from the backyard of a house the church rents. 18 orphans from Bugongi live at the house with some carers, they call it a "house of hope". I visited there with Chad to give them advice on the location of a new rubbish pit and compost system.