4th week!!

This week we had the topic of rejection vs. acceptance and a very quick summary on the Father heart of God.  It felt like the week went by very fast week, but I do not know why.  On Thursday we did not have class because it was a day of prayer and fasting for the whole base, and I had to preach a short ten minute sermon on Wednesday morning.  The preaching went pretty well, but I spoke too fast for a lot of the Africans.  It is hard enough for me to speak slowly in front of Americans but to have to slow down even more so that the Africans can understand is practically impossible.

Also for the past two weeks we had to memorize Romans 12:1-2 and make it into a song in our groups.  It was sort of frustrating for me because I was the only one in my group who actually memorized the verse and got the group together to make up the song.  The one guy in the group tried his best to memorize the verse and did help me make up a song but the other guy always had something else to do and would just say “hallelujah, be bold and make up song!”  or something like that.  Then the other girl in our group had been sick for a while so she tried to learn it like the day before we had to present.  Anyway, when we went to present the song to the group I was basically the only one singing.  The others were just supposed to repeat certain words or phrases but they hardly did that because they did not know the verse.

Last Saturday I helped make mandazi which is basically small fried dough balls.  We eat them almost every day at tea break.  They are really good, but probably not the best for you.  It was interesting to watch how they make them.  All that was in them was flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, water, and butter/margarine.  They just pour everything into a big bucket and start mixing with their hands and then kneading it for a while until it is formed into dough.  It was the first time it registered in my brain that they do not have mixing machines.  I did not help much with the actual mixing part but I helped to roll out the dough and cut it into small squares.  Rolling out the dough reminded me of making homemade bread (I miss your food mom!).  Then we took the squares and fried them in oil until they were nice and crispy.  All together it took like 4 hours to complete.  Another one of my favorite foods here is called chapatti, but we do not get it too often on the base so when we order food or eat out we get it a lot.  All it is though is flour, salt, and water or butter that is mixed together rolled out and fried.  I did not actually watch how they made it but someone told me how it was made.  It is kind of like a crepe except a little thicker and more chewy.

It feels like the days here are getting hotter but it still rains almost everyday.  I have been trying to wear the only one skirt a week and the least amount of shirts possible so as to cut down on my wash load.  I do not know if washing my clothes really does much at all though because they never really smell clean.  I am wishing I would have not brought so much clothing with me because I will probably only end up wearing like half of it.  I wish I would have at least brought more sweat pants because I wear my one pair every morning and evening because it gets so cold.  But I will just make do with what I have.  I have been getting a lot more mosquito bites recently and I think they normally get even worse during the dry season so when we are on outreach there might be a lot of mosquitoes.  Oh yeah for outreach I think I will be going to Tanzibar, Tanzania.  Our options are either Tanzania or staying in Uganda.  I think they said Tanzibar is a small island or something like that and we would be ministering mostly to the Muslim population.  But that is still like two and a half months away.