Travels of an Action Team

 Happy Belated New Year Everyone!

                So since our last blog, lots of things have happened: we’ve been to Kenya; we’ve seen the rift valley; a new year has begun; many new year’s resolutions have been broken (although not ours, I may add – because we didn’t make any); we’ve had a lovely holiday; we’ve had a stressful, yet enjoyable time helping out at a youth conference in Kasese; and we’ve returned home to our house in Kinoni to find rat droppings in our beds and several mice scurrying around our living room.

Dug looking over the Great Rift Valley.

                So, having travelled up to Kampala early on Boxing Day, the following day we had packed our bags and were up before the crack of dawn all ready to head off on a 2 day, 15 hour journey to a missionary conference in Kenya, with the Benns and the Vickers. After day 1 of travelling, we’d listened to an Alex Rider audio book, crossed the border into Kenya and travelled on to a ‘hotel’/B&B in a little town that we can’t remember the name of. We set off early the next day and eventually arrived at Brackenhurst Conference Centre, after some very bumpy roads and beautiful scenery, for a delicious late lunch. That afternoon we found out a little more about the work we were going to be doing at the conference – helping out with the children’s (6-11 year olds) work.

Glowsticks and facepaints at Brackenhurst - we really know how to 'get down' with the kids!

`               We were assisting a guy called Paul Weaver, who we discovered to be quite the children’s/youth work genius, with endless games and lesson ideas up his sleeve! Each day we had 3 sessions with the children: 9am - 10:30am Bible time, craft and singing; 11:15am - 12:30pm game time; 7:30pm - 9:00pm game or film time. We based the Bible time on the story of Madugu, a Muslim boy from Nigeria who goes to some missionaries for treatment and accepts Jesus as a result of hearing about Christianity through the ‘Wordless Book’. So each day we took turns in reading part of the story, led our respective groups for craft, led a few action songs and tried to stop the kids getting out of hand during manic games of dodgeball, bulldog, balloon volleyball, stuck-in-the-mud and a load more!

A view of Brackenhurst - stunning!

                The time at Brackenhurst was brilliant for us, with comfy beds, amazing food, a beautiful location and genuinely cold nights! But apart from that, we really enjoyed meeting missionaries from all over East Africa and learning about their work and the situations in the different countries, especially the newly formed South Sudan. It was also cool meeting all the missionaries’ kids and hearing about how they find living in Africa as well as being put to shame by their incredible grasp of languages, with most of them able to speak 2 or 3 pretty fluently! And seeing in the New Year with a bonfire, fireworks, sparklers and toasted marshmallows was a great end to a great week and we were happy that we had the privilege to be there.

               Us at the Brackenhurst New Year Bonfire.

After another 2 day journey back to Kampala, we embarked upon the first activity of our holiday - White Water Rafting on the Nile! We went with Nile River Explorers (NRE), who were brilliant, firstly providing us with transport from Kampala to Jinja, safety briefing and equipment (helmet and life jacket) as well as breakfast! Once we got on the water, and had practiced a bit of synchronised paddling, we had our first practice ‘flipping the raft and falling in the water’. It wasn’t the most fun part of the day but, based on our experiences later on, it was a very necessary part!

Ok, so this isn't us, but this is basically what we did anyway!

We spent an amazing 4 or 5 hours on the water (as well as in it!), tackling about 8 different rapids ranging from grade 3 to grade 5, with long stretches of flat water surrounded by beautiful scenery and an incredible variety of bird life. We only flipped the raft on 3 of the rapids, which we think is pretty impressive, and we were also allowed to have a little swim and float down some grade 1 rapids, which was great fun. The day came to end with a delicious BBQ and an evening spent at the NRE River Camp, watching the sun set over the Nile, while Alice and James had a swim. We were then shown the video of us rafting as well as the pictures, which were all pretty awesome, although we decided not to pay the extortionate amount they wanted for a copy!

Us soaking wet at the top of Murchison Falls.

The rest of our holiday days were spent on safari at 2 of Uganda’s beautiful National Parks. Firstly we visited Murchison Falls with a company called ‘Red Chilli’ where we visited the actual falls (absolutely incredible!), went on a 4-hour game drive and saw elephants, giraffe, hippos, baboons, buffalo and lots of deer-like things such as waterbuck, oriibi, kob and hartebeests. Alice especially loved the birds (and we all agree that African birds are very exciting, mainly because they’re so colourful!) and we saw a lot of them on a boat trip to the bottom of Murchison Falls as well as seeing a few crocodiles and even a hippo running!

Jem and Ian on top of the safari bus; view from the boat approaching Murchison Falls.

The last week of our 3 week adventure was spent in Kasese in the west of Uganda helping out at a youth conference there. Our main work was leading devotions for our respective groups every morning from 7am to 8:30am, which would’ve been a lot easier without the inhumanely early start and if we had breakfast before. We did, however, enjoy being with our groups, as well as discovering that we actually could lead Bible studies as the week went on. We were looking at the book of 1 John and teaching on topics ranging from ‘Loving One Another’ to warning about false teachers and the Antichrist! James led Matthew group, aged 12-15, Ian led the 16-20s in Mark group, Jem had the 21-25s in Luke while Alice led the over 26s in John group! Before coming, we had supposed that the groups would all be mixed ages, so it was a bit of a shock, especially for Jem and Alice teaching people 5 years older than them! We were also told on the Monday that we were preaching on the Tuesday afternoon on ‘Unity in Jesus Christ’, which went alright, considering the little time we’d had to prepare.

Group photo at the Kasese Youth Conference - can anyone spot James?!

One of the highlights of being in Kasese was spending time with the Shrubsole family (Gareth, Bethan and Sam), who are also here with BMS. After the conference they took us to Queen Elizabeth National Park for 24 hours. Almost as soon as we entered the park we saw about 5 elephants together, and a few more other animals as we drove towards the peninsula where we would be camping. There was an awesome view from the campsite across a river and, thanks to Gareth’s binoculars, we were able to see birds, elephants, hippos and buffalo on the opposite bank! Following an amazing evening meal at a safari lodge, we were driving back to the campsite (in the dark) when we came across a male lion coming towards us, which we followed for a bit and were rewarded with about 3 sightings of it! So, after a night regularly disturbed by warthogs and hippos around the tents, we headed off at 6:30am on a game drive on which we came across a herd of elephants and a couple of flirting lions, as well as all the buffalo and deer-like things.

A collage of some of our awesome animal photos.

So we’re now back in Kinoni, hanging with our new friends, the mice, and will update you on what’s been happening here in due course. Also, we’d really appreciate your prayers as we meet with young people to discuss new ideas for the coming months and as we start back on our program in the next week or so.

God Bless!

Jem, Ian, Alice and James

The Exhausted Uganda Action Team!

Hanging with the Elephant outside the safari lodge in Queen Elizabeth National Park.