Uganda 2019: Miriam's View

Pearl Church and School is located in southeastern Uganda in the remote village of Nanjeho near the border of Kenya. The landscape surrounding it is lush farmland and a network of red dirt trails leading to mud hut homes. Children from infants to age 13 come to this school, some from an hour's walk away. They are taught in English, their second language, and are fed breakfast and lunch here.

It's hard to condense our experience at Pearl into one page. Incredible. A taste of heaven amongst deep

heartache and need.

The school administrator, Derek Ochim, is the oldest son of Pastor Hummer, a man who works tirelessly to bring about change in Jesus's name in his community and beyond, and now Derek, faithful to do the same in Nanjeho.

The head mistress Karen leads the school well with a firm but fun-loving hand. They welcomed us with song and dance so authentic that it speaks to your soul. And then...Karen called us muzungus up on stage to see if we could dance- there may or may not be video of this floating around, if you need a good laugh...

We then held a medical/health Q&A with the women of the church, shared scripture and were honored to be able to pray one on one with those who asked for it. How do you pray out loud for someone you just met when tears are streaming down your face from hearing a request that breaks your heart?  By knowing it also breaks the heart of Jesus, knowing the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf, and knowing that the God we serve is mighty to save. 

We ate a generous lunch in Derek's home, complete with cassava, metoke (boiled plantain), G-nuts (peanut soup) and melt in your mouth papaya and avocado picked right off the trees outside.

Afterwards some of the team went to join a local home cell (small group) meeting to give testimony and encouragement to the growing church. The rest of us stayed at the school and played soccer with the older teens, hung out with the younger kids and taught them duck-duck-goose (so.much.fun), and got some dance lessons (again, hilarious). It's a beautiful thing to see them run over to a deep well to drink clean water whenever they're thirsty. Living water flowing in hearts and onto hands.

These precious children, most of them orphans, have so little, yet they laugh and smile so easily, and the poems

and songs that come from their lips are of thanksgiving and praise to their Heavenly Father. I am humbled, blown away. 

As the day came to a close the children were prayed for and dismissed to walk home. It was time for us to go too, and unexpectedly difficult to drive away from this special place.