Nile adventures. Marriage preparations. New projects. Sleepless nights.

Its been over a week so I thought it was time to write another blog.
First of all I would like to say that the young boy I wrote about in the previous post is now back at home, all better and doing well. He has even started school for the year. After two very tiring weeks in the hospital he now is a very happy boy running around at home .. he even saved a little bit of money up and bought me a big colorful basket to say thank you for my help.
Very special. God is good.

Last week for Australia day I got into the Aussie mood by first sending some snaps back to friends and family to let them know I have not forgotten my roots!
In good Aussie fashion I went swimming for the day. It was really awesome as I went with a few friends to a place in the river Nile and swam among lots of bird life and even a few African otters. Luckily this far up (it is right at the start of the river Nile! The worlds longest river) there is no crocs or hippos.
I have been back to this place again, as it is a much better option for swimming then lake Victoria. I have heard stories recently of little worms/parasites that live in the lake that swim up your urethra and lay eggs in your bladder causing serious infection.
I don't really want this, and I freaked out a little bit because I have swam a number of times in the lake. Apparently the worms or eggs can stay dormant for quite some time before hatching and causing sickness. So I went and bought a heavy dose of worming tablets, just to be on the safe side.

The last week has been full of budgeting, organizing and discussing wedding and marriage preparations with Agnes. It can be very overwhelming at times, as getting married here requires you to follow a lot of traditional and cultural protocols. I am still wrapping my head around all the customs involved here with marriage. It is also scary as so much is expected of the man in paying for everything, including a sort of dowry towards the woman's family. So you could say that I am going to have to buy my future wife for the price of a few cows, chickens and goats ... haha talk about traditional. Agnes doesn't like it when I talk about it like this! She says not to look at it as payment for her, as you cannot put a price on a person, but that it is more of a gift of gratitude towards her family for raising her (sounds like payment to me).
We are going to have to do a few functions, it does not just include one wedding. Basically I have to do a visitation (next week) where I bring a small posse of people to represent me, to go and meet her family in the village. My representatives and her family then discuss the price of the dowry and the introduction. Then I have to do the traditional African ceremony called the introduction. This is kind of a theatrical, showy, cultural ceremony where I get introduced to her family and paraded around, as my gifts are presented to her side of the community. In this ceremony I bring a posse of how many I choose (going with about 35 people) and we sit separate from her side of the family. We also all wear traditional Ugandan ceremony wear. So this means all the men (including me, my dad and brother) will wear a long flowing dress/gown (similar to what you see Muslims wear) and the women (including my sisters and mother) will wear a traditional 'Gomesi' dress, which basically looks like a bad 80's prom dress. A big feast (paid by my side of course) is also enjoyed on this day.
Finally one week later after this ceremony, Agnes and I will be able to have our traditional wedding in the church, followed by a reception. The church we are getting married in is the second biggest in Uganda, and is this massive, monstrous Anglican cathedral (just my style :s haha). The wedding day will most likely have a huge amount of people attending due to Agnes and I having a lot of reputation in our communities here. This ceremony will be more similar to a wedding back in Australia, with vows, rings and a pastor doing the deed. I  do look forward to this ceremony, and I am stoked that my pastor Andrew will be able to come from Australia and be the one to marry us!
This is not the only ceremony we will have to do, as there will be one more. The civil service. Basically not many marriages here are actually registered due to the complicated paper work involved. But myself being an Australian and Agnes being Uganda, it is very important that our marriage is an internationally recognized legal marriage. This is important so that when we visit Australia, Agnes will actually be able to come into the country. This means I may be able to apply for duel citizenship here in Uganda as well.
So four ceremonies all up.
Sound exhausting?
It certainly is!
It is funny as I always imagined myself getting married on a beach with a small group of people attending, a very small, quiet affair. But I guess when you love somebody, things can change, and you don't always go about doing things the way you thought it should be done haha.

With Youth Support Uganda, Farouk and I have just begun our agriculture project. Three boys now have a chance at learning how to cultivate in a way that will help them start their own small business and get them up on their own two feet. It is always great to see the enthusiasm of new people in our projects, and the boys are very excited, and very thankful for this project. The boys chosen are very poor, and down the bottom of the social ladder, often with no chance of any opportunity of a decent life.
It is always excited to show Gods love in a practical way to people, and to be involved in the call of Jesus to bring justice, value and hope to the poor. We are redeemed so that we can redeem. This can be done in so many ways, including being involved in redemption of the brokenness within poverty. And we always make it a point to express in words the reason behind why we do this. We feel it is important to share our faith and express that it is because of this that we are here offering these opportunities to the poor. This is not done in a manipulative, forceful way, but in a gentle, sharing of the light of God that gives us hope. The secular culture would tell you to focus on doing the good works and to leave your faith out of it ... but this would be to deny the very core of who we are and what makes us do this. So we pour ourselves into others, as an over flow of the grace, love and hope that we get from our God, and we share that hope with others, allowing them to decide what they will make of it.

Lastly, for those of you following me on facebook, you may be aware of my sleepless nights in our new house due to a number of things. This begun on Friday night and has continued since. I am weary eyed, tired and with a headache due to the following things.

1. Every Friday night the local churches have overnight prayer and worship services. This means from about 10 pm to 3 am they sing and pray fervently. Often they are hooked up to microphones and speakers that blast into the community here, keeping everyone awake.

2. We have two churches near us, one is an Anglican church which is fairly orthodox, the other is what some may class as a cult. Kind of African spirituality and withcraft dressed up as charismatic Christianity. This is the church that keeps me awake, with their bizarre customs of screaming at spirits, loud drumming, yelling and rolling around on the floor and speaking in distorted growls. All the while hooked up to a big speaker system so everyone has the pleasure of listening to it all.

3. Usually after they finish the local mosque here starts their prayers at around 4.00 am. This is done of course through speakers that blast out over the community. In all honesty though the Muslim prayers only go for about 10 minutes, and their mystical singing sounds much more soothing then the church I described before.

4. The neighbor who lives in the courtyard attached to our house here has roosters. They are loud. They start at 4.00 am and don't shut up. Their blood curling call will rattle through the whole house right up into my ear drums.

5. The neighbor brought in a male billy goat to impregnate one of the female goats, but the female goat refused him. So when they tied up the male goat in the same courtyard as the roosters, the sexual tension he was obviously feeling caused him to scream. All night.

No one in our house got any sleep that night. Luckily they brought back the billy goat, so that problem is solved. I bought one of the roosters off the neighbor, and after being pressured by Farouk to do the deed of cutting of its head, we all ate a lovely meal of rooster.
The only problem is the next rooster in the pecking order has stepped up to his new role and taken over the cock-a-doodle-dooing. The neighbor does not want to sell his remaining roosters as he is keeping them to give to his brother. Seems I will just have to bare with them and wear ear plugs until that happens.
I think this may just be a part of the sacrifice of the mission! Haha. Which in all honesty, if the sufferings of being on the mission field here are only as bad as a screaming rooster .. I have nothing to complain about.

So that sums up my last week. Enjoy the photos of our rooster meal!

God bless.