MOYO, Uganda - Every day matters on a mission trip.
Every day you make a difference.
But every day wasn’t like Sunday for the Amy For Africa mission team that is serving in Uganda.
We watched a church full of Ugandans, who truly have nothing, offer praise and worship like they had everything. Church in the Vumbula village lasted four hours and nobody was looking at their watch around noon. We kept going past noon, past 1 and past 2 p.m.
We went from 10:45 to 2:45, non-stop, up and down, praising, praising, praising. There was a choir making beautiful music with homemade instruments. They sounded great although it’s unlike you’ve heard before in your life. They danced, they sang, and they praised God in their style.
The spirit that was running through that place should make any church in America wince. It was a powerful meeting.
We brought a bus full of 36 because we wanted to bring along the women who have cooked for us the past several days. It was jammed but it was a good jammed. Church was done unashamedly, without pretense, or fear and with only one thing in mind. They were there to proclaim what God has done for them.
The service had singing, testifying, praying, and preaching.
The Ugandans are event-oriented and what that means is there’s no real starting time or no real ending time. You show up and it starts when enough show up. They were expecting us and it started not long after we arrived and filed into a brick building with plastic chairs.
They made us welcome into their worship and invited us to participate. We sang songs for them – “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children” – and I’m sure they didn’t understand a word of it. But guess what? It was just as joyful for them because of the joy on our faces.
An interpreter was there so we could share our stories with them in a language they did understand. Several stepped up to do just that, sharing their heart in front of these warm African people who we barely knew.
Before the church service was over there was an altar call and several came forward, including a couple of our own.
When you go on a mission trip, everything else is stripped way. I think that’s what is best about it. You look into the eyes of poverty and can’t help but feel at least a little guilty with how you’ve been blessed. Life in Moyo is almost like a time warp or at least a land that time forget.
In many ways, they are forgotten people. But mission trips like this one make sure they aren’t forgotten. We want to make sure they know it.
God forgets nobody and that includes the Ma’di people of Moyo. Amy For Africa feels led to be that reminder.