Saturday is for Baptisms and Football

October 3

After spending some sweet time at Cafe Larem, skyping with my mom this morning, I headed home so that I could shower and get ready to go to Morris’s house. He invited me to his grandson’s baptism within a few days of me being at the hospital, and I was glad to accept the offer. 

At about 1pm I headed over the clinic where Morris had a few hours worth of work. We left shortly after and went to his house. I was greeted by his wife, and a few other relatives, as well as a couple of his daughters. Their home is beautiful and filled with family things, like photos and school awards. Morris and Helen have seven children, the eldest being 33 years and the youngest 16. One girl, Anne, is my age and studying in Kampala to be a doctor. I actually had the opportunity to talk with her quite a bit about her program, her passions and her dreams within her vocation. She is a very driven, intelligent and focused individual, and at the same time, she is refreshingly a 23 year old girl. She said things like “Seriously?” in surprise and it just made me smile. I told her about the stethoscope Jed had given me and asked if she would like to have it. Would it help? Yes, of course! She is required to have a stethoscope, sphygmomanometer and a patella hammer, so I figured that an extra stethoscope might be helpful. Plus, she will use it far more often in the coming years that I would. Especially considering I don’t even know what to listen for! I was also able to talk with Lynn (who is 25 years old) about spiritual poverty in the US. She asked me some questions about the life there and the best answer I could give was that the depth of spiritual poverty is immense. She seemed to understand, which opened up some good dialogue between us. 

The family really welcomed me and made me feel like an honored guest, always asking if they might serve me something else to drink or asking if I had had enough to eat. It was really difficult for me to accept, actually, but incredible to experience as well.

After the baptism (I actually didn’t go to and just stayed at the house during the prayers) everyone came back and we had dinner and cake. The babies didn’t much like the attention or pictures, but it was really cute to watch them interact with each other. Maria is six months and got baptized, but Lucas is only two months young, and his big brother, Andrea, is 3 years. Mercy is maybe around seven.

After dinner and cake we got to watch football! It was great! We had to put fuel in the generator, but that was worth the Manchester United vs. Sunderland game. Dang. Ugandans LOVE football! I really enjoyed watching it with them. Sunderland played a good game and the end score ended up being a tie, 2-2. I didn’t get home until late this evening, but that was fine by me. What a fun day!