Fred in the Village: Day 23
Mandi JohnsonDay 23: Slippery Slope
Last night was weird; I mean I got good sleep but the weird part was I got up to use the restroom five times. Like it wasn’t, “oh I’m awake, how about I use the restroom,” it was more like “I got to go! I can’t hold it anymore!” Every time I opened my eyes last night I had to go. But this morning was good. I woke up and had my daily devotion, but what I’ve started doing was reading a chapter of John each day. The reason I am doing that is because three years ago my New Year’s resolution was to read John and I never finished it. But now that I am older and more committed to things I’ve decided to try again. So I read from John, ate breakfast and hopped in the car for Saturday program.
Adventures in Uganda
We were only 10 minutes out when we came across this muddy path that was a bridge. Jabeth started driving across when the whole car slipped and one tire hung off the edge of the bridge. David started saying and I quote “oh Jesus, Jesus.” I thought they were over exaggerating, but once I stepped out of the car and saw for myself, they were for real. David quickly got his guitar (the one that Josh gifted to him) and said, “I have to protect this!”
Jabeth replied with, “is the guitar more important than the car?”
We were all laughing at this exchange. Once we observed the issue we started to add leaves behind the tires for grip. Then eight other people came and helped us basically pull the car up. After that, Jabeth didn’t want to risk it and go through the mud again so we went back to the center and got bodas (motorcycle taxis) to take us to the Saturday program. We had to go through the same muddy areas with the bodas so they made us step off and walk through it.
Saturday Program
After driving through many muddy areas we finally made it to the Saturday program and 60 kids were there. David taught the children on the importance of going to church. When we left, our journey was just as difficult. The bodas left us at the program so it was a 15-20 minute walk back to the broken bridge. We walked in the water to the other side to meet Jabeth and the car. Then we drove back to the compound to eat lunch, pack for Soroti and headed to town. We stopped at Jabeth’s family clan meeting. It’s a pretty cool concept, every three months they meet up and talk about the different problems. What I learned today, that I never knew is that Jabeth and Daniel O. are cousins.
After the meeting we drove to town where we got the car washed and I got a Rolex to eat. Then we had our weekly zoom meeting with all four founders & directors of AEM (they have it every week, even before I came for the summer). Once that was over we went to John’s wife’s hair salon where she and her friends were the 9th people to ask me to take them to America. While we were there they were also messing with Jabeth laughing about how he got the car stuck. John came by the salon and said that Jabeth should’ve had the car in 4 wheel [actually he did, it’s AWD]. Also if you haven’t learned by now, John can do most things that Superman can do. After talking with John it was time for my meeting with Jonna (one of the main guys over the radio station) who gave me the topics of what I will talk about on the radio…“Fred Johnson – A student of Law in the USA, BORN Uganda Jinja, Uganda Background, What you have learned in the USA about life compared to Uganda? How to be a better person in life”
My verse of the day is John 3:30 and my prayer is over the radio station tomorrow that I will do well, and it’s not my voice being proclaimed it’s God’s. ~ Fred
“He must become greater; I must become less.”
JOHN 3:30
