Still having problems uploading photos so apologies that you can’t yet see much evidence of our travels.
Today is Monday, two days after we transferred to the Uganda Christian University site at Mukono, around 15 miles east of Kampala on the Jinja road. We were very warmly welcomed by Dan Button, who is on the teaching staff here (and whose wife Rosie was a student in Cambridge when JoJo was a parish assistant at the Round Church there). We also immediately ran into another old acquaintance from London, Angus Crichton, who is on the staff of Kampala Evangelical School of Theology. It’s very reassuring to see some familiar faces – but the Ugandan people themselves are very welcoming and friendly so we are quickly feeling at home here.
The university is a young one, but its site and history go back over a hundred years, since it has its origins in the very longstanding and respected Bishop Tucker Theological College. Ordinands are still trained here for the Church of Uganda, but now there are around 5000 students in a range of disciplines – law, social science, business studies, to name a few. The university is private, owned by the Church of Uganda whose archbishop, Henry Orombi, is Chancellor. It has mushroomed in recent years owing to the expansion of education and the economy in Uganda, and its own high standards of teaching and care.
We are living in the university guest house. It’s a great place to be - we have enjoyed meeting a number of other guests from Australia and the USA and are also discovering Ugandan cooking, which is delicious. Savoury banana – ‘matoki’ I think – is one of my favourites, enjoyed with delicious peanut sauce. Uganda is a fertile land and the fruit especially is mouth-watering!
In a couple of weeks we’ll begin house-sitting a home for a staff family on leave, but in the meantime we are getting to know a number of families around the campus – Lucy Alastair and Tom have already made some good friends. It’s a beautiful site on a hill above Mukono town with lovely views over the countryside beyond.
Yesterday we attended the English language cathedral service in Mukono at 8.30am. Services here are long – 10.30 finish! Warm-hearted singing, a full congregation all bringing and opening their Bibles, lots of familiar elements and some fairly unfamiliar, including a dramatic episode of deliverance ministry towards the end – though we were told this is fairly unusual! The preacher was a visiting American, David Bast, who has been here for some weeks assisting Mukono diocese establish a radio ministry. After a very clear and moving exposition of Romans 5.8 he made an ‘altar call’ which the canon leading the service then took up and a number of men and women came forward professing faith for the first time. Not what we are used to in English cathedrals – alas!
Today Peter joined the university staff – security guards to professors – for staff prayers and a short address by the Vice-Chancellor, Stephen Noll, and spent some time with Dan Button, who runs the General Studies programme where he hopes to assist when term begins in a fortnight’s time.
Tomorrow we are looking forward to travelling to Kampala to see Vincent and Beatrice Langariti and their children Stephen and Beatrice.
