“Chance” meeting?

Remember the young man from my last entry? Yesterday, Jamie and I went into town to do a little shopping. We walked down from the Stensaas’ house. It isn’t far, a little over a mile. We found the grocery store easily but I was having a little trouble finding the produce market. As I walked slowly along, looking for the correct alley, I turned around and there stood that young man. Humsa had seen us as well and we greeted each other. He asked if I had talked to James and I told him that I had. I told him that James still wanted to meet him and the best way would still be for him to come to church. He helped me find the market and then I showed him where the church here in Mbarara is. He promised to come to church. We parted when I needed to make one more stop in town.

We walked to church last night. Along the way we fell in with Florence, a lady from the church whose Muslim husband forced her to leave. When we got to church we looked for Humsa. He wasn’t there yet and church soon started. We sat toward the front and I wasn’t able to see those who came in late. But he came! Pastor Robert preached a good sermon that included the gospel very clearly in both English and Runyunkore. After church I introduced Humsa to James and our helper, Osbert. James talked to him for a while. What he really wanted was to have someone sponsor him into America. I shouldn’t have been surprised about that. But even so, we talked with him for a while, brought up religion and then made sure that he had a Runyunkore John and Romans and then got to talk to Pastor Edgar. We had to leave before they were done talking since we were walking home and wanted to arrive before dark. As it was, it was almost completely dark before we got home. I hope I “run into” him in town again to find out how it went. Or maybe he really will come to church on Sunday like he promised. We’ll see. 😀

Today I had laundry to do. It was bright and sunny outside so I got started early. The water flows in very slowly so it takes almost 2 hours to wash a load of laundry. Then I’ve been hanging the laundry on the line to dry. One load of laundry will be dry by the time the next is done in the washer. After lunch I put a load in the washer before cleaning up the lunch dishes. As I worked on the dishes I noticed that it was getting windy and that a storm was coming up. I stopped what I was doing and hurried outside to get the laundry off the line before it rained. Sometime in there, the electricity went out. But I didn’t notice that it had (there are many windows so we don’t use the lights until evening).

I went to check on the washer and found that it wasn’t filling. Hmmmm…. Mrs. Stensaas had told me that sometimes she had to fill the washer with a pitcher and water from the kitchen sink. So I found a big bowl and poured more water in the washer. But it still wouldn’t run. Hmmmmm…. What was going on? That’s when it occurred to me that the electricity was out! Ah HAH! 😀 So the laundry got to soak for a long time. Some of it really needed it. LOL. The electricity came back on just in time for me to clean up the kitchen from supper. So the load has been completed and tomorrow morning right away I’ll get it out on the line to dry.

Ah, the fun of living in Africa. 😀