I've spent the last five days with 16 people visiting Uganda from the US lead by Johnny Karls. They are all mostly from Oregon, but some are from Colorado and North Carolina. I met up with them right as they pulled into ARM headquarters in Gaba and been with them since then. The first day we spent in Gaba and the surrounding areas. We were given the tour of ARM headquarters, school and church attached to it, I helped show everyone around Wentz, and then we drove up to the Loving Hearts orphanage. We parted ways for the night, but I was up at 5:00am Saturday morning to get on the bus with my fellow mzungus to make the three and a half hour drive to Mubende. 

We arrived at Cachungwa (an ARM supported sponsorship program) by 9ish on Saturday morning. Right off the bat the kids came and swarmed around the bus, greeting us in broken english. Even if we couldn't understand what they were saying, the emotion and looks on their faces was plenty to know that they were ecstatic to have us there. Honestly to write everything that happened there would take half a day. To summarize it, it is best to just say that I have never felt so welcomed, so appreciated, or so loved by kids in my entire life. they could not get enough of talking to me, asking me where I was from, asking how many kids I had, why I wasn't married yet at 20 years old, having me repeat Lugandan phrases, and they especially loved when I would pretend to lift imaginary invisible rocks and throw them around. We spent three days there helping teach sunday school, being expected to give a spontaneous on the fly lecture about HIV/AIDS, or answering any of the questions the local pastors or officials had. 

During our time in Mubende, we visited Mulette (another ARM supported sponsorship program) and got a tour of the campus along with their new medical clinic. The clinic should be up and running by the end of october, so I will probably be visiting it again while I'm here.

There has been soooooo much that has happened in the past few days I know that I am forgetting or leaving stuff out. I'll just have to tell you all the individual stories of the people we met, the things we saw, the incredible ways we impacted the children, and the even more incredible way the children were able to impact us.

Highlight of the day: We went to the very nice section of Kampala today on the way back from Mubende. In a big pretty nice shopping mall, we had lunch in the food court. I ordered the biggest cheese burger I could find, which ended up being in a Lebanese restaurant oddly enough. It was aallmmosstt as incredible as having my mom's cookies, I was so happy to have some Western food hahaha...