KBC to... KBC!

Last Sunday was the last day for me in the UK for the foreseeable future, at least until next year. As is normal when we are around the Glasgow area, we spent the morning with our friends at KBC (Kirkintilloch Baptist Church). It was their anniversary weekend, where they were celebrating 127 years since the church was established there. We enjoyed a great service, during which we were prayed for as a family, that all would go well as we separated for the next few months, and that our “Uganda chapter” would be a good one!

Don't think I will need that jumper for quite a while!!

Monday was spent on a plane, flying to Heathrow, then on to Entebbe. I am missing having my family around, and having them experience all the new things that Uganda is bringing me just now, but I have to admit that being able to watch 3 full movies on the plane and snooze whenever I felt like it was pretty nice! 

Tuesday was an easy day; Kampala is quite a bit warmer than Glasgow, so just trundling along at an easy pace for my first day was pretty much a necessity! Mark and Sarah Newnham (who hosted Heather on her visit here back in  October) are our link family, so they have been great at keeping me right with what is what; Sarah took me out for a bit on Tuesday, to give me a quick tour of a few places and a trip out to see the hangar and meet the rest of the guys out there. Then it was back to the guest house to unpack a bit, and catch my breath before going out for dinner.

Kajjansi hangar

I started working in the hangar properly on Wednesday, working through a list of things on my induction training check-sheet, and getting started on some "find my way around"- type jobs. I haven’t worked on a hangar floor since I sat my A&P exams mid-Sept, so it was really good to be back in steel toe caps and working with my hands again! :-) MAF-Uganda is a busy programme with 4 Cessna caravans, 2 Cessna 206’s and MAF’s latest diesel Cessna 182 (the one that toured the UK a few months ago, before making the trip to East Africa) based here. MAF-Congo also use some hangar space here in Kajjansi as well; they fly their planes here to have maintenance work done. MAF-Uganda have 1 Ugandan engineer, and 2 international engineers (3 including me!), so there is no shortage of work to keep everyone busy!

The weekend gave a good opportunity to find my bearings a bit around Kampala. Margaret McLaren (MAF’s finance manager here and a fellow Scot!) took me out on her Saturday morning shopping trip, and pointed out a couple of the regular stops on the shopping circuit. Not quite a 24hr Tesco, or Walmart, but you can get anything you need! It was great to explore the town a bit and see a side of Kampala away from my usual route from home to hangar! Later in the afternoon I went out for my first “Ugandan driving lesson” with Mark. It is definitely a different technique that is required here compared to UK or US! Being assertive is pretty much essential, and you have to have a different interpretation of the term “right of way”!! It’s not the kind of place where falling asleep at the wheel is likely to happen!!

Kampala Baptist Church

And that brings us to today! A week after being in the Scottish KBC, I find myself in the Ugandan one – Kampala Baptist Church! There were some obvious differences between the two churches (the music was more … “African”, and one KBC had considerably more ceiling fans than the other – something I was really grateful for!!) but the welcome was warm, and the worship was sincere and powerful. It is incredible to know that our God, the God we worship in Scotland, is the same God we worship here in the completely different country of Uganda. He created the universe, “He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name” (Psalm 147:4), but he cares deeply about us as individuals, “The Lord your God is with you. He’s mighty to deliver. He takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with His love. He rejoices over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17).

Thanks, as always, for all your thoughts, prayers and encouragement!