rothwellsmission: BLOG NO 23

When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt.

Leviticus 19 : 33-34

Good morning from a beautiful sunny Ugandan morning – after a week of heavy rain.

Answers to prayer from last month -

Stan's tooth is no more, surgically extracted with much drilling, stitched and protected with a laser dressing, which he was very impressed with. The dentist was a very gentle Korean lady and those of you who know Stan 'faints at the dentist' know this was very important! Anyway he was very brave, didn't faint, and dressing and stitches are now gone and he can eat again – but not popcorn!

All the students (apart from a small handful) are now back, and it is a joy to be amongst them again.

Engola Arnold is back at school after what he has described as the joyous burial of his mum.

Thank you for your prayers.

We have been busy with visitors this month –

First visitors were Mubiru Chris, a regular visitor and great supporter of the students with his visiting team from Wototo church. This time he was accompanied by Daniel Brandel – author of books about playing fair in sport using biblical themes, and representing Sports Ambassadors. They did basketball coaching, not just about rules and game play but also about playing in the 'right way', on Saturday and on Sunday Daniel spoke in the WTA church.

Our second visitors, and still here as we write this, have been Roger Savill, one of the first team to visit WTA on the old site, so he has seen great change since he was here. He has been accompanied by Ethan, who has devised a PE afternoon programme for S1 which has included basketball, netball and football, and has been greatly enjoyed. It also meant we have had the exciting spectacle of Roger and Stan refereeing netball – and pretending they know the rules!

In addition, for the first week, Roger and Ethan were ably assisted by Claire (British but living and working in Kisoro, in western Uganda), Richard and Fortunate (lovely name, lovely girl). Richard and Fortunate were both students of Claire, a PE teacher in real life but currently running a church guest house.

In the mornings, whilst Roger played in the garage, designing and making gym equipment (think plastic water bottles, tubing and cement), the others were teaching in the Bridge – which involved learning maths by playing lots of games!

Oh – and in their spare time they have marked out the basketball court (in yellow) and have also included netball markings (in white). The paint is for road markings, so not only do we expect it to last a long while it has the added bonus of glowing in the dark!

We are delighted (and a little bit sad) that most of the Activate lessons are now being taught by the school. Charles felt it was time for the school to take ownership so we feel that is a really positive step. The new Activate teacher is Kato Patrick, the bursar, who has taken over from us in the past when we have had to be elsewhere – and he says he is loving it! He has a real heart for showing the students where they can find the answers to their questions (The Bible), and his themes for this term are what the Bible says about electioneering, fair voting, discipline and loving each other. We have hung on to S5 and S6 for now, so we are not completely Activate-less.

The building work is almost completed, all the new rooms are in use, just a few bits and pieces to finish.

And - Stan had a birthday!

Almost forgot about more visitors this week – three very important looking men from Umeme – the electricity suppliers – came to look at our meter which hasn't worked for some time. After great deliberation and discussion they all agreed that the reason it is not working is that it has been struck by lightning – so they have gone away to 'consider what to do next'!

And now we are going to break that rule about never talking about politics or religion – and talk about them both.

Our only source of information about the referendum has been BBC World Service on the radio, and it seems from the reports that they think most over 60's voted to leave along with most of the country outside London and the affluent south because they wanted to 'keep the foreigners out' and that became the main focus for leaving. If that is true, that is very sad. As a couple of oldies, including one northerner, we buck the trend it seems. The nationalism bottle, once opened, as any student of history will tell you, can be a toxic drink. A scapegoat must be found.......so which minority is next?

We mention it as very welcomed and loved 'aliens in a foreign land' who this week have had to answer questions from the students who have been following the news on their (illegal!) radios. The question that has been asked again and again is, '' why are the British people judging which man is better than another when we are all God's children and should love everyone'', and we are struggling for an answer. Have to say feeling a little ashamed of the country we love this week.

However, what we are also reminding ourselves is of the greatest commandment, so when we come back to the UK we will be trying to show love to 51.9% of the population we don't agree with! What is done is done – now we must pull together.

Prayer request this month is a little different. We are usually asking you to pray for people and situations here, but this time the students have asked us to pass on the fact that they will be praying for the people of the UK that they can learn to love one another and live in harmony. We are often humbled by what they say, and sadly, this is one of those times. Love and blessings from both of us.

Sue and Stan xx