1/1/10

Yesterday, we unpacked all day and left for church around 8:30pm. We stayed up praying, singing, and dancing until 2am. It was fun, but we were really tired. We woke up at 7 today, so we felt pretty sleep deprived. We headed over to Langol village with the Rock Harbor team and I worked in the pharmacy, played some worship songs, played with the kids, then went hut to hut evangelizing with Angela and a translator. He was a nice guy, but he really frustrated us. He was embarrassed when we wanted to say certain things to the people. We both think that he probably didn’t translate everything we wanted him to say.

We were told that everyone in the village constantly drinks, and it was evident when we began to speak with them. This crazy lady ran up and told us she was “the famous Joyce Meyer.” She was SO drunk! I asked if she was talking about the author named Joyce Meyer, but I got no answer. On a funny side note, Angela has never heard of Joyce Meyer so she introduced herself to the woman as “the famous Angela Valenzuela” HAHAHA.

When we spoke to Rachel about it this morning, she said that Joyce Meyer came to visit Gulu in October to do a two day crusade, but the people were not too happy with her. She only had 2 hours for the first crusade. She flew to Gulu, then out of Gulu, then back the next day (it seems as though she was afraid to be here). The people were angry about the fact that it was only two hours because by the time they got there from their distant villages, it was already over. By the way Rachel spoke of her, I wonder if she cared to know anything about the people of Gulu, or if it was just on her to-do list to stop by. It’s almost laughable that Americans are so good at bypassing the needs of others and self proclaiming themselves as heroes. It has reminded me to make sure we aren’t doing that here.

After the run in with “Joyce Meyer,” we talked to a Catholic priest. We are still confused about what happened with that. Our translator was not very clear. We headed home shortly after, and the road was full of crazy potholes filled with water from a when it rained a few days before. We had to pull over to put water in the car… it took around 10 bottles! We finally made it home and were able to rest.