Teaching Apac

Wednesday, August 6

Though we were not driving anywhere on Wednesday, the day was very long. We walked to True Love Baptist, Apac, at 8:30 and did not arrive back until after 9 that evening. Much of the morning was dedicated to showing us the Child Development Center. This is a new ministry started over the last year that now involves 230 children! These children are sponsored through Compassion International in partnership with the church. A poster on the wall outside the office detailed statistics about the children. Many are total orphans—often living with extended family members. Four were a part of “child-headed” families. This means that both parents had died, and the oldest child (maybe 9-12 years old) is taking care of siblings. True Love Baptist has a remarkable ministry to these children.

That afternoon we did our teaching. The Cannon family surely set a record for adult/child ratio with the children. Jon and Jan had their two boys and about 400 Ugandan children! To say that this bordered on chaos would be an understatement.

The youth group, taught by Mike and Joel, were meeting under a mango tree nearest the road. At the end of their session, they noticed a group of people running toward another part of town. They inquired and heard that a leopard had been captured in town! This was HIGHLY unusual as leopards are so secretive that people hardly see them and because the animals are generally confined to game parks. When they arrived at the spot, the game wardens had shot it. We heard today that another was still loose in the area, but don’t worry, we’re on the road tomorrow.