June 16 - An unusual day for sure

 Ministry Partners,

Talk about an interesting day. It started out with one of those mountain top experiences as we went with Pastor Peace to the radio station where she does a 30-minute radio broadcast every Thursday. The broadcast reaches out to the entire country of Uganda and it would be interesting to know the impact that our time there. I shared the gospel and gave an invitation leaving the work to the Holy Spirit. It was nice to see Pastor Peace in her element, she did such a good job, it was a side of her I had not seen before as she spoke into the microphone.

 

Then it was off to get other errands done; Pastor Peace and Pastor Aaron dropped Alfred and I off at the bank so that we could withdraw some of the money that we had wired over. They then went to the Bible society to pick up the bibles that we had ordered. Who knew those two business jobs would turn everything upside down. We entered the bank with our checkbook but was told that since the account had been inactive that there were a number of steps that we had to do to get our account back into the active mode. It’s interesting when you sit at a woman’s desk and she pretty much ignores you and then gives you numerous pages to fill out with your visa and passport information. I was so thankful that Alfred was there and could fill out all of mine and all I to do was to write my signature. I had to go get a passport photo but Alfred had his. Page after page, front page back page, more pages and then she picked up all the papers and motioned us over to another table in front of another lady and said to sit in those chairs and put the paperwork down. For a few minutes the second lady never acknowledged us but finally looked at us and said she really had other things to do, that there are many clients in front of us.

So we sat there and we sat there and we sat there. I finally looked at the lady and said please won’t you help us to which she softened a bit and picked up the papers and began to check that they were filled out right returning to their first lady with the paperwork and then coming down and sitting in front of us. We thought we were finally getting in good shape when she informed us that because the account had been inactive for the last two years that we would have to be fingerprinted. As we left her desk and descended to the bottom level under the bank four floors. It was dark and dingy and there were lots of people there, I felt like we were entering a prison it was so dingy.

 The man there gave us some more paperwork to fill out and when Alfred had that all done we sat there, and we sat there, and as we sat there I finally said to the man who had given us the papers, that had been going in and out of a side room, “Can’t you please help us?” With that he said that they would be with us in a bit. As we observed the rest of the people that were down, there about 25 or 30, they had the most hopeless looks on their faces. I’m not sure how long they’ve been down there. Finally, the man came to us and told us to come inside and bring our paperwork so Alfred was fingerprinted and then he signed the paperwork that went with the fingerprints. Then it was my turn. Nothing was going to work, they pushed on my fingers so hard on the screen that it made my fingers hurt, then they cleaned my fingers with alcohol and the screen of the machine with alcohol. The machine would not acknowledge that there was a person there with flesh and blood and at one point her computer switched off. She reset everything and we started all over but still the computer would not recognize my fingers as they rested on the glass and a second time the computer switched off and we started over and a third time the computer switched off.

I truly believe that the enemy saw the impact of that radio broadcast earlier in the morning and he was having fits and throwing stones. He was not going to allow me to be fingerprinted. Finally, they told us that Alfred could just withdraw the money himself but my concern was if for some reason I went to withdraw money and Alfred was not with me I would not be able to get the money out of the bank so I had huge concerns but at least that was done. We were there 4 hours and we headed upstairs to get the money that we had wired over. Oh no, all is not done yet! We headed upstairs to get a portion of the money that we had wired over. But it was not going to be that easy. We had decided that instead of taking out a portion of the money we had wired and then later in our trip going back for the second portion to just go ahead and withdraw all the money. But no, we were told sorry you’ll have to come back tomorrow to get the balance of your money. At this point I am trying not to become overly frustrated because I see Satan’s ugly handle all of this and at one point it became so ridiculous I had to keep myself from laughing out loud. So we withdrew the portion that they said we could have and Alfred will have to go back tomorrow and get the rest. He had a large amount of other things to be doing to prepare us to begin ministry but a bank run is now on the schedule.

  Pastor Peace and Pastor Aaron had picked up the booklets so they had those but while we were in the bank Pastor Peace called and said that they didn’t have all the different language bibles that I had ordered and they were refusing to release the bibles to her period. Now her name was on the certificate as well as Pastor Aaron’s along with Alfred’s and mine but still they would not release the bibles to her. So that means tomorrow morning all of us go back to town to procure the money and to go to the Bible society and get our bibles. But the enemy was not through with his little sticks and stones for as we were eating dinner the phone rang for Alfred and it was the bank. They informed him that he would need to be there in the morning because he had not signed all the paperwork that they wanted him to sign. You know what, I was with him he signed every piece of paper that they gave him.

 We stopped by the store on the way home and picked up our lunch supplies so that we would be prepared when we start actually doing the prison ministry which begins on Sunday

The place where we’re staying is lovely and it is so nice rather than paying for individual rooms we just rented a house that is so nice and at about half the cost of what it would cost for us to rent individual rooms. The lady that has been serving our food is really nice and today when we came in she brought a tray of pineapple into my room for me since Alfred had told her how much I liked pineapple. We had a great dinner and Alfred and I worked on finances. Now I’m writing this blog and I’m not sure what the rest of the crew is doing. It’s 9:00 and when I get through with this blog I will run a hot bath and I will be in bed by 11:00 o’clock.

Please continue to pray for us as we really are on the frontline and Satan is doing that all he can to disrupt our time here. Please pray also for my feet and my low back as they have become quite painful. But I must tell you I am not deterred I am so excited to be here. I am so excited for the opportunities that I know God is going to bring and I’m excited to watch the Holy Spirit work in power and might in the lives of those we come into contact with.

That none would be lost,

Arlene