Day 3 – Church and Lunch with the kids

An Evangelical Start to the Day
This morning we all went to church…. This concept did come as a bit of a shock to some in the team…. But I think all of the team were stunned by many aspects of the service. This church was the evangelical church that was established by Watoto founder – Pastor Gary Skinner. They have 5 churches in Kamapa, the main one is the central church, followed by North, South, East & West.


We went to the main central church…. Wow… what an event. When we arrived, the crowds were queuing to get into the church (when was the last time you saw people queuing for church)…. While we were waiting we met a few other international Watoto teams…. I spoke the Canadians (who were suffering under the heat of Africa) and also a team from Melbourne.


Now what sets us apart is that we are probably the only non church team that Watoto have had… Everybody asks us what church we are with, and they look a bit puzzled when we say we are not from a church but a company. I think our poor guide Yosam is struggling with this a bit.

Once we got inside, this was more like a rock concert…. The choir was perhaps 40 or 50 people, two drummers, guitarists, keyboards, and 3 or 4 lead singers all up on stage. It was definitely rocking and the congregation were getting down big time. They did some baptisms while the music was playing and people were getting dunked clothes and all in a big pool at the back of the stage.

This whole service was a very slick production… of course HRX were considered VIPs because of our Watoto build, so we had front row seats and were called out by the Pastor.

All I can say about the church service was…. “Interesting”….. “Very Interesting”.
Lunch with the kids
In the afternoon we went to the other Watoto village near Kampala called Suvi. There we were split into two groups and had a traditional African lunch prepared by the two families. The children were very shy during the lunch time and it was very difficult to get any conversation going, however once lunch was over then it was playtime and it was an entirely different situation.




We bought some small gifts for the kids (soccer balls, badminton sets, skipping ropes) and the kids loved them. It didn’t take long before a football game got going and lots of the local kids jumped in.


The shy behaviour that we saw at lunch vanished completely and the kids were totally at ease with us and enjoyed playing with the strangers. They took control of our cameras and had a great time taking hundreds of photos of their brothers and sisters and some of the kids formed real attachments to individuals. Stephen, Chris and George became human climbing gyms, and I don’t think I saw them without one, two or three kids hanging off them.


It is absolutely incredible how quickly you start building bonds with these gorgeous little kids. Our guide Yosam had to drag us away from the kids, and even as we were walking to the van, the kids were holding fast on our hands.



Tomorrow we are back on the building site for final day of construction and the dedication ceremony.

More later
Brent