“A-zu-ki-de!” That’s Luganda for He is risen! What an unforgettable Easter experience we had yesterday!
A little background: There are no Easter bunnies in sight, Peeps marshmallows, or egg hunts here. Rather, Easter is a full on celebration here in Uganda with Friday and Monday as official holidays.
Our little team had to learn to “suffer well” with good night’s rest, Uganda omelette and yogurt for breakfast, and of course some Lighthouse approved coffee. It was well with our souls as we prepared for Easter.
Easter service at SOS ministries was a full house. Our team was welcomed into the Sanctuary with abundant hugs, Luganda Easter greetings, and were even invited to introduce ourselves to the congregation. The passion and energy of the church created an incredible atmosphere we worshipped together in English and Luganda. Service was amazing! It was simultaneously both comfortably familiar and wonderfully new at the same time! We sang familiar praise songs of worship and were fed a powerful and doctrinally solid sermon from Ezekial 38 and 1 Thessalonians 5.
Back in our accommodations to again “suffer well” for a short while, we headed to one of the missionary’s campus homes for a large Easter celebration lunch gathering. The lunch schedule was packed with a devotion, worship, very generous portions of food and drink, scripture verse bingo, small group discussion questions, lawn games, and futbol! Our stomachs were fuller than Thanksgiving but our hearts and were even fuller than that – What an incredibly sweet time of celebration and fellowship and even sweeter to hear “Easter is my favorite holiday of the year!”
Our conversations and fellowship flowed well into the afternoon
resulting us missing futbol to again suffer well in our accommodation before heading to the Hurley family for dinner.
Our evening was shared with head honcho Shannon Hurley at his house with dinner prepared by his wife, Danielle, and their very large family of adopted children. Hospitality was amazing! Dinner was followed shortly with family worship lead by Danielle (an incredible pianist) and even more of their children and students (there must have been 20 or so) and a discussion of the sermon by Shannon and fellowshipping with them late into the night. These people love so so well and never once did we feel like guests but rather a family celebrating our risen King together!
Azukide! Weebale Yesu!
John Chan and team Uganda
