One day we heard of a bush village called Kiira that had built such a large church building that they did not know how to put a roof on it. For three years this church had been waiting on God to provide someone who could do it. And for three years the building had gone unused while all the people continued to cram into their small facility. While this was not part of our official itinerary, being flexible is one of the keys to being on a mission/humanitarian trip like this. The thought of these people waiting for a miracle and having the chance to be that answer to prayer for them was just too good to pass up.
We decided that we were going to be the ones to finish the church. We got word to them that we were coming and asked them to get all the building materials ready for us. (The materials had already been delivered by the Christian Ministry Alliance)
The men sat on one side of the church and watched all day as we roofed the building and the women sat on the other side. The kids were running around playing all over the place. We took turns, working in shifts on the roof as the temperature was well over 100 degrees.
Logan at one point had 50 children around him and he was was teaching them how to play the “mirror game”. Whatever Logan did, they would do. Whatever Logan said, they would say. It was hillarious!!! Once the kids caught on, he had them saying and doing all of the craziest things. He taught them some “smooth” dance moves (think washing machine, sprinkler, the worm, etc.) He also taught them how to say cool “American” things like “WHAZZZZZUUUUUP!” and “Logan is the man!” and “Tampa Bay Bucaneers are the best!”. At one point he had them all singing Jesus Loves Me. He was like the Pied Piper and you should have seen the looks on their faces as they followed him everywhere. In fact late that night, after the singing, dancing, and drum beating finally died down (after midnight), we could still hear packs of children running through the bush chanting “Heeeyyyy Logan”.
As we prepared to leave, a man came riding up on a bicycle with a white ram wrapped around his shoulders and a guinea hen in one of his hands. These were our gifts from the village. They had given us their very best. The ram had even been bathed (using their very rare and precious water) and was white as snow. Not accepting their their sacrificial gift was not an option, but we had no idea how to transport it…so they tied him on to the roof of our car. Since these animals were going to be joining our team, we had to give them a name. So Bill the ram and Louise the guinea hen became the newest members of the Dry Tears team. Bill rode around on the roof of our Land Rover until we got to the next village which was hours away and Louise ran around in the backseat of the vehicle with us. We gave Bill to the folks in the next village as a gift from us, and we ate Louise for dinner that night.
