EBENEZER CHRISTIAN ACADEMY SECOND YEAR...

This month Ebenezer Christian Academy, our ministry school opened for the second year. Last year being the first year of school was more experiment than experience. We did not know how to go about certain issues, we did not know how our budget should look like and so a lot of things were left undone. But this year started with a lot of excitement from the students to the teachers and to the school board.
Child after child came in running and shouting as soon as they reached the school premises. "Ebenezer, i missed you so much" shouted one of the boys joining grade 5.
We started with grade One to Grade four with two classes of kindergarten. This year we added on grade five as we promoted the Grade four class. We also added one more class to the kindergarten section; now we have the baby class, middle class and top class.
God has blessed us with a godly staff of dedicated teachers ready  to equip this young generation into leaders that will transform our community. As the new school term started, they resolved to take Ebenezer Christian school to another level. "Let us work harder to raise the standard of  our school" said the Head teacher. What amazed me with this team of teachers is that they are dedicated despite the little money we give them. "We are determined to earn little but work hard" said the Head teacher. What makes a difference is that these teachers look at this as an opportunity for them to be a blessing to these children and our community. They say that this is their ministry and they are ready to serve God at all costs.
Our school's one year existence has already made a big difference in our community. We emphasize cleanliness and hard work. Our children are always clean and dressed neatly (smart), children now speak very good English. Besides the morals of our children have changed drastically. Ours is primarily a christian school! We share the Bible every day at school and pray every morning before we start classes. Every child is encouraged to read and memorize scriptures. We thank God for Terry Simpson who donated 100 Bibles to our school. We want our children to attain education with a Christian back ground. Our goal is to send back to the community godly educated men and women who will be the kind of leaders that will bring about transformation.
Keep praying for us friends. We now need prayers for God to provide funds to pay rent for the school building for this term. With God all things are possible.

THE DINOSAUR WORLD...

DINOSAURS

Before I left Florida, my friends took me to this part called The Dinosaur World. It has so many replicas of these giant animals that are believed to have lived on earth millions of years ago. The Bible in the book of Job talks about some of these giant animals and it is believed they were the first kind of animals to live on earth.

We toured around and saw different kinds of these giant animals. Paul, my son loves Dinosaurs and he comes home every day with a different story about these special animals, so I took so many pictures for him. Daily many people come to this park that is well taken care of just to see what these amazing animals looked like.

They say that long ago, Archeologists found fossils of these enormous animals and they could tell how big they were and possibly how they looked and the kind of life they lived. They say most of these were meat eaters whereas others would feed on vegetation. It is assumed that most of them would eat up other Dinosaurs. Most of them lived in the woods, a few lived in water. Some of them had wings though they could not fly. All of them were big reptiles. They say they lived for so many years.

They say that there was an earthquake millions of years ago that changed the atmospheric conditions making it hard for these animals to live and hence led to their extinction.

It was amazing to go through this amazing park with all these replicas and each had a description of what type of Dinosaur that was and how it would live. Whereas it is hard to tell what type of bodies they had, from the appearance of their bones and all other discoveries about these animals, scientists could tell what type of bodies these animals possibly had. Whatever it is they look beautiful. Some of them had short fore legs with big strong hind legs. Meat eaters had sharp teeth and claws by which they would tear into the flesh of their catch.

Inside was a museum with a display of different fossils and bones that were discovered from different parts of the world. It is amazing to see how big these animals must have been.

There was another part that shows how the bones looked like when they were dug up from the sand. These animals were simply too big.

The whole adventure was so beautiful.

I enjoyed my stay in Florida especially with my friends Gerry and Melinda and it was now time to go to my next destination, Virginia.

HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE, FLORIDA

FLORIDA

September 1^st I headed for Florida and was received by Gerry and Melinda. I spoke at their church; First Baptist church Dover and we were able to get more children sponsors. Praise God.

HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE

On Thursday 6^th September Gerry and Melinda took me to the Holy Land Experience in Orlando Florida. This is the place that has built up places and replicas like those that are in the Holy land in Jerusalem during the days of Jesus. Currently it is run by the TBN.

The truth is that this was the most fascinating place I have ever seen in my life that brings a live the picture of the Bible days. I mean it made the Bible come alive. Among the many well-built and well maintained are; the garden of Eden, Bethlehem, garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem, Calvary hill and Nazareth.

THE BIBLE

The first place we visited was the place that explains the origin of the the Bible and it’s authenticity as the work of God.

The Bible is the most read book, the narrator said as he started his 55 minute tour through different apartments that explained how the Bible came into existence up to today.

He told us how writing started in Mesopotamia and how they started writings on pieces of stone called Cuneiform.  Scripture would be written on these rocks.

Later on they started making scrolls from reeds and they would write scripture manuscripts and later on started using paper. He told us that as the truth of the word of God started to spread the enemy started to fight and many scrolls were burnt. Somehow a few were preserved and could be passed on.

The original scripts were written in Hebrew and later on the New Testament in Greek. John Wycliff the first man to translate the Bible put it in the language the ordinary man can read so that the work can spread in the Roman Empire.  He translated the N.T into Italian since that was the language spoken in Rome. Martin Luther influenced the church to read the Bible and the Bible was translated in German.

William Tyndale under a price translated the Bible into the ordinary man’s language ever. And so the Bible could be now read in English. However he was killed for doing this. Before he died he prayed that God would touch the heart of the king of England and indeed a few years after his death King William authorized the Bible to read by all. The King James Version became the first authorized translation version to be authorized by the King.

Today the Bible is the most read book in the entire Universe.

THE TOUR THROUGH THE HOLY LAND EXPERIENCE

We started the tour with the Garden of Eden with the Ark of the Covenant and all the animals. Then the Tabernacle of Moses. There was this Old Testament priest that took us step by step through the temple worship of those days. Right from the alter of sacrifice where Jews would start their worship by sacrificing a lamb. Then the basin where they would wash their hands lest they die. God is a holy God so they had to be pure before they enter the Holy place. Then you would enter the Tabernacle and the first thing would be the table of unleavened bread. Then the table of seven candle sticks and finally the alter of incense. From here you enter through the curtain to the Holy of Hollies and only the High priest was allowed to enter this place and once every year with blood to atone for the sins of the nation. In here you would find the Ark of the Covenant that contained tablets of the Ten Commandments, the pot of Manna and Aaron’s rod that budded. The whole this was awesome!

After this Bethlehem, where Jesus was born from. It has all these beautiful replicas of baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph plus the shepherd, Angels and the wise men with their camels. It all looks beautiful.

Then, Nazareth where Jesus grew from. It has a very short entrance depicted in the bible times as the eye of the needle; Camels had to stay outside thus Jesus giving the parable being so hard for the camel to go through the eye of the needle.

Then Galilee where Jesus preached occasionally, there is a replica of an old boast which is believed to be the very boat that Jesus used when he was preaching on the same lake over 2000 years ago.

Then Jerusalem as it was in the days of Jesus, with all the beautiful places like the Solomon Temple which though it was destroyed by the Babylonians, it was rebuilt by Herod and it was very beautiful covered with Gold. This was later destroyed by the Romans under the command of Emperor Titus and in order to remove all the Gold they removed it brick by brick and stone by stone just like Jesus had prophesied. This is amazing!
Then we saw where Jesus made the first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana of Galilee.

It was great to visit other Bible sites like the upper room where Jesus had the Passover feast with his disciples. We literally had Holy Communion here. And a priest in the picture of Jesus “appeared suddenly” and led us through Holy Communion service and “disappeared” after the service. Then we entered the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed and was betrayed by Judas. 
Then Gologotha where he was crucified and buried and finally raised from the dead. We saw the place where he ascended to heaven and angels said that just as you have seen go to heaven, in the same way he will come back. “Thank you Lord Jesus for the sacrifice you made for my salvation”

The entire tour was summed up with a presentation at Holy Land Experience church, where these people acted the life of Jesus. It was great.

At the end of the days, I said this was worth it. Thank God my friends Gerry and Melinda came up with this plan; it was both educating and inspirational. Glory to God!

MY LAST LEG IN CALIFORNIA

MODESTO

The following Monday Ben and Tami Miller, my friends from Modesto came to pick me up from Hayward. I had a great time with them and their family.

On Thursday Tracy and Mary Wolfe prepared a dinner at their house and Tami invited all our friends and children sponsors from Modesto to come over. Most of our friends turned up and we had a great time.

Tracy introduced me giving a note how we first met way back in 2008. Him and Mary were surfing about different things going in Kabale when the learnt about House of Hope and picked interest. It is amazing that what started a simple relationship has now given birth to great things happening. 15 children are sponsored from Modesto.

I spent time giving a report on the progress of House of Hope orphanage and sponsored children in the community. Ben summed it up hinting on the importance of sponsors keeping in touch with children and maintaining a relationship with children. He also emphasized the importance of sending to children gifts such as Birthday presents and Christmas gifts.

I shared with them that my main goal is to help the orphans and poor children through House of Hope program to be self-sustaining; by giving them education but also by teaching them a trade. We plan to teach our children how to make sweaters. We also plan to buy more land so we can plant our own food to lessen relying on the USA to feed these children.

My visit this time to California was rather short but it was enjoyable

THE INTERNATIONAL PICNIC

PICNIC AT SAN MATEO

That Sunday Afternoon Pastor Ziad and my friends at The Gate Church in San Mateo invited me over for a picnic.

This church normally puts together such a picnic where members come and have dinner together. This time round they were congregating with two other churches that are mainly Arabic, one from Sacramento and another from Modesto.

I went with my friends from Hayward; Joe and Cairn Diaz and Bill and Shirley James. It was a joy to meet wonderful people here plus friends I had met the previous year. What amazed me most was to meet brothers and sister from the Middle East who believe in Jesus. It amazing to meet Arabic people who love Jesus and are spirit filled!

Victor, one of the pastors opened with prayer in Arabic. This sounded familiar but the only time I hear Arabic is when Moslems are praying. It sounded good from a Pastor and believer in Jesus.

We then had food which was mainly barbeque with some Arabic food. It was a great time of fellowship. What made it unique was the fact that many nations were represented, it was international. We had more than 10 nations represented; Egypt, Jordan, Persia, Israel, Portugal, Korea, China, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, USA and of course me from the great Uganda. After our meal everybody was saying; “Allah Akbar!”

Thank you Jesus for the price you paid on the cross that brings us together irrespective on nationality, race or color and we all become the children of God.