Rob and Katharine Davies, (and their daughter Elena!), are serving with River of Life Church as Long-term Missionaries. Rob is Development Director at River of Life, and Katharine coordinates Missions and is establishing an Early Years programme... Here is the first of their monthly updates
Uganda! The Pearl of Africa, as the Victorian explorers and missionaries called it. It’s good to be back, and certainly after the wet and cold of Christmas in the UK, Uganda seemed to be shimmering pearl-lke as we drove south from Kampala to Masaka after our epic flight via Johannesburg. The rains have been good and long, so harvests are plentiful which has eased some of the pressures on local food prices. Our own garden is producing about a million tonnes of matooke, our favourite green banana staple, every week, which the children down in the White Eagle Project are enjoying!
We’ve got stuck straight back in with the work - although the team out here have done a marvellous job whilst we’ve been away. A new shallow well has been completed giving access to clean drinking water for more of the people of Nyendo (the trading post where we focus most of our activities), our offices, which were embarrassingly dilapidated have been spruced up, the White Eagle Holiday Programme continued apace and a new sports initiative, Synergy Sports Strategy, was launched.
Most of the River of Life news you’ll get (or can get) through the
River of Life website, or by email if you are on the list (
you can subscribe here) so we thought we’d give you our personal highlights for January...
Week 1: Flying...
As you know, in the first week of January, we were mostly flying and standing in queues. It took us nearly 3 days to get here, courtesy of high winds in the UK when we left. You may have assumed that would mean we had a nightmare journey - actually it was fine! We got the upgrade, Elena slept really well and we arrived in Masaka having had some rare time together as a family. Praise God! Probably the worst thing that happened was realising, on arrival, that we had forgotten to pack any cheese... can you believe it?! But then, thanks to Mary (one of the founders of River of Life) who came out a few days later, our cheese supply was re-stocked and Katharine made the most awesome lasagne ever!
Week 2: Giving blood...
This was a momentous week for me (Rob). I had always accepted the “just returned from a malarial-zone” excuse for not giving blood with relief, because I was pretty scared of the idea. But when Dr Sarah (our fellow missionary to River of Life) called to say that the local blood bank was absolutely desperate and children were dying, there was really very little choice. Now, I faint at injections, so it wasn’t going to be easy, but it turned out okay! Yes, I nearly fainted and had to lie on the floor (not at giving blood, but at the little blood-test prick they do first!) and they had to set me up my own bed outside, but with the help of Sarah holding my hand I did it! (Katharine got out of it because she’s still feeding Elena...) I will definitely be doing it again...
Week 3: A trip to the Lake!
Sand Beach at Lake Nabugabo is an awesome spot about half-an-hour’s drive from Masaka. There are no crocodiles, no nasty parasites in the water, and the water is shallow and warm. (Well that’s what the tourist industry tells us.. to be fair, I’ve never seen a crocodile there, and I’ve never got sick after swimming, so...) Elena absolutely loved it. She took delight in just wading out as far as she could go and then throwing herself further in, which made for a few desperate rescue attempts - but then she would just go and do it again! One such rescue killed Rob’s iPhone which he left in his pocket, but miraculously it resurrected 3 days later!
Week 4: Out to the village...
There is a massive difference here between town and country. Many rural areas are extremely poor, and the cultural norms that govern everyday life can be at best bizarre and at worst pretty abusive. Statistics suggest that over 70% of women experience domestic abuse in Uganda. So at River of Life we have a ministry called “Roots” that goes out to particular areas where domestic abuse is culturally acceptable, and teach and counsel people against it. It was amazing to see how the teaching began to set people free. Whilst the adults were in the Conference, we also did a 2-day programme for about 150 children, which was pretty awesome!
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