Last Wednesday March 18th, our home (The Mission House) was a busy hub of activity. At all daylight hours it was being used for sewing lessons, computer trainings, exercise and sports, overnight visits by young pastors, and a new chicken raising enterprise we are hosting in our storage room in the building behind our home. Wednesday evening Ugandan President Museveni addressed the nation, talking about the Coronavirus and how there were no known cases yet in Uganda. He gave orders to close churches, schools, and other large gathering places. He is prohibiting more than 5 people from meeting. These restrictions became effective midnight Friday the 20th of March.
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| Chicks, a part of the chicken growing enterprise housed in our storage room. |
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| Folks gathered on the front porch to visit next to the sewing studio. |
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| Young men enjoying an evening on the volleyball/basketball court. |
So we in Uganda have had our daily living changed just like you. Our changes just came about more abruptly. Thursday there was a mad scramble for many parents to find spaces on the public buses so that their children could arrive home from boarding school before Friday. A ticket to ride the bus from Kampala to Gulu increased overnight from 20,000 Shillings to 65,000 Shillings.
As a result of these directives, there will be no more people entering our home; we have the perfect guard, Gabriel, to enforce this. He lives on the premises and has become like a member of the family. Gabriel is anxious to keep people out of our living space; he makes us feel secure in that respect.
This morning, the 22nd of March, we awoke to the headlines that the airport and all of the borders were being closed effective today. Click here to read the article on the airport and border closures. My preferred boda driver, George, told me that the price of salt his wife uses has already risen from $800 sch to $2600 sch, because it is imported across the border from Kenya. Before he told me this I had paid him an extra large amount because I just wanted to bless him. I had seen that there were so few people on the streets I knew his business was (and would continue to be) suffering,
Our plans to visit the U.S. this summer are now on hold.
We are set with the food and supplies we need for a month.
We are praying that this horrible virus will wind itself down soon, or stop abruptly without affecting more people, or touching the lives of the ones that we love.
Please pray with us.
Here are our email addresses if you would like to contact us:
Jeff: jeff.trailman@gmail.com
Yvonne: mrsweinstein@fastmail.fm
To find out more about our ministry, or to donate, click here.
