Friday 31st October

We awoke to rain on our last full day in Uganda but a busy schedule to adhere to. Breakfast was at 8am for Godfrey to pick us up on the bus at 9am and we drove first to Watoto Church Central where we picked up our passports and any money we may have still had left before heading on to the Mall to change Dollars to Ugandan Shillings and have a last look in the Supermarket for any snacks we may want for the long journey back to England.

We then spent the rest of the morning in the craft markets- some super haggling went on between us and the shopkeepers and everyone came away very happy with the products we had purchased.

As a way of Watoto saying Thank You for all the work we have done whilst in Uganda they took us to one of Kampalas top restaurants, Fang Fang’s, for lunch. The group enjoyed tucking into the Chinese cuisine almost as much as they enjoyed playing with the Lazy Susan that carried it all!

We were joined at lunch by Pastor Harrington, one of the pastors at Watoto. He preached on Sunday when we were at the church and has a specific responsibility for cell groups within the church and looking at how the church can impact and be at the centre of community. He spoke to us all about how thankful he was and appreciated the fact that we had given up our holiday time to come and spend time working with them in Uganda when we could have been elsewhere, we all felt however that, though we could have been elsewhere, there is nowhere else in the world we would have preferred to have been for the past 2 weeks. The group shared some of their memories from the trip as well as some of the things that have shocked them most.

Then thoughts turned to home and with some of the group heading straight home to GCSE Maths re-sit’s on Wednesday and Friday and the rest of the group with coursework deadlines and other work coming up Harrington offered to pray for the group as we left. This was a really special time and this Uganda trip is something none of us will ever forget.

We left lunch and headed to our last visit of the trip, the Kampala office of MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship). MAF fly planes all over Uganda and indeed Africa and the World to remote airstrips taking: people from NGO’s, Charities and Mission organisations; Medical equipment; and Supplies to those who need it most. They fly to more airstrips across the world than the biggest 9 carriers (BA, Emirates etc) combined do! Adrian who is acting Operations Manager gave us a brief overview of what they do and the group were again really amazed about another charity doing such good work in Uganda. It was on to the guest house then to start packing for home.