Lesson 6: How to Build a Church



This past Friday morning, I set my alarm to go off at 6:40, and in keeping with my morning habit of hitting the snooze more than I should, I was actually out the door for a run at around 7:15.  While I did not have to run through a herd of cows, I did pass a lot of children on their way to school.  Most smiled or acted shy, and some shouted “Mzungu, how are you?” as I ran past.  Today, I had a bunch of kids start running with me, which is new.  By the time we arrived at their school, I had 6 kids running behind me in their matching mint green school uniforms.

Once I got back home, I sat down to some breakfast and the Great Gatsby.  Jennifer let me know that Vince and Shawn were headed to the village in a few minutes and wondered if I’d like to come along.  Answer: of course! So I hopped in the shower and tagged along for the first viewing of an informative video on the ministries that the Mbale Mission Team supports in a town about 45 minutes from Mbale. 

Shawn Tyler is one of the team leaders of MMT, and was kind enough to teach me quite a lot during the village visit, especially about building construction, which I would now like to pass along to you!  When I first saw a church building out in the village, all I thought was “mud building with doors and glassless windows.”  After a little lesson from Shawn, I now understand that there is a lot more to buildings than that.

First off, the builders use poles cut from trees to make the framework for the walls of the building.  Then they make mud bricks from the surrounding area to set within the wooden poles.  When this first layer is finished, more mud is spread onto the bricks to fill in the cracks.  Then a third application of mud is used for the outer layer.  This mud is taken from a river, where the dirt is finer, and results in a smoother finish. 

The roof of this church was made of iron sheets, provided by New Testament Churches of Christ.  The advantage of iron roofs over grass roofs is they do not need to be replaced every four to six years like grass roofs.  However, they are a lot noisier during the rainy season.  There is a gap of about four to five inches between the roof and the wall; this is to allow the hot air inside the church to rise and leave the building, keeping the congregation much cooler.  Additionally, other vents can be built into the walls if necessary.  There were only two windows in this church, and they were small and high up on the walls.  This is both less expensive and more secure.  There are two doors into the church; one is at the back of the building, to be used by the congregation.  The other is on the side of the church near the front, for the church leaders, pastor, or special guests.  There were no doors on this building, just open doorways, so the location of the entrances are determined by the direction the rains come from.  Since the rain will come from the east (more or less), the congregation’s door faces west to keep the rain out.  The floor is made by mixing mud and cow manure and spreading it over the dirt floor.  While it’s rather smelly at first, over time it hardens and forms a sort of natural linoleum that can be swept up easily and prevents a perpetual dust cloud from residing within the building.

On Saturday, Emily and I took the opportunity to visit the Tyler’s compound to visit their new litter of puppies.  A grand time was had by all, especially the puppies who enjoyed chewing on whatever they could get their sharp little puppy-teeth on.  This weekend is our quarterly meeting, so there are multiple families from teams all over Uganda staying with us until Monday. In preparation for the dinner on Sunday, the teacher house grated 3 wheels of cheese and cooked six pounds of ground beef.  (That’s a lot of cow.)  We had a few friends over for dinner, and played some games in the dark, due to the lack of power.  The president was in town for a few days, and the power company was very careful about keeping the power on while he was here.  Now that he’s left…I doubt they care quite so much.

Anyway, now that we have power again, I can post this blog and show you a picture of the cool lizards we have here! Aren’t they awesome??? This one was probably about a foot long.  We also saw a dead snake that had been hacked to pieces that was over a meter long.  I didn’t take a picture of that.

 

This is a video of me playing with the kids in the village during the eyeglass clinic from a few weeks ago.  Bubbles are super fun, no matter what continent you're on!