Bethany Village

On Thursday June 17 Becca and I left around 4pm to go serve for a week at Bethany Village. We were so excited to be able to spend some time with older kids. Becca had heard so many incredible stories about Bethany from her friend Juliet who lived at Bethany for three months and she shared many of them with me. Bethany Village is on an island or peninsula. I was never quite able to figure it out. I know that the only two common or possible ways to get there involve being in a boat. We traveled the long way around by boat. We landed at the dock of Bethany. From the lake it looked like a beautiful camp area but when we stepped onto the dock we realized that it was more rustic than it had looked.

We met up with Uncle Francis who is Ugandan and his wife Adrienne who is Canadian. They gave us a tour of the whole community and showed us each to the homes we were staying in. There are 11 homes at Bethany and I was staying in Hope house. There were five boys ages 8-16 and three girls ages 12-15. And of course the mom of the house whose name is Ruth. When the children got home from school the welcomed me very timidly. I had been given an individual room and I started unpacking. I was in a three layer bunk bed. I chose the middle bunk and threw my mosquito net over the top bed. That way I didn't have to worry about tucking in my net above my head. It just fell perfectly along the edges of the bed. I also put on my sheets and set up my bed nicely. I knew that there were probably going to be cockroaches on the floor so I put all of my things on the bottom bed. After dinner I was exhausted so I went straight to bed.

I couple of things that I forgot to mention were that after all the children greeted me they worked until it was too dark to see. They have so many chores! They had to wash their school uniforms, make dinner, get water, sweep the back yard, hoe an area of the garden and do anything else the mom asked of them. There is also only electricity for 2.5 hours a day. It comes on around 7:30 and is off by 10pm.

I made my way into bed and I had to get a couple of mosquitoes out of my net. I had made the mistake up tying it open to make crawling into bed easier. I thought I had got them all out but apparently I missed one. I worked for a while to get it out but after the electricity turned off I figured I could just sleep with my head under my sheet for the night. After several hours of not sleeping I was getting very hot and the mosquito was still pestering me. I am pretty sure that it was trying to fly into my ear. I had my flashlight so I turned it on to kill the mosquito. As soon as I turned it on I saw several large cockroaches right above my head. They started running around because of the light. One of them even fell into my bed on my sheet. I turned the light off right away and pulled my sheet quickly over my head. After several minutes of praying that God would not allow them to attack me I tucked my sheet nicely around my whole body.

After that I was wide awake for the rest of the night. The night noises were so loud that it would have been impossible for me to sleep anyway. I heard bats flying around on the inside of out house, there are no ceilings only rafters. I also heard the rats running around on the corrugated metal roof. Around 5:30 the sun started to come up and I could see things going on in the house. I saw one of the rats. It was HUGE. Probably the biggest rat I had ever seen in person. It was running around on one of the rafters.

Shortly after that the kids in the house got up to do chores before leaving for school. It is their routine that before chores they sing. Even after a horrible night I believe that God was showing me his love and protection for me. It was one of the most peaceful moments I have experienced on this trip so far.

I never felt fully connected with the family that I was staying with but God used many other things at Bethany village to teach me more about Himself and the love He has for me. Becca also had a rough time but God used that to bring us closer together and strengthen our friendship. It has been such a blessing to have her with me.

I am very thankful for the time that I was able to spend at Bethany but I am very glad to be back in the city away from huge spiders, mosquitoes, cockroaches, snakes, frogs, rats, bats and all the other creepy crawlies that I encountered. I don't have a lot of stories to tell but here are a few pictures.