Riots

Last Friday I went to Kampala with my pastor, his wife and the team they were taking to the airport. They were going to spend some time at the craft market, which I have never been too, and then to a pizza place. I thought it sounded like a nice day away. A day to just be... without the stress of the restaurant, without the schedule of the kids.. just a day to relax.

About five minutes out from the city, Pastor Terry gets a call that there are riots starting in town. He has Pastor Anthony, his Ugandan friend, call someone in town to see how bad they are. The friend says nothing was happening where he was yet, but that the government just closed all government offices and were sending everyone home. Pastor Terry decides it's not smart to go to the craft market which is in the middle of town. He proposes going to the Entebbe zoo instead. There is a road that leads to Entebbe that goes around the center of Kampala, so we take the turn to go there. Minutes after turning onto that road, cars and boda's (taxi motorcycle's) and people are fleeing towards us, shouting that there are riots and gunfire, to turn around. We turn around and try to head down a dirt road that would take us back to the town we had just left. The driver, deciding it was too risky to go all that way, pulls into a hotel parking lot. The hotel closes their gate after we pull in. Within minutes, outside the gate there are tires and debris on fire in the middle of the road. We hear rounds of tear gas being shot off, gunfire. Yelling. We are safe in the outside courtyard of the hotel.

So, instead of getting a relaxing day going shopping and enjoying pizza... I get a relaxing day holed up in the back of a hotel, watching the royal wedding and eating fish. I'm not complaining, it was still a relaxing day. I know I should have been stressed, scared or at least a little tense, but.. I wasn't. We were in a gated hotel, there just happened to be a workshop seminar going on in the back of the hotel with about twenty military. Even with the physical security that was around, my heart was at peace. Physically I knew the chances of something actually happening to us was low. Some of the team might have been freaking out... a little.

Maybe it is that I have been doing a study on peace. Peace that comes from God. Peace that passes all understanding. Maybe, just maybe I was actually learning.. actually applying what I was learning.

Links of the day: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13243789
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUdDEoO0RaE

Thank you Jesus for protecting us that day. Thank you for the peace the passes ALL understanding.