Village visit

so we spent the night in Okutot last Monday - Jean wanted to check on the chickens and we wanted the experience and to do some storying in a bit of a different way - the chickens were fine and the storying was OK - not different, since, whenever we show up, there's automatically an "event," so we need to do this more often so it becomes more normal, less special - then, even if we have some large group "events," we can still have some small group (and more personal) times to converse
- I'm told there were about 300 people in the darkness around the fire - all I could see was the fire (and smoke, which always seems to follow you around - how does it KNOW to do that? And WHY?) and the front couple of rows - but the crowd seemed to enjoy themselves - Joshua led several songs and we talked about how The Father sent Jesus, His Son, on a raid into enemy territory to 'steal' people (believers) - but why? If the people then knew God, as Israel certainly did and as the Karamojong certainly believe that they do, why did Akuj-Papa do that at all? - so, I ended up telling the story of "the woman and the snake" (Gen 3) and the two trees ("of Life" and "of the knowledge of good and evil") and the curses that still remain for God (alone) to remove and how Eve's name means "mother of all the living (people)" - thus, we must be "born again," out of the family of the curse and into the family of God/blessing
- good times were had by all - the crowd was very responsive and they were willing to stay late and had to be sent home - and the 'chairman' (Local Council 1, like an elected chief) served us good food, lots of 'butter' and milk and sorghum - he even teased me about eating cows blood - I didn't exactly say "hhhhmmmmm-boy-yeah! BRING IT ON!" but grinned real big and said I would eat it (thank goodness it never appeared) - we hope to do it again just before we leave in a week