Today was my second session at the youth conference here in Kampala. The young man from David’s church who has been interpreting for me has also been my driver, picking me up to go to the meetings and dropping me back to David’s afterwards. Today he was supposed to be here at 2, but didn’t arrive till after 2.30. African time, I thought.
But no, when he arrived he apologized and said that the car had a problem and had been with a mechanic, who took longer than promised. No worries, we still had plenty of time. Then we got half way up the hill from David’s house and the car stalled. It was out of fuel. (The road is much steeper, and in much worse condition, than it looks in this picture.)
He reversed to the bottom of the hill, a task that demonstrated admirable driving skills. The next step was to get fuel. This meant phoning back to the church (which took several attempts to get through), getting someone to go to the bank and draw out some money, then that guy had to come to where we were to pick up the jerry can. A young local boy was co-opted to ride pillion carrying the jerry can as they went to get the fuel and come back.
My driver was getting a little anxious, but I couldn’t help smiling. The devil was obviously trying to run interference, which told me that God had something good planned.
When we finally were able to move, we got part way up the hill, and were stuck behind another car which was obviously having trouble. He stopped and started, stopped and started, and finally stopped right in the narrowest part where only one vehicle could fit. I almost laughed out loud. “Really, Devil?” I thought. “Is this the best you’ve got?”
Finally the other driver was able to reverse to a slightly wider section of road, leaving us room to barely scrape past. After a stop at a service station to fill up, we arrived just before the end of the worship. I preached under the anointing and the altar call saw another soul brought into the Kingdom of God. Hallelujah!
My interpreter/driver is an impressive young man with a great heart for God and an obvious apostolic call on his life. On the way back he shared that he was quite offended that nobody there had offered me water, either yesterday or today – particularly today as toward the end of my message I was having to clear my throat a few times. He ended up asking them for water for me, and actually offered them money to buy it, which shamed them into saying no, they would get it. To me it was a minor detail, but to him it was obviously very important.
I wonder what God has in store for tomorrow.