Down Town Movie Time

Wednesday evening we entered the arena of downtown Kampala traffic - cars to the left of us, lorries to the right, cycles all over, we dodged our way through numerous close encounters emerging unscathed from our short battle, at our destination a somewhat battered old cinema. Not the talkie theatre of yester-year with faded velvet seats and usherets with torches.  But a somewhat down at mouth structure, seating for 50 in plastic seats on a bare concrete floor (or 150 in oxygen free, total discomfort) and a screen which was a white washed patch of wall. However it was home to a new church and a great place to show a movie!

I had gone out with Sam to show a Jesus film. Sam works with the Jesus Film Ministries, he travels all over Uganda at invitation, to show a variety of films about Jesus.
What a delight it was to meet some of these men and women whose lives had truly been turned upside down by an encounter with Jesus.
One of the guys who came, produces perhaps some of the best Chappati's in town, to get my order in, a lovely older lady called Anne who just loves these people as her own, acted as my guide, as it was not exactly on a main thoroughfare. You enter a 'lorry park', trashed lorries abound, duck under a trailer attached to a huge articulated behemoth (watch your head), squeeze alongside a wall and the trailers side, at the back is his little stall, uncooked chappati balls stand ready to be rolled and fried on a slightly rocky table, his home is a nearby wrecked truck. Greeted by a huge, a very real smile, order is placed, 'I'll bring them around when I come to the film.'

One of the mysteries of faith is that it is likely you would not have wanted anything to do with many of these folk a few years ago, certainly some would have been branded as dangerous, actually the sort of guys and gals Jesus kind of liked hanging around. Yet they had been transformed, are being transformed  - polished up, so God's image shines through such they are now truly our brothers and sisters.
The delight of the evening for me, was at the end, praying for queues of folk, as much wanting the pleasure of being prayed for, as much as their desire for God to meet their need be it for wisdom, healing or their marriage. Praying for folk really can be addictive ........