When we arrived in Uganda we were using the driver that was also the property keeper for the house we were renting. I can’t say that we didn’t like him but we just didn’t click. Wayne and I both felt separately like he just wanted money, charging us $35 every time we had to leave the house to go anywhere and we also were expected to pay for gas. It just really seemed to add up and wasn’t what we had initially been told from the property owner. Every question we asked he prefaced with “Well, if you give me a little something…” Anyway, there was just something about this guy that 
didn’t sit well. We had talked about doing something really cool with the kids while we were visiting Uganda so when we contacted the Mihingo Lodge, the lodge where we ended up staying for a few days, I emailed back and asked if they had a driver they recommended. They sent back a name and we called him to set up transport. The assured us that driver Gerald Sekanabo was the only person that they recommend to guests. When we met him we all instantly liked him. He shared some of his story and told us that God blessed him a few years ago by sending someone, who he now considered to be his second mother, into his life. The kids loved him, we loved him, when we asked about extending our stay he told us that any time he is working is just more he is providing for his kids. Wayne lined him up to do all of our driving for the rest of the trip. We all just clicked.
Then after visiting Charlie’s orphanage, we all went out to lunch. During that time together I felt like God was prompting us to pay the school fees for one of Gerald’s children. I
kept looking at Wayne to see if God was speaking to him too. He was watching a bush chicken roaming around the restaurant…so I was thinking that he wasn’t hearing the same thing as me. (Growth moment: before I would’ve just blurted it out as I was so excited and instead, I waited until Gerald had to take a phone call and quickly talked to Wayne.) Anyway, I started asking Gerald about his kids, their upcoming term break, school fees, etc. When I asked if he was excited to have some time with the kids he hesitated and then said yes, he was, but he was also hoping to pick up some more safari-drive jobs. I was feeling very nervous and didn’t want to offend him at all but wanted to be obedient to what I knew that God was prompting us to do. I even asked Wayne to tell him, but he said no, that he wanted me to do it. Ha.
When there was a break in the conversation I just told him that I felt like God wanted to bless him by having Wayne and I pay the school fees for one of his kids. His eyes instantly welled up with tears, he had such a surprised look on his face and he was speechless. He confided that when we asked about him looking forward to his kids’ upcoming break he said that he hesitated because a term break also meant that he and his wife worried about providing the next term’s fees. THEN, he starts telling us how last week his wife told him that he needed to stop helping pay the school fees of the neighbor kids because their own children needed to be provided for first. He talked about a sermon that his pastor had preached about how people in America come to Africa to go the extra mile for strangers and how they needed to do that for their own people as well. So, inspired by his pastor’s sermon, Gerald was grieved that the kids around his home didn’t go to school because they couldn’t afford the school fees. He and his wife prayed about going the extra mile for the people around him by gathering school fees to send the two oldest from most of their neighbor’s households 
to public school. THEN, because witchcraft is so very real and steeped into the heritage of some of his neighbors, they began taking every kid that would go with them Sunday to church and arranged for the church to feed them after Sunday service ensuring that they get at least one good meal a week. I cannot even really think about that fully yet, only knowing that one filling meal would be eaten by some of these kids weekly. Driving to the ATM I just felt so happy. I remember vividly looking at Wayne and being so overwhelmed in such a good way. I’ve never parted with money that happily and I’m pretty sure Wayne would whole-heartedly agree with that, too!
On the way back to our house I just thanked God for this divine meeting and felt like He just totally blew the doors wide open on anything that I thought was happening that day. Suddenly I saw relationship, teams coming back to run service projects, provide school fees, and whatever else He would call us to. Wayne and I sat that evening on the porch of our rental house looking out over the city and praying for mighty things, allowing God to change our thoughts to God-sized dreams and just submitting to what lay in store. The next day on our way to the airport I took notes on my phone as Wayne and I asked a thousand different questions of Gerald. We boarded the plane in Uganda with changed hearts and a desire to come alongside things already taking place in Uganda. I love the way that with one gesture we are woven into a story of God’s provision. We had no idea when we were quickly whispering to each other during lunch that God was already working so much of this together for Gerald. And for us.
~Jennifer Porter – April 27, 2017