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 Isuko Mwaka! Happy New Year! We have been here in Jinja over three months now, and we are continuing to learn about the culture and language, slowly by slowly, as they say here. One of the first things that we had to learn was to go to the right side of the car to get in if we were driving, and shortly after that we had to learn to drive on the left side of the road. We have learned that the roads are for the most part big sidewalks that sometimes people drive on as a friend told us. We have learned that a blinker on the right means either that you want to pass, or else that there is oncoming traffic in the other lane. A blinker on the left means that there is no oncoming traffic and the lane is clear for passing
. We think.
 We have learned that the word enda in lusoga can mean either want, need, like, love or stomach, that idho can mean either yesterday or tomorrow, and the way that you can tell the difference is the context. I am sure that it will be perfectly clear as soon as we can understand enough words in a sentence to build context. As far as we know, there is no word for beautiful. Where we might say, Lake Victoria is beautiful, they would say, Lake Victoria is there. The counting of hours in the day begins at 6am, so 10am for us in America would be called 4 for the Basoga. To make matters more confusing, we are always trying to figure out what time it is in America, and there is a 8-11 hour time difference depending on which time zone we are thinking about, or calling. Therefore, 2 here would be 8am in American time here, which would make it 11pm in Pflugerville, Texas or Oklahoma City and 9pm on the West Coast, which would be referred to as 15 here. Understand? Im not sure we do yet.
 I think that the whole perception of time is one of the biggest differences between life in Busoga and life in America. My day usually begins about 8am, uh, I mean 2, when I get up for my language lesson that starts at 8:30. However, Ali our Ugandan teacher will come from anywhere between 8:30 and 9am. Punctuality is not one of the strengths of Ugandans, or even a concern for that matter. We study for an hour to an hour and a half, and then I get ready for a day in the village. Ben and I are trying to visit all of the village Churches of Christ in Busoga during this first year as we are learning language. We usually leave around 10:30am (I will just use American time-language) if the Ugandans that we are going with are ready to go at that time. It takes somewhere between 30 minutes to 3 hours to reach the villages in Busoga, and we might drive on a paved road for an hour at the most. Most days we find ourselves driving along bike paths in between a corn field and a garden of sweet potatoes, or on a path that leads through a banana tree garden. We have visited 25 of the 60 established churches now, and the village visit usually proceeds as follows: When we arrive at the village we are greeted warmly. Greetings might very well be the most important aspect of the Basoga Culture. Time is spent to greet every visitor, and these greetings include congratulations for making it through the night, the day, the journey, or just from there. They include questions about the welfare of people at home, the children, the elderly, the sicknesses, the crops, the rain, the goats, and just about anything else you can imagine. In a world where time is money this is a very bad investment, but here in Busoga there are few things that they would give more value than relationships. One of the Ugandans that we work with here told me once, For the Basoga, time does not own us, we own time. I think that the statement is very apparent in the willingness of the people here to drop anything that they are doing for an entire day or more for the sake of greeting and welcoming a visitor. As soon as the greetings are finished we either talk with the men or are left alone while the women start cooking. We are served chai and roasted peanuts or roasted corn (usually), and later served a full meal that might consist of rice, plantain bananas, sweet potatoes, cabbage, greens, and sometimes even some chicken or beef (a huge sacrifice for a village family). Nothing is done in a hurry, and at some point in the afternoon they ask for a message. They share their problems willingly- some of them we can help with and some we cant. We usually tell them that we need to leave about 30 minutes before we actually need to go because the farewells can take as long as the greetings. There is always time for a visitor.
 I think that we have much to learn from the Basoga people concerning time. I think that through the lens of the time issue, the Basoga might have a much clearer picture of the Biblical world than does the modern Western world. Being here is helping me to understand that my perception of time is definitely not the only perception of time. The difference between these perceptions is opening up a whole new understanding of time, and specifically, the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no other topic that Jesus preached more than the Kingdom of Heaven, and these lessons lead us to a new understanding of time as we know it. It is amazing that he spoke of this Kingdom as near, within you, growing, and rising. We too often confine the boundaries of the kingdom of heaven to the afterlife, to the place that [he] is preparing for [us]. It is so hard to understand the kingdom of the already and the not yet- to understand that God is reigning and providing salvation to a world that is filled with war, hatred, murder, hunger, revenge, power struggles, and ultimately, death. It is hard to understand that Christ is providing salvation in this very moment, from addiction, from greed, from lust, despair and from our deepest insecurities when we see these things all around us.
 These words of Christ challenge us to reconsider our own perceptions of time and see that Christ has opened a whole new world that is governed by the principles of faith, hope, love, and an utter and complete dependence on God- the principles of heaven itself. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ THERE IS a NEW CREATION; the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have been invited to see all of creation in a new way, and the participants in this new creation have a new king- a king that has exemplified a life that does not participate or succumb to the quest for power that this world seeks. Our king has shown us the way of love, of sacrifice, and of selflessness. This is the message that makes it impossible for us to be here and merely preach a message of How you can get to heaven, but always includes the story of How Heaven has come to us on earth. We believe that implicit within the gospel is good news for the poor and hungry, for the wealthy and well fed, that those who have can sacrifice for those who have not. We believe that heaven has invaded this world with a ferocious passion in the person of Christ and his body, the church, and that he continues to call us live in him. Our question is, what does that look like today?
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