It's Been a Year!

It's officially been one year since I left for Uganda, which just totally blows my mind.  It already seems like such a whisper of time that I was even there, yet I still catch myself saying, "Oh, I just got back from Uganda."

So, in honor of the one year anniversary of me leaving for Uganda, here's a short list of great ways to support missionaries (other than financially):

1.  Pray for them daily.  And make sure you tell them you're doing so, even sending specific prayers.

2.  Write e-mails.  Lots of them.  They don't even have to be interesting.  I was thrilled by every little detail of life at home.

3.  Send care packages.  Excellent ideas include: Oreos (chocolate or my favorite golden) or non-meltable candy, photos, smelly lotions or candles, books, and CDs.  There are lots of other things I could think of too, but the simple stuff truly is the most exciting.

4.  Stay updated with what's going on "over there."  It was really encouraging for me to get blog comments because that way I knew people were reading my blog and cared about what I was doing.

5.  Call or Skype.  If this is an option, it's fun for all parties involved.  You might have to stay up late or get up early, but it's totally worth it!

So, thanks for all of you who did these things (and supported me in other ways) while I was gone.  I appreciate each one of you!  That's all I got in my five minutes of brainstorming, so hope you enjoyed!

I spent the weekend in Wisconsin, visiting Christine, who I lived with in Uganda.  It was really strange to see her in America (I had never even seen her in jeans!) AND in the snow - quite a difference from the last time we met!

Anway, we had a great time catching up and I was ridiculously excited about the six inches of snow while I was there.  We went sledding, baked cookies (I taught her the recipe for Cowboy cookies), went on a wine tour, and took a hike through some woods.  And we talked, and talked, and talked about Uganda and all the people we love there. 

Here are a few pictures:

 Hiking.

 Sledding. In the dark. Totally awesome!

The snowy woods. So pretty!

My Last Day in the Village

My last day in the village was super emotional, yet wonderful at the same time.

The moms and the ECM staff planned an awesome going-away party and I felt so blessed to be honored by them in that way.

The day included me getting three live chickens as gifts, to take home to my family. The concept of customs is definitely foreign, so I just said thank you and later gave the chickens to Ugandans who most definitely have more use of them than I. Chickens are very expensive to them and it was a huge sacrifice for them to do that for me. I was SO blessed for them to be a part of my life for the last 6 months! Here is me and my favorite mom, Evelyn, with the two chickens her family gave me. Also, notice my semi-traditional dress. I had it made specifically for this party and yes, I did bring it home. You know, for a night on the town or something...


Here I am with all three of my chickens. Two are hanging upside-down and I'm holding them by the feet. This is quite normal in Uganda and has some strange calming effect on the chickens. They just hang there, totally docile.


Not pictured events: the moms all pooled together and bought a goat, which was slaughtered for the occasion. I am NOT a fan of goat meat, but was so honored that they would do that for me. Once again, when they're struggling to feed their children, this is a huge sacrifice. It's definitely something that you want to refuse, but culturally you just can't. Instead, I just made sure I shared my portion of Billy...

Some of the moms gave me speeches thanking me for being with them and asking me to come back. Talk about emotional! But as hard as it was to leave, it was WAY cool to have some new Jesus-followers there sending me off...such a cool representation of why I went and what the Lord allowed me to be a part of during my time there.

Some of the moms had written letters (with help) and had them translated to send home to my parents.

We danced/sang/jumped around. They think this is hilarious for me to do with them - I think it's totally embarrassing, but joined in anyway.

Side story: I had ordered some drums to bring home and they were ready on this day (The party was a Saturday and I was leaving Monday on the bus to go to Kampala. ) What I didn't expect was that these drums were "fresh," meaning the leather part of the drum had been on a warm animal just a couple days prior. The drums smelled like dead body. It was awful! I left them outside on the porch and it smelled up the entire house. I honestly wasn't sure I would be able to even take them home. But I wrapped them in plastic and they made it into the States! They are still curing outside, over a month later!

Here's some more pictures of my last day:

Grace REALLY wanted to have her picture made with me. She gave her life to Jesus a couple of months ago and now smiles all the time! She speaks English quite well, so she was always a good friend to have!
Aber Prossy. She just go sponsorship and was so excited!

The moms, enjoying their sodas.

Some of the kids.

Oscar, one of my favorites. He's modeling his new clothes!

Little Ashley in the sweet little outfit my mom sent for her.

In the States!

Hello everyone! I am now back in the States (arrived late Thursday evening), and this will be my last blog post here. Since arriving, things have not been too eventful; I am adjusting back to the American culture. Last night I was able to go to my cousin’s graduation party, which was fun. My Mom, brother and I also went to see Toy Story 3, great movie! Everything here is much different than what I had become udapted to in Uganda.

I won’t write too much for this blog post, but just mention a few things from Uganda that took place shortly before I left. Last week in our neighborhood we had a girl accept Jesus. She brought back a friend when we met again and then several other English-speaking girls joined us. By the end of the day we had five girls pray to accept Jesus, it was really exciting!

Some things might have been lost in translation, but we will have several people meeting with them more to do some discipleship. Another girl from the neighborhood even came up to ask if she could talk to us as well, that was really neat, I’m excited to hear about what the follow-up has been like (I really have no idea where in the world all of the English speaking children came from).

Also: we had a crazy number of baptisms on Sunday at the new church; the deaf girl in our neighborhood learned a new word (airplane); we had a great dinner with the staff before I left; I was bit by a super ant; a woman asked us to marry her son after passing her on the road; I made fried okra in Uganda for the second time; Ashley and I pulled a prank in Uganda for the first time; and, lastly, I had many good times saying goodbye to some dear friends that I love very much.

Hopefully I will see many of you soon! I’d love to hear how all of you are doing also, and look forward to talking or spending time with you!

Stuck

I am currently in Kampala. I am supposed to be on a bus headed back to Gulu. But when I arrived at the bus station this morning, I discovered that the bus is broken down and is not running today. So now I'm back at the guest house waiting until tomorrow to leave.

While frustrating, it is kind of nice to have a day of rest. The bus cancellation caused me to realize that I've been feeling quite overwhelmed the last couple of days. Laura left, my computer crashed, I'm applying to go back to school (yes, really!), and I'm leaving Uganda in less than three weeks. I needed a day to refocus, so I'm thankful that I get to stay here, whatever the reason.

"Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you..." - Psalm 55:22a

Happy Father's Day!!

Because of a combination of poor internet availability, crashing computers and busyness, we have been having a hard time making blog posts. We actually have a couple that are almost ready to be posted but saved on a computer that isn’t working, so we’ll try and update you on the latest happenings. This will be a joint blog post between the two of us.

Laura is leaving early tomorrow morning and will be back to the States on Wednesday; she’ll put up a few more blog entries and then Ashley will start posting by herself again.

On to the big news, Father’s Day was on Sunday! To say a proper Happy Father’s Day to our Dad, we thought we would include a couple of [very manly] animal stories from both of us:

Story 1: Killing, taking apart, cooking and eating a chicken.

Ashley: Learning how to properly “prepare” a chicken was on my maybe list of things to do while in Africa. On Sunday I happily moved it over to the “I’ve experienced this” list. I guess I can really only halfway check it off the list because Kent did the honors of the chop while Laura and I looked on. But it really wasn’t bad. I’m pretty sure I could even do it on my own in the future. I’m also equally as sure that I wouldn’t want to, but at least I know I could if necessary. And the biology lesson that fresh chickens provide is quite interesting. Nerdy? Maybe, but true.

Laura: The chicken was eerily warm inside afterward. After holding it in my arms as it snuggled against me, I wasn’t about to chop its head off. Once it was properly dead, however, (it is true that chickens don’t exactly stay still right after they’re killed) taking it apart wasn’t quite as bad as I had imagined. Surprisingly, I was even able to eat it when we were finished! We had very good chicken spaghetti: if you ever need some fresh chicken for dinner in the future just give me a call…

Story 2: The white ants.

Ashley: This was the second and largest swarm of white ants that I’ve experienced. It’s hard to understand how many bugs swarm during these times. Literally 1000s. You can hear the wings through the windows.

Since Ugandans eat white ants, we helped collect the ones that were making their way into our house. I would say at the end of an hour we had collected somewhere between 200-400. It was quite disgusting, but a very Ugandan experience. And our night guard was happy to have the extra bugs that we collected for him.

Laura: Despite the name, these look nothing like ants. They are oversized, fat termites each possessing four wings, and there were 1000s of them. Since our house is in the middle of huts, the light attracts the swarm. Being outside when one of the largest swarms came, I might have had more bugs hit/crawl/sit all over me in that 1-2 hours than I have in the rest of my life combined.

Because of a varied audience, we thought pictures would be best kept off the blog. If you do want to see some of these experiences just let us know. The videos and pictures are great! Happy Father’s Day, Dad! We love you!!

Churchplants, Children and our Summer Team

These last couple of weeks have been really awesome. On Sunday, we were able to go to the very first week of a new church plant. This was not on my bucket list, but it definitely should have been. It was so incredible, and I was blown away watching the Holy Spirit move on this first day. There were all sorts of very different people there. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a church with that much variety, but it was really great to tell people of all backgrounds that they are loved. We’ll keep visiting with and pursuing the people there and are praying that everyone will soon come to know Jesus personally.

It was held in a disco joint (they told us we could use the building any morning of the week), and I was so incredibly blessed to be there. While it wasn’t exactly conventional, it was great. The main people that helped to start the church plant were all really faithful and excited about what was going on and it was really neat to see the fruit of that (I was not one of the main people to have started this, but did get to see some of it unfold).

We’ve also been having wonderful times with our neighborhood friends. They are probably all under 10, and I’m starting to wonder how I would be able to love kids more, even if they were my own. One of the girls is deaf, but she always has so much to say. She’ll run up and give us a huge hug when we see her and then proceed to tell us, with her hands, stories from whenever the last time was that she saw us. A lot of times these stories are a bit lost in translation, but it is fun to talk to her. We’ve started praying for her often, she is so great. The other kids will a lot of times run up and start attaching themselves to our hands. We’ll sometimes find ourselves with three or four kids on each hand, which is great.

The summer team also arrived today. There are two women, one my age and another closer to my parents (a first grade school teacher) and they are both very sweet. They’ve only been here for a couple of days but are doing great and both seem like they will be really great to get to know over the next few days.

Unexpected Blessings

It seems that since Laura’s arrival there have been a multitude of different reasons why trips to the village have been canceled. This has been discouraging on one hand but very exciting on the other – discouraging because I love the village and encouraging because I equally love the town of Gulu and the people that live here!

The Foresters (the family I met in the airport when I first arrived) had a team come in this week and yesterday we had the opportunity to spend the day sharing the Gospel with them. What a blessing that was! The team is 10 college students or new graduates and they LOVE Jesus. It was a huge honor to be able to work alongside them and have no other goal for the day but to talk to people about Jesus.

The morning began with a time of praise and worship, reading Scripture, and praying. I felt so filled and realized how deep my longing for community has been over the last few months. And that was just the start to the day.

We split into groups of 3-4 and spent the rest of the day walking around Gulu and sharing the love of Jesus. I don’t know what happened in most of the other groups, but in my group we saw one person accept Jesus. We also met a man who is already following Jesus but has been longing for a solid church and community.

Finally, we met Mary and Martin and their four children. Martin is a prison guard/chaplain and Mary works at one of the little shops in town. They love Jesus like crazy and we spent the afternoon encouraging one another. The family spends much of their time and money ministering to others and they are just a huge blessing to the people around them. So cool!

As we were preparing to leave, Mary said she wanted to wash our feet. So she brought us inside her home and prayed over us as she washed our feet. I somehow managed to hold back tears, but I’ve never been more humbled in all of my life.

“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.” – Isaiah 58:10-11

Hope

One of the hardest things to process about being here is the previous activity of the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) and the impact that this group has had on Gulu. The village we work in, Tegot Atoo, actually means “place of death”.

There is not a single family in that village that we have met who are not directly affected by LRA activity. Hearing stories about this is unavoidable, and especially at first I found it incredibly upsetting to watch as people brought up how the LRA affected them. They visibly change when talking about their stories. Many cover their pain with alcohol, abuse or various other coping activities.

I won’t go into specific stories, both because that is not the purpose of my post and I don’t want to write what I’ve heard over a public forum, but you can almost definitely find something about this group on the internet if you are interested. “Invisible Children” has some good videos that actually center around the place we are right now.

More importantly than what happened, what I’ve found that is so incredible about all of this is the amount of hope and change that Jesus provides to His people today.

Richard, his eyes actually seem to glow. I’ve read this in books, but don’t know that until now I’ve really seen someone that I feel this is true of, but I can see it in him. He is filled with joy and peace. As he abused her continually, his wife Evelyn prayed 10 years for Richard to come to know Jesus. About one year ago he did, and he is a wholly changed man.

He, despite cultural norms, helps his wife in the garden, goes out to dig for her in the community if she cannot and interacts with people with a great humility, something rarely seen here in men (this was not an insult to men, culturally here men have absolute dominance over women and oftentimes treat them mainly as property, not people, this is very different from western culture : ) ).

Another cultural difference is that parents don’t really interact with their children. There are not really hugs or kisses given to any of them. Richard and Evelyn LOVE their children and that love is returned. They hug, kiss, talk with and interact with them. In a very real way, they show the life changing power that Christ has over the lives of His children.

In addition to this, they also display hope and assurance in their future; not that they know exactly what will happen to them, but they know that what matters is they will one day spend eternity actually being able to see their Savior with their own eyes. Richard and Evelyn were weighed down with sins, the actions of the LRA, culture and many other things, and Christ freed them from all of that. And hundreds of other people in this community as well. People are undeniably changed and freed through Christ. “For by grace we have been saved through faith.”

This is actually one of my favorite things to talk about with people. Email me if you have any questions or want to know more, I would love to hear your input! I love you and am praying!

“And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.””
-Mark 2:17

On Being Sick in Africa

For the most part, my four months in Africa have been pretty healthy. Apart from the first couple of days of sickness when I first arrived and a couple of days of giardia also in the first month, I’ve not had any trouble.

And unfortunately, sickness had to present itself during my sister’s time here. Ugh.

I got sick on Wednesday, but it was a different type of sickness than I’ve ever had. The only symptoms I really had were severe nausea and a general “weak feeling.” But the nausea was to the point of I couldn’t eat. Which is obviously bad.

The first step was ruling out malaria. Which we did. Three times.

Over the course of two days, I visited two clinics and the hospital (which probably sounds extremely over-the-top, but with the crazy diseases that run around here, it's just best to be extremely cautious). It is quite intense to let someone take blood from your arm at a hospital in Gulu, Uganda…definitely brings trusting in God for health and protection to a whole new level!

(For those of you who will worry about the trip to the hospital, I made sure they changed gloves before touching me and I watched them open any needles they used. Plus, the places I went have western-trained doctors and good reputations. Between the two, I was about as safe as possible!)

The first doctor I saw at the hospital was basically a joke. She didn’t really ask any obvious questions and seemed to focus only on “you’re too thin, you must be anorexic,” to which I wanted to say, “I’m here because I’m not eating. The two can’t go together.”

The second doctor was awesome though. I felt fully confident that he knew what he was talking about and he took time to explain the blood test results to me. I am so thankful for him!!

The only thing they ever really determined was that I had a slightly elevated WBC and thus started me on antibiotics (which thankfully were manufactured in the UK).

Sunday I was finally able to eat three small meals and I seem to be getting a little stronger, although I’m still not completely feeling normal.

The hardest thing has probably been that I feel so bad about being sick while Laura is here. She’s been awesome about it though and even went to the village without me on Saturday! She’s also cooked, cleaned, and been a great encourager for me. Plus, with our neighborhood ministry being so fun, she got plenty of time to play with those kiddos too.

Plus, being sick really allowed others to take care of me, which is not something I usually appreciate in any way! Jennifer, at Café Larem, was SO worried about me that she made me take a nap on the couch outside the café. Definitely a little awkward, but it did help! Also, the Foresters let us stay with them a couple nights and were so gracious to feed us, put up with my laying in bed, and offer encouragement and reassurance when I was getting really discouraged. My friend Lowna was also amazing and went with us to the clinic and the hospital. She’s probably the toughest woman I’ve ever met in my life and was a great advocate to have by my side! Finally, the ECM staff have been really kind also. Simon drove us around, Pato went with us to the hospital, and everyone else has just been really encouraging!


Oh, and as of tonight, the neighborhood kids now know the hokey pokey AND the limbo. And the adults still like to stand outside and laugh at us. But, TIA and I’m totally OK with that!! :-)

Also, on a short trip to the market this afternoon, we got to pray over an elderly woman and set up an appointment to share the Gospel with her on Sunday (when we can have a willing translator)!

Not in America

It has been a while since my last post, I hope that everyone is doing well and have really enjoyed hearing from all of you! This will be my first post since arriving in Gulu, and I will be trying to condense many thoughts and stories.

First of all, the power has been out quite a bit lately. We also ran out of water for a while, and this has all combined to create some interesting experiences. Because of the lack of water, I took my first bucket shower. This is when you get a jerry can full of water, dump it into a bucket and then pour cups of water over you to bathe. It was quite cold, but I was really excited about it as it made me feel more Ugandan. : ) Ashley has also been sick while this has been happening. We are not sure what the sickness is, but we’re pretty confident that it’s not malaria, which we think is a good thing. A few people have been overly kind and helpful through this, namely the Forestor family, Jessica at Café Larem and our night guard, Cosmas. I could really go on about them for quite a while but will just say that I’ve been blown away by their kindness, concern and willingness to serve. We also had Simon, Pato and Lona drive around with us for literally hours going to clinics to see if we could pinpoint what is going on with Ash. We’ve narrowed it down to something bacterial, have medicine and are all praying for a quick recovery. They were great with helping us during that process! Also, Ashley is feeling a lot better today, so we are very thankful!

The neighborhood ministry is still so much fun. We are trying to teach a little deaf girl some simple words in American Sign Language, and I think she may be starting to understand at least two words (dog and later, we’re not totally sure why these two). The village is so great. This was only my third day to go out, and I learn new things every time. Today the kids apparently decided I should know their language and would speak to me in long Acholi sentences. My reaction would be to talk back in gibberish and they would just laugh. I also had around 20 kids gather in a circle with gaping mouths to watch a little girl play with my hair. My hair feels very different to them, and they are rather fascinated by it, which is funny to watch. They also played elbow tag for the first time, and they were so intense! They would, at times, actually tackle one another to be safe from the person chasing them, and the kids just laughed through a whole lot of the game, as did I.

Later in the day I had my first experience visiting a family. It was totally different! I sat on the floor of a mud hut, which is smeared with cow dung for a yet-to-be-discovered reason and was served chicken and cassava. Culturally, it is very rude to not finish your entire plate of food; this can be intense as the portions that they serve are most of the time probably around three times an American portion. Also, they eat literally everything off the chicken bone and then oftentimes break it and suck out the bone marrow.. through this process I prayed a lot, thought of my grandpa who always impresses me with how much he eats off of a chicken bone and wondered if they are still filming episodes of fear factor (I did not suck out the bone marrow, maybe next time). I really love that family though, and I was so happy that they invited us over. It is exciting to continually try new things as well, I am so glad to be here!

I have oftentimes experienced here that the evidence of the hope Jesus provides to people can be so obvious in people from all different backgrounds! This is amazing to see, and I am blown away by how cool it is that I can witness these things. Just hanging out with people, in many ways quite different from me, is intense and so much fun. I am excited to see what the future holds and know that God will provide everything we need, He is awesome!

Neighborhood Ministry

Ever since the dog bite incident, things in the neighborhood have been awesome. They weren’t bad before, but things have just taken off. I have gotten to know my neighbors more over the past two weeks than I have over the past four months. Even my relationship with Cosmas, the night guard, has gotten a lot stronger. I am SO excited about the opportunities to minister near my home as well as in the village.

Monday night, Laura and I played outside with all the neighborhood kids. We brought out the soccer ball and cones, but they were far more interested in holding out hands, trying to get us to chase and tickle them, and learning all the crazy dances and songs that we so very much enjoyed teaching them.

When we did the hokey pokey, at least five adults were watching us from their homes. I’m quite certain they think we’re crazy. The kids, however, ate it up.

We introduced the chicken dance as well. That was also a big hit. Until we came to the part where you link arms with someone and turn in a circle. Then all the boys ran away hysterically laughing.

My closest neighbor, Grace, is a really sweet elderly woman and speaks excellent English. We have had great conversations almost every day and on Friday she is taking Laura and me to the market to show us where to buy some scarves. Can’t wait!

Cosmas also invited us over to meet all of his children (already know his wife). That too is another door opened.

I am sooo excited to see God move in this community!

Some Pictures

Acan Irene and Piloya Mercy. Love these girls!



I think this picture of Laura is one of the sweetest pictures ever. I just love it! These are some kids we befriended outside of Cafe Larem. Calvin (I think) and Mercy. Isn't this just adorable??

Some E-mails Home

These are e-mails Laura and I sent to our parents the day we got to Gulu. They both thought you all would enjoy reading them as well, so I am posting it here. Sometimes I don't know what's interesting or useful information, but they informed us that these would be good for the blog. So here they are. (Andrew is the intern we picked up at the airport.) Thanks for the suggestion, Mom and Dad!

***

I think Laura had an "oh wow!" moment when she saw my house. And the the lizards. And the spiders. And heard the bats in the attic that also call this place home. Nevertheless, she's adjusting really well and enjoying everything so far. Today will be her first day in the village and my first day back in a long time. I can't wait!!

The bus ride truly was great. I did my best to educate both Laura and Andrew on all I know about Uganda, its history, culture, etc. and they got to see a lot of the country, which was really nice. It is funny to watch them see things that I don't even notice anymore - like chickens and cows roaming the side of the road, women carrying babies on their backs and fruit or water on their heads, or a bunch of people piled into one vehicle!

Laura is feeling great! It was definitely a really nice thing that we stayed in Kampala a couple extra days. It let her adjust and we had a good time too. I was really glad to see Christine and I know Laura really enjoyed meeting her as well. Plus, I love Sheila that works at MAF so it was really nice to spend time with her as well.

Andrew got in a little after 8 on Thursday night. He had time to eat dinner, sleep a few hours, and then get up early to experience Kampala traffic and a 6 hour bus ride. He did great though! Didn't even seem tired! I think we freaked him out a bit - we greeted him with a sign that said Go Vols! and Gig 'em Aggies! all over it. He goes to Baylor. He's a nice guy though and we enjoyed talking to him.


***

Ash and I had a pretty eventful day and are taking our showers now (she just got out; the shower is soo cold, I have to slowly move myself into it, last night I still lost my breath). I met many of the sponsor kids today when we went to the village. They are very welcoming and clapped for me with this clap to a beat and sang a song for me. It was very sweet and thoughtful.

Then I ate in a hut, that was very different but it was pretty cool inside (temperature wise). The "Mamma" also had spoons for us to eat with which was cool for my first time! Slowly adjusting! Many of the people laugh at me a lot because mostly I just smile and say "ok" when interacting with them. Ash says they still do that for her; I would just laugh with them very confused. The children play hand clapping games though so that is nice. They are different than the ones I know but not too much. I feel like that can connect us some!

We also got the car stuck in the mud/small stream on the way there. I opened my door to put the car in four-wheel drive and the tire was over halfway in water. So today I touched my first natural African water with my hands and feet, but not too much. Many people were helpful though, and we got it out after a while of trying and a broken rope. Tonight we ate with Becky and the 4 Forester girls. They are adorable, they now have two headgehogs as their pets that they caught in their yard. I have to say, the things are stinkin' cute! Conner,you could get one..

Munu's First Blog Post!

Hello everyone! This is Laura, blogging in Africa for my first time. It has been an exciting and wonderful first few days. I have a few observations/stories:

So first off, my airplane landed next to a dirt road. And goats. And Ugandan families walking along with their goats, children and baskets/bananas piled on top of their head. This was definitely not America. It was amazing though. To my right was Lake Victoria, which is absolutely beautiful. Also, since it had been an overnight flight, I had previously been able to look out the window and see millions of stars. This was a great start to my journey, I was so excited to see how the God of College Station stars is the God of the stars I can see in Uganda as well, and He is just as holy and righteous over here as He is everywhere in America and worldwide.

The next thing to notice is driving. The roads are totally insane and awesomely fun. Today a car came like 6 inches from hitting me, enough for Ashley to actually pull me to the side with very wide eyes. Here, cars have the right-of-way, not pedestrians, and the vehicles certainly don’t mind reminding you of that. And boda-bodas, kind of like mini-motorcycles, are intense. It’s like a high-speed adrenaline junkie game, filled with driving on the wrong side of the road towards oncoming buses, swerving literally inches around potholes that, if hit, would probably throw you a good 25 feet onto a hard dirt/concrete road and almost hitting those small children who don’t get out of the way fast enough. It was soo cool, and I’m excited for my first time to ride side-saddle. The women here do it pretty flawlessly, it should be fun to try!

On a more serious note, many of the people here are wonderful. The poverty level in Kampala, one of the more wealthy areas of Uganda, is almost unbelievable and it’s hard to not become disheartened. God has been so gracious to teach me a few things from this. The first was from 2 Timothy, in which Paul speaks of how “the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely to His Heavenly Kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” I love how in the midst of suffering and pain, Paul knows that the important and everlasting thing is that Christians will one day be united with Christ, and that is such an awesome promise! The second thing I learned was from the people. I had the opportunity to sit down with three Ugandan women, all of which certainly have been in much different situations than myself, who encouraged me by telling me of how they know that Jesus deserves to be glorified and praised, even when their day was very difficult, enough to “make me want to cry”. They have hope through Christ, in situations much more difficult than mine own, and I loved seeing how He carries them through each day with such love.

I would love to hear from all of you and am praying for many of you as you embark on various adventures over the summer. Please email or facebook me and let me know how you are doing and how I can by praying for you more. I love you all!

Still in Kampala

We are currently still in Kampala and are waiting until Friday to return to Gulu.

Laura was feeling pretty sick yesterday, so we decided it would be best to wait an extra day before taking the long, hot, and bumpy bus ride to Gulu. She is mostly better today, although she had waves of nausea throughout the day. All to be expected after long amounts of air travel with very little sleep!

Plus, I was supposed to be picking up an intern for another organization in Gulu. His flight got delayed due to the volcanic ash and he will not be in until Thursday night.

Since we don't go to the village on Friday anyway, it made no difference if we returned to Gulu on Thursday or Friday, thus the decision to wait until Friday.

Our time in Kampala has been great! We are staying at the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) guest house and it is very nice and comfortable - a perfect place to begin adjusting to Uganda. We took a walk this afternoon and had a fabulous view of Lake Victoria. Way cool!

Tomorrow we are going to a Bible study with Sheila, who works at MAF. Then we will head out to Entebbe early enough to walk by Lake Victoria and have dinner before we go to pick up Andrew at the airport.

Oh, and somehow we will figure out a way to get the FOUR suitcases, two backpacks, two purses, plus whatever luggage Andrew has, to the bus on Friday morning. Should be interesting...

And in Laura's defense, almost none of the stuff she brought is for her. It is almost all donated clothes, which is AWESOME!! I can't wait to hand out everything! Once again, people were very generous and we got lots of donations for the kiddos.



View of Lake Victoria - only a 10 minute walk from the MAF house!

P.S. I made Laura an "author" on my blog so she can post some about her experiences here. I figured most of the readers know both of us, plus it might be nice to read experiences from a new set of eyes!

Is it possible to O.D. on hydrocortisone cream?

If so, I'm in trouble.

Last week, I walked through the deep bush to visit a family (Opiyo Denis from a few posts ago). In the process, I got bitten by what I think were flees. And when I say bitten, I mean that I have at least 150 bites on my legs. I know because I had kids that counted them. Basically, my legs looked like I have a severe case of chicken pox or some other weird African disease.

They didn't itch the first couple of days, but the day before yesterday they started itching like crazy! Now they are almost gone and I am very happy.

***

In other news, I'm in Kampala for a couple days because my sister gets in tomorrow morning! She almost got stuck in Dallas thanks to the volcano, and things look good so far for her to leave London on time as well.

Since I'm already here, I'm also picking up a friend's visitor. We will all three ride the bus back to Gulu on Wednesday morning. Neither have been to Africa before. Should be fun!

Dog Bite Update

Things could not have turned out any better!

Simon, Cosmas, and I went to talk to the family this morning and I agreed to take Janet (who I thought was Bridgette, but that's a different sister) to the clinic to get her hand checked out. Thankfully, the dog HAS gotten a rabies shot. We have a certificate that proves the vaccination. I looked for it last night and just could not find it. However, I needed it for the clinic. So I prayed that I would find it quickly this morning and it was in the first place I looked!

So Janet, her sister Joy, and I were off to the clinic early this morning. Clinic 1 cleaned and bandaged her finger (she really only requires a large bandaid), gave her antibiotics, and referred her to the hospital for a rabies shot "just in case" (all for a little over $3.00). So next we took a trip to the hospital. After waiting a little over two hours, the doctor informed me that it would be ridiculous to give a rabies shot when the dog is vaccinated. While it was a little frustrating that we waited so long, I was just happy that she didn't need any further treatment.

When I took the girls home I expected the grandmother to be upset with me. Instead she invited me in and told me how thankful she was that I took care of her granddaughter and was willing to miss work to take her to the clinic. What could have been a really bad situation turned out to be a relationship-building experience and I've made some new friends!

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Prayer Request

Tonight, my dog got out of the compound and bit a neighborhood kid. It wasn't a super bad bite. It was on her hand and his teeth only broke skin on one finger. But still. He bit a kid.

I knew the dog had gotten out. I was outside the compound with my nightguard, Cosmas, looking at the road to my house, which is now blocked (another story). I even saw Odie jumping around Bridgette and heard her screaming. But this is common because most Ugandans are terrified of dogs. I would have never dreamed he would bite her.

So, we called Odie and went home. Not five minutes later, Cosmas knocks on the door and Bridgette and her sister Joy were standing on the porch. Odie was barking and growling, Bridgette was crying, Joy was yelling that Odie had bitten her sister, and Cosmas was telling me to take the girls inside. I'm pretty sure I stood there open-mouthed staring at the scene for at least a few seconds before bringing the girls in.

Luckily, I had a few medical supplies at the house. I didn't have gloves though, so I handed Joy the supplies and instructed her on how to clean and cover the wound. Then I fed them cookies and chocolate while I sat there trying to figure out what to do. It was pouring down rain and dark, so I obviously wasn't going to the clinic by myself in spite of the girl's persistent asking.

Instead, I called Simon (ECM staff) and asked him what I should do. He assured me that it would be fine to wait until morning to do anything and promised to come over first thing to help me talk to the girls' grandmother. Cosmas talked to her as well and told me it would be fine if I just took her to the clinic in the morning.

However, there is a widely held belief here that it is entirely acceptable to take advantage of Westerners whenever possible. I am praying that this will not happen. And really, I believe that it won't. But still there's a little worry in the back of my mind. So please pray for that!

Simon and I will go talk to the grandmother in the morning and then I will take Bridgette to the clinic. Please also pray that things go well at the clinic - I've taken kids from the village by myself before, but obviously the circumstances are entirely different. Simon could normally go with me, but we have visitors in town who need to be taken to the village early.

Other than that incident, this week has been good.

I've been staying with friends most of this week because I don't like staying in the house by myself. It's been really nice and I'm so thankful for their hospitality!

Laura comes Tuesday morning and I can't wait! It's hard to believe that she'll be here. In Uganda. In just a few days. Crazy!

Thanks for your prayers!!

Opiyo Denis

When I saw my Dad in Botswana, he brought tons of stuff for kids. Most of it was general donations of clothes, shoes, books, stickers, etc., but some of it was for specific kids.

Opiyo Denis' sponsors sent him a couple outfits, a ball, stickers with Jesus on them (don't know where they came from, but it was pretty entertaining), and lots of other goodies. We went and delivered his package yesterday and it was so much fun.

Opiyo is extremely shy and I've only seen him smile a couple of times in the months I've known him. Until yesterday. He was beyond excited. He just couldn't stop smiling!

He lives with his mom, who has five children. They are definitely among the most poor in the village, but the mom has such joy. She was extremely welcoming and kind. It was a lot of fun to visit their family.

Here's Opiyo modeling some of his new clothes and ball:



I haven't delivered the other gifts yet, but I can't wait to see the reactions! Also, my Mom and Grandma spent hours gathering all kinds of stuff for the kids here - they even have more to send with Laura when she comes on Tuesday.

Traveling

If you didn't guess already, I'm currently with my Dad in Botswana. I scheduled posts in advance since I've been terrible at blogging.

As I'm writing this (which is at least four days before you'll be reading this), I'm at an awesome hotel just outside of Kampala and very near the airport. They have an awesome missionary discount, so I'm staying in the nicest hotel I've seen in Uganda for a really cheap price! And they provide free shuttle service for my 5 AM flight. Score!