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!

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.