Some News...

Well, (again) I am feeling WAY behind on posting blogs and photos of life and what is going on. Sorry about that but I have been busy.

First, I spent a day painting with Glenn. What you might ask??? Well, I am very happy to say that I have moved into a new room. I am now living in Senior Quarters (a neighborhood on the opposite side of town from Mama and Pastor's house) with 3 other American missionary girls.

Many people here have asked me why I "shifted" and the honest answer is that "To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven." I still feel like God has purposed me here in Mbale (and at LCH) and the season has not yet come to a close. I have LOVED my time at the Ogenga's house and they ARE my family. But, seeing as I am getting older, it was just time to move out- whether in Africa or America, I would not stay under my parent's roof forever. :) And I am so grateful for the opportunity to live with some girls my age!! It has already been a lot of fun (I have only lived there for a week now). There have also been some funny moments and conversations from me adjusting to Americanized life in Uganda. All I have known is the Ugandan way.

These are my new housemates...Brooklyn, Jennifer, Emily, (and me). They are all with a team with the New Testament Church of Christ group that is here. Brooklyn is an intern for the next 3 months and will be painting murals, while the other 2 are teachers at the mission school.
And this is my great room. I was able to fit everything in it (surprising how much you can collect in 2 years!!) and it felt like home as soon as I put my photos up. (this is a shameless hint to send me photos of you through snail mail- my address is on the side of the page)

So, that is my big news and change for now. We had our first day of Term 3 today, so the kids are all back to school. Let me know how you are!!

Music Competition

Although our kids have been doing music for quite some time, this was the school's first year to compete in the Uganda Primary music competition. There are 8 "events" in total, including sight reading, traditional song, western song, traditional dance, original song, and original dance. I don't remember the other two.

Our kids had so much fun. They did AWESOME in the traditional and original songs and dances. This particular song (in the photos) was about a shepherd boy going out for month to herd his animals and the things he would need while in the bush and the celebration when he returned home safely.



They dressed Anthony up to be the "bush" where the shepherd was going.
Paul, the shepherd.


Nuruh, the shepherd's sister, warning him of the dangers in the bush.

Waiting to enter for the Western portion of the competition.Overall, our kids did great with the local/traditional/original things but have some work to do on the sight reading and western piece. I am not sure why they didn't pass to the next level, but hopefully next year. I wish internet was fast enough for me to post the video of their performance. Really, they were so good. You would have been proud!

Sports competition

Last month our kids got to go for their second sports competition. This time, the girls competed in netball and the boys in football.

Netball is a game that I would best describe as basketball and ultimate frisbee combined. They toss the ball and make points by shooting it into a hoop. But if your team member throws you the ball then you can't run with it and must throw it to the next. If you drop it, then the other team has the chance to recover it.

Notice the kids watching the games from the tree.
Doreen, from P6 was selected to compete for the subcounty team, but that is where she stopped.

And of course football (soccer) is the universal sport played on every continent in the world.

Ivan (the one smilingin the front) made it to the national level (again!!- he was our child that went for track and field in Gulu) and played for the Mbale team. The team made it to the final four and then were eliminated.

And this photo is random, but one thing I really like in Uganda is all the flowering trees. Yellow, purple, red, pink, white- they are just beautiful.

And another picture of "Africa" captured in still form.

Life in photos

I have not done a very good job at keeping up with what is happening here. Sorry. As you probably know, we have had many visitors and many activities, all while still being in the second term of school. But hopefully over the next few weeks I can post some things that I never got around to and other photos that just show life here.

I am blogging by the motto that a picture holds a thousand words. Hopefully that proves true.




Crusades: I think we have opened nearly 13 churches this summer. What that means is that American churches from all over have "sponsored" the purchasing of a piece of land somewhere in East Africa, the building of a church building, a pastors house, and sometimes a medical clinic or more, and a water well. When the American team is here, they spend M-F going hut-to-hut evangelizing and sharing about the Good news and love of Jesus Christ. They also invite the people that they meet to attend the afternoon crusades. The picture below is of a crusade. At the crusades there is loud music, dancing, people share their testimonies of what God has done in their lives, and the Gospel message is presented again. It is on Sundays, after a full week of getting to move around the community, that the new church is officially open and dedicated. One of the pastors that is trained from the Bible College in Mbale is then placed at that new church.

Mbale Town: I like Mbale. After spending a full 5 days in Kampala, hosting some friends who were looking at a leadership academy, I have grown to appreicate Mbale even more. Although there is not but 3 good restraunts to eat at and although I can't find the variety of foods or shops like I can in Kampala, Mbale is still a better place to live. It is beautiful for one thing. Not exactly the roads with potholes, but there is Mt. Wanale that I see everyday. And many people that dress in traditional wear. It also has the nice feel of a small town, in that I can always run into someone I know as I am walking around town. And Kampala traffic is so annoying and takes forever and is the hub of at least 1/4 of the world's air pollution. So, all in all, Mbale is good for me and Kampala is a nice treat to visit and eat good food (I did find a great place that served very decent quesadilla and brownie sundays and in my 5 days, I ate at this place for 5 of my 10 meals). Ha, can you tell that food is one of the main things I miss.

Here is Mbale town, from the top of an Indian restraunt.

More to come, so stay in touch.

Dyana we will miss you!!

Sorry there are doubles, it won't delete for some reason.

Yesterday we had some shocking news that has sadly impacted the children's home. Our wonderful nurse came back about 3 weeks ago from being home for her brother's funeral but hadn't been feeling well since she had returned to Uganda. Yesterday she went into town and did tests to see what was wrong. To her surprise her white blood cell count was extremely too high, indicating that she has Leukemia. How? Why? Since when? We don't know.

So by the blessings of the Lord, flight details were worked out for her to leave tonight back to the US to start treatment.

We had a wonderful prayer meeting to pray healing over her and we know (from experience) that our God is a miracle worker. So we (as staff and kids) are believing total healing over her and that she will return to us one day.

We can't always know or understand things that happen but we know that God does know and that God is good.

Dyana seems in shock, sad, but also hopeful. His grace is sufficient for her and she is holding fast to that. Please be praying for her!!!

Hodge Podge #2

It is definitely a season of visitors, which is fun. Usually it is the mission teams that I get to visit with on Sundays before they spend the week doing hut-to-hut, but sometimes people come for longer. There was a wonderful woman named Susan that was here teaching music and the past month I have made a great new friend, Lauren, who is doing her college internship here- living life in another culture. She is about my sister's age and we have had a fun time making jokes, talking about life, and just being silly. I am so blessed that God has been faithful to bring great girls that have a simular personality as me (Haley and Lauren) in the past 2 years. Just sad that they always seem to go. Maybe one day I will have a long term kindred spirit to work and play with. But this is Lauren and I with Marium, Beatrice, Norah, and Naula.
I also hosted my own team. They were part of a group, Global Journey, and had previously been in China and India. They came and were a bit of a sickly team, but God quickly nursed them back to health in a little more comfortable conditions. Glenn graciously offered his house for us to all stay at and we had such a great week. It was wonderful to hear their stories of what God had done in the other places and also wonderful to catch up with my friend Sarah, that I know from TbarM. The team did a great job working on painting the kindergarden classroom block. And we had fun at night playing games like Cranium and making cinnamon rolls together (thanks Kara!)

While the team was still here, I also had my dear, sweet, wonderful friend Erin come to visit me!! How blessed I am!! She spent the past 5 weeks in Ethiopia and I said that if she was on my continent then she was required to come visit me. She gladly did and will be here until the end of July.

So, while Erin, Lauren, and the team were all still here we went to Sissiyi Falls. It doesn't matter how man times I have been there or hiked that mountain, I love it every time. It is really one of the most beautiful places in Uganda (that I have seen).

The River Nile.

I have been confused as to why we call it the Nile River in America but clearly the words are reversed here. What is the real name? But after I took this photo the army man jumped up and shouted something at me. It immediatly brought me to a flashback of the army man that tried to take my camera because he was corrupt. Not this time!! I told Glenn to just keep on driving, quick.

I love the house moms. They really take care of me. Auntie Ritah is always up for a good laugh.

Music Competion PRACTICE:

The kids have spent the past week and a half practicing for music competion. There are 8 areas to present including: western piece, sight reading, drama, original composition, traditional composition, original dance, traditional dance. They have been working really hard and it is so fun to hear the deep-soul-beats of the African drum ringing through the air as I am down at the school. These local instruments are really my most favorite Ugandan music. I have no skill at it, but it was fun to have the kids try to teach me something.

The LIBRARY!!!!

What a huge, amazing, fun, exciting, and wonderful blessing it is to have a new library. Well, when I say new it is true but it is not like we had a library before, just a few books scattered here and there. For the past year Mike Thrasher has been collecting books and organizing to send a container (via ship) full of books/resources/school supplies. Two weeks ago his team was here to "unlock" the boxes of burried treasures and build shelves for the library. The whole team worked so hard to set it up and the outcome is almost unbelievable. What a blessing. They taught each class how to use the library, look for a book, and check it out. AND we had a huge party for the official opening. I really can't speak too highly about it. It will be a blessing for generations to come. Thank you to EVERYONE who contributed time, money, books, resources, etc. They are greatly appreciated by everyone here!!!

A hodge-podge of updates #1

So, internet is moving a bit slow right now and refusing to upload all my photos. So, here are some updates and there are more to come soon.

Overall, life is very good. It has been VERY busy with visitors at LCH, my new friend Lauren who is doing her internship here for a month, the Global Journey team that I hosted, and my sweet, dear, wonderful friend Erin who has been doing work in Ethiopia who is now in Uganda until the end of July to visit me. But I think things might be calming down a bit.

I really have so many more small updates and stories, but they will come with time (and internet speed).

Put a smile on my face:
On the day I was about to pick up my great friend Erin, we had a little time in the big city, Kampala, until we had to head to the airport. We were walking from one shopping center back to another and on the sidewalk in front of me I saw this man. I was greatly amused when I saw this man. If you notice closely you will see that in his little woven bag on his back he has a goose and a chicken AND a turkey around his neck. Right in the middle of the city. It made me smile.

These are just some photos that I liked. No particular story or reason, they just say, "Africa" to me. Enjoy.

Gardening:

So I brought some seeds again and had asked permission from Mama to plant in her inside "flower beds". Well, first off I was a bit skeptical because the soil was full rubish and glass. Second, there was only one set of little hand shovels in Mbale at 35,000 shillings and I refused to spend that much. So what is my next best option? A spade used for "scooping" cement onto the walls and making it smooth. The spade worked pretty well. But seeing as it was a small space to plant I choose those things that didn't have huge vines. As I hoped (despite the soil) things grew really well and extra big. But i also realize that I planted some of the least usable vegitables. Things like okra, lima beans, and too much lettuce. Now my lettuce has overgrown and is about as tall as I am. Who knew lettuce could grow that tall? But I still have some seeds and do plan to plant them at some point.

Arabian/Indian Wedding:

A few weeks ago Glenn informed Lauren and I that we had a wedding reception to go to that night. He is friends with the dad, and seeing as Lauren needed to attend a wedding for part of her internship curriculum we all became really excited. Well, the weekend came and after showering to be ready by 3:30pm, Glenn tells us that the time has changed to 6pm. Ok, typical Ugandan style. Well, when it came down to going, we were finally told to show up at the hotel at 8pm. We got dressed up and arrived, only to find that the chairs were stacked at the location of the ceremony. Not sure whether we had missed the wedding or whether it was starting even later, Glenn went to ask someone. When he came back he said that it was scheduled to start at 9pm, but he wasn't sure what sort of wedding it was and if he would be able to attend. We were a bit confused as Glenn continued to report what the worker said. "We men will be leaving before the ladies arrive because our sisters will be undressing." WHAT??? What does this mean? We were all really confused, but it was confirmed later that indeed, only women were invited to the wedding reception. So, sad for Glenn (but at least he had another guy who was misinformed and sat with him, inside the hotel). Lauren and I joined some other Mzungus who were staying to the hotel and went out to the reception. We just sat there for a long time until around 9:30pm when the music started and a group of woman got in the middle of all the tables and started dancing in a "mamba" type line but with some serious shaking and hands moving gracefully through the air. There was about 20 minutes of this dancing when the oldest mzungu on the team was beckoned from one of the Indian ladies to join in. She did with full enthusiasm. Then we all started joining in. It really was a lot of fun because these ladies got a kick out of teaching us mzungus how to shake it like they were. We danced for neary an hour, then sat because we were exhausted. It was during this rest that Lauren and I realized why the man said his sister's would be undressing. Seeing as they were from a Muslim background the women are required to keep their heads wrapped in some sort of cloth. They were considered "undressed" without the head covering because in their religion their husband is the only man allowed to see them uncovered. And we also decided that it is during these "women only" ceremonies that they are able to really express their own style and show off their beauty (and feel really beautiful). These women had thier hair done up and were wearing beautiful prom like dresses. Really stunning to be honest.

So time continued to pass and all the mzungus went back to their rooms but Lauren and I had waited this long already. We really wanted to see what would happen when the bride arrived. Well, at 12:45am we said we would wait for 15 more minutes. As we were getting up to leave we saw the bride's car arrive. We were told she had spent all this time getting her hair, makeup, and henna done. After she had walked to the front stage it was a time for her just to pose for photos. We had heard word from the other mzungus that they were requested to not take any photos but as the bride was up their I looked to Lauren and said, "If we have waited this long I am going to get a photo." We went up to the front and snapped some photos until one of the Aunties came over in a mean voice and said, "No recording! No recording!" Well, we already got the photos. So we left the reception at 1:20am. And that is when things were just going to get started. I have no idea how long it lasted.

God is good:

I am still amazed at what God is doing here in Uganda. He is definitely making his name great. I am so blessed each Sunday when the I Choose You children have a "special presentation" for us. They are so cute and proud. God is faithfully restoring Hope and fathering the orphans and widows here.