Learning, learning, learning!

Our days are clicking by quickly now! In six weeks we will be saying our good byes to our Ugandan family and heading home.
We have started to reflect on what we have learned here. Don't worry I won't go into all of it because that would be a REALLY long post.
I think the thing that strikes me most is the tenderness of God as He teaches us and leads us to deeper truths and experiences.
On our first trip to Uganda in 2010, I cried most of the time that we were here. I felt overwhelmed with the poverty and the great challenges this country faces. I was, however, very thankful for people like Garry and Marilyn Skinner, who can look past all of that and see the potential. They started this organization when Uganda was in much worse shape than it is now. I don't have the ability to do that- to see the "big picture" and see what "could be", but I am thankful that there are people who can and then I can come along and do my little part to support that.
On our second trip, I was more prepared for what I would see. I had done A LOT of reading and I had asked our host Apollo A LOT of questions when we were here on our first trip. (Apollo has told me how sometimes people will say to him, "Am I asking too many questions?" He just laughs and thinks of me. He has assured me that I hold the record for asking the most questions EVER!) So I thought I was prepared for that second trip, but God took me to new places- not just different parts of Uganda, but to new depths of learning.
When we arrived this time, I quickly learned that we are EXTREMELY sheltered when we are here with a building team- which I think is a good thing! If I had seen all of this stuff on my first trip, there would not have been a second!
However, God is kind and nurturing and He gives us things as we can handle them. For example, we drove by this one corner every single working day. It was about two months into our stay before I noticed that there were 20 or 30 homeless people sleeping on that corner every morning. If I had seen them on the first morning, I would have been overwhelmed, but God opened my eyes to them when He was ready to take me to a "new level".
There is one corner where many children are begging every day. We used to hate when we had to stop at that corner and have the children come up and press their faces against the car window. Now we roll down the window and chat with the kids- we know several of them by name. Six months ago, that would not have been even in the realm of possibility!
Over the months here, we have had so many new experiences. God keeps taking us to new places and new experiences. We now look forward to these rather than fearing them.
And on that note...on Friday I get to go to one of the slum areas of Kampala. There is an Australian nurse here who used to work for Watoto and now works for another organization. I don't know exactly what all her role includes, but she makes "rounds" in one of the slums and she provides health teaching, health care, support and on Friday, I get to go with her. I can't wait! God is so good and has opened so many doors while we have been here. Watoto is a great organization, but it has been a tremendous privilege to have the opportunity to see what other groups are doing here too.
Yesterday we were out for lunch with a group of friends. We had a great discussion about paths that God has taken us on in our Christian walk and all that God has taught us along the way. However I did have to confess to the group that I feel like- the more I learn the less I know. As we learn and obey more, God reveals to us how much more there is to learn. Maybe I used to think that I knew 1% (just throwing a number out there) of what I needed to know. I have learned much while we have been here, but now I am down to knowing 0.00000001%! And I can't wait to learn even more so that I realize I know even less- what a great place to be!

Machine Gun Preacher

Each day continues to hold new adventures for us.
Before we left home you may have heard Greg talk about a man named Sam Childers aka “The Machine Gun Preacher”. He is an American who came to Uganda and Sudan during the insurgency. He decided that somebody needed to start fighting back against Joseph Kony and the LRA. He and a small group of men started fighting back and rescuing children who had been abducted by the rebels. There is a book about him called “Another Man’s War” and Hollywood made a motion picture called “Machine Gun Preacher”. We recommend both to you, but you should read the book first.
Anyway, on our previous trip to Uganda, we knew that we were going to be in northern Uganda and Greg hoped that he would have an opportunity to meet Sam Childers while we were here. It didn’t happen on that trip, but on Saturday when we went to buy groceries, there he was (Sam Childers- in the flesh) sitting outside the grocery store at a little café. Greg went over to him, introduced himself and spent several minutes visiting with him while I went and did our grocery shopping.
He is a very personable guy and Greg had a great little chat with him. He owns a security business and a restaurant here in Kampala (both businesses are very near to our apartment). He also now has five homes for children- I believe that only one is in Kampala, but I am not certain what area it is in.
What a great day it was for Greg to meet someone that he had read about, watched a movie about and is grateful to for the tough work that he has chosen to take on.

Greg’s Bucket List
Meet Sam Childers- check!

Finishing well

Suddenly, we are starting to feel like we have a lot yet to do and not much time to do it. We have less than eight weeks here and it feels as if there are still many loose ends that need to be tied up before we move on from here.
Greg has been handing over the daily work to his colleagues who will be in charge after we are gone. It is a good training period for them as they start to fly on their own, but have Greg’s knowledge and expertise to fall back on, if they need it.
Lorenda continues to finish up projects that have been started and not finished or talked about and not done. The next few weeks will be filled with finishing up all the projects that have been started. We feel that it is better to complete some projects and do them well, rather than “half do” a lot of projects.
We really want to “finish well”. Although we are eager to see our family and friends at home, we don’t want that to be our focus. We don’t want to “check out” from here before our time here is done.
Please pray that we will continue to do our best work here even as we prepare to leave. We hadn’t really thought about what a challenge that would present, but it does.
The rain has been starting to taper off- still lots of clouds, thunder and lightning, but less rain. I’m not sure if this means that rainy season is ending or if it just the weather this week. Some people tell us that the rain will continue until we leave. Others tell us that the rain will stop soon and it will be very hot for our last few weeks here. I guess we will just have to wait and see!

Dance Heaven

We had a great time on Wednesday evening at the dance competition “Dance Heaven”. Joanna’s kids (they are known as ACOGI- African Children of God’s Image) did an amazing job! They were definitely the crowd favourite. When they started to dance we couldn’t even hear the music because the cheering was so loud- and we were in the third row!
The judges loved them, the crowd loved them- it was so exciting to be a part of this experience and even more special because we have had the privilege of getting to know these kids. Never mind Joanna’s kids, those were OUR kids up there dancing and we were as proud as any parents could be.
The judges rated them as number one, but the prize money is given out based on votes. Now we are all voting on our cell phones so that the kids will win the competition and the 30 million Ugandan shilling prize money (about $12,000 USD)- that would be a great boost for this new ministry.
The final for this competition takes place on December 14- just days after we are scheduled to leave here. I told Greg, “We have to change our flights. We have to be here for the final.” Greg told me that I was the one that needed to break that news to our family, since several of them are on the countdown either on a paper calendar or on an iphone app that has it down to the second. We mentioned it to Courtney and she told us that her kids would be camped out at the airport from the original date until the date we finally arrived. No- we will not be staying any extra days, we never even considered it. There will always be one more thing that we should stay for and then we would never leave.
Another really fun thing happened while we were at the competition. Since it was Independence Day, we sang the national anthem prior to the competition beginning. We shocked most people standing around us- Ugandans and Mzungu because we knew the words. When we were here with the building team in 2012, we challenged our Ugandan work team to a soccer game. The day prior to the game, we learned the Ugandan national anthem so that we could make the game very “official” and sing both national anthems prior to the game.

Happy Independence Day

Today marks 51 years since Uganda became an independent nation. It is a public holiday so we have had the day off to relax and enjoy time with our friends. The festival that happened on Sunday was to celebrate Uganda's independence and for some reason is held the Sunday prior. The festival started only last year (Jubilee year), but I believe the plan is to keep it as a yearly event now.
In about 30 minutes, we will be leaving to go and attend a youth dance competition that is being held at one of the large churches here in Kampala. If you have been following the blog, you know about my friend Joanna. If you haven't been following you need to go back and read about her and the ministry God called her to. Joanna's kids will be competing this evening so we are very excited to go and watch them and to vote for them so they can win the competition. Voting is by text message and since these children are all street children, they have no one to vote for them. We are taking three friends along to vote for the kids. At the last competition, the judges judged them as the top dance team, but they didn't have enough votes to win. We'll see what happens tonight. We know it will be a fun filled evening with lots of high energy music and dancing. We can't wait to see the kids perform for real! Each time we have been there to visit, the children have sung and danced for us and we have enjoyed it very much, but I think tonight will be even better! We'll let you know!

Just When We Thought We had Seen It All

Today is Sunday. We love Sundays very much. We drive Watoto Central in less than 15 minutes- a rare treat on Kampala roads. We take part in an amazing worship service and head back to our apartment or sometimes out for lunch. Sunday afternoons usually include a nap and quite often a walk or some other outing. We love Sundays!
However, today there was something different. As we were attempting to drive to church we saw the flags up- oh no, the dreaded flags! These mean that there are important people (usually government officials from other countries) visiting. What it means to all of us is more traffic delays and even tighter security than usual. Our first thought this morning was, “Who’s visiting Uganda now?”
However, these flags didn’t look like the usual flags and they weren’t in the places that they usually were when dignitaries visited. Each time we tried to go down a street to get to the church, there was police there with the street blocked off. We ended up driving through “downtown Kampala”, the part of the city that Greg refers to as “the belly”. Fortunately, the shops were all closed so the streets were not jammed to capacity with people, but still it’s “the belly” and one never really knows what to expect. This is our third trip to Uganda and we have been here for a long time now so not too much surprises us anymore. However, this morning there was a man leading a camel down the street! Yep, walking right past Nakasero market and heading up to Kampala Road with a camel! What on earth is going on in this city?
Finally, we arrive at church and find out that today is Kampala Festival 2013. There was a parade, bodas waiting to join some kind of parade, people, people, people and even more noise! I think it qualifies as the craziest thing we have seen in our time here.
After church, finding a route out of this chaos was another challenge. There are some one-way streets in Kampala, but there are no signs to tell you this- you just have to know it. Today- none of that mattered! One-way streets became two-way streets, but not everyone knew that it had happened. Driving in Kampala can always be described as chaos, but today it was ramped up to a whole new level.
Getting back to the apartment after church today was a really huge treat and believe me, we were really ready for a nap after that!

Bodas lining up on the street behind the church waiting to join in the fun. Not sure what the colour coordinated helmets are about. Who knows with boda drivers?!

My Handsome little "date"

Everyday seems to be full of things that we need to tell you, but the day gets too full and we aren’t able to tell you. Then the next day more things happen and we get even further behind.
On Thursday last week, I (Lorenda) had such a great day! I had not been by the babies’ home for a while so I decided to stop in there for a visit. During the four months I spent at the babies’ home, I would often say that I didn’t have a favourite baby- there was something special about each and every one of them. However, if forced to choose a favourite, it would have been one of the older kids there. He was very ill as a baby and continues to have asthma now. Due to his health condition he has remained at babies’ home even though he is around 2 years old- most other children get moved out to Suubi babies’ home at 4-6 months of age.
There are many things I love about this kid. He is so smart- he just sits and watches things (like how to open the gates and escape), he watches and watches and then one day he just goes for it. He also loves to figure out how things work- he would be one of those kids that would dismantle everything in the house just to see how it works. In spite of, or maybe because of, all that he has been through in his short life, he is very “stubborn” and very determined- when he wants something, he WANTS it! The very best things about this gorgeous little boy is his smile that melts your heart and the cuddles he gives when he gets to know you well enough to deem you worthy.
Last Thursday I spent most of my time at babies’ home cuddling this gorgeous little man. I only had a couple of hours that I could spend there so the time came very quickly for me to say good-bye. I told the nanny in his room that I didn’t want to leave him. She said, “So take him with you then” and I did! We got a car seat, put it in my car and off we went. He absolutely loves riding in the car- he waves at everybody like he is the king!
First we went to Watoto Central to do some visiting there. Greg was in a meeting, but his team members sure loved my boy. Next I took him for ice cream- he loved it and gobbled down every last bit of it! Our next stop was at one of Watoto’s guesthouses where I had some work to do. My boy explored the entire compound while I did my work- the girls at the guesthouse thought he was the cutest (and he is!) Greg called to see where we were and wanted us to come back to Central so he could see my boy so back to Central we went. My little man loved the maintenance office- he could pull tools out of the cupboard and try to figure out how all the stuff worked! He had a blast there! By this time, we had been out and about for nearly four hours so it was time to go back to babies’ home, but he cried and cried when I left him.
The next day, one of Greg’s team needed to go to babies’ home so I volunteered to take him. As soon as I got out of my vehicle at babies’ home, one of the supervisors said to me, “That son of yours!”
It seemed that my boy thought he needed to go for another car ride so every time a vehicle left the babies’ home compound on Friday, he wanted to go. When he didn’t get to go along, he would have a tantrum and throw himself on the ground- often on top of another child (and remember I said that the oldest kids here were only 4-6 months). After a couple of those tantrums, the staff had to put him into a chair to protect himself and everyone else. He screamed so much and got so upset in the chair that he ended up having an asthma attack! When I arrived, he was in the clinic getting a nebulizer so I got to cuddle him while he got the treatment.
Oh- I love that kid so much! He is so feisty and full of mischief! Even though I love what I am doing now, I sure do miss my daily cuddles with that gorgeous little man!