Colin's Graduation Party

Saturday was another day in Uganda that I will never forget. The whole office staff was invited to go to Colin's graduation party. I had no idea what to expect after just having been to his house for the family get together a month ago on the day he actually graduated. Risa and I went early to drop off some things at their house and there were already many decorations and chairs all laid out! It looked like they were getting ready for a wedding, in my eyes at least, wow! We arrived around 5pm and Mary Ann was put right up front with Colin's mother as one of the honored guests. Risa, the staff, and I took our place a few rows behind them. Colin had asked me a week ago if I had a video camera, little did I know that meant can you video tape my whole party? One of his relatives told me to just start taping. So I took the place that I love to be in...behind the camera. If you know me at all, you know that I love taking pictures so to be able to serve Colin in this way was a privilege to me. (Unfortunately this means he's going to hear me laughing many times as the MC was hilarious!) I am much much better at telling this story through pictures so here are a couple of pictures below but I will try and add some words to the experience.

A lot of Colin's relatives were there, even ones that most people would not want to invite to their graduation party. The MC announced different people over the course of the next hour to come up and give speeches about Colin. There was a teacher from his primary level there, friends from the university, relatives, and older clan members. Mary Ann was even asked to get up and give a speech. After all of the speeches Colin came up to the table full of presents, which I totally thought were for him since he's the one graduating from college. Oh no...as you can see in one of the pictures, he started handing the presents to people in his lives that have made a big impact on him and where he is today. The present that impacted me the most was when Colin got down on his knees in front of his mother to thank her and tell her how much he appreciated her for sacrificing so much for him over the years. (This shocked me because in this male dominated soceity you never ever see a man do that! You will see women and kids do that all the time but never a grown man!) His mother became a widow when Colin was about 10 years old in 1995, which means she was younger than I am when she was a widowed mother of four young kids! Through the sacrifices of his mother and later the sponsorship of Children of Grace, Colin was able to go to school and get a degree from a good university and now even have a job at a good company!

Colin and his brother Allan

(Yes that is a cake with really really big candles!)

Building Pics Update

February 9th this is what the roof started to look like from the outside.

Feb 9-the roof from the inside (you can see all the red beams up top)
Here is all the work that has happened in about two weeks, this was Feb 21st. The walls have started to be cemented all throughout the inside of the building.

And the outside has gotten cemented as well as of Feb 21st.

Wow it's really looking like a building now!

Back to school time-Feb 1st

Back to school time just happened here almost two weeks ago now.   In America our lists consist of the necessary pens, pencils, colored pencils, paper, binders, and a box of tissues to contribuite to the class.   In Uganda the list looks quite different: broom, knife, razor blades, toilet paper, a ream of paper, bathing soap, washing soap, bucket, jerrican, 1 kilo of sugar, gray socks with blue and white stripes, a cup and a plate, and 4 pairs of knickers.  Some of them are really ridiculous (what school needs 1,000 brooms when they can't even afford text books?) As we went shopping with some of the kids on a hot afternoon I found myself saying I wish there was a walmart around here somewhere!  The children here who attend boarding school gather up their few items and put them into a metal suitcase secured with padlocks. They keep the suitcases on their self-provided mattresses and sleep alongside them, hoping not to kick too hard in the night, leaving a bruise. Children of Grace provides each boarding student one mattress in their education career. Upon sponsorship each student also receives a backpack, mosquito net, school shoes, scholastics, pens, and school uniforms. When these items run out or become unusable, they are able to bring them back to the office and trade them in for new ones. Thus, as you can imagine, the beginning of a school term for the office is BUSY!! The new year started on February 1st. Getting 700 kids ready for school is quite an undertaking.

I had so much fun helping out with this undertaking!!   I got into my place of the assembly line that I love to be in-the picture taker (we want to be able to send new pictures to their sponsors).  Here I am again saying seeca (smile) or fine (jackfruit), I had some students give me some really good smiles! J  And as hard as it was for me I even said no to a guardain who wanted new shoes but instead of new new shoes I gave her child some other child's shoes that I had just taken (which by the way were in really good condition).  (We took the old shoes from the kids and Sam had such a great idea to get them fixed so we can reuse them-he saved COG SO much money!!!)  We don't provide them with each of the things on the lists they receive from their schools, but we do provide them with the things they can not attend school without. The other items, such as soap, flatware, etc., we leave for the children to provide. This enables them the sense of accomplishment in providing sometime for themselves.  What a blessing it was for me to see all of our students come by the office with big smiles on their faces :)

Back to school time in Uganda

Here is the big line of students on one of the many days that we were handing out scholastics, new shoes, and new this year water guard. We found out that we can give kids water guard in order to treat their water at boarding school, so yay to hopefully no more typhoid!

Hilarious...and...so GROSS!

Monday night we came home and Mike told us that we might want to reconsider our desire to try and be "green" here. Since they burn trash here we decided to try and have a composite pile and a garden...both have had some visitors. Around 5pm on Monday night he told us that one of workers came up to him and brought him over to this picture. They told him that they caught it and they inquired as to whether they could buy it from him! One of them wanted to take it home and eat it and he was willing to pay 1 dollar for it! Mike told him he could just have it. What a way to get rid of the rats that was literally the size of a small cat! I'm so glad I was not home to see it in person. The picture is quite enough! On top of that our guard Robert told us that sometimes he throws rocks at the rats that he sees to get them to stay out of the compound! Can someone please send us some rat poisoning?

Meat night at camp

In the states we roast marshmellows at a campfire and make smores...here in Uganda these kids rarely get meat, for example if you ever watch them eat their meal that includes meat they save it as the last thing they eat (they even take a humburger off of its bun to eat the bread before the burger). The last night of camp we had a bonfire for meat roasting and of course a dance party! :)

I told the kids to make funny faces as it was really dark outside and I just started taking a whole bunch of pictures with my bright flash, so fun!

A group of kids posing for a picture after we had just danced for a while.

More fun camp moments

Mark was giving this little one a tickle attack.
They had to race to pick up the candy that was hidden in the flour.

Precious: Jason explaining some Bible verses to Alex. The team said a lot of the kids were so hungry for the Word.

Football Tournament every afternoon before dinner. Everyone got very competitive and it was a lot of fun. And I learned a new word-pitch. They kept saying go to the pitch. I thought they were saying go to the beach. And then I asked for clarification and found out that pitch means field.

Always a precious moment: swimming day. We did it on the second day of camp this year and although I wasn't able to enjoy at least I got to watch the kids enjoying it!

Some fun camp moments

Joel and Mohammad are sponsored by Kindri so they got to come to camp. How cute are they!!! They wrestling with each other.
The girl that I sponsor, Rashida, and two friends.

Yellow Thunder!! (my team)

Gloria and I. When I first saw her I gave her a big hug and then she asked me to come with her so she could show me where she had placed her things in the dorm. It turns out she had her bed right next to my bed! I love her and thank the Lord for her!

The camp assistants were playing the games with the American team that we were going to do with the kids. Here's Brenda and Izzy battling it out, trying to throw water at each other while blindfolded and given directions by their team members.

Jan 31st Dinner the students made for us

We had 4 students from Lira come down to attend school here in Jinja so we had a big Ugandan feast with them Sunday night before they went to school Monday morning. The three students already staying at our house made Matoke (shown above), eggplant and cabbage, chapati, rice, beans, and meat! It was SO good!

Oliver and Martha enjoying their meal.

Daniel and Peter enjoying all of their food.

Then Julius and Simon got some sugar cane. (I told them I had never had it before a while ago.) So they showed me how to eat it. You have to suck the sugar out of the cane. YUM!

Celebrating Robert's self proclaimed Birthday January 30th

Mary Ann asked Robert when his birthday was. He told her he didn't know (very common here) and so she told him we are going to celebrate your birthday on January 30th. So Robert came to have dinner with us with his gun of course that Saturday night. After we stuffed his face full of food we had him come back for cake with trick candles. It was so funny because he had no idea why the candles kept relighting!

I was trying to help him blow them out because they seriously kept relighting for a good minute or two. We were all laughing a lot. (Asha was taking the pictures which is why they might be a bit blurry.)

And then we gave him a birthday card. This is the first birthday he has ever celebrated.

A Blessing

Another moment at camp that has really stuck out to me was on the last day.  It is a day that is always filled with sorrow for the kids and the adults.  The kids have such a different life at camp that they don't want to ever leave and the adults walk away with new relationships and hearts expanded for love of the kids.  (Tears are plentiful!)  The pastor's wife spoke that morning about listening and hearing from God.  After she spoke she asked the staff to come up in order to pray a blessing over all the kids.  What an amazing and incredible once in a lifetime moment that I will never forget.  Many students came up to me and I just hugged them and prayed over them right into their ears.  I was fighting back the tears.  What a cool gift to give to these kids!  There is so much power in prayer.  It reminds me of the times in my life when friends have prayed over me.  There is just something so amazing about it; I cannot put in to words what a blessing it is to have others pray over you so I can only imagine how special these kids felt.  Thank you Lord for these kids and the joy that they have despite dealing with so much loss in their lives as well as poverty.  I have so much to learn about You and Your heart.  Please continually break my heart for what breaks Your's!

A Father to the Fatherless

As I have been reflecting over the past two weeks after camp has ended one of the small group times really stuck out to me.  One morning at camp Pastor Godfrey's wife, who came to speak at camp because her husband was so busy, spoke about fathers.    She started off by saying that typically we don't talk about things that are sad like when people pass away but it's ok; we need to talk about it.  She went on to talk about her dad and the struggles she had growing up.  She always had a desire to be hugged by him and he rarely ever did that.  She transitioned in to talking about God as our Heavenly Father.  She told us that none of you are orphans in this room.  God is father to the fatherless.  In our small group time after the talk we went around to all 16 kids on my yellow team plus the couple of staff and we all shared about our fathers.  Every single one of those kids talked about how their dad passed away many years ago.  A good handful of them had no memory of their fathers.  And as they shared that I wondered if the others were just making up details about their fathers.  These young boys and girls are lacking fathers and father figures in their lives.  It broke my heart to think about my own father and how much I have learned from him and his heart and how much I love him and cannot imagine the past 30 years of my life without him.  I am so grateful that these kids have heard about their Heavenly Father.  He loves them better than an earthly father ever could, He protects them, He gives them advice, and He meets their needs.  My pray for the orphans who were at camp is that they would go home and allow that truth to really soak into their hearts and that they would get to know Jesus who came to show us the Father.

Being a Mom

I have always had a strong desire to be a mother some day.  And Lord willing it will happen someday but for now I realized once again that God has given me His kids to love and be a mother to.  As I was talking to one of the Americans on the mission team from CA a few weeks ago she pointed out to me that I am being a mother to the kids who live with us in the guest house as well as others that I have relationships with.  What a privilege it is for me to be here in order to love on these kids who do not experience parental love.  My mother's heart was torn during camp time as I cared for one of our kids.  Tuesday I took him to the clinic because he was throwing up and had a high fever.  (The other student who stays with us rode the bike to find me at the office so that I would come and take his friend to the clinic!  He love his friend so much and is such a good caretaker!)  That night through much convincing we had him stay at the clinic over night because they could give him the best care if he got even sicker.  Wednesday Risa took him back to the house.  Friday Risa took him to the hospital in town so that he could get on drip because he was really dehydrated.  Saturday Mary Ann picked him up from the hospital and brought him to see us at camp.  Within a few hours of being there Risa found him shaking so immediately took him to lie down and consoled him.  (More about Risa's side of all of this is in the blog that I just previously posted.)  Mary Ann had got him back in the car to take him to the hospital and I just lost it.  I told God that I would gladly take his pneumonia from him, at least my immune system could fight it!  I love him so much!  He is so precious and such a joy to be around and I cannot wait to see how God will continue to use him in the lives of those around him and across the world.  It really was prayer that kept him alive that week.  God has surely taught me a lot about prayer!  Thank you Lord for the miracle of life!