Pancakes, Mail and Really Really Bad Hair Days!

Because of some issues among the leadership of the school that we teach in we've not been teaching this week. This of course doesn't mean that there's been nothing to do!

On Monday and Tuesday we went to the Stephen Jota Children's Centre. This is a school where Smile send a lot of our sponsored children and so we went there to carry out updates on the information and photos of our sponsored children there. Finch and I were in charge of taking the new photos of each child which we really enjoyed. It was good fun encouraging the children to smile and was especially funny when we had children with a bit of character and 'swag'!

SJCC is the school where Smile's gappers were based until a couple of years ago. It was strange to imagine how different our gap year would have been if we had spent our whole time there. We all feel very blessed to have the opportunities that we do to be involved in the projects that we're a part of. We also found it interesting comparing SJCC with Chosen where we teach, and to notice how much better off they are as a school. I don't think that we really appreciated what a humble school Chosen is before!



Tuesday was also of course pancake day! We almost missed it but on the way to SJCC the day before we noticed that a sign had a spelling error and read 'rooms for lent' which reminded us! So on Tuesday I spent 2 hours making 22 pancakes! We had chapatis with mince for dinner as they're similar to pancakes but much more filling, and then we each enjoyed our pancakes for pudding!
















On Wednesday the local volunteers had a meeting about finance which looked incredibly interesting every time we walked past! ;) Lets just say we were glad not to have to be involved! As we didn't have a specific programme for the day I decided to type up a 'gapper guide' that we had talked about making for future gappers in Uganda. It includes things like how long a bottle of suncream lasts and tips about things to pack, places to go, things to cook and all kinds of other things that we've learnt here.
In the evening we went to KBC for the weekly Youth Fellowship which this week was a debate entitled 'Screen fellowship is as good as congregational fellowship'. It was really great seeing everyone get so into it!
On Thursday us girls took a trip into Kampala to pick up all the mail from the post office. Between us we managed to carry 8 parcels and countless letters! It was really lovely to receive some letters this week from some people that I hadn't heard from in a while and also to get some parcels with some new sandals! (Shoes just do not last here at all!). On our way back we got caught in the rain so we stopped at church on our way past and had a cup of tea to warm up.
In the evening Clare and I offered to babysit Berinda so Mummy and Daddy could have some space for valentines day, so we had great fun!


On Friday I led the bible lesson for the older group at one of the children's clubs that we run. It was about Rahab and the spies and it went really well! I had Joe dress up as a spy and act it out as I told the story. The kids really enjoyed going searching for him like the king's men! Afterwards we went to church again for the weekly TGIF meeting for the young adults. This week they were showing a Christian film called 'The Encounter'.
Oh and last Saturday Finch and I had great fun cutting Shakul's hair. (He did ask for it!)... we ended up having to give him some money to get it fixed!

... and this is what happened when he saw his new hair cut, complete with bald patches!

Please pray this week for...

- The children at Chosen - that they wouldn't be affected by the issues among the leadership of the school.
- General health and safety for everyone.
- Thanksgiving for so many ways that God continues to bless us.

Thank you so much! 
Lorna x