Chicken Pie and Midnight Water Fights

This week Esther and I were the only gappers home in Kampala, because Joe, Finch and Clare spent the week in Kuffu. From Monday to Wednesday we went to school at Chosen. School was very relaxed this week because the children did their end of term exams last week, so we were able to help out with preparing the reports and we also had the privilege of spending lots of time playing with the children which was great fun.
On Thursday, instead of our usual community outreach and evangelism, we spent a few hours cleaning up part of the community where we do our outreach. We burnt lots of rubbish, swept the area and the men slashed (cut) the grass and trimmed the edges around the grass to make it look much neater. What was really lovely was that the local children were so eager to get involved. They were very helpful in collecting piles of rubbish that we swept up and taking it to the heap where we were burning it. 



On Friday we had our usual children's clubs and this week's lesson was about Joseph and his brothers. I went to the club at Blessed Word of Life where we also have been helping with the building work and had a brilliant time. Friday evening was brilliant fun as after washing the dishes from dinner, at about 1.30 in the morning, Alex and I ended up having a water fight - only in Africa eh?!
Monday evening was equally as exciting because I made a chicken pie. Making it from scratch meant that I spent over 3 hours in the kitchen, but I really enjoyed cooking, and I enjoyed eating it even more! I've really learnt to appreciate food over the past few months, and when I get enough time to make something more exciting than rice with veggie sauce I love to grab the opportunity. So on Wednesday we had jam tarts with the leftover pastry. What a treat!
On Wednesday Esther was involved in leading the worship at Youth Fellowship. I really enjoyed it. After having spent my last few Sunday mornings at Kuffu, having the chance to worship with some songs that I was more familiar with (and that were in Englsih!) was really good for me and Esther did really well.

So it's been a really lovely week. Clare, Finch and Joe arrived home from Kuffu today, and on Monday Esther, Clare and Joe will be leaving to begin a new project at Mount Zion School which is a school for disabled children. That means that Finch and I will be spending the week together in Kampala.

I really appreciate your prayers and I so often see them answered. I've been writing down lots of the things that God has been doing and prayers that he has been answering and its amazing to see how much he does when you actually make an effort to notice.

Please continue to pray for us...

- For Esther, Clare and Joe as they go to Mount Zion - pray that they will be led by God and that he will protect them and provide.
- For Finch and I and the rest of the team in Kampala - for God's protection and provision and pray that he will use us this week.
- Pray for health and safety for the whole team.
- Please pray for us gappers as we start to approach the last couple of months of our time here - pray that we will be able to feel at peace about leaving and that we will be able to make the most out of the rest of our time here in Uganda.

Thank you so much.

Lorna

Village Life

Last week I was living in Kuffu village with Esther and Joe. In Kuffu we work in a school called Goshem, and having spent time there before it was really nice to return and see everyone again. We were there for exam week so we were able to help with the end of term exams, and then once they were over we helped the teachers with marking and organizing grades and we also got some opportunities to spend time with the children outside of lessons. Some of the kids relished the opportunity to reverse our roles and decided to become the teachers as they tried to teach me far too many luganda words to remember in one go! But I did learn a few like "ekigere" - foot, "enyindo"- nose and "emeeza" - table among a few others. So I guess I'm getting there slowly with the language!
Because we had Joe with us, Esther and I didn't have to make any trips to the bore hole this time around, so instead we took the opportunity on Thursday to go for a walk. It was absolutely beautiful to walk through the countryside, and the further we went the more and more it felt like we really were in the 'middle of nowhere'. What was really special was that as we walked along, each time we passed a house we would hear children calling "Hello Teacher Esther, hello Teacher Lorna!" It feels really good to be so known throughout the community.
Wednesday was a bit different in that after break we took the whole school down to "The Garden" (which is a huge plot of land that is probably best described as a farm), where we planted trees. The children had a talk about the importance of looking after the environment, and then they planted 1003 saplings. It was hard work in the sun and took longer than had been expected (we got back to school for lunch at 3!) but it was so good to see this kind of project happening.
Every afternoon the children divided into their house groups to put together performances for some visitors that are soon coming for a mission week. So every day after lunch we watched the children sing and dance. They've been learning their cultural dance called "kiganda dancing", and on Tuesday Teacher Mary gave them a demonstration. For us this was such a privilege to see and she was brilliant! I've never seen anyone perform kiganda dance as well as she did. For the next few days in the afternoons she stayed to train the children. We were quite surprised that the children weren't already able to dance like this, but it's really good that they're being given this opportunity to learn this part of their culture.
We all really enjoyed this week. As well as having a lovely time at school we also really enjoyed just spending time with the people who live locally. Esther and I took the opportunity one morning to read and explain some of Psalm 139 to one of the older children when she came to chat to us before school, we also impressed the people that we live close to by cooking the local food, and on Saturday we were even given a pot of cooked ants (which, yes, I did try!)

This week Esther and I are the only gappers at home, whilst Clare, Finch and Joe are in Kuffu until Sunday. 

Please pray...
- For Esther and I to have a good week in Kampala - pray for health and safety and that God will use us.
- For Clare, Finch and Joe in Kuffu - pray that God will use them and will keep them well and safe too.
- For provision for Smile Uganda.

As always, thank you so much for your support and prayers.

And congratulations to Rob and Amy Borrell!

The week that 6 became 5

Well you’ll be pleased to hear that I’m now feeling much better – thank you for your prayers.

On Monday this week we got up at 5am to take Andrew to Entebbe Airport. The whole day was very overwhelming; from being back at the airport where we first arrived in Uganda, to having to think about what it will be like to leave here in 3 months time. And of course we were all really sad to see Andrew leave. On Sunday afternoon and evening we held a party for him at our house to say goodbye. It was a really lovely time, and the number of people that turned up is a testimony alone to the impact that he has had here. We will all miss him a lot but we know that God will be using him in the UK over the next three months until we get to see him again.

So the next day we were back to work; teaching at Chosen again. Every Wednesday we teach a reading lesson with Primary 2 for two hours. This week it started to rain just before the start of the lesson. The noise of the rain on the iron sheets made it impossible to teach a lesson (let alone the effect that a storm has on the attention levels of children!) So we decided to give the children some reading books. We only had four so they had to share, but watching the kids with these books and how excited they were to read was absolutely magical.

The next day the rain returned – just as we arrived at our base for slum ministry, and so we spent the majority of the time sat under the iron roof of the temporary structure for the church at Blessed Word of Life. We took some time to talk about the visions and prayer concerns of the church with Pastor Davidson and we shared some time together reading the bible and praying, before the storm eventually passed and we were able to visit one home to pray with a woman who lived there.
It was brilliant to hear all of Pastor Davidson’s visions for such a humble church. At present, we still need the money for another 15000 bricks to complete the building, plus extra materials like cement, but we trust God that he will provide at the right time.
On Friday fortunately the rain held off and we were able to run our Friday children’s clubs which went really well.

This Sunday, Esther, Joe and I will be travelling back to Goshem, Kuffu to continue teaching in the school there. Esther and I are due to come home again after a week, and Joe will stay for two weeks with Clare and Finch who will join him next Sunday. We’re looking forward to seeing the friends again that we have there, and to the challenge of village life. But it’s also such a beautiful and peaceful place, and the whole atmosphere is really friendly.

Please pray for...

-         - Our time in Goshem - for God to use us for his will and for us to really enjoy our time.

-          -Good health and safety for the whole team in Goshem and in Kampala.

-          -Andrew to settle back in well in the UK.

-          -Alex – Smile Uganda’s project manager. Pray for God to bless him in all the work that he does.

-          -Provision for Smile Uganda and for Pastor Davidson and his church – Blessed Word of Life.

Thank you so much.                                                                                               

God bless,
Lorna 

Ice cream, DVDs and Fish and Chips

Unfortunately I've had tonsillitis this week, so unless you're interested in reading a detailed description of our DVD collection, I don't really have much to blog about.

I've managed to make it out of the house twice - once to the doctors, and once last night to go out for a meal because Andrew will be returning to the UK on Monday. It was a really lovely evening and I was glad to be feeling a bit better and to have my appetite back. Of all the things to eat in Uganda, most of us ordered fish and chips! It was really yummy and very filling and we all enjoyed a really lovely evening together.
But for the rest of the week I've watched far too many films, eaten lots of ice cream and slept a lot!

As I mentioned, Andrew (one of the other gappers) will be returning to the UK on Monday. We will all be really sad to see him go and will miss him so much, but we know that this is a decision that he's prayed about a lot and we're all confident in God's plan for him. Its a strange thought that 6 months ago I was planning to leave on this date too. Now that's hard to imagine.
So in honor of Andrew, and because I haven't been able to upload any photos from the past couple of weeks, I'd treat you to a bit of an overview of the past six months.

October

At Heathrow, ready to fly to Uganda. We were all really excited and could never have imagined quite how incredible our experiences would be.

Our first experience of Boda Bodas - I remember being really scared but now we love them!

November

We dressed up in the traditional Ugandan clothing

We began teaching

Receiving mail for the first time was really exciting

We had already built strong relationships and become a big family

December

We visited the Equator and decided to mimic The Beatles

Bungee jumped over (or into!) the source of the Nile

Distributing the Christmas shoe boxes was so special.

And we celebrated Christmas together as a team

January

We enjoyed safari in Murchison Falls National Park

We ran our Goshem mission week

February

We went to the beach at Entebbe

We visited the Smile Farm

We continued helping to build at Blessed Word of Life Church

We carried out sponsorship updates

We dried out the aid

And we celebrated my 19th Birthday

March

We did some more sponsorship updates - this time for the sponsored widows.

We went to Marina's Graduation party and enjoyed the opportunity to get dressed up a bit!

This is the point at which we lost the memory card adapter, so the rest of the photos are stuck on my camera... but in March we also taught at Chosen again, and we started our new project in Goshem, Kuffu, where we've been teaching.
This week all six of us have been back in Kampala so that we could be together for Andrew's last week.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, mail, emails and support over the past six months. Thank you also to everyone who has supported my family and kept them busy. Please keep it up for another three months. I'm sure that its going to be amazing and will go by so fast! God has done so much more that I ever thought he would in the time that I've been here, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else he has planned.

I really really appreciate your prayers. This week I'd love some prayer for...

- Andrew as he returns to the UK. Pray that he would settle back in well, have clarity over God's plans for him and not miss Uganda too much!

- Everyone here as we say goodbye to Andrew - pray that the team would cope well and that we wont miss him too much.

- Health. Please pray that I'll get completely better and that the rest of the team will all be really healthy too.

- Please pray for our work here. Pray that we'll focus on God's work and that we'll all be able to do it really well and to really enjoy it. Pray that as we look into a period where we might be split up for a while that we'll cope well with that and not miss people too much.

Thank you all so much. God bless. 

Lorna

Easter

After returning from Kuffu on Sunday, Andrew, Esther and I returned to Chosen Children's Centre school last Monday where we taught before. Lots of changes have been made in recent weeks so most of the teachers are now new and our role is slightly different in that we're no longer expected to fully teach any lessons but just to assist the class teacher. It was really lovely to see all the children again and to see how much they've progressed since we saw them last.
We now go to school three days a week (Monday to Wednesday) and on Thursday and Friday we focus on our projects in the slums. This Friday was a bank holiday for Good Friday however so we didn't run a children's club this week.
On Thursday, Clare, Finch and Joe returned early from Kuffu so that we could all be together for Easter. We went to church on Good Friday which was brilliant. Unfortunately I missed church on Easter Sunday because I wasn't feeling very well, but the others all said that they really enjoyed it.
This week is Andrew's last week in Uganda before he leaves to return to the UK. We'll all be really sad to see him go and will miss him a lot but we know that this is God's plan for him and that God will be using him in the coming months in the UK. No one will be returning to Kuffu until after he has left so that we can spend this last week all together as a group.

This week I'd really appreciate prayer for...

- Health

- A really good and memorable last week with Andrew
- Financial provision for Smile Uganda

Thank you so much. God bless and Happy Easter!