Author: rhondajwelch

“And let us not grow wear of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”  Galatians 6:9

I have been lost! When someone doesn’t see me for awhile they will tell me “You have been lost”! I have definitely been lost for the past month! Not really, I am here but I have felt lost. Greece was definitely a great break, we decided we wanted to go to visit the kids one last time since their time in Greece was coming to an end. Three days after our visitors left we left! We spent two weeks there enjoying our son’s family. The kids are growing so much and their personalities are so much fun. It is always hard leaving them but I didn’t cry this time. I was happy that I wasn’t sad about coming back to Uganda (if that makes sense). But I have had a hard time getting back into the swing of things. (And Jenifer said I only got a little fat this time!)

When our visitors came they brought tons of stuff I had ordered for Raelee’s schooling so I only had a week or so to get it all out and get September planned out for the start of school. We struggled with Raelee for most of the year last year, somewhere in there she decided she didn’t want to have anything to do with spelling or reading. She has even tried to explore careers she could have without having to learn to read! She loves math and is advanced in that area. I had decided to go back to kindergarten/first grade basics and bought a lot of manipulatives and activities to try and get her interested in Language. I researched a lot about Montessori way of teaching so we decided to give it a try. Well, I worked and planned, worked and planned for about 6 days straight. I went over lists of “What your kindergartener should know” and “What your first grader should know”. “What your second grader should know”.  Printed and ran out of ink (lost count of how many times). Laminated, laminated, laminated. I was ready for the first four weeks. Guess what? Raelee was ecstatic over the new way! So ecstatic that the little billy-goat breezed through the whole four week plan in four days! She wanted to have school from morning until bedtime! Exciting and infuriating! Haha! We knew she knows so much but getting her to do it has been a great challenge. She has control issues that we are always working on and this has played greatly in the areas of learning. I decided to help her “feel” in charge and it has changed everything. Well, that and the promise of a reward at the end of the month.

I’m not sure it made a difference but we had to go to Kampala last week to meet with our lawyer. While we were there I went to the pharmacy to pick up medicine I take to help sleep and the pharmacist gave me medication that he assured me was the same, just a different brand. I have taken this medication for years and know that even though the brand may be different, the medication is still the same. I questioned him on this and he assured me it was the same but that I could look it up. Of course I was going to look it up before I took it, I found that it is actually high blood pressure medicine. It was a good example to teach Raelee the importance of being able to read, I already have low blood pressure and our blood pressure goes down when sleeping so if I would have just taken the guy’s word for it and taken the medicine it could have killed me. It seemed to make an impact on her. When we got home she picked up a Dick and Jane book and read through it with very little help! She laughed and laughed at how easy it was to read! We all laughed and cheered her on but the next day when I picked up the same book and asked her to read it she didn’t know any of the words. We gave up after twenty minutes of sounding out the word b/a/ll. What do they say? “One step forward and one hundred back”? Haha, feels something like that! So it looks like I have a busy week to prepare for October! I thought we would have a longer review time to get her up to where she should be – turns out she is right there! So I have learned (because I am not a teacher!) that Raelee learns creatively the best, not sitting with a workbook. And I have learned the things that engage and interest her and how to apply that to other areas. Learning with an anatomical figure with squishy parts has covered language, science, math and bible all in one. I passed second grade but still I learn so much right along with her!

Along with that there is still rabbits to tend, people with problems, spreadsheets I got behind on, a husband with the flu and a big project I am trying to get started! And I’m asking “When do we get our next vacation?” 🙂

Pictures from last week and our visitors time here.

This week has been a wonderful (and busy) week on the farm! We’ve hosted visitors from America, Donny Lee and his wife, and a board member and his family. (We have never met his family before). I have chatted many times with Donny’s wife Patty and they have both been a great support long distance. She and I have become fast Facebook friends but being able to visit in person has truly been a blessing. Mike and family are a joy to be with, two teenage boys have really been fun, I miss our boys so much, they are now grown, one with his own family and both are far away. The funny and great things about them is they are so much like our own sons so Christian and I got a great kick out of being with them. They got to build tables for our Sunday School and desks for the kids at the school across the street. I think they were humbled when they visited the little mud-walled school, especially when they found out that it is a private school that parents pay for.

I don’t know how many children came yesterday, I can say a couple hundred at least and they all had a great time. Any time people come and show them attention just boosts their confidence and shows them they are worthy to be loved. I am so thankful the school let their children come!

You never know what blessings God has in store for you. I was a little stressed, and after devotion last night found the other women had some of the same concerns. You never know what to expect when meeting new people, hosting and hospitality is definitely not my calling but I got such joy cooking for them and visiting with them. They quickly became family! The two ladies won my heart forever when they spent 3-4 hours with Raelee and I at the rabbit house checking for sickness and putting meds in so many water bottles. They were such troopers and blessed me so much, We had things planned to do but life here doesn’t stop because we have visitors. I spent the night before stressing over the change in plans but finally decided I have to do what I have to do! They were great and it was such a huge help to Raelee and me! (It’s a big job caring for so many rabbits!) Patty still was able to sew curtains for our bathroom and kitchen and they will be a reminder everyday of her and this time of friendship and strengthening of our souls. Mission work can be very lonely and at times you feel like everyone has forgotten you (we all lead such busy lives), isolated because the people around you are so different and lonely for other believers so when we have times to really connect with friends who have things in common it really helps to keep going. We are very thankful to God that He sent us our new family!

Tomorrow we have to take them to the airport and send them back to the states, it is going to be so hard to say goodbye! I will be posting pictures soon!

I’m not sure if I have ever posted pictures, I know in the early days I commented on furniture here. There are some very talented carpenters, upholsterers and furniture builders. You can find nice wood beds, metal beds, triple-decker bunk beds and more. And there is a lot of very flamboyant fabrics and shapes of couches and chairs. When we first moved here I said Elvis would love the furniture here! (If you’ve ever visited Graceland you would understand! Haha!)

“Sideboards” are very popular as most houses in rural areas still don’t have kitchens inside and this is what we would call a china cabinet. Dishes and such are kept in them. Vanity or dressing tables are very popular also. You don’t find many dressers with drawers though. Most prices are very reasonable unless you are looking for plain, more “American” couches and chairs, that can get pretty expensive. I have seen some very nice furniture I would like to have but I have a problem….can’t get anything that doesn’t come in pieces or boxed up into my house! The way our front and back “entry” area is there is no way to bring a couch or any kind of cabinet inside. That is why my husband made our couch and kitchen counters/shelves in concrete (termites are a problem here in the village so no wood cabinets)!

Anyway, here is some of the various styles of furniture found here, enjoy! 🙂

Every time we come to Kampala it seems we “need” to get play dough. But the play dough gets everywhere, and most times doesn’t even make it back home. If it does make it home it gets everywhere. I mean everywhere, stuck to the floors, tables, chairs. And every time we go through the “I promise this time I won’t get it everywhere” conversation. But, as my husband says, I am a sucker when it comes to play dough in Kampala. When we come here it is our time to have a break from everyone and relax. That is…everyone except Raelee! Don’t get me wrong, we love her! She is most times the entertainment and joy we need on the bad days we have. But as a parent you know that sometimes you need a break, quiet time or dinner without being interrupted two hundred times! This is where the play dough comes in! She will sit for hours in the hotel playing with it. She watches YouTube videos with people creating cakes out of play dough, or clothes for Barbies. So even though every time before I have said “This is the last time if you don’t keep it all together” I give in! I decided this time that I won’t even say it anymore! I think maybe it’s a good thing to just limit it to Kampala trips so it keeps her busy every time – and then leave it in Kampala! “What happens in Kampala stays in Kampala”!

It’s been a little over a week since my last post, hope family and friends in the States had a happy 4th! We have had a pretty calm week, still building cages, working on crops – the sunflowers are about ready to cut down, much to my dismay! But since the rains have still been coming pretty steady throughout the week I think we are going to go ahead and plant more. They grow so fast!

I was not feeling well last weekend so Christian and Raelee did the cooking for two days. She loves to cook, he not so much so I was very appreciative that he did it with her! Chicken strips and french fries – so good! (Even better when I don’t have to cook them!)

We have been having a “situation” with the parking ticket lady. Whenever you go to town, you have to pay for parking. This does not apply to the bank parking lot or the supermarket we go to that has their own parking lot. But, if you park anywhere else on the street you can expect to pay. It’s not much but, if you park on one side of the street, run in somewhere and then park across the street you will get to pay both times! In Jinja we buy a handful of little tickets at a time and give those out. I think much of the money gets pocketed because the ticket takers are all the time begging us to buy a handful more! So, we have in the past bought a monthly parking sticker for 30,000 shillings a month. (Parking one time is 3-4,000 shillings). But since March we have not bought parking stickers because 1) the truck hardly goes to town since we got the car and 2) since buying the car we hadn’t gone to town except to the bank. Then in May our car was wrecked. So why pay 60,000/mo for two vehicles that aren’t even going to town? Make sense to you? The parking sticker lady has called Christian about every other day for over a month now “demanding” we pay her for the missed months and get caught up. She put her supervisor on the phone the other day because they don’t think we are understanding what they are telling us! We understand. We understand that buying a monthly sticker is voluntary, we are under no obligation to buy one every month. We understand that now whoever gets the previously “owed” money will pocket it. So we were at the bank on Wednesday and the supervisor (do they have spies watching the bank?) came to the truck demanding the money we “owe”. Christian explained we are not paying money for something we haven’t used. We have not had the car for over a month, and the truck has only come to town three times in the past month. To the bank and the supermarket – no pay places. When someone here is not happy with what you are saying they either say “So what do we do now?” The supervisor kept saying “So, what is your decision?” This went on for ten minutes, he wasn’t happy with our decision and I guess thought he would change it if he just persisted. He even went so far as to say that because his people know we have a sticker each month that will confuse them and they won’t get money from us. THEY CAN’T ANYWAY…WE.HAVE.NOT.COME.TO.TOWN in three months! Chris stayed involved in the conversation a lot longer than I did! He asked the guy “If you weren’t using the sticker would you pay almost 200,000?” Finally, we told him that when the car is fixed we are going to get our monthly sticker again (even though we won’t need it) but we aren’t doing that for the truck since it will barely leave the property.) Appeased and I guess finally resigned to the fact we weren’t going to give him any money he finally left. We were waiting to meet someone at the bank, and no sooner had the supervisor left than the woman came to the door! Christian cut her off saying the supervisor had just left and we had talked to him about it but she still tried to go through the whole situation again. We told her we had to go and couldn’t sit and talk to her about it. When we get our car back we will pay for a sticker. It may not seem like a lot of money, but who would pay for something you aren’t going to use? And especially knowing that the “back payment” is only going in someone’s pocket? I have to say though, the lady has been pretty persistent in trying to threaten us!

We are in Kampala getting some supplies and to finally sign insurance papers for the car. We got a quote from a shop other than Toyota (they wanted almost as much as we paid for the car to fix two doors!) and it is a little scary handing our car over to a garage here. We are praying the doors open and close and are the same color as the rest of the car. (You laugh but one or the other is so likely to happen!) We are praying that it is all fixed and ready to go before our mission team comes the first week of August. We are cutting it close! (They don’t have rental car companies here – actually they do have cars for “hire” but you may as well buy a car rather than pay that cost!)

Hope you have had a good week and happy holiday!

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13