Category: Uncategorized

Another great day with the kids in Sunday School. Raelee hasn’t been so happy to have to leave babies and come to the older kids class but she gets plenty of baby-holding time before and after and even though she hates leaving them, she does like to be included in the lessons. She especially likes to see what kind of experiments I do to help teach, she is always as surprised as the rest of the kids. We had three today that recited the verse we have been talking about for a couple of months. Others know it but are too shy to say it in front of a group, they are working up to it. We are in prayer for next Sunday, we expect anywhere from 300-500 kids will come and our regular class isn’t too happy about it. We are working on accepting the kids even though we know they are just coming because they think they will receive something. I talked to them about the importance of having their own relationship with Jesus and committing their lives to living according to His Word and He says He will take care of the rest. One day all who have heard about Jesus (even if only on Easter and Christmas) will have to stand before God with no excuse. They can’t say they never knew about His Son and it is very important for us to pray for those. We had special prayer before we parted today, praying for the kids that will come. That they will see something different here and want to come back and learn more. That the kids that come just to get something out of it will in fact get more than what they were expecting! Pray for me for next week that I may be able to handle that many kids and have the patience, wisdom and God’s guidance in what to say and how to say it. It is very challenging to teach children from another culture using examples that they can relate to. I have the internet, bible studies for children to use along with the bible but it is all geared towards American children so there are many I can’t use at all, and many that I have to translate in a way they can relate. The longer we are here and I learn more about the culture, it seems a little easier all the time to explain things in terms they can understand. (Besides being a vegetable thief! That is their main go to evidence of a bad person!) Today we spoke about self-control and at the end I asked for examples of times they have shown self-control. The question wasn’t quite understood as I got answers of abusing someone, fighting, hitting. We finally have more girls coming, at first they thought it was just for the boys and feared coming. They are still pretty quiet during class but this morning one very quiet little girl who always seems to be paying close attention to me gave her answer to my question, her eyes sliding to the side. “Pinching someone. Pinching them hard”! It made me laugh because it seemed to me she might have been the pinch-er in that situation! I really do love these kids!

Christian’s namesake came to Sunday School with his older brother (who is 4 or 5). The baby is now a few months old, and was quite beautiful in his yellow frilly dress with frilly rubber pants over a cloth diaper. Confused? Join the club! His mama was so proud of her pretty baby and it caused me to question if he is a he and not a she. I checked with one of Jenifer’s girls and she verified that is a boy, even though there was a very big deal made when the father told everyone he was named after Christian! I told her it confuses me when they are dressed in dresses and I’m afraid she might have told the mama what I said, she wasn’t as friendly when she left. I would never intentionally insult someone’s baby, it is just confusing! I had just told my mother-in-law that babies here don’t wear diapers. Mostly they don’t and definitely never disposable (in rural areas anyway). For some reason they have a definite aversion to disposable for reasons of health to their babies. A few will have one or two clothe diapers that they will use if they have something special to go to (or maybe just if it came with a frilly yellow dress 🙂 Most of the time babies don’t have any bottoms on, up to the age of 3-4. That means no pants whatsoever. The smaller ones may or may not wear a shirt and most times if they do it doesn’t fall much below their belly button. You have to be careful where your hand is when holding them! It’s easier than having to clean them up, having to hand wash cloth diapers. And while they are still this small they keep them pretty swaddled. That’s my best guess anyway!

This is baby Rhonda! She has three other African names but was introduced to me as Rhonda. I’ve never had a baby named after me, Christian has one named after him, also with three traditional names! I met her mother a couple months ago when she came with three woven mats asking if I would buy so she could buy some baby things before her baby was born. Of course I did but with one condition, she had to bring her baby by so I could see. We have helped out a few mothers but they have never brought the babies after. Rhonda was born February 22. The custom here is the baby does not make their appearance in public until the umbilical cord falls off. If the couple are unmarried, he doesn’t see the baby until this point, when the mother gives him the cord to prove he is the father. (This lady is married) At least this is what we are told! So, she is a little over a month old. So tiny! Her mother also brought many outfits to show me what she had purchased with the money from the mats. I gave her a little extra so she could buy a few more things and thanked her so much for bringing the baby so that I could see her! Wonder how many more Christians and Rhondas will populate our village!

Raelee has had a girlfriend for a couple of months now. It’s been a good thing for her because she has only had the boys to play with and they went back to school. The bad thing is this girl should be in school but isn’t. Remember when I told you Kimuli got married? Partly because he felt it was time and partly because that is what is done to prevent family and friends wanting him to support them because he works. Well, he paid what the family requested and got his wife…plus two of her sisters! They were sent with her to live to “help” her with her household. So, he not only paid for his new wife, he also got two more dependents. Not sure that deal worked out as planned! So, this little girl – Favia – lives with Kimuli but he is not able to pay to send her to school. I’m not sure why she doesn’t go to the government school, it is free except for exams but many people say the education is not good so rather than go there they don’t go at all. She’s a good little girl and they play well together. Now she has someone who wants to play with dolls!

The building for the mill is coming along nicely. They are currently plastering the inside, when that is finished they will plaster the outside and all the buildings but ours will be plastered and looking good. When that is finished our building will be plastered it doesn’t look good standing beside all the pretty plastered buildings! There is also a little covered “pavilion” being constructed beside the Church building, it will have a long table with benches for Sunday School and other things. We let the little ones stay inside the building and take the older kids outside. It will be nice to have a table for them to sit at and be able to do more things. So much progress going on. The rabbits are growing, the goats and bulls are happy. The bulls are getting ready to go to work since it is planting season again. The rains teased for a couple of weeks and then disappeared. Makes it hard for the farmers to plant at just the right time, the ground had barely started to soften up and the rains stopped.

Papaya no longer stays tied, he stays pretty close to the females.

Papaya’s wife!

Chris has become a carpenter, his work is getting noticed which brings many requests for doors and door frames! He’s decided he really likes doing the wood work so he is going to look into some of the widows homes and see if they need doors replaced etc. He has already built a door for one widow and is to help fix her outdoor bathroom. They do have inspections on the outdoor bathrooms to make sure the village has sanitary conditions so there are a few people who may need help getting up to “code” on their outhouses! A neighbor brought boards and Christian constructed a really nice door for him so I expect there will be more to come! Everyone was impressed with a table he made me, (not really that impressive!). I decided I wanted a coffee table made out of one of the packing crates for mill equipment. After they unpacked the machine – carefully – he put it back together adding wheels so we can roll it around! (I have been determined to have wheels on something, he has not been so excited about that!)

Our building next to the Church building…see the difference?

My table: It is a little higher than I expected, he may take it apart and make the sides shorter, or leave it just the way it is because it is good for playing games on! The metal corner pieces were what I liked the most but apparently when someone cleaned the barn they threw some away, three have been found! If I can find one more I will be happy! I have added color to the living room so now I’m not sure what color I want to paint the walls, Chris says bright orange would be too much!

LaLa is growing quite rapidly, as are all the happy rabbits. She acts like a cat, waits for me to walk by and leaps at me, or just suddenly sprawls out wherever and lays. She likes to be in the same room we are even if she is hiding. We leave the door to her cage open and she goes to eat, drink and do her business. She loves dandelions, bananas and carrots. But never, NEVER give her a pretzel. I gave her a nibble of mine and she went berserk. Attacked me, biting me a couple times, ran off and then came back to bite me again a couple times. Not sure what that was about but not going to do that again! Here is a video of one of her favorite things to play with.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”

For the past few months we have been working our way through the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5. It has been fun, each week I have had an object/science lesson to go along with it. Baking soda and vinegar went over well to show joy bubbling over. There are a couple boys who can go back to the beginning and name every one of the evidences of God working in us, and give examples! That is very exciting, to know God’s Word is reaching in to them.

I missed last week with them but we had left off after kindness. Before we got to our snack I told the older ones they were to put kindness in action and serve the little ones. It also helped them to see that when we work together, it takes less effort and time. It worked so well I decided that’s how we would do it from now on. I am very proud to see these young people who in the beginning pushed and shoved to get theirs first now serving others and being patient. Time and persistance baby! (Not always easy but oh so rewarding!)

Now, along with all our rabbits, two bulls and twenty or so chickens we have two goats! We had made a deal with a man who wanted grasses from our land to feed goats he uses to train children in caring for and then giving them a goat. He would give us a goat in a month. I think it’s been more like 4-5 months but we got a baby male…his name is Papaya. So cute! And a few weeks later someone we had already been allowing her two goats to graze here really needed money so she sold us her female. Raelee is so excited that they will be married and have babies one day!

The rains are here so we have plowed much of the back of the land to plant alfalfa, dodo and some other crops to feed all of these animals. If we can just get our bull keepers to tie them away from everything we will be alright. I had a stearn talk with them the other day because they let the bulls eat about 8 of our banana trees down to the ground. Our favorite bananas, the tiny ones that are sweet. We are working at fencing off a place for all the graizers or we won’t have any crops!

Washing knickers is Raelee’s job, one she enjoys doing! (That’s good because I don’t!) We were getting cans of water and Jenifer commented on the cans that were full, she has been filling them in the day. I told her Raelee was washing and she said that was so good, the Ugandan girls are taught early to wash, cook and clean. I’m not sure what they think we do in America, if I start doing work outside everyone wants to do it for me. I sometimes have to wait until the gates are locked to work in peace! I guess they think we are all spoiled, which to an extent we are with dishwashers, washing machines, running water! I told her that we have raised all of our kids to do all things. I didn’t want our sons to find a wife just because they couldn’t wash their own clothes and I don’t want our daughter to find a husband because she can’t put oil or change a tire on the car!

There have been no boys hanging out wanting lunch money so we haven’t had our water cans filled as much, Raelee has been pumping and I carry them in. I have had to stop some of the guys from helping her – I try to explain that it doesn’t hurt her to work. It’s funny that this impresses them when there are 4-6 year old girls here pumping every day! I don’t like being set apart as not having to do work, there is no reason she and I can’t do some of it. They say the other “Americans” didn’t make their kids do any work and I tell them I can’t speak to what anyone else does or doesn’t do, we just feel we aren’t above working hard or sharing the work and don’t want Raelee to grow up feeling like someone else should do everything for her.

English lesson for the day:

Because the British settled here, there are many cultural things that are still influenced by the Brits, but not the same! There are “scones” but they are not like the English scones, they are like our dinner rolls. Fish and chips, some are real battered fish and chips but sometimes it is just regular fried fish and fries called fish and chips. There is tea and biscuits, all cookies are called biscuits. Glucose biscuits to be exact. And tea consists of one dip of the tea bag into the water, five or six tablespoons sugar per cup and a splash of milk. That is if they use black tea like we do, there is a mix of spices some people use as tea that has nutmeg and cinnamon and a few other spices but no “tea” in it. (I use this with pumpkin squash to make pumpkin bread.) So it is basically milky sugar-water! Gasoline is called petrol. I don’t know if this is “British/English” but they call the baton a batoon, beauty salon a saloon. A thermos is a flask. And I’m sure you know what knickers are! 🙂 So added to learning Lusoga, we have to interpret English words as well!