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Proud Accomplishments!

Sunday was a fun day, I am so proud of the kids that have worked hard to earn their Bibles. They were so proud! They have been memorizing the books of the Bible for a couple of months, when they could recite the books they would receive their Bible. There are a few more that are so close to getting one, two are so shy they won’t get up and recited them, so worried they will mess up. I had them privately tell me, I want them all to get one so much – for many reasons I had to put some kind of condition on their getting them. The two have a little more work to do but I fully believe they will be ready next Sunday. Now my prayer is they actually read it on their own! (Above are Naomi, Fancy and Sylvester)

Needed Rain But….

We started our day off with an ant take-over in the rabbit house. Huge stinging ants. Not good. Not good at all. There were masses of them outside along the wall and coming in the window. Rabbits had to be moved as the ants were getting all over their cages. We think we have it under control at this time and are spraying all around the building to try and prevent that again!

The rains have been coming less and less. We’ve been told and have read that there is terrible drought in the North and little food. I think the situation has been made worse by all the refugees here. Our crops are growing slowly and we’ve been praying the rain would hold out a little longer. It thunder’s quite a bit but has only rained a couple times in the past month, and it’s usually a light rain. Until today. It had been a sunny day and suddenly there was a clap of thunder and hurricane winds. The wind blew through the house knocking over everything sitting above four feet. The rain blew through (our windows do not shut!). It lasted about thirty minutes of heavy downpour and wind. Our workers were huddled by our front door waiting it out when they saw the tin roof of our rabbit house flying through the air. We lost about twenty 4×8 pieces of tin, the rabbits on both sides of the building were soaked from the rain coming in the windows. The tin flew across the field behind us, I’m not sure all of it has been found. We lost a lot of the tops of papaya trees, quite a few banana trees are toppled and the roofs of our round buildings are ruined. And we are the blessed ones, we soon learned Kimuli’s house is gone,  Sweti (our part-time guard) lost his new house, Sophia’s house totally lost their roof.  And that’s just some of our workers that we know of so far. We will have to check on our kids to see if they lost their roof – it was precarious already. The village was hit hard, we are hearing that many have totally lost their homes. It is heartbreaking because the majority of those that have lost will have a hard time rebuilding, they have very little to start with. The village of Busowobi need your prayers.

As They Say…

“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?” 🙂

 

 

Unexpected Blessings

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!

Off With Their Heads!

We have been harvesting plants and grasses – just this week we cut our first hay and it is drying. I was sad to see them beheading our beautiful sunflowers but the birds had started stealing seeds so we decided it was time to cut them. We cut half of the stalks and dried them but we left the other half so we could give the rabbits fresh leaves for as long as possible. Raelee brought some leaves in yesterday to feed Ted and two baby rabbits we have inside and there was mold on them. We didn’t forsee that or we would have cut it all. We are now checking the rest of the leaves to see if there is any to salvage. If not we may have to either pull all leaves off the stalks if they can be used or just cut it all down and burn it. We have plenty already dried to add to the pellets, the rabbits go crazy over the sunflower heads but one feeding for five hundred rabbits and it would all be gone! We will grind the heads and seeds (of which there were many) and add a minnow like fish they eat here for protein along with another plant and make pellets with the equipment we bought for that.

We’ve harvested a lot of grass that is for the goats and bulls, Christian made a wood box that they pack the dried grass into and make bales. And this week our first hay was harvested. The rains have still been coming a couple times a week so we are debating on planting more sunflowers and hay. We have been communicating with a man that sells solar pumps so that we can put one on a well we have in the back and run drip irrigation so that we can grow during the dry months. It is a lot of work and we are very very thankful for all the help we have!

Our headless sunflowers!
Dried grasses
Packing the grass into bales
Dodo plant
Drying the sunflowers

Furniture Shopping

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! 🙂

Busy Days

We’ve been so busy the past few weeks! We had our rabbit cages and some rabbits on display at the National Agriculture Expo – where the President spoke and it was a lot of work getting everything ready. Of course it was kind of last minute that we were asked to have them there. The feed store we have gotten food for our animals asked to have the display since they sell rabbit feed. And to get interest in raising rabbits. We’ve had many calls since from people wanting to buy one rabbit or a pair of rabbits, which was not our intention but we did sell about 20 rabbits. We’ve had calls from people wanting to “partner” with us but for now we are just focusing on our community. It was a good experience to see people get interested in raising their own rabbits. We sold one set of cages but have some other people interested. The cages are not inexpensive – especially since we have to pay the “mazungu” prices on materials so we won’t make money from them but it gives income to the men that make them and gives them new skills. We tell them that if they can get better prices on the materials they can make a pretty good income. We try and explain to them that every time we get gauged on prices, that is money that could be used for other things but they don’t get it.

Our rabbits are growing, we have around 300 babies – that isn’t including the 200 adults! It’s a lot of work, even with our three workers. We have orders for meat and sausage and are pretty excited about it. There are to rabbit breeders that would like to work with us on selling the meat, they already have a couple restaurants in Jinja that order but they can’t keep up with the demand so it would be great to work with them. Our five for five program is to help our community to be able to have meat to eat but also can provide income for them, so helping to open markets for the meat will be a help to everyone raising rabbits. Our village isn’t quite sure about it yet but we plan on having a cook off soon with grilled rabbit to find good cooks who want to open a stand in town and have their own business. We want to help get them started and then they will be on their own with their own business. That will also help our community members that start raising their own rabbits.

We are preparing for guests from the States coming this weekend. Everyone is so excited and working hard to get everything looking good! It’s really not that much extra work – we have great help and they keep the farm looking good all the time. Personally we are excited to have fellowship and people to strengthen us, pray with us and play with us!

We got our car back after two months of not being able to drive it and we are so glad! I was quite nervous in Kampala and the trip home but we made it without incident. We had a crowd come to the house as soon as we drove in, you would think it was a community car as excited as everyone was that we got it back! We were getting congratulated and hugged by everyone! It was a good day!