Tag: village life

Eeew Posho and Beans!

Today was our second time feeding the kids at Global. I heard they were all excited about getting rice again but on Wednesdays we make posho (which is maize flour made in the consistency of mashed potatoes) with beans on top. Not a favorite! So we added an orange in each box. Man! That made a big difference in attitude about posho! There was excited screaming and many thank yous! I told them I knew they would t be excited about beans and posho so I gave them a treat to go with it. Then I told them beans and rice are on Friday’s it was pandemonium! I just love being able to do this! We also gave them wash stands with antibacterial liquid to wash their hands since they were eating oranges. It was a good day!

Lunch Success!

We fed the children at Global School. Everything went so smooth, didn’t even need the restless night of worry the night before! Everything was finished early, kids fed on time and God blessed us with extra – there turned out to be less kids than we were told – so we were able to take food to Ms. Joyce’s family! Just like I would say to every classroom as we went in to see them eating “God is good” and they would say “all the time”! And He is!

I am thankful also that my advice to the cooks about soaking beans overnight worked out. They don’t always think us Mzungus know much, and we do learn from them. And they were skeptical at first but after cooking they were so excited that it took half the time to cook them! I was relieved they saw the difference!

Ms. Joyce’s family

Goodbye Ms. Joyce

Sunday we lost a dear lady that we have loved and who has been a constant at Bible study. Her burial was yesterday. She did t make it to study Sunday because she wasn’t feeling well. She had been fine all week but by the time study was over and Christian was going to go pray with her she passed away. We are going to miss her and we are sad but we can also rejoice that she has gone home to be with her Jesus and has no more aches and pains. My favorite memory of her will be her asking for a job and jiggling when we gave her sugar money for her tea. Please pray for her family, her son lives next to her and cared for her very well, he is really taking it hard. She had many children and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The Season For Matoke

Right now our trees are becoming ripe with bananas and matoke. More matoke than our little bananas unfortunately! We don’t eat the matoke ourselves but we love the tiny bananas! And I am thankful we are able to give it away to those who don’t have any. Before, our workers would often take it, along with mangoes and avocados. I haven’t seen an avocado or mango of our own in a year. We will watch and watch a tree ripen and then “poof” the tree is bare of any fruit and no one knows where they went! Haha! But we’ve had to add some more rules and crack down and let go of some of the help so fear has led them to make sure we get the matoke.

Salima was able to give more to the widows this week. They were so excited. She has also gone to get all the requirements she needs to register her own community based ministry. She plans on counseling parents on proper nutrition for their children and why vitamins and a good diet are important while pregnant. She also wants to do what she can for the widows and to help out orphans with school supplies. In the future she plans to have a training center for seamstresses and have classes for soap making. Her sister Takia was able to go back to her instructor for more training so that she can teach women here in our village. I am proud of her for taking both my and Salimas advice about continuing to learn. While she is getting extra training she is sewing clothes for the children at church for Christmas. And sewing some adult clothes we are going to try and sell, especially to the Mzungus! She made me pants and I already have orders from America for them! There have been many expats in Kampala asking where they can get pants made out of the fabric that is made in Uganda. So I have her working on that right now. I pray that they are both successful in their chosen fields.

I think she gave matoke to twelve widows total. Different ones than the last time. She is learning as she is helping. We give her advice that we have learned over the past four years. Try and help all widows, if they have already gotten solar or other things, move on to others and try to help. She said she learned from the last time she gave out the matoke, we weren’t here or I would have said something (I’m not shy about pointing things out and trying to teach others). But there were two “widows” that seemed to be quite young – probably in their twenties. Before I could say anything about it she came to Chris and told him she thought she made a mistake but tried to correct it. She said after realizing these two were young, and they were quite rude, trying to pick out the best looking matoke, she told them they are young enough to get out and grow their own food or find a new husband! We told her that it is hard to be discerning and have to tell some people no but we are so glad to see that she is aware and humble enough to admit her errors and come to us for advice.

And here I am modeling the first of Takia’s pants she made for me. She said her instructor told her the Mzungus like to wear pants! And it is very hard to find pants made from the fabric made here, which is called Kitenge. A lot of white and foreign people buy this style pants in Jinja as souvenirs from Uganda but they are all made in India! So I pray we can sell many pants and also her other designs in dresses and children’s clothes. I sent her back to school to make at least six more pair, with and without elastic at the bottom. (I prefer no elastic but fell in love with these pants!)

Please pray for Salima, Takia and their sisters. Haria just found out she passed her exams – we knew she would! And Salima will officially graduate Nov 7 with her degree in Social Work. Takia graduated and they have another sister in nursing school. They are all good girls with a love for Jesus and making their community a better, more educated place.

Psalm 5:12: For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover him with favor as with a shield.

Just One Of Those Weeks

I started writing a post on Tuesday, it had already been a rough week for me, little did I know I had a couple more days to struggle through! I guess some of it has just been building up – we have been very busy with building and construction of the cages. We have had many workers on the grounds and a few new workers that probably won’t be working with us again. I won’t rant about that!

I struggle with balancing this culture and the culture we come from. I get aggravated that we are expected to have a mid-morning snack AND supply lunch, but then the voice of reason – not my husband – but the Holy Spirit whispers to my heart that these people may sometimes take advantage but they don’t have much of anything, they are working hard in the hot sun and what is it to us to spend what is probably equal to a few starbuck coffees a week to feed fifteen-twenty workers? I think that biggest part of the struggle for me this week is it has just seemed chaotic with all the extra people around. Every normal week I am ready to fire someone for not doing their job in the way I see fit and on those days the other voice of reason – my husband – talks me down from the edge! The Lord says:

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:38

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’ Deuteronomy 15:11

Yesterday was the first time I have really been disrespected by a man (or men) and it was a little traumatic for me. Probably more so because of the stress I already was feeling, but still disconcerting. I got to feel a little of what the women here feel, that they don’t matter. Christian has been sick for a few days, but we had to go to town to the bank and the Dr. The bank is usually his job, and most times he waits in line for thirty to forty-five minutes. If he has to go to the Enquiry desk it can take even longer. I told him I would go in since he wasn’t feeling well and I didn’t want him to have to stand for so long. First line I had been standing about fifteen minutes when five young guys cut in. Now, this is pretty normal for here, everyone thinks they are entitled to be first, no matter there are twenty other people who have been waiting, and since there is such a no confrontation “rule” no one stops this behavior. Christian says he sees the guys do it more to women than the men, and more so because I am a white woman. I let it go, went on to the next line where I stood for about twenty minutes and a guy walks up, gets in line in front of the lady before me. She says nothing. There are probably ten people behind me and that many in front of us, with two tellers taking care of people. Then a guy walks up and shoulders his way in front of me. You know me, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stay silent, but I was not rude. I just looked him in the eye and said “I am in line” and he got behind me (still in front of all the others) and proceeded to rub up against my back and push me closer to the woman in front of me. I turned once and glared him down and he eased up a little. FINALLY I get out of the bank just to have to stand in the long line for the ATM. Again a guy tried to cut but I sidestepped him only to have him do the same thing but also throwing in a little elbow in my back a couple of times. With the heat and the stress, I was in tears by the time I got to the truck (after about an hour and a half of bank waiting). I feel for the women here, they do 99% of the hard work and still have no voice and little respect. There is a very big campaign going on in this country against abuse of women, especially domestic abuse here where it is okay for men to beat their wives – wives are their property. If I don’t cling to the Holy Spirit, the hard times, the times I feel disrespected and under-valued and see other women treated the same I will become angry and bitter. I will not be able to love the way God commands me to love. I will be no good for any one.

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” Romans 12:9

Raelee has had a hard time this week also, and most of it (this time) is not her fault entirely. I told our workers and our day guard a long time ago that they had to tell Raelee no sometimes, don’t let her run all over them. But they couldn’t do that, nobody wanted to tell her no, which makes our job harder because she comes in the house and says “Why isn’t dinner ready?” “Sophia didn’t do a very good job getting my clothes clean this time”. That is not acceptable behavior, she gets disciplined and really, it’s not all her fault if all day outside she is treated like the whole world revolves around her. So now, they have a monster on their hands, NOW they want to tell her no and she doesn’t like it so there have been dramatic bawling episodes because some one threw a rock and it landed somewhere near her. Someone told her no. Sophia teased her and told her she was going to take her doctor stuff home with her and we thought someone was killing her by the sounds of her wailing. She has become too spoiled by them and now they want it to change. The boys have been around a lot, and her buddy Zula isn’t as willing to play house or wear her tutus with the bigger boys around – they want to run and hang out without her. Which is fine, but go home to do that and don’t be mean to her. This is where she lives, her home and I won’t have any one being mean to her no matter how much of a pretty princess she thinks she is. That attitude has been cultivated by all the people around us, unwittingly I know, but nonetheless it has. The other night she was heartbroken because the boys wouldn’t do what she wanted them to do and we tried to explain that sometimes YOU have to do what someone else likes to do, that it can’t always be your way. And boys aren’t always going to want to play girly things. It’s fine when they are all riding bikes and such but not with the dolls. So I told her a little secret – do your own thing and don’t even acknowledge what they are doing and it won’t be long that they will come around to play. This is how she interpreted it. “Go outside, inform the boys that today I am playing on my own and ignoring you and you will want beg to play with me later.” No, not even close child! It is a struggle to balance discipline and letting her big personality develop with Christian being able to be an example to these fatherless boys. If I run them home once, they are likely to take it to heart and not come around at all. That is a huge challenge here, it’s all or nothing.

But so far (and it is Thursday) nobody has been fired, (scolded, but not fired)  Raelee is out playing contentedly on her own, Chris is on his feet and one more day until a quiet weekend since it is Christmas. They may not celebrate Christmas the way we do, but they definitely recognize it as a holiday. Sunday we will be celebrating Jesus’ birthday with the children that come and then plan on a quiet day together watching movies!

And in the end, even through all the struggles of this life….Love wins!

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
1 John 4:7

“We love because he first loved us.”
1 John 4:19

The BS

The Bull Situation
There was a farmer had our bulls and Bogere was his name-o. A refusal here, an arrest warrant there and the bulls were brought back home-o….
To recap the first go round:
I want to say that with 30+ farmers, only 5 tried to cause trouble and when Christian went and confronted them, three ended up giving a portion. Their reasoning for not honoring their contract and trying to get us sent home is that we didn’t honor the contract by helping this second season. (Most farmers understood that it was our mistake – our misunderstanding of the seasons, but we would carry on with our agreement in March). Three farmers (including the ringleader) ended up giving some when they were confronted face to face. One ran away and didn’t even harvest his peanuts so they rotted in the field. And the one hold out is this guy. (Although all five are now out of the program.) He has made income plowing with our bulls in trade (we were told) for keeping them on his property. We have paid for the vet and Medicine when they were sick. They say hindsight is 20\20 but we had so many other things to deal with that we just let whatever had been going on previously to stand. But when he said he wasn’t going to give his half of his rice harvest, Christian told him the bulls had to come to our property. So started this stupid situation. Even after being arrested, he openly admitted to the police the first time that the bulls are Mandates. The bulls were returned and we thought that was the end.
Now I think it’s a matter of pride and embarrassment, he has pressed charges against us and the Chairman. He has four wives and 14+ offspring to support. He’s known to be a thief, his sons and own father have admitted it and have tried to get him to stop this. It’s not a matter of people disrespecting or denying our authority, it is one bad man who is desperate not to lose the moneymakers he’s had for 3+ years..

We got to learn first hand how the process works when there is a dispute. The police come to the place where the dispute is, and have a “court” procedure of sorts. Each side presents witnesses to the Chief of Police and another official. There were over one hundred people came as witnesses for Mandate. We didn’t ask them, when they found out what was going on they all volunteered to come. The accuser did not show, nor did he have any witnesses to stand with him. The best he could find was a man from another village and the police said he could not be heard anyway. The Chairman called Bogere and his excuse was he was at the police station talking to the police. He was demanded to get here and said he was on his way. While we were waiting, the Chairman (who you know is an elected official) took the two officials on a tour of the village to show the wells that Mandate has dug, the solar at the Maternity Ward and around our land. The accused never showed so the “program” began with a prayer from one of the farmers. (Praise the Lord!) Around ten-eleven people stood and bore witness to the help Mandate has brought to their community. What was so encouraging and humbling were ones that we didn’t know but had helped someone in their family, and it wasn’t even monetary help. It was praying with them when a loved one was sick, giving a ride to Kimuli’s dad when no Ugandan would because of the smell of his leg. The widow that cooks the Mandaze every week for the children at Sunday School told how much we have helped her by buying her sweet biscuits! She no longer has to walk all day through the village trying to sell them one by one. Another widow, Ms Betty gave witness that I buy mats from her so that she can eat. (Personally, we think if we just gave Ms Betty a chance at this guy she would straighten everything out! Haha!)

The Chief stopped the witnessing, he had gotten a pretty clear picture of our side, and he said that Bogere should have a chance at speaking. (I’m going to leave to your imagination our reaction to that!) There will be another date set, he will now get the summons to appear. If he skips it the matter will be dissolved and it will be over. Even if he appears, I believe in the officials minds the case is already decided.

God’s Word says in Genesis 50:20:

 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive…

We saw how true this is yesterday. The police Chief stood before the people and told them that they had to be saved, in their hearts, to keep them from sinning. To keep them from thieving, lying and hurting others. He told them that instead of looking at what they can get today, to look to their future, at their children and grandchildren’s futures. What happens when we are driven out? What happens when this crop is harvested today and sold tomorrow? Where will you be then? He told them that in six years he is retiring and already he is making plans for his future retirement so that he won’t suffer, his children and grandchildren won’t suffer. He told them there should be no poverty here like there is if they would only be saved and look toward their future and not live for just today and how they can get whatever they can get. We were pretty blown away after he spoke, and thankful to Our Father for the many Saints that have been lifting us up in prayer. Though this situation hasn’t worried us, even at the point where Christian was prepared to go to jail rather than give this guy the bulls back, it has been an annoyance. That puts stress on a body! And it has taken us away from work to be done. Even if ninety-nine people went home and ignored every word he said, I believe that the one that ponders his words will be saved. Of the other ninety-nine seeds were planted, and by someone who is in their eyes a great authority. In Isaiah 55:11, the Lord says:

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

God is in control, ALWAYS, and He has used this situation to strengthen us, strengthened our standing in this community and now in the city. We now have a friend in the Chief of Police! He has brought many people together, and we had a chance to meet many people in the village who now are able to see that we mean to help them. Do I think this ends the dealings with the devil who is behind everything? No, but as each situation arises, as each one strengthens our faith and our resolve, it makes it harder for the devil to succeed in each. It weakens his power over this village, over each person that hears God’s Word.

To be continued……?!

The two widows

Daily Life

Life has slowed down a little bit since Christian and the guys finished their part of the school buildings. When the other crew is finished with the aprons around them I will post more pictures. So Christian is home, taking a break before starting another project – just not too long of a break! We have seen so much happening in the lives of the guys that Christian has been working with and we don’t want to lose momentum, or them to lose hope.

We’ve had time to walk through our part of the village every evening, and one day came upon a group of kids in front of a house. Actually, we turned down what we thought was the path to our home and ended up in someone’s yard! The kids started asking Christian to give them money and he told them he had none. They didn’t believe him – a mazungu with no money? Not possible in their way of thinking! He emptied his pockets and showed them he only had a pocket knife and some atom ball candy, which he gave to the oldest two boys. They then showed us their “ball” which was plastic soda bottles taped together so they could kick it around. They asked us to get them a ball. So the next time we were in town we bought one and took it over. They were so excited about that ball! They all gathered round it and inspected it and were laughing and carrying on. There was an old man there that we sat and “talked” to – he didn’t know much English and we don’t know much Lusoga! But he said thank you many times for bringing the ball!

On the way back to our home, there are always ladies outside,  they and the kids always want us to come sit. Raelee used their language to say hello and that tickled them to no end. All the people here get so excited when we use any of their words. Although, if we say one word in Lusoga they automatically think we know more and start having a conversation that we don’t understand! And everyone wants us to hold their babies, which is always okay with me! Even Christian who normally doesn’t hold babies is known to hold one or two! I tried to hold the one that is crying, but he is scared of our white skin. It’s so odd for me, who can usually calm any baby and put them to sleep, to have them scared of me. I will never get used to that! And while most still yell muzungu to us, many of the kids call me Jessica, that is the other woman that is here and I’m not sure if thats the only name they know, or if now they think all white woman are called Jessica! I’m sure after time they will get our names down! But even the ones that know us call us Mama Raelee and Baba Raelee instead of our names! (It’s always about your kids isn’t it?!)

Raelee is getting ready to go to school and is very excited. I am excited and nervous – praying she does well and doesn’t take over the school! I believe it will be a good experience for her, she has already fully emersed herself into the culture, learning the language AND the mannerisms so much faster than Mama and Baba! School will be a good thing for her, I just pray she is a good thing for the school! I’m sure she will, she brings life and joy everywhere she goes and has such a kind, caring heart.

Cataract Screening

The Village Center
Goat anyone?! I guess they leave the tail so you know what it is?!

Yesterday we had the cataract screening in the village center. I think we attracted more kids than actual applicants! We ended up with 24 people to be screened – only 2 had cataracts. 2 had immature cataracts, so they will be monitored every 3 months. But we did find 4 people that were eligible for a surgery that is done in our town for free, they just don’t have enough money for transportation to town. We are going to take care of the cataract patients first, and then hope to get the others to their surgeries if they will go through with it. The Dr. said many times they are too scared to go through with it. There were 3-4 that needed glasses, and a few that just need medication. I know there were a few that were quite disappointed that they weren’t going to get their eyesight fixed.