Just an Update...

For those of you who have followed the blog from the beginning,  you have come to know and love many of the main people in our lives. You have showed your support in more ways that we can count and we just wanted to give you a little update on how everything is going. You can see the many ways God has been moving and also note the areas that need prayer and support.

Zumah has been able to acquire all of the necessary paperwork to get a job. He has had many interviews and opportunities. His faith is strong and he has actually made the decision to turn down a number of jobs due to the fact that they required him to work on Sabbath. He has other opportunities and I am positive that the right job will come his way soon. We have not seen him in about a week, which is odd for him. We have heard through the grapevine that he has lost his twin bother. We aren't sure if the word lost is literal or figurative but either way, I think his family needs our prayers. A big thanks to Thomas Pyke for donating the money necessary for Zumah to get his paperwork finished up.

Henry is working hard at med school and from what he has been telling us, it has been going well. We have been in contact with him by phone, through facebook, and we actually sent him a postcard the other day. We are going to go up to see him in a few weeks. Thank you to all of you who have supported Henry in following his dreams.

For those of you that don't know, Alice and Mary-Bo are two girls that the director's family took into their home a few weeks after we arrived here. Their family life was pretty bad. When they arrived they each had only one dress and no money for school. We commissioned 12 of our friends from home to raise enough money for the girls to go to school for 2 years. Long story short, our friends raised enough for the girls to buy new clothes AND go to school for 3 years instead of just 2. Since then, the girls have been doing so well. They laugh and smile all the time and while being back in school has been somewhat of a challenge for them, they really enjoy it. Mary-Bo doesn't know how to swim. I told her that I have a certification to teach swimming in America and that I would be happy to teach her. I think we will head down to the lake tomorrow. Just today, Krystin and I brought up another fraction of their money to the director's house. As we were walking back to our house, Alice and Mary-Bo both came running after us. We thought we had left something at their house but it turns out that Milly had told them about the money and they just wanted to say "thank you". They had the biggest grins on their faces.

Zealand lives on in our memories but a whole new litter of puppies has been born on the L'esperance campus. We have finally given up our anger towards dogs and now embrace the adorable new puppies.

The dairy project has been going so well! Travis heads out to the bush each week for a few days to work on the building project. Remember we told you that the work would stop and go depending on how much money you guys raised? Well, it seems like at the start of every new week, there is just enough money to continue the work. So far, we have about $8,000 of our $20,000 goal. Keep up the good work guys!

For those of you who don't know much about the dairy, let me explain what it will do for the orphanage. It's kind of complicated but bare with me. L'esperance is owned by a company in Germany. They supply a monthly donation of about $1,000 to run the orphanage. This money isn't enough to cover the food, school fees, medical fees, clothes, and other necessities for each of the children. To make a long story short, the German company isn't always very cooperative or in touch with the needs of the orphanage. Wilbroad, the director here in Uganda, feels responsible for the orphans well being and wanted to start a project that would enable the orphanage to be completely independent of outside donations. Hence, the dairy project.

On top of all these money issues there have also been some land issues. When you buy land in Uganda, you are basically leasing it for 49 years. After the 49 years are up, the land once again becomes the property of the king. Well, in December, the lease ran out and the king wants to put a hotel where the orphanage sits. They offered to just take half the land and allow the orphanage to continue but the German company turned down the offer. Then the Ugandan board offered to give the orphanage 50 acres in another location AND rebuild all the buildings. For reasons unknown to us, the Germans turned down that offer as well. They have yet to offer a solution. So, as of right now, the king has every legal right to kick the orphanage off the property.  This is another reason Wilbroad wants to start the dairy. The dairy is on a separate plot of land close to the 50 acres offered by the Ugandan board. If worse comes to worse, he can take the offer for the land himself and sustain the orphanage on the money from the dairy. If everything goes well and the Germans come up with another solution, then the dairy will still offer much needed income to sustain the orphanage.

All in all, no matter where God leads, the dairy is a key part to sustaining and improving the quality of life for all of the orphans here. Thanks again to all of you who have offered so much support whether that be prayers, money, sending us mail and muffin mix, phone calls, spreading the word, or just keeping up with the blog. You guys are incredible!

A Library is a Hospital for the Mind

In all, over $300 has been donated towards the kid's library at L'esperance. With those funds we have been able to buy about 150 books for the children to read. They are all so excited! Some even turn hostile as they fight for the book they want. We have taken this to be a good sign. Haha! Due to the amount of dirt, the kids ability to lose the books, and our total inability to keep track of each book, we pass the books out at the beginning of class and collect them at the end. But not at day goes by that we won't hear a knock at our door with kids standing on the other side asking if they can sit in our living room and read. They have discovered the magic of reading and I hope, that from this time on, they will never lose that gift. A big thanks to all of you who made this a reality. 

Sam, reading and coloring while we work on his toe.

Oh Sabbath Afternoons...

This last Sabbath was an amazing one. Travis and Krystin were both taking well deserved naps but I was in this really good, ambitious mood so I decided to go outside and play with the kids. Well first, I took the rest of our mashed potatos to the director's house to give to Eunice and the rest of the family. A few weeks before, Eunice had come to our house and tried the mashed "Irish" (as Ugandans call potatoes) and she hadn't stopped talking about them since. When I arrived at the door, they all got so excited! Milly told me to go get my camera so I ran back to our house and came back to see Enoch, Alice, Mary-Bo, Grace, and Benjamin all crowded around the pot eating the mashed potatos with their hands. I started to take some pictures and Milly ran over saying she wanted to be in the photos as well. Its was so much fun!

On my way back from Milly’s, I saw some of the boys singing the Ugandan anthem with these little home made flags stuck in the ground. So I ran back to the house again and switched my camera out with the Flip. I got them singing the whole thing on video.





I ended up promising them I would be back soon to set up the slackline and ran back to our house again to grab the webbing and clips. For those of you who don't know what slacklining is, it basically consists of tying a special kind of rope between two objects and walking on it. Our house is located in the boys village of campus and I set up the slackline in the woods behind all of our houses. Soon the whole compound came out to prove their skills. I gave one of the older ones the Flip and another one the camera while I walked next to each boy as they took turns walking on the slackline.

There are these twin boys named Derek and Sam. Well, I used to think there was only one of them but I kept saying hi to Derek and half the time he look really happy and the other half he looked really confused. Finally, it dawned on me that there were two of them. Anyway, when I helped Sam (or was it Derek?) up onto the slackline I noticed he had a huge mud-caked gash on his big toe. It looked pretty bad so I told him to come to our house later that night so I could clean it.

                                                                     Derek and Me

                                                                       Sam and Me
 
After all the boys took a shot at slacklining, they asked if we could do some exercises. Some of them had been doing ab workouts with Krystin and I so I agreed. We did some yoga moves and some stretching. It was SO FUNNY! Then we all went back to our house to load all the videos and pictures onto the computer. All of them crowded around as we watched the video and looked at ALL the pictures they had taken. Then we did some more yoga and they all headed back home. 

Namaste

Warrior Two Pose

I was listening to a sermon on my comuter when some of the boys knocked on our door. It was Sam and his friends. They had brought him over so I could look at his toe. I got my gloves on (don’t worry), grabbed the hydrogen peroxide, bandaids, and a tampon (we have to use tampons as cotton balls since I neglected to bring any). I started cleaning it but it was too crusty and looked painful so I went back inside, grabbed a basin of water, some candy, and a Bible and for the next 30 minutes we ate candy, soaked Sam’s foot, and read Bible stories as the sun went down. It was possibly one of the most rewarding Sabbaths I have ever had. 


-Megan

Marketing at the Market

A man who sold us produce at a local market asked us to take a "snap" of him. We told him we didn't have a camera with us but we did have the Flip. This video is the result of that interaction.

P.E. (L'esperance Style)

So P.E. in Uganda is WAY BETTER than P.E stateside...


We asked the kids what we were chanting but it turns out that they don't even know.
The boys march towards the girls yelling, "Please send over (girls name), (girl's name), (girl's name). Please send over (girl's name) because we have the power. Then the girls march over yelling the same thing but inserting a boys name into the chant instead.


After the chanting is finished, the two "chosen ones" play tug of war in the middle. The loser then joins the winner's side and it all begins again.

Gulu - City of Hope

We began our Gulu adventure on Thursday afternoon. Our bus left at 2 o’clock (3:30 Africa time). 5 1/2 hours later we pulled up at the Gulu bus park (aka the street). From the second we stepped off the bus, I think we all knew we would like this town. Travis had been to Gulu in 2007 and was excited to see all the progress the city had made in the last 3 years.

 We didn’t really have a plan. We set out, bags in tow, to look for a hotel. Gulu reminds me of an old western town. It's flat and the city is divided into blocks with little all purpose shops on almost every corner. It's quaint and clean. There are big trees that line many of the streets and the people are friendly and welcoming. We could tell that this town is used to seeing more “muzungu” or white people, than most African towns. There are many non-profits set up that give assistance to the many people affected by the war that ravaged the area only four years before. There are UN trucks, community based child therapy organizations, and vocational training facilities all over the city. This town is no tourist trap, but it is alive with commerce, renewal and hope.  

After wandering the streets for about an hour, we finally decided on staying at the Elephant Graceland Hotel. No joke. After dropping our bags at the hotel we headed back out to find a coffee shop called Kope Café. Travis has a friend named Jamie Roach who he met through his experiences with Invisible Children. Jamie started Kope Café as a non-profit organization that devotes all the proceeds to another community based organization here called HEALS. HEALS is an acronym that stands for something extremely worthy, though I have forgotten the exact meaning. Basically, it offers war-affected children the opportunity to heal using art, games, and dance therapy. HEALS was stared by a woman named Jolly. Jolly is a former child soldier and is also the woman that the Invisible Children, Inc. filmmakers - Bobby, Laren, and Jason - first met when they arrived in Uganda over 5 years ago. You could almost say she is the one to credit for the entire Invisible Children organization because she explained the conflict to the filmmakers from the beginning. You guys still with me? It's simple: Jolly started HEALS and met the filmmakers 5 years ago. The filmmakers started the organization Invisible Children - which is why Jamie Roach was in Uganda to start the non-profit coffee shop called Kope Café whose proceeds go the HEALS. It’s like a big circle. You see?

  
Anyway, we found Kope Café and sat down to eat one the best and least expensive meals ever during our stay in Uganda. (Fun Fact: I looked up just now to see a giant spider on our hotel room light. Long story short, the staff tried to kill it and it jumped under the bed that Krystin and I are sharing so when they offered to let us switch rooms, we took the deal! Probably the girliest thing I’ve ever done in my life.) We were sitting in the lounge in front of the cafe and this man came to sit with us. He told us his name was Sunday and that he had been in Gulu since ’83. I asked him if he was here when Joseph Kony and the LRA came through and ravaged the area. He told us he was. He went on to tell us he had also been abducted when he was 11. We were all quiet for a few seconds as we let that sink in. We asked him what happened. “How did you escape?” we asked. He said that Kony trained him well and that he got very good at using his gun. Finally, after 2 years, he couldn’t take it anymore. He said he saw and did terrible things. So he ran. He said that some days he walked 70 kilometers. “The sun is better than any GPS,” he told us. “But I am fine now,” he said. “God has changed my life.” He patted the space between Krystin and him. “God is here. There is room for him in the middle.” We all laughed and agreed. Now, Sunday works for the UN to stop men like Kony from doing such terrible things. His story, like so many Ugandan stories, left us feeling amazed and inspired. We headed back to our room and crashed into a fitful sleep.

 The next morning the three of us woke up and headed back to Kope Café for breakfast (yeah, it's THAT good!). Krystin bought a newspaper on the way in and we all sat down to read it in the café. That’s when we saw the headline: "US passes law to hunt down Kony". I wish I could tell you how amazing it is to be in Uganda, Gulu no less, reading that headline. It is incredible! There is still much to be done, but America’s youth rose up and demanded that our government deliver justice in Uganda….and it worked!

Next, we headed to the Invisible Children offices. When we arrived, the PR director, Kevin, greeted us. Surprise of all surprises, Kevin is actually a girl. She was pretty awesome. She sat with us for over an hour updating us on all of Invisible Children’s current projects. (Disclaimer: if you don’t follow Invisible Children (IC), skip the next paragraph.)

Currently, IC has 590 children in an amazing scholarship program. The children are selected by their level of vulnerability. They must be orphaned, former child soldiers, HIV positive, or a child mother to be accepted into the program. There are 50 paid mentors who act as a bridges between the children, schools, and homes. There are now 11 schools that are being rebuilt by the Schools for Schools program. St. Mary’s Lacor Secondary School (the one that Southern and Collegedale Academy directly support) is almost finished. A girls dormitory is now almost completed and they will start a guys dorm soon. The Schools for Schools campaign raised 1.3 million dollars last semester and more work on the Ugandan schools will begin again in June. A program called the Economic Development Association has begun educating people in business and loan ventures. The people are divided into groups of 20 and the loans they now offer people enable economic growth in all areas. They have tried to involve the families of the children of the scholarship program so that their home life can be as stable as possible. At this point over 400 people are participating in the EDA program. The Mend Bag program employees 13 girls. Most are child mothers who were raped by the rebels. They are ostracized due to the nature of their child’s conception and the Mend program enables them to have a fresh start. The last program the IC is associated with involves getting the cotton industry going in Uganda. The cotton harvested goes to a company in Kampala who makes Phoenix products. The tee shirts they make are only $4 so if anyone is printing in the near future, they should consider buying from Phoenix.  That about sums up all the latest IC info. If  Invisible Children is new to you, check out http://invisiblechildren.com/home.php.

 

After our meeting with IC we left to grab a bite to eat. Yep, you guessed it, Kope Café. We started discussing what we would do for the rest of the afternoon. Travis had heard about a program called Krochet Kids International that was based in Gulu. They are a lot like Invisible Children. It started with 3 guys who crocheted a lot in high school. They decided to come to Uganda and boost the economy a bit by hiring ladies to make hats and scarves to sell in the US. We had looked on the Internet to see if we could find the address of their offices, but to no avail.  We were pretty bummed. Right then, Travis looks up and sees a woman wearing a Krochet Kids T-shirt. Krystin went over to ask her if she knew where the organization's offices were located. It turns out that she not only knew where they were located, but she worked there as well! To make the situation ever better, her name is Judith and she is Jolly’s sister. She called some bodas to take us to the KK offices after we finished eating. She was so helpful. It's amazing to see all the things that Jolly, Judith, and their family have done for their community.

We got to the offices and met the staff of KK. This guy Shawn gave us the full tour and then gave us great deals on some of the older KK merchandise. He told us about the non-profit network here in Gulu and how one of his best friends worked in the Invisible Children offices. We got in a great conversation with him about God and life and how love plays such a vital roll in all our lives. 2 Peter 4:8 is written on the tag in all their products and he explained that the staff got together every morning and had worship together. They make sure to ask themselves, “What does love look like in this situation?" or "How do we display God's love to this person?" For the 3rd time that day, we were all inspired.
We still have 2 days here and I’m not sure what they hold, but the hope in this town is almost tangible. There is such a history of pain, yet the people’s resilience is so relentless. God is moving here!

R.I.P. Z'

We had this cat named Zealand. We've been meaning to post a blog on him forever because he was basically the most adorable cat of all time.  Alas, Zealand was brutally murdered by the L'esperance puppies. Had he lived, we would have brought you the best re-enactment of The Lion King complete with the 3 of us holding Zealand out over the sea cliffs to the tune of "Circle of Life". It would have been priceless. In loving memory...this ones for you Z.

Zealand's 1st bath. 

The Art of Opportunity

We said we were going to open our eyes to the opportunities God presented and present He did. On Sunday we headed into town to hang out, do some shopping and use the Internet. (We have it at our house but it's incredibly slow and nothing can be uploaded or downloaded.) Our Lonely Plant book tells us where all the best Wi-Fi hotspots are. It just so happens that there is amazingly fast, free Wi-Fi offered at an Irish pub called Bubble O’Leary’s. We had been there once before and it was actually pretty nice.

You would be surprised at the wide array of people you see in Irish Pubs in Uganda - drunken African American London residents, well-off local Ugandans, large forgeign bank owners, single Caucasian women who smoke in the corner and drink straight up vodka all afternoon…the list goes on and on. I think I could take up people-watching there permanently. Anyway, so the 3 of us are sitting there, each of us intently working on projects on our computers, and out of nowhere this attractive, 20-something guy walks up and introduces himself to us.

As it turns out, the guy's name was Stephen. He struck up a conversation and ended up chatting with us on and off for the next 3 hours. He asked what we were doing here and we told him. He said he was impressed with how mature we are for only being 21 - whatever that means...ha ha. He was a 29 year old, extremely healthy business man who was in Uganda for 4 months...on business. He never mentioned what he actually did for a living no matter how many ways we asked. Over the course of the next few hours, he told us some of his story. He grew up as a conservative Christian in a trailer park in North Carolina. Somewhere along the way he "grew out" of his heritage and made a name for himself. We talked about religion and Jesus and the Bible with him for a bit but he seemed so skeptical. After a time, he went his way and we went ours. We won't ever know what happens to him or what in the world he does for a living but we told Stephen that if God was real, He would show Himself to him at some point. We can just pray Stephen keeps his eyes open.

It is now the rainy season here and when Africans say rainy season, they aren’t kidding. It rains almost every day. The nice thing is that the rain surprisingly takes away most of the bugs. Unfortunately, it brings out the army ants. We have heard stories about how army ants can clear out whole towns and how they can kill a human in 15 minutes. So far, we hadn’t seen any close to our house…until yesterday that is. I hear a shaky “Um…Megan…you better come out here…” from Krystin and sure enough, there’s a nice little (understatement of the year) train of them winding through our front yard. Sick. Let's just say we went a little crazy with the bug spray. Anyway, I’m telling you all of this to let you know that, on most days, it rains. Therefore, on Tuesday, when the sky was clear and the sun was shining, we made a B-line back to One Love Beach.

Johnny Rasta and his friends were so happy to see us. They all live on the beach and I think it gets boring sometimes. It was Travis’ first time at the beach and we were all pretty excited to see if the Rasta men could dread his hair. It turns out, Johnny has to call the dread guy and have him come out to the beach this Sunday. We’ll let you know how it goes. =)

Soda comes in glass bottles here and I decided to start collecting the metal bottle caps that come on top. I had seen a floor once that was made completely with caps and I wanted to see if we could test it out at home. One Love Beach sells tons of drinks so there hundreds of them just lying around in the sand. Johnny Rasta saw me collecting them. “You are making art?” he asked. “Kinda.” I told him. He quickly volunteered to collect them for me during the week. He said this while blowing smoke from the joint hanging out of his mouth. I smiled and said that I would love it if he collected them for me. The other Rastas - Livingston, Ronny, and Henry also came up to hang out with us. They are all just about as nice as Johnny. They offered to get the “horse seat” so we could ride the pony and Krystin and Johnny ended up trading blank CDs so that we can burn them some “American” tunes and they can show us what real “African” music sounds like.  Ha ha. Basically, these guys are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

I set up my towel next to Krystin’s and lay down to catch some sun. I started thinking about the awesome opportunity we had, being friends with Johnny and the other Rastas. I started to wonder how in the world we would ever end up talking about Jesus with the guys. Right about then I hear Johnny talking to Travis. Travis had taken his shirt off and in doing so, Johnny had seen Trav’s tattoo. The tattoo is in the shape of a circle with a mountain range in the center.  Travis drew the design himself. His family has been backpacking in that mountain range since he was 5, and there are also several other memories relating to his experiences in the outdoors. I tuned into the conversation right as Johnny was saying “P…p…psalms 121? Oh, oh, the scripture? I’m gonna see if I can look that one up sometime.”

I was dumbfounded. 1^st, I was surprised that Johnny even knew scripture. I mean the guy lives on One Love Beach in a tent and smokes weed all day. Lesson number 1: never assume. 2^nd, how crazy is it that I had just been wondering how we would start up a conversation about God with them and right then, God comes through. Lesson number 2: don’t underestimate God. 3^rd, only God would use something as controversial as a tattoo to reach out to a person as notorious as a Rasta man. Lesson number 3: God can use anything to get His word out to anyone.

I’m not saying any of this to start a discussion of about the physical and moral implications of weed and tattoos. I don’t think everyone should go out and smoke weed and I’m not even going to tell you what I think of tattoos but what I AM saying is that maybe those things really aren’t the point. I mean if we are all honest with ourselves I think we would all agree that while weed and tattoos usually only have the opportunity to hurt the user, things like gossip, lies, greed, and adultery hurt the masses. While we all get so caught up in the legality of it all, we end up missing the entire point of being followers of Jesus. Maybe the point is that sometimes God uses tattoos and Irish pubs to start conversations. Maybe the point is that God IS love. He doesn’t JUST love us, he doesn’t just enable US to love but God and love are the SAME THING, and if people don’t see that when they look at us, then we have epically failed. Who was it that said, “I would believe in Christianity if it weren’t for the Christians.” ? It was Gandhi I think. Every day here, I feel like I learn one more way to prove our friend Gandhi wrong. I hope God continues to teach and mold and consume all that we do while we are here. I’m telling you, this whole “opening our eyes to God’s opportunities” thing is pretty amazing. I dare you to try it. Just be prepared to have your world turned around…=)

The Need to Read

A child in my mom's 1st and 2nd grade class donated $100 to buy books for the kids that Krystin and I teach here in Uganda. I hope these pictures help you share in their excitement!