I've got a CAR!!!

Car shopping adventures.. Well it took nearly 2 months for me to finally get a car. I first found a “Homy” car. I guess it would be appropriate if I were to transport my homy’s IN my Homy. Interesting.

Next, I asked about this lovely green hornet sort of low rider truck. Hmmm. I’m speechless.

Finally, in frustration when all the real possibilities were either too old or way too costly… I gave up. I thought, well, maybe if I know what I can’t afford, then maybe I can later know what would be possible, but still in decent condition! So I turned to this sample car, a pearl (my friend Delight insists it is not white) 1997 Prado, and asked it’s cost. Then I asked to see inside it, only to get familiar with what the car “perks” were… but in the grace of God...oh my.

The auto dealer agreed to come down on his price, while the men (Kenneth & Josh) helped me confirm that yes, this sample car, could indeed be mine. And here I am, 2 weeks later, driving a “new” car! I’m so thankful!  If you gave towards this ministry tool, or if you prayed, THANK YOU for your part in serving the Lord, and helping me and the ministries in Uganda!

Just so you know, we named my car Pearl. The name suits it by its color, and also that we're in "The Pearl of Africa" (Churchill gave this name to Uganda when he visited here). 

Field Retreat and Various Cultural Adventures...

So I've been writing this particular entry all evening, hoping for Internet to come back on so I could upload. It is back, but alas, I've become lazy. Instead of putting things in chronological order (I can hardly type that word, let alone do its meaning!), you've got a jumble. It still makes sense, and do you really care if I did shopping first or after the retreat? So I'm trusting you'll simply enjoy the following entries...

Shopping, pictured above: One Friday in May, Christina and I took Tiya (HIS 2011), Bertha and Lydia (HIS 2010), to the Friday market. This is a weekly market where folks sell  all sorts of African (mostly Ugandan and Kenyan) curios. It was a great morning of catching up (we hadn't seen Lydia or Bertha for a long while) and celebrating for Tiya as she was getting ready to graduate from Heritage.



Of Pranks and Fun...

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Lisa who wanted to return something she borrowed. Entering Jean and Christina’s home, she found nobody there, but the doors were unlocked! Too tempted to resist, she happily took some toilet paper and decorated each of the girl’s bedrooms. Leaving the empty roll on the stuffed hippo’s arm (as if he could do it– oh, and it looks more like a pig than a hippo), she proudly went home thinking she had “gotten them good”. Nope. During retreat, the tables were turned.

The 2 ladies (Christina and Jean) LIED to the front desk clerk and were able to get a room key to MY room. They snuck in, and with help from Jodi and Jacob, they did a REALLY good job of payback. These are photos from that event. And guess who showed up, apparently leading the attack, but that funny hippo/pig creature?!

Sigh– Jean has left Uganda now and I miss her greatly. However, she kindly left me the hippo/pig, which I’ve renamed Jean of course, and now I’ve got a sweet and funny reminder of our times together. (see series of pics below) 

New Jersey, Asbury University, or Both? Read on...

6 Degrees of separation? If you’ve heard of this “game”, somebody proposed that (all?) people are somehow connected with only 6 degrees of separation. If it is true, I bet somehow a New Jersey native OR an Asbury University grad is in that chain somehow. In the above photo, you’ve got your pick! All the adults in this pic are from either NJ, Asbury, or BOTH! And we’ve all been serving here in Uganda! God is cool- 6 degrees ideas or not. And I pray we’re ALL connected to Him and His peace and joy.

Field retreat 2011; On the way to a hotel in Entebbe, we met together at the Serena Hotel on Lake Victoria. What a hotel! We had a delicious buffet lunch and made sure we got this group photo of all our WGM Uganda staff. Included also are our regional directors, Terry & Karen Duncan.

The hotel architecture and views were amazing!

On the retreat itself we were in a hotel in Entebbe (where the airport is located). It was 4 days, 3 nights of relaxation, hearing the Word of the Lord, and reconnecting with our missionary family.

One morning I was walking to my room, located in Zambia (well, not really, but it was located FAR from everything else)… and I saw a man watering the grass next to the newly finished building. He was doing so with a fire hose, out a hotel window. It just made me smile. Cultural stuff is happening all the time, and sometimes I catch it on my camera, seeking to share these little joys with folks (usually on my blog). You can see the guy with the hose pictured below...

  

Another cultural experience was going to the Uganda Wildlife Sanctuary (zoo) with the volunteers, during our retreat days. I’d actually never been to the zoo here, so it was an adventure; quite memorable. For one, we stopped to see the leopard (beautiful!) and some Colobus monkeys tried to aim for us with their –yes– pee, and then poo! ICK!

Thankfully they missed, but only because Jon was watching them and gave us a timely warning. Next, we discovered that the male ostrich is VERY territorial. He came over to the gate we were at and hissed and flapped his beak at us. It was entertaining for us, but I’m sure he was NOT amused. We also saw some other lovely birds and animals, pictured below here. Just so you know, our part of Uganda does not naturally have camels, so to find 3 on the beaches of Lake Victoria (the zoo is on the Lake) was also quite a thrill.

He thinks he is pretty smart...

Watch out from above! Here is our group looking at those stinky monkeys after they aimed for us!

Some Icky things: Spiders in all the trees. The game guy said they are poisonous, but he couldn’t tell me their name. They were EVERYWHERE and their webs are HUGE. Ick.And then, Christina found a pile of manure and pretended she “made” all of it. Double Ick.

Crested or Crowned Crane; Uganda’s national bird, and one of my all-time favorites. They stand about 3.5 ft. high. Lovely.

The 2011 Youth Bash @ HIS

Each spring at Heritage, the youth are invited to an end-of-school Youth Bash, where we play games and eat and get wet and laugh and generally have a super time. We invite the grade 6 class, to welcome them into youth group, and all the 7-12 join in. This year, since I was away from Uganda for my furlough, I missed doing a lot with the teens. But I was thrilled to have this activity for them upon my return! Some of the games included the following:

 Slip-n-slide is still a favorite. This year we tried a double-wide one! Notice that dish soap on the torso REALLY speeds up the slides!

Josh helps on the stilts for a relay. This part of the relay went slowly, but I believe ALL the kids loved having to try to take 3 steps (we had to help a number of them as they'd never seen/used them before). The sense of joy and accomplishment was really evident!

Ahh... why is it so funny to have people spin around a bat 10 times and make them run back to the finish line? It still gives me joy after all these years!

 

(above)...well, there is no name for this shaving cream and "Cheetos" game. The team stood in a circle several feet away from their central guy (above), and had to toss locally made "Cheetos" at his head. The team that had the most stick won.

The girls get armed for water balloon battle!

Christina (pictured below) came up with "sumo" a few years back. The rules are fuzzy, but basically you are not supposed to use your arms when you work at bumping your opponent out of the circle. I LOVE the expression on the boy's face above. Please note, due to protecting my kids (those 17 and younger), I now don't give names. Maybe I'll use initials at most.

Above: Lydia (HIS '10) & Tiya (HIS '11) joined us for the fun!

Below: Hoola hoops are a big hit for our relays.

Water balloons and water games rule the day at our Youth Bash each year.

Shooting water into a distant bucket often ends with someone getting soaked, and only partially filled buckets.