Rainy Day Youth Group

This past youth group was run by seniors Bertha and Kahan, who volunteered to help out. Bertha gave a devotional and they both helped with games, from launching tennis balls to dressing up in TP wedding outfits.




So we have used the water balloon launcher for balloons, ahem- frogs-, and now for tennis balls. It actually works pretty well with the balls, and the kids really enjoy not only shooting but also trying to catch them (in buckets- well, unless you are Lino, who used his bare hands!). The best part to me (besides having fun shooting them) is that we don't have to hunt the city for more balloons, since those are kind of extinct in Uganda.

Vote For Pedro- crack me up!!!

Back for the HIS Rain Festival in the fall, Brent dressed as Napoleon Dynamite. Recently, he gave the shirt to Peter, my guard. Peter loved getting a new shirt, but especially loved finding out that Pedro in Spanish is Peter. He takes special pride in his shirt. And once in a while we tell him we'd vote for him. He walks off giggling and saying to himself, "another vote for me... hee hee!". I love having him as my guard. Sweet.

Rollerblading Boda guys...

Yep, so besides generally being unsafe because boda drivers drive crazy and cause a lot of traffic problems, let's add a guy hanging on using roller blades! Well, dumb decision, but good cultural shot for me.

Other Ugandan Wildlife

There are many creepy crawlies in Africa, but thankfully I hardly see any, especially compared to the -ugh- countless creepy crawlies in South America. Anyway, the first of these 2 pics below is of Logan ACTING as if he is going to eat a grasshopper- a common "delicacy" here but not this type.
The other is not so harmless. It is about a centimeter long and you do not want to touch it or have it touch you (while sleeping, falling on you, or crawling on your clothes and then on you...). It is called a Nairobi Eye (no idea why) but if you try to brush it off you will get acid on you which will burn with blisters and all. Thankfully I've never touched one, but this one was in my bathroom on vacation at Christmas.




FYI you never need to play with caterpillars here in Uganda like we might have as kids in the USA. I remember "woolly worms" that would curl up into a ball as soon as you touch it... but all the caterpillars here are poisonous. They look cute and lightly hairy, but those hairs carry their poison.
One of these days I will remember to take a photo of all the flying ants that come in a swarm from time to time. They just came on Saturday morning, kind of freaked out my friend Janie who was visiting, since there were hundreds of these ants crawling into her room around the screen frames and under the door. Africans gather these ants to fry and eat, but I have never done this myself. I'm just not sure I could get past the crunch and squish as you bite down.

School Spirit Week

Every year, HIS has a week's worth of activities to promote school spirit and unity. Every day, we dress in funny themes, including Tacky Day, Pajama Day, School Colors day... and this year they included "what you want to be" day and "favorite cartoon character day". On the Friday of Spirit Week, we take our teams and play games all morning. The following is a mixture of the week's activites.



Each team played in the tug of war, but it was most fun to see the workmen who keep our campus running, clean and mechanically up to snuff as they tried to go against each other! They had a great time playing.



Jordan and Jacob in school colors. Jacob was on my team, YELLOW!!!- and made my day. I'd been recovering from parasites and felt pretty unenergized, but Jacob joined my team for the games on Friday, and it was a great morning! Both boys are from WGM, and along with all our other kids (WGM MK's and all HIS kids) they really enjoyed the whole week!!!






Games day water break...


Pajama Day



Lisa M. and Jean K. pose in their "What I want to be when I grow up" costumes.





The 2 above and 2 below photos are from Favorite Cartoon Character day. Be impressed, since not only did I dress up (I always participate) but that I did it after spending 2 days in bed from being sick. That I got any outfit together in time is pretty good, and this was a fun one. Now I don't think that "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" is my favorite, but Veggie Tales can be easy to dress up for in costume, and hey, I didn't have any Looney Tunes (those are my favorites!) ideas...








I love this little girl's hair! How amazing that she got it so straight!




I think it is obvious that these above pics are from Tacky Day...


The Sack race- a popular game each year.

Our 2010 Seniors from Heritage

Kahan, Bertha and Lydia are our class of 2010. I know, it is a small school. But we have GREAT kids! Just last weekend, several of us got together to paint the math room. It used to be grungy yellow but is now 2-tone blue (although one looks nearly white), with chalk board painted geometric shapes on the back wall. For community service hours, a requirement for graduation, Kahan and Bertha helped out (Lydia lives far from the school and couldn't make it). It was a fun time together... and although the months will fly between now and grad, we hope and plan to have more fun times together.
Pray for our seniors as they make their post-high school plans. They'll all be leaving Uganda, and the closure needs to be good for all involved. Thanks!

Just for Kahan

Kahan asked me for this photo and I told him I'd put it on my blog. It is of him and Nabait, taken at our Valentine's dinner. He is from India, she is from Eritrea. So does that make them an Indritrean couple or an Eritrindian couple? (enjoy, Kahan!)

Look Closely!!

Can you see it all? The man is pushing a WOODEN wheelbarrow, with a fridge inside. What you don't know is that "Tank Hill", where he is coming down, is BIG and he had already come up the other side! What a job! I saw the man on my way to the store, and on the way home he had reached the other side of the hill with his burden. I wonder where he was headed and how long it actually took. And I wonder how tired he was afterwards.

The road continues to be finished

Yep, so it has been probably a year since the road saga began. Right now, once every 2 months or so, they come back to complete the side MASSIVELY DEEP gutters. They're still not done, and after the gutters I won't be surprised if they come back and put in horrible, huge speed bumps. For now the road is mostly smooth, except for the small gravel speed bumps a neighbor put in illegally. Meanwhile, yes, the piles of stones just sit there in the road, making an already narrow road even worse. Such is the way roads are built here.

The Valentine's Dinner at Lotus Mexicana

38 people got together Feb. 5th (it just happened to be when we could do it) and had a nice Valentine's dinner. Yummy food, good fellowship and more fun photos. Erica, one of the new students this semester, had brought a bunch of glow-in-the-dark jewelry (she gave me red earrings that someone said looked like vials of glowing blood hanging from my ears! ha!).


Stephen (USA/Uganda), Bec (Australia), Marc (UK, India, Canada) & Leo (Uganda, Greece/Cyprus).


The restaurant has a HUGE mirror in one of it's rooms...


I told them not to move 'cause the flash was still processing, but they did and it actually turned out to be a cute picture still.


Erica, Kayla and Kezza


Jean, Betsy and Teresa model their glow in the dark bracelets.


Nabait, Bertha, Lydia and Meki borrowed my camera.

ALL the beads...

Okay so the photo qualtiy is HORRIBLE but you can see what is going on. Now let me explain: WGM's 100th Anniversary is in June and as a mission we will not only have a huge Celebration, and during that weekend, the mission will sell items from each of its fields.
Well, Uganda was asked to contribute paper bead products, and I got to be the "shopper". Calling one of our pastors (Rev. Charles and his wife Rebecca), who make the items to support their family, they came with LOADS of beads. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, purses, belts, and all sorts of colors and styles. When I brought the second half of the beads order home, Jean and Teresa were visiting... so we put them all on. OH MY! Enjoy the picture- it was fun trying to keep everything on without them falling off or weighing us down!
Oh- and FYI- if you want to buy some bead products, I'll see you at WGM's Celebration in June! (smile).

The 2010 HIS Mission's Trip

These photos are in no particular order. Just views from the missions trip. We went to a rural area about 40 min. from Kampala, and painted, poured a cement floor, played with kids, led a VBS (Vacation Bible School- here called a Holiday Bible School), distributed food and clothe, visited home-bound people, dug holes for trees, stayed healthy and malaria free (HAPPY about that!), and generally had a pretty great time. There were 23 of us out there, and the place we went had multiple minitries: a school, church, women's ministries, crafts ministry, clinic, and a well for the area.


We played "sculptionary" with the kids using playdough and they loved making fun shapes (like trees, a family, a bike, etc.). Too cute!


Tom & Lydia helped school kids write thank you letters to USA sponsors.


Isn't this picture of Anna and a little girl so sweet?


This lady from the church and ministries was one of several who so kindly cooked for us each day, in a tin building (an oven!!!) with smoking cook fires... and they do it every day for the school children!


Although the area has one well to serve about 500-600 people, it actually serves about 1200 people and the original well may dry up too fast with the overuse. So Church of God is drilling another well nearby, hoping to offset the incredible need of the area.


Several of our guys tried pumping water at the church well. Each day, imagine when instead of turning on a tap in your kitchen or bathroom, you have to first walk 5 to 20 minutes with some "jerry cans" (plastic containers) to the well. Then you wait in line (usually at least 5 people in front of you in the line), then pump water, and then struggle carrying the full jerry cans back to your home. But use only a small amount and be careful to not waste ANY, since the process will have to be repeated if the jerry cans get empty.



Weaving strips to make mats.



With so many of us on the team plus workers from the property, we soon ran out of enough dishes. I had the privilege of eating off a soapstone decorative dish one day.. which probably could make you ill if you did it all the time. The typical Ugandan meal on that colorful dish is: cooked cabbage, beans and rice, sweet potatoes, cooked bananas called matooke, covered with peanut gravy they call g-nut (ground nut) sauce.