Greetings From the Queen

Hey everyone, we've made it safely to London.  Our last two days that were supposed to be spent on safari in Uganda ended up differently than expected, after we found out the amount of travel involved.  We were going to tag along with another team, but after finding out the trip would have been an eight hour bus ride each direction, we decided to spend the last two days in Uganda resting and spending time with the Masiko family.  Our goodbyes were sad this morning, only because the relationships we built were so sweet.  Hopefully I'll be able to post some more reflections on the trip in the coming days and weeks for those interested.

We are now in London until Saturday morning, and we're thouroughly enjoying the hot showers and soft mattresses.  We were able to meet up with our friends Kathy, Jackie, and Siona tonight, and we're looking forward to a couple days of fellowship and exchanging stories of what the Lord has done in all of our travels.  I'll say it once more for good measure, thank you all so much for your prayers – the ministry portion of our trip was a resounding success.

 

I’m Sending Out an S.O.S.

Giving away bicycles to local pastors with S.O.S.

Winnie giving Eric a hug after opening her gifts

Rose having her card from Sam translated to her

Saying goodbye to the kids at S.O.S.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, the last few days have been amazing.  Thursday and Friday of this week were spent with the Hurley and Atherstone families at S.O.S. Ministries in the city of Mokono (click here to see their website). We were able to get a good overview of their ministry and help out with a few things along the way.

Thursday we went out with the other Team Uganda (who says hello to all the COC family) to a pretty remote village to help with registering pastors for a conference that S.O.S. will be starting in August.  At the end of the registration, each of the pastors was given a new bike to help with the transportation to the upcoming conference.  The bike cost was about the equivalent of 6 months salary for them, so this was a HUGE gift.  Jeff and I were the line monitors for the bike giving, and it was really cool for us to hear and see how excited these people were to be receiving this new gift.

Thursday night we got to have a family dinner with the Hurley's and the taste of American food was a welcome one for us.  Then, after dinner, we were able to hand out the gifts we brought for Winnie, Rose, and Jerrold.  This was definitely a highlight of the trip as we saw the kids' faces light up as they received their new clothes and school supplies.  The hugs we got that night will be remembered forever.

Friday morning we went with Shannon for the first of a two day conference he was doing for about 100 pentecostal pastors at a church near his home.  Eric and I were able to help him setup a way to record his sermons so he can send them out, and possibly use them for a radio ministry in the future.  We were once again reminded of the African concept of time at this conference, as there were maybe 20 people at the beginning but well over 100 by lunch time.  Friday night we had another great American meal with the Hurley's and the Atherstone's, then said goodbye and headed back to our temporary home in Kampala.

Saturday was spent back at Agape Children's Village, the first ministry we visited in Uganda.  The pastor there requested that we spent a day teaching his staff and church leaders, so we each took about an hour with a translator and went through Bible overview, devotional time, and time management.  The other guys went out today to teach a group of Compassion university students, but I stayed behind to try to kick a cold that I've had for the past few days.   I'm feeling much better already, thanks for asking, and I'm sure I'll be back at full strength by tomorrow morning.  Good thing, because we're leaving at 5am for an 8 hour drive to Queen Elizabeth National Park.  Hopefully I'll be able to put up another update when we get back.

 

Which of the 12 Tribes is Your Favorite?

Mine is Judah for sure.  I'm also a big fan of Judah Gunderson, whom we got to meet today.  When we first walked into his room, he had bananas all over his face but he was careful to not spill on his favorite T-shirt.

The last two days have been really busy for us here.  Monday morning we headed out to visit Thomas Abunde, Jeff's friend who directs the Word of Life ministry here in Uganda.  Thomas has a wide and effective ministry, including a Christian primary school, all sorts of youth discipleship and outreach, and pastoral training.  After a time of fellowship in the morning the day was spent training a group of pastors who came from all around Kampala.  The teaching time went really well, thanks for all of your prayers.  Several of the pastors asked us to come back and host a larger conference for them, and we were greatly humbled to even hear the request.  Monday night we had a great time with the Abunde family, playing with the kids, eating more delicious local food, and watching the heartbreaking soccer match on TV.

Tuesday morning we hopped a taxi for the city of Jinja.  Just a side note here, imagine a small mini-van.  Now imagine 14 strangers inside.  That was our trip to and from Jinja today, so much fun.  Anyway, after the 1.5 hour taxi ride we arrived at Amani Baby Cottage (ABC), and immediately got huge smiles on our faces, which remained solid for the next two hours.  Here's why:
 

For those who might not know, our friends Gunner and Cindi Gunderson are in the process of adopting their first son, Judah, from ABC.  We got a grand tour of the facility and got to meet all 51 of the babies living there.  We took a ton of pictures of Judah and the two kids the Tatlock family is adopting for the proud parents back home.  We were really impressed by the staff and how well they care for these children.  The kids at this home are truly loved by all around them.  It was a happy time for us, but also a heartbreaking time, as we were able to meet several of the children at ABC living with HIV and AIDS.  We heard some incredible stories of how some of these babies came to them, and how they will soon have new homes in the US.

Tomorrow we will get the opportunity to meet up with our friend Dick again, for some time with a team he is hosting from Cedarville College.  Pray that we make the most of our time with Dick, as we try to glean some of his wisdom from so many years here on the field in Uganda.  Then, Wednesday night, Thursday, and Friday will be spent with the Hurley's at SOS Ministries.  Our next post will most likely contain pictures of the kids that we sponsor at SOS, so stay tuned…

P.S. – I forgot to mention that this post has a new special feature!  You can click on any one of these pictures and get to a larger verision of said picture, which can be used for your computer desktop, printing out and putting next to your bed, or really whatever you want.  Thanks and goodnight.

 

2 Posts for the Price of 1

Sorry it took so long between these last updates, just today we got the magical combination of power and phone credits that allow us to use the internet here.  Here's what we've been up to for the last couple of days:

Saturday we traveled to the city of Masaka, about 2.5 hours drive south west of Kampala, for a conference with Jacques.  The purpose of the conference was to start a new Alumni Association that Compassion is instituting in Uganda and the Phillippines.  We were expecting about 350 people to show up, but the final count was actually closer to 500.  Our main job there was to help Jacques document the event in photo and video, so he can use it for training when he goes to the Phillippines at the end of June.  It was really neat to see such a large group of formerly sponsored children who are now coming together to sponsor children themselves. What an inspiration to us!

Today, Sunday, we got our first church experience in Uganda.  We attended Agape Baptist Church in Ntindia, where Jacques is an elder, for Sunday School and English Service.  The service layout (OOW) was pretty similar to what we normally do at COC, with the exception of the number of songs.  Eric says there were 9 songs this morning, several that we could sing along with.  Another cool difference was that a man accepted Christ during the service.  It was really cool, they stopped the service and brought him up to the front for the entire congregation to pray.  There was also a moving part of the service where people were invited to the front for elder prayer, and many of those who went forward were the kids.  About half of the congregation is made up of local kids, most of whom are orphans or children of unbelieving parents.

This afternoon we had lunch with the Masiko family and have been resting and preparing for this week's schedule.  It's going to be a busy week, spending most of our time with Thomas Abunde (Jeff's friend from Word of Life) on Monday and Tuesday, then Shannon Hurley (our friend at SOS Ministries) on Thursday and Friday.  You can be praying for us over the next few days as we will be spending time teaching at a pastor's conference.  Pray that our teaching will be applicible and God glorifying.

And now some responses from our viewer mail:
Sam writes, "-how hot is it? Can you liken it to something we’d understand?
-have any of you gotten any sicknesses at all?
-how’s team unity going?
-what did you pakced that has proved a lifesaver?"
Thanks for asking Sam.  Hotness, not that bad.  I'd say its been maybe 80-85 with relatively high humidity.  For sure not as hot as Santa Clarita when we left, but the evenings can be a bit muggy when there's no power for the ceiling fan.  It's no where near as humid as the South though.
Sicknesses, well, E.G. has been taking the Immodium on an ongoing basis, but overall we're fine. U-N-I-T-Y, that's the unity, it has been strong to very strong.  Lifesaver up to this point, hand sanitizer, food, really everything has come in handy, and we haven't really been in need of anything.
Jennene writes, "Do these camps receive no aid from NGO’s? What is World Vision and Compassion Itnl’s role up there?"
As far as NGO's go, there's a long answer, which will have to wait until we get home, but the short answer is yes.  About 95% of the cars on the road in Gulu belong to an NGO.  They do help to some extent, they bring food to the camps and are the primary means for survival for the residents.  As of yet, Compassion isn't involved in the north, but are hoping to expand once the war is over.  World Vision is pretty large in Gulu, but we didn't get any opportunities to meet with them while there.

 

Say Goodbye, So Sad to be Leaving

Pictures as promised:

Night Commuters performing a traditional Acholi dance for us


Kids getting ready for bed at the night commuter shelter

Sunrise this morning on the bus from Gulu

Crossing back over the Nile

Trying to get a taxi in Kampala

Since the last post we have spent our last day and night in Gulu and are now back in the capital city.  Thursday we were able to help the Invisible Children team with a few different things.  Eric taught Katie how to make a spreadsheet she needed in Excel, Jeff designed some shelving units for their guest house, and I planned out a database project with Katie and Jolly that I'm going to build for them when I get home. 

Thursday evening we got to meet another really cool guy, affectionately referred to as Dr. Dave by those in Gulu.  Dave is a college professor in Chicago for most of the year, but comes to Gulu to teach chemistry for one term during his summer break.  Dave had a lot of insight on the reigon and what it's biggest need is.  In his words, "Northern Uganda just needs good churches".  He encouraged us to consider coming to Gulu to teach and plant a church, and told us all about how many people he tries to recruit from the US, but so far he is the only American to teach at Gulu University (GU).  We exchanged contact information and are definitely going to keep in touch with Dave. 

Later that night we went back to visit the kids at the night commuter shelter, and again we had a blast.  We brought a guitar with us, and played encore after encore of "Lord I Lift Your Name on High" and "Every Move I Make".  It was so amazing to be singing with these kids we've been praying for during the past months.

Early Friday morning we boarded the crowded bus back to Kampala, then rested up for our next journey to a city called Masaka, where our host Jacques is leading a conference for alumni of Compassion International.  These are kids who grew up in the sponsorship program and are now working professionals.  Depending on when I get to actually post this (internet is down tonight) I'll let you all know how it goes.

 

Invisible Children – Camps and Commuters

Sorry for the slow update, and lack of pictures again. Power here in Gulu is pretty sporatic, and we couldn’t use the computer last night. Today we’re in an internet cafe so there’s no way to post the pictures up to the site. Hopefully when we get back to Kampala tomorrow I can show you all some of the things we experienced yesterday. Words can hardly describe, but I’ll try.

Yesterday started with a trip with Katie to visit a shelter for child mothers. It’s a place where girls can go to get help when they have had children in “the bush” then manage to escape the LRA somehow. In typical African fashion, the group had relocated to a different building so we went ahead onto our next destination.

We boarded Boda Boda’s (small motorcycle taxis that you ride on the back of) and headed off to Koro IDP camp. Koro is one of the smaller camps in Northern Uganda, housing around 10,000 people, and it’s one of the locations where Invisible Children has their bracelet making program. The conditions at the camp were the worst I have ever seen. The cow dung huts are packed so tightly together that you can’t walk in between some of them. The people all around are on the brink of starvation, and their only concern is survival – how they will get their next meal and avoid disease. I know we’ve all seen these pictures on TV, but to be there first hand was an experience I can’t really describe yet. The bracelet campaign consisted of two huts full of people making the same ones we buy on visiblechildren.com. They’re currently working on the green ones which will be released in about two weeks in the states. This job allows the workers to earn enough money to buy food to feed their families, nothing more to save for anything else. The only source of real food for the camps is the UN world food programme, or WFP, and what they provide isn’t enough to sustain the people. The WFP truck come maybe once a month, and the food is only enough for a few weeks at most.

To me the saddest part of the whole situation is that there are miles of land all around that these people would be farming if it wasn’t for fear of the LRA. The struggle for survival wouldn’t be nearly as difficult if the government wouldn’t have forced them into these camps.

After Koro, we went and visited the Invisible Chilren office in town. Jolly, the mom in the movie, now runs the operation in Uganda. We got to meet her and have lunch with the staff. They run two main progams in Gulu now, the braclet campaign, and the education program. All the money that is made on the bracelets is funneled back to the education program which provides scholarships to kids in the camps. Here in Uganda, all the children who want to go above an elementary level have to pay school fees of around 5,000 schillings (about 3 dollars) per term. To most in the camps this is completely out of reach, so IC finds student who have good grades and who want to go to secondary school and provide them with the tuition money. Then they have mentors who go to visit the kids to check on their studies and on their home lives. All in all a very cool progam they have running, currently their goal is to have 1,000 students sponsored for the next term.

Then, last night was the highlight of our trip so far. We got to go visit one of the night commuter shelters here in town. Rebel activity is at an all time low right now (PTL!) so there were only about 100 kids at the shelter we went to. The facility was huge, and aparently there have been times within the last 6 months where thousands of kids stayed there. As soon as we walked in the gate we were warmly greeted by the guards and the camp director. After a few minutes of meeting some of the kids we were told to sit down so they could sing us some songs and do a traditional dance for us. All I can say is WOW! What an amazing time we had. Again I struggle to describe it, just so amazing. Then we got to see there sleeping quarters and wish them a good night.

Today is another day in Gulu doing whatever we can to help out the Invisible Children folks with varoius computer stuff then it’s back down to Kampala. Hopefully we’ll get to go back to the shelter tonight to hang out with the kids.

 

Welcome to Gulu

We made it to Gulu! And they have internet!  Today was filled with the 6 hour car ride from the capital of Kampala, up here to the north Uganda. We left Jacques house at 8:30 this morning after a good nights sleep, and met up with Dick and Hal, two Baptist missionaries from Sacramento. Dick has been a missionary here in Uganda for the last 30 years, so we got quite the education on the drive.

For lunch we had chicken and rice and for snacks we got to have the best mango on God's green earth. Now, even now, I'm chewing on the most amazing pinneapple ever to cross my lips. It's a good thing I'm off the diet. On the drive, we crossed the Nile, and Jeff got to drool at the class 5 rapids below, then passed a family of baboons (pictures to come soon). The closer we Got to Gulu, the more people we saw living in IDP camps. There are hundreds of huts all packed really tightly together, then miles of nothing in between the camps. Our friend James is going to take us into one of the camps tomorrow where IC makes the braclets.

When we got to Gulu we were immediately met by our new friend Katie, of Invisible Children, and were shown our new home for the next couple of days. We got a little tour of the city and the market and are looking forward to a full day tomorrow. Thanks for all your prayers for safety, we are all safe and sound, and in good health. Please pray for us tomorrow as we see first hand what life is like in the displacement camps.

 

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

This one’s going to have to be quick. I just finished this really nice, long discriptive post and when I tried to publish it, we’ll let’s just say it got lost somewhere out there on the internet. If you find it, drop me an email just so I know where it went. Here’s the gist of it: we made it safely and our first day here in Uganda was amazing. Jacques Masiko, our host, is the Ugandan version of Paul Pillai – there are so many similarities it’s almost rediculous. He’s great, we’re great, everybody’s great. Thanks for your prayers, we can already see the effect.

Today we got to visit an orphanage that was the home of 85 former street kids (see picture below). It was incredible. They have a community built where there’s a whole group of houses, and each house has it’s own family with 12-13 kids and a mother to look after them all. The kids take care of each other and they raise their own gardens and animals. After founding the community, the pasor in charge of the orpahnage decided to plant a church there to reach out to the surrounding area. Every weekend they have over 200 kids from the local neighborhoods coming to church. It was quite an experience to say the least.

Then, somewhat unexpectedly tonight, we confirmed our plans for visiting Gulu, the town in northern Uganda where Invisible Chilren was filmed. Turns out we’re leaving first thing tomorrow morning and we get to stay for three nights. Please continue to pray for our safety as we travel North. Moms and wife, try not to worry too much, we’ll be traveling with a veteran Baptist missionary who is a good friend of Jacques. I’m not sure what internet access will be like up there, but I’ll try to update again as soon as possible. Thanks for all the comments, you guys are SO sweet.

 

Cheerio Mates

We've made it safely to London, no problems so far.  The flight was smashing- Jeff and I slept most of the time, and Eric is about 90% sure he saw the girl that plays Kelly on The Office on our plane.  One slightly strange thing did happen though, just before we took off at LAX one of the flight crew people came to my seat and needed my boarding pass.  I gave it to her, and she walked off without any explanation.  I asked the flight addendant what the problem was and he had no idea. He said everything "SHOULD be fine" which scares me a little, but hopefully all of our bags will get to Uganda. We are anxiously awaiting our next flight here at Heathrow, which strangely enough looks a lot like the Glendale Galleria.  And since I have £1.37 left in credit on this internet terminal, I'd like to metion the comments on this blog.  I know many who are reading this might be somewhat new to the way this works, but every post has the ability to leave comments.  In the upcoming weeks this will be a good way for you all to interact with us.  Feel free to ask questions and start conversations using the comments, and hopefully we'll be able to answer back in a timely manner.

 

Head em Up, Move em Out

It's official, we're packed up and on our way to the airport.  As part of our preparation, we just finished watching "Uganda Rising", a new documentary on the situation we are about to enter.  I highly recommend it, talk to Sam if you want to give it a look while we're away.  So here's what our next 24 hours look like (all times local):
6:30pm – arrive at LAX
9:20pm – depart for London
2:00pm – arrive in London
5:00pm – depart for Uganda
5:20am – arrive in Uganda
Please pray for good attitudes, good flights, no lost luggage, and most importantly opportunities to share the gospel with those we meet in the airports and on the planes.  Hopefully my next update will be from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, which is 10 hours ahead of Santa Clarita for those of you keeping track.