6 Months Down and 6 More to Go

Wow... can you believe that I have been in Uganda for 6 months now.... and in 6 months I'll be able to see all of your wonderful faces again! (And not on Skype!!!)

I will admit that on Monday this week, I was done with cultural differences and wanted to jump on the first plane home... thanks to lots of prayer from a few friends here, those feelings quickly went away. There are days when I think.. "Why did I sign up for a year? If I only had signed up for 6 months I could go home now, be home in time for my cousin's baby to come and go to Camp Zion". Then I remember that God clearly called me here for a year..... and when I really think about it. I absolutely cannot imagine leaving right now. I am just getting to the point when I am seeing changes in the kids that I do physical therapy with, I am just now getting a Bible study started with some friends, and I am just now starting to really feel comfortable here. I am so thankful God has me here for a full year! Although I do miss all of you very much :)

So... instead of writing more this week.. I am just going to share pictures from the week! Warning: there are lots! Some weeks I have to force myself to pull out my camera on Thursday and take a few pictures for my blog.... this was not one of those weeks!

On Saturday, I visited the Ugandan Botanical Gardens with some wonderful friends that I have made here.

Botanical Gardens - Can you see the baby monkey???

Botanical Gardens - I thought this was interesting.. and doesn't surprise me. My neighbor just gave me some herbal oil for a rash I had last week - it totally worked!

Botanical Gardens - Supposedly they filmed the original Tarzan in the Botanical Gardens in Uganda... so we tried to recreate!

Saturday morning I got up at 5:30 am to finish my cooking lessons with my neighbors on making Samosas - The best way I can describe them is like a veggie egg roll

The green plate are the ones I made.... they do not remotely compare to Teacher Christine's on the board!!! Teacher Christine and her daughter make over 200 of these every morning to sell to the local stores!

The Group 6 kids sent their teacher on  a special quest to find me and ask me to take pictures of them working in the garden

Vicky is extremely stubborn in therapy and will not do anything...... so I brought the stander to her class and decided that at least if that was all she would do with me... she could be productive in class at the same time

View of one of the classrooms

Teacher Christine taught me to sew this week. I wanted to make bean bags to use in therapy, so she taught me. - This is the tailoring room that the kids use

So... these are not electric sewing machines.... I used my feet!

While I was sewing the girls stole my shoes - this is them showing me they had them!

Shimri in his usual spot on top of the slide, but this time he is showing off his circus skills

Lucky stole my keys.... and I had to take a photo of the girls before they would give them back. These 3 girls - Lucky, Doris and Sumaya - are pretty much inseparable. When Sumaya was asked this week who her best friend was, she first said me :) Then she went on to say that Lucky was her best friend. So sweet :)

Ibra on the merry-go-round. He is new to the school this term

Ronald - for the record, I have 3 pictures of him at this moment... he kept finding pieces of plastic garbage and putting them over his eyes and wanting his picture taken! So funny - but I thought I would spare you the other pictures :)

Carol & Suzan

Bridget & Esther

With my sweet girl Esther - she has now decided that my house is her new home :)

Christine learning to use Pinterest - she has a new love and a new source to get design ideas for her fashion degree

The story of my life... I live in a fishbowl.. and some times if I do not get my TWO layers of curtains just right, the kids can still peak in

My newest Pinterest recreation - works on hand strengthening!

Frank loved the new toy!!

Thank you all for your support and prayers, and for reading my blog each week! It encourages me every time someone tells me they enjoy reading my blog! Thank you so much for those of you praying regularly and thank you in advance for your continued prayers. A friend of mine just had someone try to rob her while she was riding on a boda this week... a good reminder that it is not as safe here as I often feel it is. However, before my Grandma freaks out - I think the crime rate in Chicago is still higher than the crime rate in Kampala. I am truly thankful God has me here for another 6 months. It is so incredible to see the goodness of God every day, I just pray I am as open to looking for his goodness when I move home too!

Have a good weekend!