Thanksgiving in Africa

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! The Lord has blessed me with the most amazing family and friends. I am truly thankful for each and every one of you! And I am so thankful to know an amazing God full of grace, love and compassion!

This week has been interesting in that I attended the Teachers Appreciation Party, had a visit to the American Recreation Association, spent my first holiday in Uganda and am having my last day with the kids before they go on a two month holiday.

Teachers Appreciation Party
Last Friday, all of the teachers in the district had the day off to go an celebrate together! Every one dressed very nicely and we headed out to school instead of. The party was in a field with a few tents and a big grassy space in the middle. There was entertainment, lots of food and drinks, and dancing! One thing I've learned is all Ugandans can sing and all of them can dance! Many of them danced well into the night! (I was tired after all long day in mostly Luganda and loud music and headed home with the first group - don't worry I had been there 7 hours before I left!)

Dancing at the teachers party

Probably my favorite part of the day was the fact that each of us got tickets for 4 sodas. Well, no one in an afternoon should drink 4 sodas so the teachers came prepared! Because we had to return our glass bottles (almost all soda here comes in glass bottles), the teachers brought empty glass bottles from home to exchange for new bottles or they brought empty plastic bottles to pour their sodas into! It was so funny, and I was so thankful they came prepared because I then got to bring a soda home too! I also learned that Ugandan's teeth are far stronger than mine... most of the teachers can use their teeth to remove bottle caps.... it hurt my teeth just to watch!

American Recreation Association
Sorry no pictures... they were not allowed! This is basically the equivalent to a country club in America! It is very fancy with tennis courts, a pool, play ground, and lots of other amenities. Every 3rd Saturday they have a craft sale/garage sale. I went with the Howley family (AIM missionaries - http://howleyhouse.aimsites.org/). It was very fun, and I found a cheap "Where's Wally" book to look at with some of my neighbors children. For the record.... it should be Waldo, but it is the British version.

Aaron and Owen Howley on the boda boda (his wife Bobbie and their 2nd son, are stopped for gas behind us)

The Howley's youngest son Cole on the boda boda with me

Thanksgiving in Uganda
I went to stay with my lovely friend Cassandra and they were already baking and getting ready Wednesday night! Here we cannot buy canned pumpkin, so they had to cook and puree a pumpkin before we could do anything else! We started off the morning with baked pumpkin donut holes made by me... and SUPER yummy! You can find the recipe here http://www.mixandmatchmama.blogspot.com/2012/11/baked-pumpkin-donut-holes.html.

These pumpkin donuts were DELICIOUS!

 Unfortunately I did not get a picture of our spread of food (only the desserts... which is the most important part anyways). But for those of you wondering what we had: chicken, gravy, Stove Top stuffing (brought from America), mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, homemade rolls (no easy bake ones here!), cranberry sauce (brought from America), deviled eggs, and something else that I am forgetting... so we had all the standards! (minus turkey) And for dessert we had pumpkin cookies (made me yours truly), pumpkin squares, apple bake, pecan pie, and lots of candy corn and candy pumpkins (brought from America). Cassandra's mom came last week from California and brought us all of the stuff from America. Oh and let me clarify that there were 16 of us... we did not make all of those things for just the 4 of us! All and all it was a great Thanksgiving, but I did miss my family!

The sign on Cassandra's door

The Howley boys made the first Thanksgiving in Legos! There may be a few pirates at the table too! :)

The dessert table

 Last Day with the Students
The students were suppose to stay through next week, but through a series of events, the children are leaving on Sunday.  They will be on holiday through February 4th. I cannot even tell you how sad I am to see them all go. I will miss my thousand hugs a day so much!

Supporters I wanted to update you on what I will be doing during that time... I promise I will not be sitting on my hands! :) I am not entirely sure what my 2 months will hold. I know that a few of the children (not sure on the number until after the parents have come) will be staying at the school, and I am very thankful to have time to be able to see them more than once a week for therapy. Also, the school has an outreach program, and I will be visiting the homes of some children that otherwise would not receive any therapy or school services. Last week, I mentioned my friend Julie who is volunteering as a nurse at Good Shephards Fold orphanage, I am hoping to visit her in Jinja to meet some children who live there with special needs and give their care givers ideas of how to best work with their physical disabilities. I have been asked as well to help with some wheelchair distributions in villages, so we will see how that goes. Lastly, MY MOM IS COMING! I am planning on taking some time off in January to show her around!!!!

Instead of highlighting any kids today, I just have a few pictures of this week with the kids

My favorite child from day 1 - Sumaya. She has been hanging out in my office all week with me!

Students lined up to get haircuts before they see their parents

Clare (I dont think you have "officially" met her yet

YES those are eyes... and YES that is a giant pot of grasshoppers cooking... and YES I did eat one... surprisingly it wasn't bad, but I am not going to go out and start buying them :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are enjoying your Black Friday shopping!

Christmas Songs in November

Thank you all so much for your prayers! It was a much better week this week, and again God is SO good!

Quite a few stories for you this week so feel free to pick and choose what you want to read :)

License Update
Thank you for your prayers on this as well! As of Wednesday, I still had not heard from the Ministry of Health on this issue and AIM decided that I should stop treating children until I had my license. So the head teacher and I went down to the Ministry of Health today to sort things out. Found out to finish the registration process with Uganda it will cost $200 (we were initially told $100), plus I will still have to pay about $40 for my license. The good news is as soon as I pay the $200 and bring back the receipt to the Ministry of Health I am cleared by them to work. However, new prayer request is that I will only have to pay the licensing fee once. They want me to buy a license now that expires at the end of December and then a new one for next year. Please pray that I can get around that extra cost.

Christmas Songs are Already Being Sung and Jesus' love is being shared
Thursday I was in the PT room catching up on some paperwork when a few of the girls came in and requested to play a game. Sumaya and I have played Chutes and Ladders in therapy so we decided to play that game. First of all, Sumaya has very little use of her hands so she bends over picks up the dice with her mouth and rolls it that way. Well this smart little girl figured out that she could move the dice in her mouth to where she could feel the six dots with her tongue and gently set it down that way. After the 3rd 6, I realized she had found a way to cheat! You had to be there, but here is this little girl who has so little control of her body and yet she is so intelligent just has a hard time expressing it because of her physical disability. After we finished the game, Sumaya asked if we could read a book too, and insisted on reading the children's Bible. The students could not decide on reading about Mary or Jesus so we started with reading the Christmas story. We then started talking about Christmas traditions in Uganda, and eventually started singing some Christmas songs together. It was such a precious time with these 4 girls. They LOVE Bible stories, so we read many more together that afternoon. One of my favorite Bible stories that I shared with Sumaya earlier this week is when Jesus healed the blind man in John 9. "His  disciple asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" " Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his Life." (vs 2-3). In many countries it is not understood what causes disability and it is so important to me that these kids know that they too are made in the image of God and can glorify him with their lives.

In case you forgot, this is Sumaya, she was one of the first children I fell in love with at the school

Good Shepherd's Fold Orphanage
Back in August when I went to my orientation with AIM, I roomed with this wonderful girl Julie from Texas. She just arrived 2 weeks ago and is working at a nurse with a partner organization called Good Shepherd's Fold in Jinja, Uganda. She had been at the orphanage for less than 24 hours when she was asked to take 2 children to the emergency room in Kampala. This worked in my favor as I then got to go visit with her and little Richard at the hospital last Sunday. If you would like to read more about Julie's experience in Uganda so far her blog is: http://becausehesaidgom28.blogspot.com/

Julie with Richard at SAS clinic

Geckos
I had a wonderful phone date with Anna Wicklund last night and she said that I needed to add some pictures of the geckos that live in my house..... and torment me. Sadly I fear these little creatures, but would prefer to live with them then mosquitoes. The baby one made it into my bedroom and then into my bathroom! I feared going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and squashing him so I caught him and put him in the other room of my house. (Sadly I did not put him OUTSIDE because although I fear them... I like that they eat the bugs... and he is a baby so cant hurt to much!). However, the other day I went to pull out a plate and he had pooped on it!!!! Ugh.... so now he has been on my dishes too. Thankfully the really fat one that lives outside has stayed there..... him and I had a stare down yesterday as he was right above the doorway to my kitchen. Yes I do pray that he stays outside every time I see him. Who knew I would pray about geckos so often!

The baby one

The medium one that came in sometime last night hiding behind my clock

Alright, and on to what seems to be everyone's favorite part of my weekly blog... meeting the children!

Meet Miriam
Miriam is a super sweet girl that is in the most advanced group. I do not work with her as she has no physical disability but she loves me anyways! Her current vocational training is tailoring. She was so proud to show me the pair of shorts that she is working on right now. Let me tell you, these kids may have learning disabilities but all of the kids studying tailoring can sew far better than I ever will! (further example below) I had to take pictures of her this week because she had taken 2 star stickers from me and made them into earrings :) She was so proud of them. She has the most beautiful smile, but kept wanting to pose like a model so I couldn't capture it!

Miriam with her earrings

Her modeling pose... which includes twitching her left eye.. not sure why but that is definitely part of her model look that she was going for

Meet Patricia
Patricia is also in the older group, and the best way I can describe her is the mother of the younger children! One thing that constantly amazes me is how much these kids look out for each other. Patricia is always taking care of one and then scolding another! Below she is in a dress that SHE MADE! How awesome is that! I love that they are teaching these children practical skills. She looked so smart (how you say you look nice in Uganda) that we had to take a picture! And we tried to find a good spot by the banana trees... although you cannot really see them.

Patricia in her beautiful dress

Meet Bless
Bless is another child that I do not work with, but he is so bright! Almost every time i see him he is sitting in a desk outside his classroom working on his mat. That is his vocational activity for his group, the kids string yarn onto a mat to make kind of like a shag rug type mat. His are beautiful! Even in his free time you can find him working on them. Well, in the rain last week he decided to work on making a toy instead. The children in Uganda are constantly amazing me as to what they find to play with as most of them have no toys. Bless made this pull toy out of all things he found around the school, and I think it is all plants including the string! I know he used a knife to carve holes in whatever he used for wheels.

Bless

Bless' creation

Well that is all for now. As always thank you so much for your prayers and support!

A Hard Week by the Children are still Beautiful!

First of all, I want start this week's post by saying GOD IS GOOD! I cannot believe how good he has been to me in my transition here to Uganda. I don't know if I have ever seen God's goodness quite as clearly as I have here!

That being said this was probably my hardest week here so far. It was one of those weeks (that I knew would come) where I just got frustrated with the culture and wish I could change so much of it. I know that is not the right view... but sometimes the culture is just so different from my performance and productivity driven American culture that it can be quite frustrating. That being said, please pray that I will quickly adapt to accepting this culture in that way! One nice thing about serving our God is the ability to go to him with anything. When I had enough by in the middle of the day Wednesday, I decided I needed to go home and spend some time in the word.... and this is where my devotions were, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God" - 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. I love when God gives me exactly what I need to hear.

This week was also difficult in that I found out on Monday that I had to have an interview for my physiotherapy license on Thursday. I had no idea how to prepare and was just told to expect a 30 minute oral interview about my education and experience.... Well 3.5 hours later I left after a 60 minute written examination and then the 40 minute oral interview about my education. Most of the questions were not difficult except I was asked who is in charge of health care in the United States (of which I had no idea) and then being instructed that it is necessary that I know that in Uganda. Please pray that I passed. I should find out Monday.

AND then I came home from my long interview to find my apartment had flooded due to the large amount of rain that came down while I was gone..... It was a long day. I am so thankful for my amazing neighbors... One came over to help me mop out my house and wash my floors and another brought me lunch. Then my neighbor made me tea :) I am so blessed by them. But needless to say it was a long week and please pray that next week goes a little more smoothly.

Sorry this is getting to be a long post without pictures, so I will introduce you to 3 more children.

Meet Teddy
Teddy is in her mid 30's and was one of the original students at Kireka Home. Teddy is an orphan and is technically employed by the school to help with cleaning. She still attends classes in her free time to work on her math and tailoring skills. Teddy is my wonderful friend that I pay each week to wash my clothes by hand. She has very limited use of her right hand for writing and fine motor skills, but she can cook and wash clothes. FAR better than I have mastered thus far!

Teddy

Meet Silas (said Cyrus)
So Silas is earning a very special place in my heart. He is autistic and it is very rare that he is ever sitting still. Silas can be quite draining as he constantly is coming into the therapy room and I am constantly dragging him out kicking and screaming (literally). While he frequently tends to bother the other children, whenever he is around and not bothering him they always hit him and drive him away. When he goes home he is not given enough food to eat and is frequently beaten. He then wonders around his village only to be beaten by his neighbors for stealing food. No one understands that he is autistic. I have come to realize that he knows that I will not beat him and that is why he follows me around. It is hard to describe him at the school and how much trouble he causes. But at the end of the day he is an incredibly sweet boy!

Silas

Silas dancing with my neighbor Christine

Meet Suzan
This girl also warms my heart and I am sorry I have not shared her with you sooner! This is her first term at Kireka home and she likes to be everywhere except in class! Like Silas she is also autistic and has a hard time expressing herself verbally. However, any time she sees me she squeals with delight and runs to be and gives me the biggest hug. Even if my arms are completely full she will wrap her little arms around my waist.

Suzan

My attempt at smuggling her trying to get her to look at the camera with me... for the record she is laughing here!

Well, if you have made it to the bottom of the long post I owe you a thank you for reading! I cannot say enough how much I appreciate all of your support!

A Few Random Happenings

So no real funny stories this week - just a bunch of random things, so just read what you want and thanks for reading! :)

THANKS FOR THE MAIL!
I finally was able to pick up my mail this weekend and was so encouraged by the stack that I had! Thank you all for sending me mail! It makes me smile AND fills my empty white walls!

Cows in the Road
Just wanted you all to know that even though I technically live within the capitol city of Uganda, there are still cows that frequently block the road! (More on the outskirts of Kampala than downtown) But still.... I would love to see how Chicago drivers handle that!

Traditional Ugandan Dress
So for anything formal in Uganda, one is suppose to wear one of these traditional dresses below! Phiona (Andrew Sisson's fiance) just informed me that I will need to wear one to their introduction ceremony next month! I am very excited and yet a little nervous that it will not look as nice on me!

My neighbor - Christine - modeling one that she made for a friend... I will be recruiting her too!

One of my new favorite children (yes I realize my number of favorite children grows everyday) - Meet Shimri
So Shimri is a young child with Down Syndrome, and his hugs and smiles just melt my heart! He can be quite shy, so it took him awhile to warm up to me, but now he hugs me first thing in the morning and holds my hand to walk with me when he can! I wish you could all meet him!!!! I just love him to pieces already! The other day I was walking back to the school, and he was standing on top of the slide on the corner of the compound looking out. Well yesterday, I realized that this is his usual spot. From on top of the slide he can see the building they are working on a couple lots away, the main road to Jinja, the hills around us, and all the stores on our street! It is such a good spot! Unfortunately for me though he does well with all of this gross motor skills, so he is not one I see in therapy.

Shimri (How could you NOT love that face!)

Shimri in his spot on top of the slide

Some of the neighborhood children
There are many other small flats on the school compound where other teachers live as well. Their children are so sweet and constantly wanting to play! Yesterday, I pulled out bubbles, and the screams of delight when I was able to make bubbles (they arent the best ones in the world) were hilarious. They even would follow the bubbles around the buildings as they floated up into the air. I will leave you this week with a couple pictures of them.

(Still working on this ones name...)

Desire

John (this boy might be the politest, best behaved child I have ever met!)

Miss you all!