Christmas in Uganda

So Christmas was quite different this year. It was so strange to not be with my family. I missed them all very much! I am very thankful for skype, youtube, and facebook pictures so I don't feel like I completely missed out. I am also thankful that God sent his son to earth to live with us. It truly is the best gift one could ever receive!

In Uganda instead of taking off on Christmas Eve and Christmas, people get Christmas and Boxing day off. Since there is not much going on at the school I ended up taking four days off to just relax a little bit. I stayed with my friend Cassandra and we enjoyed relaxing! On Christmas Eve, we got everything we needed for Christmas and then had a game night with our friends the Howley's that run the AIM guest house in Kampala. On Christmas we stayed in our pjs all day, watched Christmas movies and ate comfort food from America. On Boxing Day we had planned to go swimming, but of course the one day that it is rainy ALL day in Uganda. And on the 27th we went and hung out at the Kajjansi Airfield. A volunteer for the AIM office's husband is a pilot at the airstrip.

Christmas morning in front of Cassandra's tree

Cassandra got TWO stockings

Cassandra's cat Mally enjoyed playing in the gift wrappings

Christmas morning breakfast - cinnamon rolls, bacon, and coffee with peppermint creamer (yes the creamer and cinnamon rolls are made from scratch)

Tacos on Chapati - tortillas are non-existent here. Same with taco seasoning, it has to be brought over from the States

Sign for Kajjansi Airfield

Yes that plane holds 4 people :)

The company Janice's husband works for. There are 3 companies that share the airstrip

In front of the yellow plane - apparently when Museveni (the president) was running for election the plane would fly over the city broadcasting his advertisements

Picnic in the airplane hanger

Watching planes take off

I almost forgot, before the Christmas festivities started I attended a graduation party of two of the sons of one of the teachers at the school. I was able to wear my traditional Ugandan gomez again. Graduation parties are very different here. It was a sit down occasion with LOTS of speeches and we showed up 2 hours late. 

WIth Teacher Rhona

Sorry that is not the most exciting post ever, but it sums up the week. Please be praying for plans to unfold smoothly for January. Happy New Year!

GSF Orphanage & Christmas Cookies

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies" 

- Psalm 57:9 & 10

I read from Psalms every morning and this verse really stuck out to me this week. One thing I have been learning here is how great God's love and faithfulness are. God is just so good!

Good Shephards Fold Orphanage http://www.goodshepherdsfold.org/

This past week I went to Jinja (about a hour and a half or so from Kampala) to visit Good Shephards Fold Orphanage. GSF is a partner organization to AIM, and they currently have 2 AIM nurses volunteering for them. They have 92 children that live there, 12 of which have disabilities. The have another 200+ children that come to school there. They are currently partnering with Katie Davis (remember her from the book "Kisses from Katie"?) to build a secondary school at a different location.

I spent last Thursday and Friday working with their Ugandan occupational therapist who comes everyday to the school to work on self care, activities of daily living such as washing, and also does quite a bit of physical therapy as he is all they have. Joseph does an excellent job, and I was able to give him a few more ideas for his children with physical disabilities.

This is Kenny, he is 3 years old and is very involved with cerebral palsy. He is the sweetest little boy!!!!

This is Matthew, he has hemiplegic cerebral palsy. While he primarily moves around by crawling he is practicing his walking skills in therapy.

Meet Kathy (on the left) and Lily (on the right) They both have mental disabilties and Kathy also has some physical deformities in her feet. They are so sweet, here Lily is helping Kathy hang her laundry on the line

I spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out with Julie & Dayna (the two AIM nurses). You all met Julie a few weeks ago when she was in Kampala with a sick child - she is also the one I went to orientation with. It was a very relaxing weekend, we went into Jinja and got our nails done (very VERY affordable here... $8 for a manicure and pedicure) and then went out to a cute cafe. We then ended up at looking over the Nile at Adrift. They do lots of adventurous activities here but for us we just watched :)

With Julie at The Source Cafe - Anyone get it... Jinja is the Source of the Nile :) (That is a Jill Hushka joke) they also use their business to help provide freshwater sources to people. 

We even had milkshakes!!! - with Dayna (I was so excited, I have not had ice cream is sooooo long!)

Someone Bungee jumping at Adrift over the Nile

We hiked down to the Nile - there was a strict no swimming policy.... you would have to pay me LOTS of money to jump into the Nile!!!!

Showing off my silver sparkly nails.... they do not quite match my Chacos!

With Dayna and Julie

I just liked this picture :)

Update at the School
This are pretty slow here as I only have 3 kids to see, but it is nice in that I have caught up on e-mails, had more time with the kids, and can do some other things. One really nice thing is the kids have decided they like to read a Bible story every day! It has been a very sweet time that I hope continues once school resumes. I also had time to go to my friend Cassandra's house and make Christmas cookies. I made sugar cookies to share with everyone at the school and also some yummy molasses cookies. Most of the traditional cookies at home we do not have the ingredients for here :(

Our cookies

Emilly, Christine and Ronald all had blue dye on their frosting.... it was very funny!

Jeremiah also wanted to show me his green (and cookie filled) tongue

The kids wanted to show off their shading (coloring)

Teddy coloring

Well, that is all for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your families. I am definitely missing mine very much!!! But my mom comes January 16th so I am starting to count down the days!

                          Merry Christmas!

Gearing up for Christmas & more Rugby

First of all, thank you so much for your prayers! It appears that the termites have finally died after being sprayed with "DOOM" numerous times. And I believe the mouse has left me! So thankful!!!!

So my Friday blog posts might just be at all different times of the week until school is back in session. I am heading to Jinja today to spend some time at Good Shephard's Fold orphanage, and will have limited access to internet. So you all will hear about that experience next Friday! http://www.goodshepherdsfold.org/

So last Friday we had rugby practice and then Saturday the students participated with 19 other schools in a tournament at the rugby stadium. There is an organization called TAG Trust Rugby that puts on this tournament and many other events throughout the year. Apparently some of the players now on the Uganda National Team started off playing in this league. The kids had so much fun, and no one got hurt! (yes that is the athletic trainer in me... super thankful!)http://tagrugbytrust.co.uk/

Getting ready to go to the tournament and Joanne decided to wear my "goggles"

Popsicles between games

Team meeting before our last game

So this is how the meat comes to the rugby games... in a garbage can on the back of the boda boda and then it is hung for weight and purchased right there!!!

Kato running with the ball

Kireka Champions team photo

So December in Uganda is obviously night and day different from home. One) I never realized how much I associated the weather with Christmas. To me it just isn't Christmas unless you need to have your heat turned on and your winter coat out! Two) back home we celebrate Christmas and eat lots of sweets all month long! Here, Christmas is mainly just December 25th. Although, they do have a Santa at one of the malls! And  some stores have what I will put as "mild" Christmas decorations up. So, I have tried to get the kids at the school excited for Christmas to come. This week in therapy I made Christmas trees with the kids and then had the neighborhood kids over to make them too. We also made a countdown til Jesus' birthday. And today, I am hoping to read the Christmas story to them, as I dont think many really get the real meaning of Christmas. I hate to say it, but Christmas is just so different with out the "hustle and the bustle" like at home!

Coloring the links to our countdown chain

Our countdown to Jesus' Birthday

Emilly, Ronald, and Christine decorating their Christmas trees

Our Christmas tree made out of Christmas trees

Sorry for the short post, more next week!

Bugs, Rain & Rugby

Sooooo... this week has been quite interesting and frustrating, but at the same time very uneventful :)

Timeline of the week:

Saturday: returned from the village and discovered basket bugs and bean bugs

Sunday: Returned from church, exterminated the basket bugs and scrubbed my house, thought I had a major gecko problem from all of the poo I found

Monday: Discovered rice bugs and termites

Tuesday: Discovered that I did not have a gecko problem, but instead a MOUSE problem! And scrubbed my house again. Saw 4 children in our neighborhood to start the Community Outreach Program we will be doing over holiday breaks

Wednesday: Went to another wheelchair distribution at Mukisa Foundation

Thursday: Went to a fundraiser for Mukisa Foundation

Friday: Enjoyed the kids having rugby lessons..... and still have not figured out how to kill the termites

So all that being said... I sadly do not have a lot more to add.... it has been a very interesting week. So with that I am going to share my favorite verse with you and share some pictures from the week. I promise to step up my game with the blog updates next week! My favorite verse is Psalm 73:23-24: "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory." There is so much more to those verses in the whole context of the Psalm, but my point is I am so thankful that God is here with me holding my hand. When the bugs seem almost more than I can handle... I know that God is here with me and the bugs... and the mouse.

Christmas Decorations! I have no Christmas tree, so the doorway works for hanging ornaments!

My star garland hanging above the door to my bathroom

Thursday morning Teddy (on the right) had hurt her knee and didn't want to do exercises because of the pain. So instead we painted finger nails! Even Ronald (next to Teddy).... I couldn't convince him that boys don't do nail polish so he got a thin coat of light pink!

With my friend Cassandra at the Mukisa Foundation fundraiser. It was a night of REALLY good music. We enjoyed it. Mukisa Foundation is a non-profit organization that helps families of children with special needs. One of the co-founders Florence is a Ugandan physiotherapist that I love dearly and am so thankful to have to ask questions of! I enjoyed spending the day before with her fitting wheelchairs for her children along with Fathers Heart Mobility who I mentioned last week.

Rugby Team Photo: 6 kids that have gone home or live in the community joined us for this special day and tomorrow we go into town to show off our new rugby skills!

Doing some warm-up stretches led by one of the older boys Kato (3rd person in)

Kato running with the ball

Teddy holding the ball..... I think she was posing for me in this picture...  and then got in trouble from the coach for not paying attention :)

The kids did many drills to work on learning to only pass the ball backwards

Taking a break on the merry-go-round

The little boy running with the ball is named Matthias. I just met him this week during our community outreach program. He is 9 years old (the boy next to him is 8 years old) and is going to be of short-stature. He unfortunately developed what I believe to be a disease called Rickets Disease in later childhood. His knees are severely deformed and bend inwards. He has visited doctors in the past year and they have said there is nothing they can do for him. This boy is VERY smart and athletic despite all of these things. Please be praying for wisdom for doctors as I refer him to one more place and be praying for his family as his older brother has severe cerebral palsy and lots of complications.

What did I do during rugby? While I was dressed to play, I ended up keeping the small children off the field and taking pictures!

I almost forgot! Funny Story of the Week!

Thursday I went to meet Casssandra for the fundraiser. No sooner did  I get on the boda boda (motorcycle) with my trusted boda driver, Solango, that is started to rain. When Solango offered to pull over I said no its ok lets make it to Lugogo shopping center since. Lugogo is about 1/4th of the way to Cassandra's house and since I had to stop at the bank there anyways I thought it was a good idea.... I should have known. So then the rain picked up and next thing I knew we were both COMPLETELY drenched and just laughing... because what else can you do! And next thing we know a large truck comes flying by and like a scene straight out of a movie just sprays mud all over us.... and again we both just laughed. Whelp... we made it to Lugogo and no sooner did I make it to the overhanging roof that another muzungo (white person) stopped to stare and churckle at me,  (everyone else just stared) and then proceeded to say "Wow you are wet". Thank you for stating the obvious! I proceeded to make a puddle on the ground in the store that I went into while I waited for the rain to clear. Life lesson learned: when you boda driver offers to pull over... LISTEN!

Thanks so much for your continued prayers. I am so encouraged every time I get a message from someone saying they are praying for me. You have no idea how much I appreciate this! I literally see prayers answered everyday and I am so thankful for all of my prayer partners!