Kwanjula and The Village

First of all, I apologize that my blog is late this week. I did not have internet for most of the week. Otherwise it was a very full week despite most of the kids at the school being gone. I attended Andrew Sisson's Kwanjula, visited the rainforest, visited an orphanage (more on that later when I spend more time there), and spent 3 days in a village helping distribute wheelchairs... oh and I worked 2 days at the school. LOTS of pictures this week

Kwanjula
For those of you who don't know, Andrew Sisson is my second cousin (I think) and he spent some time here in Kampala before I moved here. His fiance Phiona is from Uganda and has become a good friend of mine. It is traditional in Uganda to have a Kwanjula or Introduction Ceremony, to introduce the bride and the groom to each side of the family along with giving gifts to the brides family in order to have them accept the groom as a suitable husband for the bride.  The traditional dress in Uganda is a Gomez for women and a Conzu is traditionally worn by men.

Andrew and Phiona

With Andrew's friend Alexandra wearing our traditional gomez dresses

For most of the ceremony these 3 had to sit on a couch in front of the rest of us

The gifts Andrew had to give for Phiona..... it included 5 chickens, 20kg of sugar, the back leg of a cow, 5 cases of soda, many baskets of fruit, and I am not sure what was in the wrapped boxes

My favorite part of the ceremony... Andrew had to physically hand her brothers the 5 chickens

With Andrew and Phiona - Phiona wore a gomez to start and changed into a formal dress later

The Rainforest
On Wednesday, I spent some time with Andrew, Phiona, and their friend Jud. For the first time I drove outside of Kampala... and Uganda is BEAUTIFUL! There is definitely a reason it is called "the pearl of Africa". It ended up being a rainy muddy day (it is technically rainy season here), so we just drove to this resort in the Rainforest and had lunch before I went on to Jinja.

The road (sorry it is taken through the windshield)

Phiona and I walked a very long distance to find this pool behind us!

 Wheelchair Distribution in the Village
Two weeks ago, a good friend of mine here introduced me via e-mail to a man named Francis who distributes wheelchairs throughout Uganda. Trusting my friend I volunteered to meet Francis and his team in a district of Uganda called Budaka to help distribute wheelchairs.

The red dot in the middle is Kampala. The red dot to the right is where we traveled to

This was one of my favorite experiences in Uganda so far. They distributed 71 wheelchairs and 44 people said they accepted Christ as their Savior. I primarily worked with the small children that came and anyone with cerebral palsy. Most of my time was spent educating parents with a few exercises they could do with their child, explaining the disability to the parents, and making sure the parents knew that the child was loved by God. So many of the kids I saw appeared very malnourished... the only way you could tell that they were the age claimed by their parents was by their teeth... otherwise some of them looked years smaller. It also breaks my heart because I saw so many children with hydrocephalus.... hydrocephalus is when the head looks very large due to excessive fluid on the brain. This is easily treated with surgery, but it is hard for the families to come up with the money for it. I also saw many children with spina bifida which is preventable if the mother consumes enough folic acid during the early stages of pregnancy. (Spina bifida is a condition where the spinal cord does not form properly and usually leads to paresis of the lower extremities). I absolutely loved being able to use the opportunity to tell the parents that their child was beautiful as they were loved by God. Many people do not understand this as they think (or those around stigmatize them) as being cursed. Many of the older people that received wheelchairs have crawled for years to get around and were so incredibly thankful for the gift of a wheelchair.

Francis (the one who leads these trips) is disabled. He once was like many of the people we served in that he did not have a wheelchair and was forced to crawl on the ground to get from place to place. Francis' story is very empowering. If you would like to read more about him (everyone should) or support his ministry, their website is http://www.fathersheartmobility.org/#/about-us/mugwanyas.

Working with a small child that has difficulty holding up his head at the age of 1.

Francis (blue shirt at the table) getting information about one of the ladies that came for a chair

Francis' wife Adrien fitting a lady into a wheelchair

Working with a child with hydrocephalus, here I am trying to get her to watch the water bottle.... there was so much fluid on her brain it was inhibiting her ability to see

Three of the wheelchairs given away

This is a 16 year old girl who has cerebral palsy and VERY spastic (tight) muscles. She has been carried her whole life by her mother. She was so thankful for her own wheelchair

The distribution was at a school, and ALL of the children watched all day.... this is maybe 1/10th of the kids

One of the kids was wearing a Zambrano t-shirt.... he kept running to tease me when I tried to take a picture.. but you can tell its a Cubs shirt. I was so excited!

As a thank you for coming, we were given a turkey..... this is Sam (one of the volunteers) tying to the roof of our car for the ride home.

In case you did not know... the source of the Nile river is in Jinja.... I was so excited.. I can now say I have seen the Nile!

One more additional note.... Saturday was World Aids Day. 7.3% of the population of Uganda is HIV positive. It was once at 30+% and was reduced to about 5.8%. It has recently started to increase again. They discussed this in church this morning saying the way to prevent HIV is A) Abstinence B) Be Faithful and C) Christ (I think Uganda's government says condoms... but Christ is ultimately what people need!). Please continue to pray for Africa though as the continent holds 14% of the world's population and 70% of the world's population that is HIV positive.

Thank you all so much for your support and prayers. I am so thankful for all of you. Everyday it is evident that I have a team of prayer warriors at home. God is so good, and He is working in Uganda!

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!