Amy and Bethany

Lame-ing out.

2008-05-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

So anonymous left a comment telling us not to lame out with the posts.

check THIS out.

H-E-L-P

2008-05-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

So.....i was thinking. Since Bethany doesn't really blog anymore (shes waaay to busy) and since i still like to, i was thinking that i should either, rename this blog (although this is special because its really about her and I) or get a new one.

I need help. Im not good at thinking of cool/clever/interesting names as you can tell from the superb name of this blog, so i need help choosing another name.

Here are some things that i love that maybe could be incorporated.
my name
mcdonalds
africa (especially UG)
books
reality tv

HA! Not really much to go one but thought i'd give it a try. Also, i'd like to give a shout out to Jena who thought me and bethany were the Amy and Bethany who pioneered adoption in UG. I looooove Jena's blog!!

Webale!

Erin- I copied you. Amy Blog

2008-05-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

I am: a singe white female

I think: that i didn't prepare near enough for my 5k race May 11th and that i'm really going to regret that 2k's into it.
I know: i need to go to school and get a 'real' job, but sometimes i think i'll never get this time back and maybe is should go back to UGanda and worry about school later.
I want: to write a book, go to every country in sub saharan Africa, have a wheaten terrier named juma (after my rafting guide on the nile river) and have a room in the attic of my house that i'll buy one day and be just like my mom one day.
I hate: road rage, hot when i'm sleeping, plane rides home from Uganda, when peole ask my dumb questions about Uganda like "so do they like, have cars there?"
I miss: Rachel Arielle Michelle and my cords that i left for a friend in Uganda but still think about all the time.
I fear: bears, driving under trains, having all my limbs cut off, never going back to UG
I feel: like sometimes i talk too much about Uganda and people get bored of me.
I hear: sophie laughing when she would come over to sleepover with georgie and they would tell the tv they were going to beat it.
I smell: like i didnt wash this shirt the last time i went running.
I crave: lays wavy regular chips and helluva good chip dip. constantly. also mcchickens.
I search: on google. for everything.
I regret: nothing. except maybe not sucking up that extra 500 bucks and going on safari with Beth just because i know she would have loved it.
I love: my 3 pillows, new socks from costco and when i'm sitting in the ice cream shack and its raining and i know i can get a lot of solid reading in.
I ache: for sophie and her dad whose missing out on the best girl in the world.
I care:
I always: write chapters of my book in my head and then try really hard to remember the things i wrote but never can.
I am not: good at saying sorry.....right beth???
I believe: me and beth are going to be old ladies one day,living in the same nursing home, and she'll still be trying to get me to learn how to play crib and i'll still be bossing her around and cleaning when we have visitors.
I sing: all the time and i make up songs all the time.
I cry: only when i'm super upset or watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition.
I fight: with my sister all the time about dumb stuff.
I write: random stuff i hear with my pointer finger on my right hand all the time. and if my hand is in use, i'll use my right foot. and sometimes, i really like to write words inthe air with both pointers simultaneously.
I win: at everything. and if i dont, i get mad, and try to ruin whatever it was i didnt win at, for the winner
I lose: rarely and if i do...watch out!
I never: can sleep good if a fan isn't blowing cold air into my face. even in the winter.
I listen: to chrisitan music on the sundays i dont go to church because it makes me feel less guilty that way.
I can usually be found: checking MC and Jacksons, Phin's, Christopher and Katies, Mia and Joeys, and Rachel and Arielle's blogs. daily.
I am scared: that i'll live an ordinary life.
I need: to look at my africa photos a little less than i used to....
I am happy about: the fact that i can look at my africa photos a little less than iused to because i think that means i'm learning to be content.
I hope:that i can make a difference.

BEST NEWS EVER

2008-04-27T21:29:00.001-07:00

Phin Hope and Kevin are going home next week!!!!
Our precious phin is going home. He's really going home! After way way way too long (over 16 months long!) Hope can finally bring her son home. Phin's gramma can finally meet him. They can go home. How cool!
What an answer to prayer!

What a blessing!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

oops

2008-03-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Erin told me its a fake sight. HALLELUJAH!!!!!

FYI

2008-03-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Hi. Its amy blogging.

I was reading a friend of a friends blog and came across this gem of a website.

www.medicaladoptions.com

At first i thought it was a joke. Some mean, weird, twisted joke. Then i found out it was real, that people stoop this low, and i wanted to barf.

In the FAQ's part it says this "There are an estimated 400,000 orphans around the world." Umm..... I'm not entirely sure on my numbers but i'm pretty sure there are nearly 2 million orphans in Uganda alone....

"Imagine a dearly loved child who appreciates you enough to help save your life. What’s in it for the parents is the love of a child in ways so rich it can save your life."

Imagine, someone buying a "gold package" child because its cheaper than a platinum child.

"How old will my new son or daughter be?
Children are generally not younger than four-to-six years old, but may be as old as seventeen. As long as papers are signed and marked prior to the child’s eighteenth birthday, we can still move the paperwork forward. The advantage to the “nearly adult” children is a shorter period of child dependency, as well as a better match of organ in size."

Its a good thing that this site takes into account a shorter period of child dependancy because almost every one i know who's adopted wants kids specifcally so that they can hae a shorter period of child dependancy. Who doesnt love early retirement??

Also i'm glad that they've recognized the intellecutal function of a 4 to 6 year old. What 4 or 6 year old WOULDN'T understand someone saying "ok, so theres this SUUUUPER great family that needs your bone marrow. Its not really THAT painful, just a bit but you'll be in america so its fine. You'll get to watch little einsteins all you want! their willing to pay a hefty price for it too. so......thumbs up???

Now i know everyone is going to be going straight to the pricing page so i've pasted the link conviently into our post.

http://medicaladoptions.com/adoption-pricing-based-on-child-preference-and-medical-needs/

This makes me sick.

Video Post!

2008-03-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

This video was taken to show Mama Vaughn (beth's ma) just how happy and grateful these kids are. Beth's Mom was so generous and donated Christmas money that she would have gotten, but instead, gave it to Beth to use for STAO. These are just 6 of the 60 kids at STAO that benefitted from her generosity.

Why we love the Littleton Family.

2008-03-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

Bethany and I had the extreme priviledge of meeting the mom of 2 of our all time favorite Amani kids, Erin Littleton. Her and her husband Scott, volunteered at Amani for 6 months right after they got married and fell in love with Jackson and Mary Cameron (MC). In December, we were able to see the awesome reunion of Erin and her 2 awesome kids as she pulled up the driveway at Amani and litterally jumped out of the van before it even came close to stopping. MC and Jackson ran faster than we'd ever seen them run, and all 3 collapsed into a big, laughing heap on the driveway. It was so cool to see.

Anyway... Teeny Beany (christina), Melody, Sophia and MC were our favorite little girls to hang out with at our house and had them to sleep over at our teeny tiny house once a week for the first couple of months. MC was always hilarious, always happy, sometimes obedient (ha!) and always always always being silly and making the other girls howl with laughter, as well as Beth and I.

In January Erin called us from Amerwica as MC calls it, and we got to have a little chat with both MC and Jackson. It was so cool and so neat to hear their adorable ugandan accents mixed with a little bit of south carolina! So here are some of my favorite memories of Erin's kids, MC and Jackson.

- December 1, 2006- my final day at Amani of my first trip and i was wearing jeans and a tee shirt both of which were CLEAN for flying home in. I went to the toddler hoouse and Jackson climbs up ontoo my lap and a couple minutes later my nice clean jeans are soaked with pee. I had a nice reminder of Jackson and Amani right on my lap the whole way home.
- a couple weeks after i got home i got a nice patch of ringworm on my chin and it was from Jacksons head. He had a big path of ringworm right on the top of his head and every day i would hold him and rest my chin on his head.
- when MC was sleeping over with melody, Sophie and George and we had spagetti for them and MC always got to sit at the table with the aunties and she slurped up every last bit of spagetti in about 2 minutes without even taking a breath. We have a super cute video of that that i'll try to post later.
- MC and Melody sharing a bed in the 2 foot space between me and beth's bed in our cramped tiny bedroom. We put our duffle bags that were full of clothes to give away, underneath them and MC would not sleep in a bed with us, she wanted to mini bed on the duffle bags.
- that same night i woke up to find her almost the entire way underneath my bed with only half of her face and an arm sticking out! Soooo cute.
- i was giving meds one morning to the kids and the toddlers always get lined up after breakfast to go on their potties and there was Jackson, with his huge belly, sitting on his potty singing at the top of his lungs to the kids praise cd that was playing.
- Michelle (another volunteer) took Jackson for the night after Phin's 2nd birthday party and we got to hear the great story of how Jackson ate 2 plate fulls of food at Raoul's house and slept like a log beside Michelle until she woke up with Jackson stroking her face and saying "teek a two, teek a two" over and over and when she went to rub his back, she got a handfull of diarhea! It exploded through his diaper, through his pj's, up his back and all over her bed!!
- when erin called us in january and we asked mc where she was and she said "i am at amerwica."

I check erin's blog multiple times a day and have gotten several of my friends and family hooked on their blog too. If you get a change to read it, please do. You will be hooked just like i am! http://www.thelittletonfamily.blogspot.com/.

Pray Pray Pray!!

2008-03-11T17:21:00.000-07:00

This week is full of court dates at Amani and many families are arriving to (hopefully!) pick up their kids and bring them home.

2 specific families we can all be praying for are Todd and Jenny who are adopting Christopher and Katie, and Tim and Leala who are adopting Melody and Joseph.

Pray that the judge will rule in favor of their court cases, that they will rule swiftly as well.
Pray for health of the parents and the kids as they go through a huge transition period.
Pray for safety of the families as they travel to kampala and back several times to pick up documents and visas and passports.
Pray for strength, endurance, and patience.

The end is near! We are SOOOOOOOOO excited for these kids to home!!

Life...or something like it.

2008-03-05T19:09:00.000-08:00

Since i've been home i've found it hard to journal..which is rare for me because basically i've journalled every day of my life since i was old enough to hold my own pencil. I have stacks of old journals from years gone by, which are fun to read now, giving myself a glimpse into the person i once was. Mostly i recount all out brawls with my sister while our parents were at work that went something like i stole something from jan's closet and hid it in my room and lied about taking it, daring her to "just look around, see if you can find it in here" and she'd barge into my puppy and kitty pink wallpaper and bordered room and tear around without finding anything and scream I"M TELLING MOM!! Then we'd both wait at the back door and as soon as we heard her drive up, burst onto the deck and push and scream our way to her car door and greet her with a tandem ..." MOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!"
Anyway.
In Uganda it was so easy to journal because i became obessed with remembering the most mundane and tedious details. Bethany can vouch for the fact that about 3 times a week i'd sigh, close my journal and say "Beth BEth Beth!! guess how many pages i just journalled! 17,756!" I would write down the color of sophie's shirt, the shapes in the clouds that day, the song playing across the street from the Source Cafe that my bionic hearing would pick up and bethany would sit dumbfounded as to how i could hear a song, start singing along, when she didnt even realise music was even playing.
At home, i get home from work and chill. Then i read and go to bed. In Uganda i'd get home from "work", chill, read my bible, journal, chat with beth, then go to bed.
So i started something different. I often find it hard to read, recreationally, the good ole NIV, so i dragged out an old Message and have started at the beginning, a very good place to start.
I thought i'd be depressed, heart broken, ripped in two and miserable coming home....but i'm not. I'm ok. I'm happy. I'm content.
I also know that this time at home will be filled with new things. New things to learn, new people to meet, new things to do, new things to challenge me.....
I'm learning that being home, in canada, in the first world, is ok. Its not as bad as i spent 6.5 months thinking it would be. I love my family. I love my new nephew. I love my new friends.

I miss jinja, i miss my church in jinja, i miss the mama's at amani, i miss the heat, i miss our dogs brownie and blackie, i miss my friends SOOOO much.

But i know that somehow i'm not done with Uganda yet. And thats good enough for right now.

Where we're at.

2008-02-22T12:51:00.001-08:00

As much as were both really glad to be home, its a really hard adjustment. Everyone keeps saying that culture shock is way worse on the way home, but I think for us its not as much culture shock as just really seriously missing Jinja. Sometimes its really hard to explain our entire seven months to people in a 3 minute conversation. Everyone is so curious and wants to know what it was like, and for lack of an appropriate question people often say, "So, you had a good time?" and were like...ya..i guess? I mean lots of times were good but lots of times were also really hard...kind of like everything in life!! Its really hard to sum up seven months.... Its hard to be motivated to look for jobs or pursue career stuff when all we want to do is look at pictures or listen to african music or reorganize our african stuff or think about africa ALL the time. It kind of feels like being transplanted out of one body and into another. I miss my old body because i really belonged there and i had a special place, and in my new body no one knows who i am and all the other organs are nice but none of them are saved and sometimes its just hard to not have a really close saved organ friend. Okay i pushed that analogy too far but you know what i mean...We just left such an awesome christian community and its really hard to find that kind of community here in canada - in Jinja we could go to bible study 6 nights a week if we wanted to and I cant find a bible study here to save my life. It is really good to be back in my church but at the same time this first sunday back was really hard for me. The energy was totally different and I kept wishing I could look across and see my friends Ronnie and David and Em and Peter playing and singing, and George Haumba with his eyes all squinted shut dancing away, and papa clapping slowly the way he does, and elder ben in his sean john dragon shirt, and stanley in his bow tie, and mama giving me a big hug during the "sometimes i feel like greeting" part. Its the weirdest feeling - so good to be home, yet so hard to be away. We miss EVERYTHING about africa. The sun, the food, the people, the culture, even the dust. I miss never having to be on time. I miss washing my feet at the end of the day and always sweating. I miss POSHO and BEANS. I miss our dogs brownie and blackie. I miss my deckers and my house. I miss bodas. I miss Pauline. I miss DC Jinja. I miss thunderstorms that sound like warfare. But most of all I miss my babies and my friends. We expected to work with babies and love the culture, but we werent expecting to make such amazing friendships. Our friends tell us that theyve never met white people like us before and that weve made such a difference in their lives...theres just no way to explain how whatever difference we made to them, the difference they made to us is 10 times that big. And I think thats the biggest reason that its so darn hard to say goodbye. As hard as we try, we'd never be able to express the change that happened in our hearts and lives. We'll never be able to tell people what its like to walk through the baby's home gate in the morning and have Brian book it over to get a hug, how it feels to cuddle sophie and george as they go to sleep, how incredible it feels to be singing along to Raoul leading worship in Lingala, how at home we felt. The relationships we made with all our friends are like none we have here. They are really indescribable. We just love our friends there in a totally different way. They got to know us so deeply and we got to know them so deeply. We are so thankful for the support that all our friends and family gave us while away. There have been times where we needed your prayers so badly and felt them. We couldnt have gone without the financial support that so many of you offered. We just can't say thank you enough. So from us, we say thank you and God bless you. We're going to continue to post so whenever your bored...check us out. Until next time....

Snow removal.....the Dave King way!

2008-02-19T20:19:00.001-08:00

Saturday morning I, Amy, decided to shovel the driveway so i took the good ole John Deere out of the shed and took her out for a spin.

This is me driving the tractor and doing a little snow removal.....or its my dad driving it. who knows! :)

There are many benefits to borrowing a tractor to shovel.

1. time saving. In the amount of time it takes to do a regular drive way, you can do yours, and your neighbors...plus a little of the street too!

2. If you've over exerted yourself during the week, no problem! now's the time to pop in the ipod and chill. Comfy seat and heat included.

3. the best part of it...driving the tractor through town to get it the 4km's from the farm to the house! Nothing says hick like borrowing a tractor to shovel your driveway in the city! I love my dad!

Where we're at.

2008-02-11T00:36:00.000-08:00

As much as were both really glad to be home, its a really hard adjustment. Everyone keeps saying that culture shock is way worse on the way home, but I think for us its not as much culture shock as just really seriously missing Jinja.

Sometimes its really hard to explain our entire seven months to people in a 3 minute conversation. Everyone is so curious and wants to know what it was like, and for lack of an appropriate question people often say, "So, you had a good time?" and were like...ya..i guess? I mean lots of times were good but lots of times were also really hard...kind of like everything in life!! Its really hard to sum up seven months....

Its hard to be motivated to look for jobs or pursue career stuff when all we want to do is look at pictures or listen to african music or reorganize our african stuff or think about africa ALL the time. It kind of feels like being transplanted out of one body and into another. I miss my old body because i really belonged there and i had a special place, and in my new body no one knows who i am and all the other organs are nice but none of them are saved and sometimes its just hard to not have a really close saved organ friend. Okay i pushed that analogy too far but you know what i mean...We just left such an awesome christian community and its really hard to find that kind of community here in canada - in Jinja we could go to bible study 6 nights a week if we wanted to and I cant find a bible study here to save my life.

It is really good to be back in my church but at the same time this first sunday back was really hard for me. The energy was totally different and I kept wishing I could look across and see my friends Ronnie and David and Em and Peter playing and singing, and George Haumba with his eyes all squinted shut dancing away, and papa clapping slowly the way he does, and elder ben in his sean john dragon shirt, and stanley in his bow tie, and mama giving me a big hug during the "sometimes i feel like greeting" part.

Its the weirdest feeling - so good to be home, yet so hard to be away. We miss EVERYTHING about africa. The sun, the food, the people, the culture, even the dust. I miss never having to be on time. I miss washing my feet at the end of the day and always sweating. I miss POSHO and BEANS. I miss our dogs brownie and blackie. I miss my deckers and my house. I miss bodas. I miss Pauline. I miss DC Jinja. I miss thunderstorms that sound like warfare. But most of all I miss my babies and my friends. We expected to work with babies and love the culture, but we werent expecting to make such amazing friendships. Our friends tell us that theyve never met white people like us before and that weve made such a difference in their lives...theres just no way to explain how whatever difference we made to them, the difference they made to us is 10 times that big. And I think thats the biggest reason that its so darn hard to say goodbye.

As hard as we try, we'd never be able to express the change that happened in our hearts and lives. We'll never be able to tell people what its like to walk through the baby's home gate in the morning and have Brian book it over to get a hug, how it feels to cuddle sophie and george as they go to sleep, how incredible it feels to be singing along to Raoul leading worship in Lingala, how at home we felt.

The relationships we made with all our friends are like none we have here. They are really indescribable. We just love our friends there in a totally different way. They got to know us so deeply and we got to know them so deeply.

We are so thankful for the support that all our friends and family gave us while away. There have been times where we needed your prayers so badly and felt them. We couldnt have gone without the financial support that so many of you offered. We just can't say thank you enough.

So from us, we say thank you and God bless you. We're going to continue to post so whenever your bored...check us out.

Until next time....

7 months in the blink of an eye...

2008-02-07T17:44:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to let you all know that after 45 long hours of travelling I am back in Canada safe and sound! It was a really long trip but I'm glad to be back with my family and friends. However I definitly have a jinja shaped hole in my heart...im not sure when I'll make it back there but I miss it very much. Thanks so much for all your prayers for us as weve travelled, weve been in a lot of situations that should have been worse than they were but we arrived home healthy and safe. Thanks so much! God bless you all.

I'm not sure whats going to happen to this blog but if we can find interesting things to write, we will!!

Until next time...

home life

2008-01-31T21:11:00.001-08:00

Today at 3ish pm i arrived in Edmonton. I just recieved a phone call that i left my passport at the airport so i get to make the 50 minute drive tomorrow to go pick it up! YEAH. Basically the flights were uneventful although i did think the plane was going to crash at many points from London to Edmonton due to wicked turbulence. PTL that never happened! I burst into tears when i saw my parents because i was heartbroken that Uganda was over.

A more detailed update is coming but i thought i'd add some photos for your enojyment!
until next time...

Me and Bethany in Bukaya with Mama Rukia`s family.

Our favorite Congolese family ever. Raoul and his sisters from left to right, Deborah, Linda, Marie and Natalie. Raoul`s desire is to be a pastor and do village ministry in Congo again one day. He is an incredible person and we love the Mugosa family SO SO SO SO MUCH!

Ronnie Kiryowa, Me and Andrew Oundo at Entebbe Airport...so sad.

Rachel, Nina, Amy David Bethany, Melody and Michelle. The 6 of us girls learned a dance choreographed by Melody for David`s going away. It was a hit!

At David`s going away party. Left to Right, Philip, Nina, Bethany, Me (amy) and Ruth

Melody, Rachel, Me, Nina and Ruth at our last bible study.

Bethany Andrew and Amy

Bethany, Florence (Our African Queen) and Me

Amy Michael Mark and Bethany

Yeah!! We made it!

A church in Kigali where 2000 Tutsi`s fled from the MRND. The RPF got a tip that they were there and the MRND was going to kill them and the RPF got them out safely.

The beautiful Rwandan country side

At the hotel where Hotel Rwanda happened.

We were pretty pumped!! Thanks Anne Marie!

One section of Mass graves at Gisozi Genocide Memorial in Kigali Rwanda.

ADORABLE Brian!

The best dog in all of Uganda and my best non human friend in the whole world. Brownie Bear.

CUTEST PHONE CALL EVER IN LIFE

2008-01-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

Yesturday evening, as me and our dog brownie where having a photo shoot, Erin Littleton called and gave us a little update on Mary Cameron and JAckson and we GOT TO TALK TO THEM ON THE PHONE!!! it was sooooooo cool to hear their little ugandan voices all the way over in America.

We asked MC where she was and she said "I'm at america" and Jackson told us he was making rice and beans but would make us pizza and noodles if we wanted. It was the cutest thing ever. We are planning a trip to visit them this spring or summer. If you haven't checked out Erin's blog, you need too because its the best thing on the internet and i check it every day to see how the kids are doing. They have the cutest photos of MC and Jackson all decked out for a basketball game (i think!) and an excellent story about dog footprints and poop.
www.thelittletonfamily.blogspot.com

trust me- you'll be hooked!

until next time...

Rwanda

2008-01-25T23:29:00.000-08:00

So were back from Rwanda! Leaving I have to say I dont think we really knew what to expect. At the last minute we decided to call Timothy, a friend who is a journalist in Kigali, to see if he could meet us and help us find our way around. Good thing we did, I dont know how we would have managed without him!

So monday morning we were on the internet googling all of the things we wanted to do in Kigali (the capital of Rwanda) and looking at the website for the Hotel des Mille Collines (the hotel from Hotel Rwanda the movie). were super expensive and we decided it would be best to just stay in a cheap guest house. As we were discussing, Amy gets a phone call from the lovely and wonderful Momma King telling us that her lovely and wonderful work friends have donated the money for us to stay in the Mille Collines!!! Needless to say we were ECSTATIC!

We left for Kampala in the afternoon to go catch the Jaguar night bus to Kigali. We were hoping to catch the 1am bus but unfortunately for us it was full and we had to wait for the 3am. We spent the evening with my old pal Justin who I havent seen in like 4 years and is randomly in Kampala studying. Then we watched I am Legend in the theater (SO SCARY!) and then headed to the bus station for a long cold 4 hour wait outside for the bus. Our seats were really small but we arrived in Kigali excited though somehow tired! We taxied to our hotel and Timothy came and met us and showed us around the city.

FYI This is going to be a really long blog.

Okay I just have to describe how beautiful Rwanda is. Breathtaking. For sure the most beautiful place I've ever been, and you'll be hard pressed to get me to admit that anywhere is more beautiful than Victoria. Rwanda is called the Switzerland of Africa because it is all green rolling hills. The road from the border of Uganda to Kigali winds all through the mountains and you are always on one side looking far down into the valley. The roads were so windy that we joked that if you could drive from the border in a straight line to Kigali it would probably take about 15 minutes, but because the roads wind so much it took 2 hours!

We expected the city of Kigali to be something like Kampala but it couldn't have been more different! EVERYTHING was clean, there was no dust, no traffic, no bodas weaving maniacally through the traffic. There was order and safety regulations and trash cans! All things that are not typical in Kampala. Actually every last saturday of the month all citizens have to help clean the city...no joke.

We had a wonderful night in the Mille Collines and took full advantage of the room service and complimentary breakfast (yum). The next day we got up early, shopped for like 3 hours in the craft stores, and then met up with Timothy to go to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial. There are several memorials around Kigali, but after visiting one we definitely did not feel compelled to visit others.

This is so hard to write about and explain. The genocide happened 14 years ago in Rwanda, and they have come a long way since in terms of infrastructure and stability. The city is amazing. But I don't think that the genocide is really very far from anyones mind. The first week in April is the memorial week and every year people relive the horrors and remember the lost. It seemed to us like a tradition like that would make it hard for people to move on, but I think the bottom line is that there is no good way to cope after a genocide, you just do what you can.

In 1994 one million people were slaughtered in Rwanda. A country with two tribes that once functioned perfectly with one language and one history, was divided by european colonizers and pitted against each other. 40 years of ethnic strife evolved into genocide, and a million (plus!) people lost their lives as a result. The memorial was a beautiful remembrance of the history of the tragedy, the cost of international indifference, and the stories of those who died. After walking though a long hallway that tells the story, we passed through rooms full of pictures brought in by survivors of family members who were murdered. There were probably aroujd 1200 photos that people had brought in and clipped to the walls and every day people bring more. These are sometimes the only photos people have of their family members and friends. We witnessed a man sitting, cradling a picture of a woman that he pulled from the wall, crying and grieving. The next room was dark with glass cases lining the walls. IN each case there were bones. 4 cases were full of skulls, many with holes in them, whole sides missing, and some in peices. It was awful to imagine the force that must have been used to create such injuries. 2 cases were full of femur bones from adults and children. There were hundreds. The last room had clothes hung up behind glass that had been taken from people in mass graves. There was s childs size I LOVE OTTAWA tee shirt and a superman sheet. Playing on a big tv screen were survivors talking about forgivness and if they could in fact, forgive the people who did this. ONe woman talked of how she watched her sisters be beaten and thrown to the bottom of an outhouse, already piled 10 bodies deep and then rocks were thrown down on them until they died. She said she didnt know if shed ever be able to forgive. Amy kept thinking of her neice and nephew as she walked through the room with the stories of dead children. The photos had a plaque underneath the photo that had info like the childs favorite food, favorite sport, favorite school subject then it said how they were murdered. One 9 month old was hacked to death in his mothers arms and a 2 year old girl was smashed against a wall. There was even a small glass case with the chain that was to chain 4 brothers together as they were burned alive.

The end of the center consisted of information about other genocides that have happened in the world, such as Namibia, the Holocaust, Armenia, Camodia and several others. This was followed by information on genocide in general and organizations that have set out to prevent it.

As we walked outside, we looked over the balcony onto rows of mass graves. One of the mass graves was not sealed yet and you could see where new coffins lay, covered in white and pruple cloth. They center said that as many as 30 people could fit in one coffin because of the brutal way people were killed. People around the country are still - 14 years later!!- finding parts of bodies and random bones as they cultivate fields, dig foundations and just go about daily life. AS a result, about 4 new mass graves were being dug at the memorial site to house these. They are surrounded by gardens and we walked through the gardens past what must have been thousands of bodies and fragments of bodies all buried in mass graves. Needless to say we left the memorial very sober and with a lot of questions. It was strange because the whole time we felt like just bawling but somehow we couldn't, they just weren't our tears to cry. It almost would have felt disrespectful to sit and watch videos of survivors bravely telling of the horrors they saw and then cry, as if we have anything to cry about.

We left early the next morning after a fun night hanging out with Timothy and his family and traveled back to dusty Kampala. We had a really good time in Kigali but it was good to be back in Jinja. I guess we came away from our trip with a newfound appreciation for Rwandans and their strength and courage, and also a bit of shame at what white people have done (or not done) in the world. It was so frustrating to be in the memorial and be able to clearly see all the info that had been laid out for the west to do something about the genocide, even before the killings happened, and yet because of beauracracy, red tape, and pride, we say by the tv and watched the news show their 30 second blip on ethnic strife in Rwanda, sandwiched between the sports and the weather.

Its hard to believe that we stayed in a hotel that had once housed thousands of tutsis from crazed militia men waiting with machetes outside the gates to kill them because 50 years prior, colonoizers had separated the country based on the amount of cows one had. Unfortunately for the Tutsis, having less than 10 cows would one day get them killed.

Amy leaves on wednesday at 4;20 and get home thursday at 240. WE are both excited to go home but heartbroken to leave our friends. We said goodbye to the church yesturday and Amy cried as the elders came and prayed for us as the congregation stretched our their hands and joined in prayer as well. AFter church we went to our friends house and hung out with 6 of our friends and spent 4 hours doing karoke. It was a blast. WE are definately going to miss the babies and espeically george and soph but the friendships we have made are one a whole nother level and will make it that much harder to leave. Tomorrow night is our last bible study and im sure it will be full of tears. The one thing everyone says after we say we are going home is, but your going to come back soon, not so? One day soon.

Until next time....

SUPER QUICK UPDATE

2008-01-21T02:41:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!
Just wanted to say a super quick update, so quick in fact im putting it in point form to save time!

We are coming home so soon! Amy in 9 days and I leave two weeks today. We are sad to leave, but so excited to see our families and everyone.
Were going to Rwanda! Right now. For two days. Were going to visit the genocide museums and see the Hotel Mille Collines (the one from Hotel Rwanda the movie), and hopefully go see some volcanoes.
We would appreciate your prayers in our last few days here that it wouldnt be too hard to leave our babies and our friends...were a little nervous about leaving them and are wishing we could sneak sophie and george home with us.
Okay thats all! Love you all!
Until next time..

Some favorite photos and a short update

2008-01-16T06:01:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone! We've been very bad at blogging but with only 13 days left for amy and 17 for bethany, we are spending as much time away from the internet as possible. Today our friend Tillas from Nairobi arrived for a little visit. His school started last week but he said that it was still too dangerous and he didnt want to risk it. Also our friend Lawrence who is from the kamba tribe in kenya, arrived yesturday after being away for several weeks. His took an Akamba bus from Nairobi to Jinja (the same one me and beth took to nairobi many months ago) and the bus had to have a military escort because now that Kibaki has elected a kamba vice president (or something like that, don't quote me) the kamba tribe is now being targeted with violence. Needless to say we are so thankful both Tillas and Lawrence have returned safely and we are praying for Kenya daily over here.

My baby Sophia's 4th birthday was yesturday. Although shes 4, shes a shrimp and wore my neice Ava's 2T birthday dress. I bought her a really cute beaded necklace which she was very excited about. A bunch of us volunteers took Amberly, Teenie Beanie, Melody, Anna and Steffi to lunch at the source cafe and Danyne was very kind and let us take the van! She hung out with me all day and we had a great time. She even came to fellowship where George and Ken from our favorite group here, Sauti, lead worship. It was AWESOME and they sang my new favorite song from Zimbabwe. Everyone was so pumped and it was so powerful. Hope talked about cultural lies and it was so amazing too. Everyone thought that was the best fellowship yet! Hope is a gifted speaker, espeically to university aged people. Soph slept over and was so kind to wake up at 6am dragging her little fingers through my knotted hair! So cute, i love that girl!

In sad sad sad news, but good good good at the same time, our ugandan best friend, David, left for school in london england on monday. We went to the airport with David, his mom and dad, and our other 2 friends steve and richard. It was so bad. we both cried a few tears but last night, our friend Emma brought over David's new phone number in London and tonight we are going to the calling center to ring him up! We're also planning a summer reunion so that gives us something to look forward too.

Rainy season started yesturday in fine fashion with a nice long heavy downpour and several thunderstorms. Its SUCH nice relief from the overwhelming heat we've had for the last 2 months. Before the rain yesturday, it litterally hadn't rained a drop in 2 or 3 months. Bethany had a nice bath in the pool today as we had no water yet again. good times!

We are both beginning to get VERY excited to come home, particularly for new clothes :), but also to see our families. We are going to be heartbroken to leave as we've made a really nice life for ourselves these ends.

Enjoy the photos, until next time...

This is what it looks like every afternoon now.

our favorite photo from Kikondo village.

BEth and I at STAO Mafubira hanging out!

Christopher's ADORABLE smile.

www.jesusbabies.blogspot.com

Baby Katie Rae or Katie Bug.

Big fatty daniel. He used to be sooo grossly skinny but not anymore!

Nicole. She is one half of the twins we got a few weeks ago. She is 13 months old and when we got her she weighed 10 pounds.

Mama Teenie Beanie.

Smellody, melly or melode as we like to call her. Her favorite saying is "auntie emmy (or auntie feffany), auntie arielle is where?"

Georgie porgie and Asherife.

"we will never forget you"

2008-01-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

That is what little Kijambo said to Bethany and I in the car today as we were driving 6 STAO kids home from a day in town.

Yesterday Bethany and I distributed 30 basins of towels, sweeties, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes and sandles. The kids were all so happy and thrilled that they each had something of their very own, with their name on it even! Last week we were told that there were 45 kids at STAO and then we asked for a list of the kids with ages, sizes and names but that wasn't going to happen so we wrote down the names of the 45 kids plus an extra random 15 and when we got to stao to distribute, children appeared from the woodwork and there was another 15 or 20 who needed bins. So we are making more and bringing them early next week.

This morning bethany and i drove to STAO and picked up 6 kids to bring to the international clinic for treatment of some nasty infections. Only 2 of the kids had ever been to Jinja Town and were thrilled at all there was to see! Marion is about 4 or 5, we dont actually know and she came to town and spent the whole day with no shoes. When we got to the hospital the kids took their shoes off at the door. It was pretty cute but heartbreaking because they thought the hospital was so beautiful, they should take their shoes off. Marion peed her dress so we put her in a HUGE men's teeshirt that she wore as a dress till we could get her something else to put on. The kids got HIV tests and all came back negative.

After the hospital we piled the 8 of us in the car and drove to main st. where we ate chicken and chips at source cafe. Each kid got a big glass of milk but they were all much more intersted in the soda.

After they had finished eating the little girls knelt on the floor and thanked us. It was so sad that they were overwhelmed with a plate of food that wasnt posho and beans.

Then it was off to our house for Charlottes Web and a good bath. The kids wanted to check out our compound and as they rounded the back, they all started chattering in Luganda and Kijambo asked me "auntie- that is what?", referring to the swimming pool. I told him it was like a big bathtub full of water and you could swim in it. Shamimu got on the ladder and climbed down it till she was halfway in, getting herself soaking wet in the process and loving it the whole time! they all started splashing water on themselves and cleaning their heads and faces, like they would in the shower. It was precious. After that we bathed the kids, put them in new clean clothes (denise got a pair of my neice ava's old shorts for 9-12mth olds, shes about 4) and loaded everyone back into the car.

On the way back to the village, Kijambo said that he did not want to return, and they all wanted to stay with me and bethany and live at our house. How do you explain to a 12 year old boy why he can't live with us? How do you explain the extreme difference in standards of living?

After we left the kids at STAO we drove home with our hearts heavy and our minds reeling. We love it here, we love every kid we've met, dirty, sick and smelly as they may be. But our hearts are sore from breaking daily and its time for a break.

We're planning a short 3 day trip to Rwanda to see the 1994 genocide memorials. It wont be that much of a break because we're going to be going to 2 churches where in one- a thousand people were slaughtered with machetes and then left, in their exact same positions for 13 years. They are piles of bones and clothes now and it is said to be very disturbing and haunting, but something we must see. Thats the plan so far.

Mariam with her basin in the girls room

Fatuma with her sweetie!

the outside of the main building in STAO.

Fatuma's gross skin infection on her head, with pus coming from the wounds. You can't really see it that well but it looked angry and sore.

3 or 4 year old Marion's infected ear and body rash.

Maria and Denise enjoying their chocolate chip cookies and milk!

Shamimu with the thumbs up,
Maria with the mango
Fatuma with her face covered
Kijambo in the washington shirt
Denise in the blue polo
Marion in the overalls

Until Next Time!

Shout-outs and Shoot-outs

2008-01-02T00:33:00.000-08:00

So what happens in a little town like Jinja on the first day of 2008?? Why a rocking christian music concert of course! As most of you probably don't know, we have a favorite band here in Uganda called Sauti. (pronounced Sa-woo-tee) Our friends here know how much we love them, and how every time they are in town or near town, we go to the concert. Last night was no different. We headed over to town hall with a bunch of our friends for a concert that this dancing group called God's Army was putting on. They are INCREDIBLE dancers and we love seeing them as well. The concert got off to a slow start, but we kept hanging in there knowing Sauti was coming up.

After about 2 hours of boredom, Sauti takes the stage, and we are as enthralled as ever. So much so, we decided we just had to go after, introduce ourselves, and find out how we can get a copy of their cd to bring back to canada! We met them and they were so nice and we exchanged "contacts" so that we can get a cd later. When they came back on for their second set they made our WEEK with a shout out before our favourite song..."This one goes out to Amy and Bethany!" So of course we had to stand up and dance and being the only white people in a group of 600, I think we may have stood out juuuuuust a little! Needless to say it was the best night. Ever.

Okay on a more serious note, we want to give you a quick update on whats going on in Kenya right now. On december 27th there was a presidential election. There was a lot of controversy over the election and accusations of a lack of transparency, fraud, and vote rigging. The new president, Mwai Kibaki, was sworn in less than an hour after the election results were posted, and there has been chaos ever since. Already 100,000 people have had to evacuate or flee their homes because of the violence, and the death toll has risen to 300; including 50 people seeking shelter in a church who were burned to death.

Just to put this in perspective: Kenya is one of the most stable countries in Africa. It has the biggest economy in East Africa, and black tea stocks (their biggest export) have already fallen 5%. Being in Nairobi feels exactly like being in Vancouver or Toronto...its a huge city with skyscrapers, nice cars, wealthy buisness-people, movie theaters, and restaurants. This is a really big deal for all of East Africa. Uganda gets all their petrol from Kenya and since the election, violence, and subsequent closing of the border, fuel prices have risen from 2500 shillings per litre to 8000 shillings per litre...about $4.85 per litre!! Needless to say we are doing a lot of walking...

The scariest part of all this is that the violence is exposing ethnic tensions, in particular between the Kikuyu, Kibaki's tribe, and the Luo, Odinga's tribe. In case that doesn't mean anything to you, its comparable to the Hutu and Tutsi tribes of Rwandan genocide 15 years ago.

We just wanted you to know whats going on over in our neck of the woods, we are totally safe don't worry, but please just be in prayer for Kenya. Bloomburg.com has good articles if you want to learn more.

Until next time...

Question: Who's Dwigt?

2007-12-28T04:58:00.000-08:00

I figured it was time for a post about whats going on with us lately. We are both feeling very weird about going home. It feels like we JUST got here, how can we be going home already??

Last night Mama Lois invited us to her house for supper so me and beth went over there at 6pm for some good home cooking. We even ate matoke- the only ugandan food we dont like- and it was good! Everyone at home should be very proud at the leaps and bounds i'm making in becoming less picky. I eat a plateful of beans (they look like kidney beans) multiple times a week and have even been seen eating green beans! No more microscope mom! WE hung out with Mama Lois and her daughter steffi for a few hours and had a blast. Steffi is hilarious and was saying the cutest things in her very limited english. Mama Lois is going for her surgery hopefully the last week in January which means that we'll both be here to visit her in the hospital and take good good care of her.

Our days are spent at the babies home and our nights at home, with rachel and arielle, with seasons 2 and 3 of the office which we have become obsessed with. the babies home feels empty because so many kids have been fostered or adopted and there are only around 40 left there. We went to STAO today and got a list of all the kids there and after much confusion, we finally got a full list of the kids and their ages. We're putting together Christmas packages for each of the 60 kids which will include their own bathing basin, towel, soap, tooth brush, tooth paste, underwear and cookies. We're also bringing a bunch of food and having a big party for them. Its really hard to know what to do for some places because the temptation to keep some of the stuff for the staff is huge. We have some other ideas in mind too and will post them as soon as the plans are finalized.

Today is a very exciting day for us because its one we've been waiting for since August 10th. Tonight, our bestie Michelle comes in from San Fransisco and will be greeted at the airport by her very confused boyfriend Raoul. He thinks he's been sent to pick a package up for Katie, but really its to pick up Shelly! She thinks we are picking her up and will be surprising Raoul at his house tonight so its a double surprise! We're pretty pumped. Shes coming with a suitcase and a half of goodies for me beth rachel arielle and herself.

Tomorrow morning we are being picked up by our friend Pauline who works at a little vendor shop on main street. Its her introduction tomorrow and we are acting as her "sisters". We are going to Mama's place now (davids mom) to borrow some gomesi, which is the traditional wear for introductions. Its gonna be a good time. Phin and HOpe are also coming and as we don't see much of them lately, it'll be so much fun.

After the introduction, we've planned a party for our friends. Every so often we invite everyone over to our house and play games and listen to music and dance and hang out. They are a big hit so we thought it was high time we had another.

until next time.

p.s we are consolidating our photos onto one computer here at the cafe and then burning cd's for eachother and so far, with a 2 gb mem card and 256'er to go, we have 1300 photos and about 100 videos.

A Tmistmat to remembah.

2007-12-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

Christina (aka, mama beanie, teenie beanie, rice and beanies) and Auntie Emmy hanging out on Christmas morning eating christmas treats!

Melody rockin her new sunglasses with her christmas stocking gifts beside her! Each kid got a stocking, even the preemies, and we put the toddlers on their beds and they ran in for a christmas morning surprise. Everyone's favorite presents were the blower things, the long green thing beside mels right leg. i have no idea what they are called.

My sophie looking oh so cute with her christmas goodies. 15 mins after this was taken she threw a royal fit because she did NOT want to put her stuff away and eat lunch.

Emily talking on her new pretend cell phone! Each toddler got a cell phone, coloring book, box of crayons, sticker set, car- for boys, and rings for girls, mango, orange, and lots of candy!

This is what greeted me on Christmas morning! ADORABLE Amberly (formerly Olga!) in a super star mood with baby 2'ers Hannah in the background, and Christoper to the right.

Brian saw me (amy) and started jumping up and down saying mummy mummy mummy! (he does that to everyone though;) Christoper is behind him.

Arnold and Melody enjoying some Christmas "diarhea" breakfast as Rachel called it because this much cake and cookies in the morning is a sure fire way to have some blowouts in fine form a few hours later! Me Beth Rach and Air made cinamon pull-a-parts, renamed Jesus Bread that was a big hit!

Junior and Emily pumped that its Jesus's Birthday!

Dan, Marvin and Teenie Beanie (christina) also pumped for Jesus' Birthday and christmas breakfast treats

Christopher, Jospeh, Hunter, Katie, Amberly, Sharon, Priscilla(katy) Jeremiah, Ruthie, Holly and Brian.

Me Rach and Air took these 11 kids to town in matching Amani Baby cottage t's, and bucket hats in the "vehicles" as ppl here call stollers! 11 kids fit in 6 seats!

Besties, Amy and Bethany at Jp's brothers wedding to Maddie's cousin! It was BEAUTIFUL

Christoper and Brian hanging out in the diaper bag section of one of the vehicles nicnamed the Rav 4

This was at the mama's christmas party, all 36 amani employee's in their new tee's we made them! They LOVED them. It was an even bigger hit that we imagined.

Auntiekate, Auntie Emmy, Mama Santa, Auntie Aireo, Mama Doreen, Auntie Waycho, baby Katie, and Auntie Feffany!

Ruthie enjoying a mouth full of icing at the mama's party. She is getting very fat!

Hope was sick with a bacterial infection last week so me and Beth babysat this big guy one morning and we had a lovely reunion! Its Phin!

check out www.jdcuganda.org....Its our CHURCH! with a photo of bethany and the choir on the about page!

We wish you a merry Christmas

2007-12-24T06:03:00.000-08:00

One thing thats great about spending Christmas in Jinja Uganda is that people actually say Merry Christmas! It's great, there is no such thing as Happy Holiday's here.

Yesturday we felt the need to get into the Christmas spirit so Beth and I went with JP Andrew and Ronnie to Kampala to KPC (kampala pentecostal church) to see their christmas production. We got there about 10 mins before the show started and were able to find about a 4 feet square patch of stairs on the balcony to squish ourselves into. I know everyone thinks that the chrismtas contata at their church was the best and can't be beat but i'm here to tell everyone that we have NEVER seen or heard anything like we did yesturday. It was indescribeable. I was sobbing the whole time, completely overwhelmed at how thankful i am to be able to spend christmas here, and beth was sobbing as well. It was completely Ugandan and stunning. There was a giant choir, probably 150-200 people in it and beautiful costumes and a ridiculous house band. Traditional dancers and costumes and music was involved too. Really, i can't say enough about how amazing it was so i'm getting the dvd of it to watch whenever i miss "home" when i'm home.

Today Bethany is out at the market, FULL of people looking for last minute christmas gifts and live chickens and turkeys to kill for supper tomorrow. She's getting stuff for STAO and the christmas party we're going to have their. We bought Rachel and Arielle's christmas gifts for our gift exchange tomorrow night and Rach Air and I took 11 babies to town together. We take 3 double strollers and just pack em on in! They loved it, except hunter who's been sick this last week. We strolled down main street with many gawkers wondering what these crazy girls are 'driving'. People like to comment on our wonderful "vehicles" when we bring the doubles into town.

I'm about to go upstairs and stuff stockings with Arielle in preparation for tomorrow morning! We have a big day tomorrow! It is incredibly weird to think that tomrorow is Christmas because its blazing hot, there is no snow, and not really a whole lot of christmas decorations. Its going to be amazing still.

I've been feeling overwhelmed lately with the thought of leaving, and wanting to stay, but wanting to go at the same time, and i know beth feels the same way. WE are beyond lucky to have the opportunity to be here for these 7 months and are so greatful to everyone who's supported us along the way. We are forever changed.

We wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Isaiah 9:6 " For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government will rest on his shoulders. And He shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father and Prince of Peace."

2007-12-16T06:15:00.000-08:00

So we just wanted to write a quick update and P.T.L. news bit about Ebola...apparently there never actually was Ebola in Jinja..or Kampala, despite being in all the local papers and on several credible internet websites. I'm not sure what happened but the bottom line is that the Ebola threat in our area is totally over. As far as I know its been contained in Bundibugyo - a town that is close to the border of Congo and far from here - and hasnt spread at all to the rest of Uganda. So PTL for that!!

The other day Amy and I were driving in Kampala with some of our ugandan besties David and Ronnie, and this wonderful little blast from the past song came on the radio. For those of you who remember the famine in Ethiopia in the 80's, you will probably also remember the band "Band Aid", and their deep and profound song "Do they know its Christmas?". I'd just like us all to take a moment to appreciate the lyrics...my personal favourite lines are in bold.

It's Christmastime
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime

But say a prayer

Pray for the other ones
At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging
chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
Where nothing ever grows
No rain nor rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

Here's to you - raise a glass for everyone
Here's to them - underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmastime again

Needless to say, we were just a little mortified to be sitting there listening to such an ignorant song with our african friends. Oh and just for a little clarification:

1. They, being africans, are in fact aware of the both the christmas season, and the biblical basis for it.
2. Not that life isnt just a FABULOUS christmas present, but I do know quite a few africans who are getting something other than just "life" for christmas this year.
3. Believe it or not, despite the lack of snow, christmas still finds a way to happen here in africa!
4. If we can learn anything from this song (other than the fact that "clanging chimes of doom" is just a lovely metaphor), I hope its to never NEVER thank God that its "them" instead of "us". Even the use of the word "them" in reference to all of africa just makes me want to vomit. God has not spared North America and sent his "clanging chimes of doom" to Africa. North America is spoiled. Living in a "world of plenty" has jaded us. Please don't pity africa. Pity does no one any good. If you feel like there is injustice, find out what you can do about it.

I understand the intentions of Band Aid when they wrote this song, but I guess what I want to say is that good intentions are good, but even the best intentions can be kind of ignorant. We want to encourage you all to be educated about Africa - there is definitly christmas here, but without all of the commerical hullabaloo. Its different, but its still christmas!!

Until next time...

Picture Post

2007-12-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

George and Sophia hanging out on the tire swing

George, Sophia, Jason, Bryan, Arnold and Christina

Mama Lucy with Noah and Chloe minutes before they leave for America!

Josh and Elizabeth Granderson, proud parents of Chloe and Noah Granderson!

Christina (teenie beanie) and Georgie Porgie

Arnold with too big of pants!

Top L to Bottom R:
Diana, Junior Maggie, Danynene, Junior Amani, Jimmu, Sonja, Stephen K, Asherife, Emily

A goodbye hug for Vince as he leaves for America (middle). Junior Maggie, and Dan

Ruthie all fat and happy!!!!! This child is totally different now! She never smiled and we always joked that she has no personality but she's getting one now!

Just a small update...

2007-12-09T02:51:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

So we have some news and we would like you to pray for us. I dont know if any of you have heard on the news, but the Ebola virus is making its way around east africa. It started somewhere in the Congo and has made its way to Uganda. About a week ago we had heard it had reached Kampala, and in the last few days its been on the news that it is now in Jinja. Its scary because people here I dont think really appreciate the seriousness of a virus like this. Me and Amy are on a full-scale Ebola Alert Campaign and are handing out gloves to all our friends and trying to be really cautious - even at the expense of other people's perception of our sanity!

Ebola is transmitted through any body fluid, so coughing, sneezing, handshakes, even computer keyboards could be a potential transmission source. Even exposed linens can transmit the virus. There isnt really a known cure, and the scariest part is that Uganda is really not equipped to handle a full scale outbreak. But dont worry, I'm emailing Steven Harper as we speak and I'm going to ask him to send aid.

Right now the threat isnt too severe, but we heard that today the bordering countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, and Congo are all screening travellers wishing to enter from uganda. Its a really bizarre situation, to read the news reports and get a little freaked out and than walk outside and everything is totally normal! There are no reports confirming that it has reached Jinja, but all of the grocery store workers are wearing gloves to be safe....and now so are we.

So please pray for us...for protection obviously, but also that God will protect us from getting any other illnesses while this is going on, because hospitals are not a place we want to have to visit. Also - even though we will most likely not be infected, a lot of people will. Please pray for Uganda, they have enough going on with all the chaos in the north, AIDS, malaria, and TB without a deadly virus causing trouble. Please encourage friends to read this and pray in your churches. Please feel free to google ebola uganda and learn more and pray for us. We are just doing our best to trust God that he will protect us as we are here doing his work.

Thanks for reading and please be dilligent in keeping us in your prayers.

Feel at Jesus!

2007-12-06T23:44:00.000-08:00

The obligatory jumping in the air photo between bridesmaids and groomsmen

Bethany Katie, Bride- Judith, Matron- Grace , Amy and Flower girl Sandra

mama Judith chilling with Arnold!

Beautiful Mama erin Littleton and her gorgeous kids Mary Cameron and JAckson Moses, FINALLY going home!!

Auntie Amy and Auntie Fefany with Jackson and MC

Jackson and his puppy "tuckah"

Mary Cameron and her best friend Emily

Mummy Doreen and Jackson! Saying

feel At Jesus is a common greeting on our church's weekly bulletin! This week Mary cameron and Jackson went home with their mom, Erin. It was so beautiful to see them go and the whole time MC kept saying Tu Gende Tu Gende which means we go we go!

In other news, we got 2 new babies. They are twins, Nicole and Walker. They used to be triplets but the third died. The mother is postive but Praise the Lord, the babies are negative! They are severely malnourished, as you can see from the photo. That is Nicole and she is 13 months and weighs maybe 8-10 pounds.

Until Next Time...

the woof is on fi-yah

2007-11-30T05:54:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, in a moment of sheer craziness, i- amy- decided to take 6 todd's to town. i found a skipping rope and in true day care fashion...we marched 35 mins into town holding onto that rope singing songs and the alphabet as we went. Halfway there, auntie fefany came piki-ing along and so she stopped and came to join us.

We marched to the source cafe where the kids had soda and ice cream and me and beth had a light lunch. We then marched to the cafe where the kids greeted uncle raoul and uncle david and sang THEM songs! Auntie Fefany taught them "the roof is on fire" and they sang it "the woof is on fi-yah!" pretty darn cute.

The 8 of us marched up main street to caltex where we spent WAAAY to much money to get a taxi to take the kids home in a "moto cah". After a quick stop at central market to pick up 50 bags of pop corn, we were on our way, and everyone was pretending to drive and being so very adorable! The kids hopped out at the amani gate and were very polite in saying bye bye to uncle driver.

After distributing the popcorn to all the amani staff, there were a few bags left over and all we sat the kids down in pairs and they all share their popcorn. A nice, fun afternoon.

Right now bethany is working at the cafe while David is at choir practice and i'm keeping her company and updating the blog.

Oh!! This morning Paul and Olivia left Amani with their new mom and dad, Lisa and Mark. Its sad to have them gone, but awesome that they are orphans no more! Praise the Lord for that!

until next time!

More Photos!

2007-11-30T00:17:00.000-08:00

Amy and Andrew in Tororo after we sang in the wedding.

Amy and Beth, looking very pretty in our wedding finest!

The happy couple! Paul and Barbara!

pictures......FINALLY!

2007-11-28T06:25:00.001-08:00

Amy and Bethany in our gomesi FINEST! We looked pretty spectacular i'm not going to lie!

Carol, Beth, Blessing, Amy and Scovia with the flower girls!

Our dear dear friends Carol and Mr. John Paul Okwi.

Amy Blessing Bethany in the lineup for food!

Mukama Yebazibwe

2007-11-27T21:47:00.000-08:00

This week has been so incredibly busy that we havent been able to post photos. Its 15 mins to 9am and we are having a meeting at 9 to figure out who is going where today. We have 12 schools in jinja disctrict that we need to get information to, regarding the Jinja Youth Sports Frenzy day on dec 15!

Yesutrday Paulson and I -amy- were running around town for a good 5 hours. We went to TASO (The Aids Support Organization), AIC (Aids information Center) and the town clerk. Meanwhile, bethany was hard at work here in the cafe getting the pledge cards ready and doing her own work for being TYT's secretary. While i was at TASO with Paulson he was asking me questions about Canada and AIDS and he was so shocked when i told him that the first person i never knew with HIV/AIDS was sophia here. There are 24 million people living with Aids in Africa. CRAZY! Everyday i'm just so thankful for being born in canada and having the life i've had but at the same time its hard to deal with the guilt that we feel for that same reason. Why us? Its a hard thing to deal with.

Last night bethany lead praise and worship and intercession at bible study and did an amazing job. She is definately a talented girl! Next week i'm speaking and i'm a bit nervous. i'm just praying that God will give me something really relevant to talk about...i have some ideas though. Every day we are reminded just how faithful God has been to us here in Jinja. Our trip would be totally different if we didnt have the friends we do here. They are truly quality people and we are now closer to some of them than many of our friends at home!

yesturday we got our final dress fitting for Sharif and Edith's wedding on Sunday the 2nd. Its hard to believe that its almost december already! Sharif and Edith are a couple we met through bible study and we dont know them really at all but we're the bridesmaids so that will be interesting! our dresses are thick heavy satin so its just soooooo comfortable when we're in the hottest time of the year (35 plus every day!). And in a counntry with no air conditioning, we are going to be dripping the whole time. FUN! Weddings have really yummy food though, so at least we'll be well fed :)

All the 10 Amani kids who are being adopted have their parents here in Jinja and are really loving having mom and dad around! Please pray for all these 5 families. Pray that the visa office would be speedy and diligent in getting these kids visa's ready. That the passport office would be able to keep track of all relevant paperwork and be able to process the kids passports quickly. Pray for patience for the families. Its so hard to be waiting 2 years already, and have to push back flights still.

These parents are awesome! We are so excited for them to be able to board those planes for home, with all the other family and friends waiting for them at the airport and at home! How exciting!!

Pray for little Emily, she is going to so lonely without her best friend Maria at Amani and she will probably be really upset and confused for a while. Shes old enough to understand that all these kids will be soon leaving and she wont.

Mukama Yebazibwe means Praise God and the common answer to that is Amena. for amen. neat hey.

until next time....

p.s i WILL be putting up photos just as soon as i have time!

a bit of china in the middle of uganda

2007-11-24T03:45:00.000-08:00

Who knew that theres a little bit of china in uganda?! we sure didnt so yesturday and the day before as we drove 3 boiling hot hours in a van packed with 13 people, 2 keyboards, a guitar, mixer and 13 peoples baggages, and saw km after km of rice patties, we were shocked! Who knew!

Today Princes Charles and Bill, and Steven Harper are joining bethany and i at our house for kraft dinner and crystal light. We are going to catch up and then possibly play a game or two of skip-bo by candle light. Then at the end of the night Beth and I will fight over who is going to marry Bill.

We are ready with our canadian flags for when they roll down Kiira road on their way to the source of the nile where a big, invite only, party has been planned.

So the last 2 days have been hectic and long and dusty and sweaty and fun! We drove with our 13 friends to Tororo, in the eastern part of Uganda, near Kenya, for David's Aunties introduction and wedding.

Introductions are kind of like our engagement parties but really really cultural, long and huge deals. WE got to wear gomesi, these really cool traditional dresses and shook slowly slowly to greet the bridegrooms family with Davids aunts. It was so cool! They treated us like family and it was really so cool to be a part of something so traditional and culturally Ugandan. It was really long though and those gomesi are not the coolest things to wear!

The wedding was the next day and it was held at a church in Tororo town at a church that was at the base of a huge almost mountain style hill made out of rock. It was stunning. Weddings here are so cool. They are the same as we have except really loud, really fun and everyone screams and there are always about 10 random people standing in front of the bride and groom taking photos while the maid of honor powders the brides face. We sang bethany's sweet solo song, Run to You, and our friend Raoul's congolese song that was especially great since me and beth are fluent in lingala! We had 4 others practised that were so good but something at the reception got wrecked and we couldnt do it. It POURED at the reception for maybe half an hour and after it the rain stopped, i helped the brides sisters put back all the flowers that had fallen from the stands and organzised the place again.

Me and bethany entertained ourselves with photo shoots because we were looking so so smart and then we slept for a bit on eachother and before we knew it- 4 hours had dragged by and it was time for food! 500 guests and not a fork to be seen. Beth sneakily grabbed some spoons that she found and we were able to forgo the eating with our hands thing that we are just not that coordinated at yet.

When we were leaving, we danced a bit with some ladies for their tribes traditional song and then we packed into the van again, all 13 of us with our equipment plus 2 random people who needed rides. SO comfortable for the long ride home.

Our friends Rachel and Arielle posted new kid photos on www.olegirlsmission.blogspot.com and i'm going to post some when the internet is a bit faster!

A lot of the amani parents are here and some kids are gonna be going home in the next week! So exciting! PTL

until next time...

p.s

2007-11-18T07:33:00.000-08:00

please read erin littleton's blog entry titled, a few more good ones. there are 3 photos taken as she was reunited with her kids and they are heartbreakingly beautiful! www.thelittletonfamily.blogspot.com

Chockorate Brownies

2007-11-18T07:04:00.000-08:00

yesturday we ran into Erin Littleton, Gig and Erin's kids, Mary Cameron (MC) and Jackson. They were on their way to the source cafe for some brownies made of chockorate as MC says. WE stopped and chatted for a bit. It seems we never see the kids whose parents are here anymore...probably because they are all with their parents! Which they should be but its still somehow sad. We are going to be so happy but so so so sad when they leave. MC and Jackson are two of a kind. It doesnt get much better than those kids! Jja Jja Rod and Amy- you are going to have a BLAST with MC- shes a real firecracker.

Yesturday night bethany and i met up with Carol, David Raoul, Roger, Andrew, Blessing and Michael Mark for choir practice! This thursday and friday we will be in Tororo, about 3 or 4 hours away for David's aunts wedding. She asked if David would put together a choir to sing for her, since she heard the TYT choir once and LOVED it! So we are singing the Ntambula song that me and beth are obsessed with and so so happy that we get to sing it again. We are also singing I will never be the same again, power of love, woman of love and run to you. I LOVE LOVE LOVE run to you for some reason. Roger told us all that we need to smile and look happy when singing Ntambula because its such a happy song but me and beth really dont have a clue what we're singing but we just smile and fake it like ole pros. Beth has a solo in Run to You and shes a bit nervous because she has to ad lib but its gonna be great!

This morning was church and Bethany, myself, Rachel and Arielle took Dan, Sophia, Asherife and Steven respectively. Sophia wore my neice Ava's pretty yellow dress and it looked So beautiful on her! She really comes out of her shell when shes with me and i acutally told her to be quiet because she was laughing so loudly, something i've never had to do yet!

Our church is in the midst of raising money for our new church building and today at the fundraiser we were able to raise 77000 shillings. Thats about 42 dollars. We had an auction and the only item up for bid was a live chicken that had its legs tied together and was held up at the front by the auctioneer man. Its crazy to think that a few months ago i had all the money they needed to build the church right in my own bank account! its definitely puts things in perspective.

After church we took the kids out of lunch and then me soph dan and beth went back to our house where i removed sophie's terribly shabby hair. her hair was so dirty that my fingers were acutally brown. like dirt.we all watched the incredibles with bethany enjoying it the most and me getting bored halfway through so i cleaned!

Mama Vicky Lowe had mentioned to Rachel how we hadn't mentioned her of Arielle on our blog yet so let me introduce them formally. Rachel and Arielle are here for 7 and 9 months and I met them last year at Amani where we hit it off! We are now ugandan bff's. Rachel and Arielle are constantly cracking jokes.

They've been told they have grown fat since the last time they were here so now all 4 of us are working on "reducing". people get a kick out of that here. Rach Air and I tried to run the 1km from their house to mine and we got a little past halfway. It WAS uphill the whole way though so keep that in mind before judging our ridiculous lack of endurance.

Anyways- until next time!

The Judge Said Yes!

2007-11-13T23:42:00.000-08:00

Mary Cameron Littleton said this on monday when Erin, her new mom, came running out of the van in the driveway at amani and was litterally bowled over by MC and Jackson jumping into her arms. I (amy) was eating posho, rice, cabbage and chicken in the toddler house and saw all this happen. I guess i'm just a little emotional this week but i burst into tears of joy because its so beautiful to see 2 kids who have waited 2 years for a mom run into the arms of the mom who has waited 2long and hard years waiting for that exact moment. Beautiful! I love it! Michelle Gennaro and Mark Tatlock are also here at Amani picking up their kids to bring home, Joseph and Duane, and Olivia and Paul. Praise God the judge said yes!

Bethany and i would like to give a shout out to Gigi's Samantha who is religious follower of our blog! Thanks samantha for reading and being interested in our time here in Jinja! When we come to North Carolina to visit MC and Jackson this summer (hopefully) maybe we'll get to meet you!

YEsturday was so good. I went to Mama Lois' house for tea after spending the day at amani and Mama Robina was there too. Mama Lois is having surgery in January and was unable to pay the 2 million shilling price tag (about 1100 dollars) but while i was home, some very kind and VERY generous and VERY VERY lovely people donated and i was able to tell Mama Lois that she doesnt have to worry anymore! That all her expenses are now covered! She was overwhelmed and said she will never have the words to thank the people who gave so generously to a woman they dont even know.

It was her daughter Steffi's 3rd birthday and i was able to bring back some pretty cute presents which she was THRILLED about last night. I brought her an umbrella and 2 shirts, a pair of shorts, a dora the explorer towel and face cloth and a princess blanket. I also brought a beautiful hand card from MY mama which Mama Lois thought was just so beautiful and kind. I brought her a big pink robe that she loved, that she can bring to the hospital when she has her surgery so she can be nice and comfy. We ate casava chips and chapati and had yummy yummy tea!

After that i went to bible study and everyone was so excited to see me. During testimony time, i testified about how the Lord kept me safe during my surgery and how the prayers of everyone in jinja and at home must have had a huge part in the reason i recovered so fast.

After bible study was done, Mama and Papa Jack (our friend david's parents and whos house we meet at for tuesday cell) brought out a beautiful pink cake that said Welcome Back on the top. I got to sit in the special red chair while everyone sang This is the day that the Lord has made, and me and bethany cut the cake and everyone ate rice and beef, cake and sodas! It was so fun and sooooo kind of them to think of me like that. After Papa Jack took me aside and we talked for a few mins and he said how they think of me and bethany as their daughters, how they love us and what we are doing here and how we are to think of their house as our house. These 2 people are some of the greatest there are! We love them!

Today we are bringing our 2 friends, David and JP to STAO with us. It's gonna be funny because our ugandan friends see us in town and at our bible studies and at church but never at the orphanages we work at and it'll be interesting for them to see us in OUR element.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17

until next time.

2007-11-09T03:36:00.001-08:00

Well the first and most exciting news I have is that my darling Amy is back with me!! We are so happy to be reunited after a long 3 weeks and 2 days. She is totally healthy and recovered, and the proud owner of four lovely incisions on her abdomen. She came back with a care package from my family, the rest of her wardrobe, and a ziploc baggie FULL of McChicken sauce from McDonalds which we carry around with us now for when we eat french fries...

And in not-mayonnaise-related news, after several weeks of searching we have finally found exactly what we are looking for! We had made the decision that we felt our time at Amani was coming to a close - as much as we love the kids and the mamas with all our hearts, there are always a lot of volunteers to help there. Amy and I both felt like our time would be more valuable somewhere else that didn't have quite as much help. Hope actually told me about STAO - an acronym for Save The AIDS Orphan. It is a little orphanage in a district called Mafubira just outside of Jinja. It is totally ugandan run which we love, and the pastors who work there are really so nice. There are 45 kids, 25 of which have AIDS. It is by far the poorest place we've been so far but there was something really special that hooked us from the second we arrived yesterday.

Oftentimes when we visit places here that are outside of Jinja, the people arent used to seeing white people, and the kids will scream MZUNGU!!! and run up and ask you for money or sweeties. We drove through the gate for the first time yesterday and instead of yelling the kids started cheering...they were so appreciative that we had come to visit. As soon as I stepped outside the car there were eight little people throwing their arms around me. I started asking them how they were in Luganda - not expecting them to speak much english - but to my surprise they just laughed and said "I'm fine...whats your name?" I was like oh...haha...im Bethany...and the boy I was talking to said "Nice to meet you. I'm George Bush." I just laughed and asked him if he was THE George Bush, as in the president of the United States, and he looked at me as if that was the most obvious answer in the world and said..."Yeah! I'm a mzungu... cant you tell?" So then George Bush gave us a tour of the compound. Its honestly about the size of my property at home - not that big for all the kids that lived there. But there was something that really caught me and Amy's hearts about these kids...

For the first hour we sat singing and learning Luganda words. They love when we show interest in learning their language and are so thrilled to sit and teach us songs and words. We went through about every song that we all knew in both english and luganda when George Bush asks us if we have heard the song "Children of Africa" and we, unsuspecting, say that we haven't. He began to sing and the first verse goes "Children of Africa, we were not born to suffer." As we sat there with these precious children singing such a profound and beautiful song we looked at each other and both our eyes just filled with tears...it almost seemed ironic that these kids almost dont even know how much they are suffering because this life is all that they know. And you will never for a second hear them complain.

After we sang they took us around the compound and George Bush tried to make us Calypso...I almost gave the kids a hernia with my calypso moves. Its hard! They dont understand that white people just cant dance like they can...After calypso we did taught them red rover which gradually evolved into Lay-low-ah, laylowah, we call MUSTAFA! Cute.

At 4:00 every day they have a little church service in this brick building with wobbly wooden benches, no windows, dirt floors, and the most expensive sound system I've seen since I've been in Uganda...it must have been donated and it looks really hilarious to be in this dirt brick building with this super nice mixer and keyboard...we sat there on these benches surrounded by 45 beautiful children all putting our singing to shame. It really makes you think twice about what kids are capable of...I sat next to Janet who was 11, and Maria who was probably four. Maria kept leaning into my side and so I started rubbing her back and I just kept thinking that this little girl may very well never have a mom to rub her back and straighten her dress and play with her hair while they are in church.

Its kind of strange - we've been here for four months working with orphans and for the most part you get into a routine and dont even really think of them as orphans, they are just kids. But every once in a while God just breaks your heart for these people and this country. Yesterday was one of those days. At the end of the service we sat and prayed for the kids up in the north that are being kidnapped and forced to be in the LRA and I was overwhelmed at how powerful it was to be with all of these kids praying their little hearts out for their brothers and sisters in the north - many of whom have been rescued from the north themselves. Just when I thought I couldnt be any more moved we all were asked to pray for our neighbours, so I prayed for little Janet and Maria and they prayed for me. I dont know how many of you have been prayed for by a four year old african orphan, but it was one of the most amazing experiences I've had in a long time. It was all I could do to not dissolve into tears and I looked over at Amy, sitting with little Fatuma on her lap and I knew that she was feeling the exact same thing.

We knew right away that STAO was a place that we were so comfortable at, and felt so welcome, and are so blessed to be able to go spend time with those kids. We are so excited to start going regularly and are already planning out christmas presents for the kids! As we were leaving the kids were thanking us for coming and I wished I could explain to them how we are blessed a million times more by them then they could ever be blessed by us...

Anyways, this blog was way overdue and is longer than I meant it to be...but we are just so excited to be in such a wonderful place. We are still going to be at Amani a few days a week to see our babies, and speaking of amani TEN OF THE ADOPTIONS WENT THROUGH! It is soooo exciting, Mary Cameron, Jackson, Paul, Violet, Chloe, Noah, Joseph, Dwayne, Vince, and Bekah are all going home! We are so thrilled for all the families that are taking their little ones home finally!! God is good. All the time.

Wave for Jesus!

2007-10-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

So the day has come. I booked my flights back "home"to Jinja yesturday and boy does it feel good! I leave at 8:30pm on monday Nov 5th and get to Entebbe Uganda at 2:50pm on Wed the 7th. I am so so so so so excited to walk out of the airport and into the arms of my kindred spirit Bethany, and see my awesome friends Katie, David and JP who are all gonna come pick me up!

This video i've uploaded is from Deliverance Chuch Jinja, me and bethany's beloved church! We love this SO much. The pastor is such a gifted speaker and even though we can't understand it sometimes, it definately feeds our souls like no other church we've been too. This video is a typical praise and worship song at DC complete with clapping, waving, jumping, and dancing. People REALLY know how to get into worship in Uganda, and its awesome to be a part of.

It was weird being home for church last sunday and not clapping once! I texted my friend JP from Uganda and told him that we didnt clap one time and he texted back saying "what kind of church do you go to!?". I think that really shows the difference between north american church and african church. There are bad and good parts to both but one thing i think we really need to get over is our reservations about really getting into things. David in the bible danced before the Lord so why shouldn't we?!

Ugandans are VERY passionate people and one thing they are very very very passionate about is their relationship with Christ. People are just so into the bible, so into bible study, so involved with their churches that it makes me a little embarrassed when i have to use my concordance to find a verse or even my table of contents to find out where Habakuk is! These people are so joyful in the face of all circumstances. Wallowing in self pity when something bad happens to you is just not kosher. When beth and i got hit by the car (SO FUNNY NOW!) David, JP and like 5 other guys came to the hospital to make sure we were ok. David was in the exam room with us and beth was sobbing with George and i was panic attacking with Ruthie and he just kept saying "dont cry, you will be fine". Ugandans dont cry unless someone dies practically and to have me and bethany cry at weddings there, cry when we get an email from home, cry when our friends are just so wonderful to us, cry when we've had a hard day, cry when we're mad at eachother, cry because we dont have power and all was want to do is cook in light, is really funny. When i bawled my eyes our when we i found out i had to come home for surgery, David and JP just stood to the side looking SO uncomfortable. They had no idea what to do!

People just dust themselves off and pick themselves up! Our church collected blankets and clothes and housewares for the people up north who have been devastated by the worst flooding Sub Saharan africa has seen in 30 years. My church did that! My church where some people dont have enough clothing or blankets for themselves! People are generous and loving and beautiful and passionate.

When someone says 'i'll pray for you'- they mean right there and right then. no fooling around. Prayer is so so serious. On Tuesdays and Thursday Beth and I attend Bible study. On tuesday's we meet at Davids house and on thursdays we meet at some persons garage. At both places there is no power point, there is no guitar, drums, microphones, piano. There is NOTHING. YEt we sing and dance and pray like our lives depend on it....and they do! We sing songs like "Blessed is the name of the Lord, he is worthy to be praised and adored. So we lift up holy hands in one accord, singing blessed is the name of the Lord." I can't tell you how beautiful it sounds to be ina garage with 4 other people all singing like its their job!

Tuesday fellowship begins with intercession. For 20-30 minutes we stand in a big circle and all at once, pray out loud. It was distracting at first but i really love it. Its so beautiful to hear 30 other prays while i'm praying. If theres one thing Ugandans know how to do, its pray! There is no kidding around when people pray! Its AWESOME!

Needless to say, i really can't say enough good things about Africa, Uganda, Jinja, Deliverance Church, my friends etc...Its just home.

Some few photos...

2007-10-26T05:55:00.001-07:00

I always get people asking for more photos so here are some! Erin, here are the photos of your babies you asked for...they really couldnt have put on much of a cuter photo-shooot.

This is Mary Cameron and Jackson.

Worlds biggest picture smile..

"AUNTIE!! MY TOOTH IS BROKEN!!!" - mary cameron on my lap when she sees this picture..

Sorry Erin, this ones the cutest but i took it the wrong way!! Maybe you can save it to your comp and rotate it there?

This was at my sweet bible study birthday party they had for me...at ugandan parties the birthday celebratee cuts half the cake into little pieces and serves it to everyone. I got to sit in the special chair and everyone sang happy birthday to me...twice... On the left is our darling friend Blessing and on the right is Florence. My friends and my darling Katie had a surprise party for me also on my actual birthday which was really fun - except for when it POURED and the lightning was so severe that everyone was an hour late and I arrived at the same time as half of

This is me and my baby Georgeums. He's recently started answering me when I ask him how hes doing...he never used to do that. He never used to talk at all actually. But now he does. And when I say "Georgie nkwagala nnyo!" which means "i love you" he says back "nwaagawaawaa" which is about the cutest thing ever in life.

My good friend the monkey we met at the Entebbe Zoo. These guys are cute but you have to be careful - they WILL reach through the fence and scratch you...don't ask how I know.

Me and my bestie who I miss so much! Shes coming back soon though, please keep praying for her!

Oh God of mine, who holds the nations

2007-10-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

So I'm home all alone, bored, missing Bethany and my babies, my home in Africa, my friends and thinking how awesome my life has been so far. How blessed am i! I've been spending my time meticulously updating my ipod and this song- is one of my new faves. Its by Rita Springer

Oh God of mine, I'll have no idols. Oh God of mine, come lead the way

Oh God of mine, I'm greatly humbled. This sinner's heart you came to save

Oh God of mine through storm and trial.Oh God of mine through death and grave

Oh God of mine, in resurrection. Your scars display my soul's refrain

Oh God of mine Who holds all nations.Oh God of mine who saves the day

Oh God of mine, your grace sufficient.Your tender mercies new by morn

Oh God of mine, forever faithful. Oh God of mine, forever stay

Oh God of mine, forever after. These eyes upon your face will gaze

I'm left with a lot of time on my hands. I walked an hour to my surgery follow up today to feel like i was back in Uganda and walking everywhere. I've been looking into schools closer to home. I'm accepted to Trent University for the compressed nursing program but I'm not sure anymore if that's what i want. I'm leaning towards international development so i can do something so cool like be an ambassador and write books on poverty and living in Africa and be on Anderson Cooper 360 talking about my sweet orphanage I'm going to start (one day!).

I'm not down with living apathetically anymore. I want to be a proactive citizen whatever country I'm living in, getting involved right around me. I want to change the world. My great friend Katie says shes "sometimes working in a third world country makes me feel like i am emptying the ocean with an eye-dropper. and just when i have about half a cup full of water, it rains.'' Its so true.

How do you help 2 million orphans? How do you spread your love to each of them? How do you make people understand your incredible, crushing love for a continent the world's forgotten about? How do you show your amazing Ugandan friends that they've done more for you in 6 months than you've done for your friends in your life time? How do you change your selfish, proud self to humble and selfless? How? How do you look in the eyes of your beautiful daughter and see a life of struggle of sickness because of Aids? How do you reconcile your wealth?

I come home and wish for a night with no electricity. A night where I'm sitting in Tuesday fellowship at David's house, with the rain pouring down so hard on the roof we can't hear the sermon so we just worship for 2 hours. I come home and wish i could transport my church here. My church that is alive. That's loudly proclaiming the gospel to its members, that's passionately loving the community, that's praying in hospital wards for dying people, that loves justice, that you have to bring your bible to, that encourages scripture memory, that's dancing and praising and praying. My church where people are poor- compared to our western standards, but more richly blessed than we could believe. Where people have so little, and are still willing to give it all up for Christ. I come home and am so thankful for my family, my house, my freedom but yearn for the people I've left my heart with.

My God is mighty to save. He is bigger than Aids, he's bigger than poverty, he's bigger than corruption, he's bigger than death. My God conquered the grave!

My God will help 2 million orphans. My God will spread his love to each of them. My God understands my incredible, crushing love for a continent the worlds forgotten, and HE hasn't forgotten it. My God can change my selfish proud self to humble and selfless. My God will comfort my Sophia when she's sick, when she's angry about having Aids, when she's lonely and i can't comfort her. My God is big enough to heal her.

I am blessed.

Are you ready for Chogm?

2007-10-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Canada!
Its 1:09am here and i can't sleep. maybe because i've slept like 40 hours in the past 2.5 days. My war wounds are slowly but surely healing and in no time i will be the proud owner of 4 new 1 inch stab sites in my abdomen. A special shout out to Cindy, my moms boss, who brought over choclocate mint girl guide cookies for me tonight. YUM.

So i made it through the surgery just fine and dandy and have a followup appointment on tuesday at 12:30pm and at 12:31pm, iwill be booking my flight back to the motherland. (aka UGANDA) This will hopefully take place ASAP. Meanwhile i'm hoarding used clothes and selling things to my sister at seriosuly inflated prices to get a couple extra shillings in my pockets. This is a note to all my Ugandan Friends-I haven't bitten my nails yet.

I just talked to Bethany and Katie and heard about beth's fabulous 22nd surprise birthday party thrown by Katie and David. She is the envy of every young adult Ugandan male we've come in contact with and her position as a "beautiful mzungu with hair the color of the moon" wont soon be won by someone else.

I've taken the liberty to upload some new goodies on the site whilst recovering. The first is of me and beth saying so long at the airport.

The next is of my 4 stab sites and SERIOUSLY bloated stomach from all the gas they pumped into me!

This is my 3 year old Niece Ava making faces to cheer me up.

And this is the face she made when i told her to smile.

This video features Francis (sterling), my soph, beth's george, snotty nosed arnold, katie (mr. T) and...i think weiss. cute stuff.

Until next time....

Whats better than Puppies and Orphans?

2007-10-18T05:21:00.000-07:00

There are some times here when I just cant even express how much I love my life. As much as I've been a little stressed...okay a lot stressed with Phin and Amy leaving and everything - I just cant complain when I'm sitting here with beautiful Sophia who is just babbling away something about chagodas (not a lugandan word...) and she keeps looking over and telling me "Gwe! Jo kokoba!!" Which means "You! I'm going to beat you!". And then saying "AUNTIE YOOKAT CAKE!!" and is eating nasty cake crumbles from a paper bag and is SO pumped because of the pink Barbie backpack I bought her for like 4 dollars at Big Bazaar. How can I really complain??

Plus we have the two cutest puppies ever...we were with Katie in Buziika the other day and Amy saw a dog that had quite clearly given birth recently...and so we decided to go hunt for the puppies! We found them in a house nearby and asked if we could take two. After spending half an hour sitting on the dirt floor trying to determine which ones were for sure the cutest - we ended up with our two newest family members.....

Matoke.....

and Tula!!!

ARENT THEY PRECIOUS! They are really cute and definitly the cleanest dogs in all of africa...its funny because people here just do NOT think of dogs as pets! No one can understand why we tote them around in our backpacks and let them lay on our beds and feed them human food. I think its the equivalent of walking around Canada with two nasty rats in a backpack and talking to them and naming them and taking them to Western Union with you. Its really funny but we love them anyways! Tula is a girl and Matoke is her brother. Tula (too-la) means "sit" in lugandan and Matoke (ma-TOE-kay) is like a kind of not-sweet banana that is boiled and mashed - not my personal favourite dish here...Anyways it just makes us that much weirder that we have dogs named Sit and Banana...

And good news!! I got a call from Amy saying that the surgery is over and it went well and she is hoping to be back in 3 weeks or so!! PTL! Please keep praying for a speedy recovery.

Okay maybe this was a super boring blog but I'm going to put some pictures up too. I just really love my life here - like so much. I love Africa. K picture time!

Okay so this is when we went out for lunch with our pals David and JP - we ordered fish and it came ugandan-style...pretty much just dropped in the deep fryer fins, face and all. It takes a little getting used to but we ate it! Or most of it...Amy's had really big eyes so she had to put a cucumber over them so it wouldn't look at her while she ate it.

Ame likes to eat the face first and save the fins and tail for last...YUM.

This guy drinks like a FISH!

Okay my sister wanted to see pictures of our house so i took a few...unfortunately I wasnt smart enough to remember to take them all the right way so some of them are sideways...sorry!!

This is our bedroom...we have bunk beds (aka deckers) . Amys is the top and mines the bottom. Id take a better picture but my back was like up against the wall - our room is small!

If you were lying on the floor, this is what our kitchen would look like.

This is if your back is facing our kitchen - our front door and sweet green dustbin that says "i love africa" on the lid. I dont know why but I like it. I love our house that is the cheapest place on the planet!!

Okay and this is Christina aka. Teeny Beeny or Rice and Beans. There really aren't words for how stinkin' cute she is. I wish I could tell you what she was doing in this picture...but honestly I just dont know...its kinda scary...

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

Moodoodoo!!! Jandoo!!

2007-10-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

So today is a sad day - my bestie amy is gone! She left yesterday night for edmonton where shes going to get her surgery. Its okay, its only sad when I think about it! It feels really weird here without her, but I'm okay. I was talking to my sister today and she was being concerned for me because i'm "alone in africa" but i jsut wanted to say that i'm really not alone...at all. I have so many amazing friends here who i love so so much and as much as i miss Amy a TON I dont really feel alone because my friends here are just too great. I've already gotten like 5 phone calls from concerned friends. And I have my dearest darling friend Katie from Nashville who knows Steven Curtis Chapmans kid's. We are taking this week to plan what were going to do in Buziika and then next week are going to start doing all kinds of fun stuff with the kiddies there. I'm pretty pumped - in case anyone didn't know yet...I kind of like kids a lot.

Theres one superly cute boy there - hes one of the street kids and his name is Adam and he has down syndrome and is WAY too cute. White people here are called "mzungu" (mz-OON-goo) but he cant quite pronounce that so he calls us "moo-doo-doo." and instead of saying "jangu" which means "come" he says "jan-doo! jandoo moodoodoo!". Its basically the cutest thing thats ever happened on the planet. The other day I was swinging with one of the kids on my lap and I couldnt understand a word she said but she kept pointing to the sky and wanting me to swing higher and I was making her laugh by saying the few lugandan words I know. Seriously, kids are the best people on the planet.

I think that we are going to be in Buziika from monday to thursday, and then fridays at amani, and the weekends for spending time with my friends and going to the hospital ministry they do on sundays.

I've been getting texts from Amy during her flight - she is loving the first class treatment and lounges and is right now between amsterdam and toronto. Please pray for her, she might be having surgery as early as tomorrow.

I'm going to put up more pictures soon - my sister was complaining that there was too much detail and not enough photos so I'm going to take some photos of my house and my new roomie Katie and post them soon.

Until next time...

Saddest news of our lives.....almost

2007-10-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

At 8:10pm on Monday the 15th, I (amy) will be on a plane home to Edmonton Alberta for emergency surgery to have my dumb gall bladder removed. Apparently its too dangerous to get it out in Uganda and the complications could be bad so i'm flying home with a sweet(hopefully) nurse escort named Mario! The only things that are good about this are
1. i can eat a McDonalds McChicken meal 3 months earlier than i had thought
2. a month of Mtv
3. a new set of clothes to bring back

Other than that, it sucks big time and i'm going to miss out on SO MUCH here. The Youth Together (TYT), a local non profit that our Ugandan friends made and run (www.theyouthtogether.blogspot.com) are planning the next big event and i'm going to miss out on a month of that! We are planning a big seminar type thing for AIDS awareness and sensitivity among youth ages 13-25. We are working on getting it sponsored by some really big people like MTN- one of Uganda's major cell phone companies. It's looking to be really big, and really cool.

Tomorrow we have 'prayers' at deliverance church jinja and then we are attending an outreach at Nakanyonyi school in Jinja. Then after that i'm probably going to cry for a long time while we have friends over and then the next morning we are heading to Kampala to buy small bibles from the street and then board a plane for home.

Not fun. but apparently necessary if i want to live. Just kidding! I"m going to be giving updates from canada and beth will continue to update from Uganda. Ok until next time!

Happy Independence Day!

2007-10-09T01:24:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone! Today we are celebrating the 45th year of Uganda's independence from the British! YEAH!This photo is one of the primary schools in Jinja during the parade this morning. On Sunday in the paper, they had a big section on events that have shaped Uganda's recent history since independence and its so interesting to hear the way people think of Idi Amin here. At home everyone takes him for a murderous, tyrannical leader but here, people don't really think that way. They see the roads he built and the many hospitals he built and the free medicine he gave people. So its funny.

This morning while Beth and i were on main street eating fruit salad and drinking African tea, a BIG marching band came down the street with a big parade and it was so cool. I took a video of it so that was fun.

Yesterday Bethany and I went to Buzika to Canaan children's Home, which is run by a man named Pastor Isaac. Our good friend Katie works there and is doing amazing work! The village of Buzkia is pretty small and about a 25 minute piki ride outside of Jinja and kinda in the middle of nowhere. The ride there is absoluetly breath taking, with some stunning scenery.

We hung out with the kids all afternoon and went on a 2 hour walk around the village. The dogs from Canaan were following us and one was good, James and one had "very very bad manners" (in the words of the kids) and his name is Solomon. So we go past one of the many mud huts and a family has their sheep tied to trees and Solomon goes chasing after the sheep and one runs itself into a tree, and the other breaks free and James and Solomon start chasing him and then jump him like a lion jumps on their prey. Solomon is at the poor sheep's throat about to chomp and kill it when Bethany, Katie, myself and the 4 10 year old Canaan girls we were walking with, run and start kicking the dogs off the sheep and the sheep just sits there playing dead and we have this lady telling us we need to buy her a new sheep and the girls keep kicking Solomon for having such bad manners! Ugandans are VERY polite, so even a stubborn dog is cause for embarrassment. The sheep lived and no one had to pay.

Ugandans (i'm not sure if this is true of Africa as a whole) used to think that white people had mythological power and thats kinda the thinking still in rural village settings. The kids go crazy for white people and will chase and yell A MZUNGU! HOW ARE YOU! Mothers with babies will hold their babies out for you to hold because they think its like a blessing kind of for the kid.

Ok Enjoy the photos!!!
Also check out this blog, www.theyouthtogether.blogspot.com. This is one of the ministries we are involved with.

These 2 sweethearts are JAson and Bobby. There are about 8 toddlers that hang out after breakfast and are "potty trained", but its more like they just hang out. Jason is handicapped somehow and Bobby is HIV positive. Jason is hilarious and a sweetheart. Bobby is cute too but a bit reserved.

Here is giant Phineas in a bucket bathing in our bathroom, with Melody in the other bucket splashing about.
Sophia was also sleeping over this night but she had just smashed her face on the tile and was crying in my arms. Then the power went off!

This is a typical dumpster. As you can see it isn't really doing its job, thanks to the giant holes in both sides. It smells as good as it looks when you walk by.

This beautiful creation was killed by our dogs in our compound. I have big feet, size 10, and this rat was longer and wider than my foot. Notice the nice intestines that were spilling out the side. Its tail was probably as thick as my middle finger and a foot long. A nice little surprise to come home too! PTL for Blackie and Brownie who saved us from this monstrosity!

These are the bestest friends in the whole world! Our dear Phineas and his best friend, Raoul Mugosa. Raoul is one of our dear friends, SUCH a great guy. We love his sisters too! Phin always talks about Raoul and whenever he leaves, Phin cries or says over and over over, "raruwal gone".

There are numerous stunning storms like this one. Thanks to bethany's excellent photography/camera tools navigation skills, we got these beauties! It was even more beautiful in reality.

The power was even out this night so you can't see the few street lights and house lights of our neighbors.

This is Mweru (steven) and one of the best mama's at Amani, Mama Harriet or Mama Senga! She LOVES Mweru and he is soon going to be reunited with his father and moving to the village to be placed with his dad and his new family! He may have autism or something. He is SUCH a sweetheart!

Mommy King- this ones for you! Here is Joyce who is enjoying her desert of cake after she scarffed chicken and chips and soda! I gave her 4 dress choices and she picked this one and was so pumped to wear it and look "so smart!"

The 2 blogging beauties themselves rocking out to Beyonce on the way to the surgeon's office in Kampala! We were on a coaster where you should be sitting 3 across but they stuff you 4 across. People liked the lip syncing and dancing we were doing!

Arnold, Mathias, and Duane are all enjoying 3 of the 40 bags of pop corn (or "pon con" as the kids call it) for a little Tuesday afternoon snack! Arnold is often refered to as Arnie or Grampa because he has the weirdest shaped head and an old look to him, but he is sooooo cute! Mathias is a ridiculous child who has a head that looks a bit alien and scream talks 90% of the time. Duane is a cutie who's being adopted!

Auntie Erin and Uncle Scott! THis ones for you! Beautiful Mary Cameron Littleton with Joseph's pants on her head!

This is the new Mr. and Mrs Opio! Bethany and I sang at their wedding with our friends, a lugandan song and it was so so fun!

A Phin Sandwich is what we like to call this pose.

My beautiful sweet girl Sophia enjoying some long life yogurt! YUMMY!

Here is a "modern" clinic where we are waiting to get an xray for the child who lays almost lifeless on bethany's life. He's bounced back now and healthy as ever! This is the xray room.

And this piece of machinery is the xray machine!

MMM....we love the smell of burn cure! the gross jelly that we had to put on our many road rash spots. My knee is swollen here along with my calf and now its healed. Thankfully i have a sizeable red scar to commemorate getting hit by a car! Oh the fun we have here!

Best friends at one of our Ugandan best friends, JP's, work party!

Surgery and Assault

2007-10-02T04:09:00.000-07:00

So boy do we have lots to write about!

Well for those of you who know Amy, you might know that she hasn't been in the best health for the last six years. It turns out that her health issues have all been related to a gallbladder problem, and after a few really bad episodes in the last few weeks, its been determined that she needs to get surgery to have it removed. Originally we thought it would be best to go to Nairobi to get the surgery there, but after talking to the surgeon (Dr. Moses who vaguely resembles Dr. Benton from ER) we decided that getting the surgery in Kampala makes more sense. I'm sure some of you are thinking that we're crazy but the hospital in Kampala is really good, the surgeon we met with had just finished assisting on an open heart surgery...this hospital is more than equipped to do the surgery she needs. Its called laproscopic surgery which pretty much means that they cut three little holes in her stomach; one for the gallbladder-cutter-outer, one for the camera to see what they are doing, and one I think for putting air inside her to see whats going on. Its only a 45 minute procedure, and she'll only have to be admitted for like two days so it should be no big deal.

Of course this complicates our situation with Phineas, I don't think I can manage to take care of both Amy and him, so our dearest darling friend Katie is going to take him and Hope is trying to get a flight out here as soon as she can. It sucks, but we're in a bit of a tight spot. Amy will be in bed for a week after and lets face it, I'm only human! Please keep Hope in your prayers as she scrambles to get ready to come here sooner than she had anticipated.

So thats that. Oh and I was kind of sorta assaulted by our piki driver last night...we were in Kampala all day with our friend JP getting the surgery all organized and arrived back in Jinja at 10:00 after 4 hours on a coaster taking the longest detours to avoid the infamous Kampala "jams". We hopped on a motorcycle piki (which we take like all the time) and he drove us home. When we got home I gave him 1,000 shillings which is how much it costs and he starts telling me to give him more money, and saying that I only gave him 500 which was a lie, and then he gets off his bike, starts walking over to us. Our big gate has a door that our escari (night guard) opens to let us in at night and as I try to walk through the door the piki man grabs my waist and tries to drag me back out through the door!! I started screaming and pushing him and trying to get him to let go and then Amy starts screaming too and then I finally get free and were YELLING at our escari to close the door and lock it but the man pushed his way in and kept threatening us, it was super scary. I just went inside and Amy and Immy our ugandan friend who was taking care of Phin yelled at him in Lugandan, and he finally left. It was really scary, my legs were shaking pretty bad! But I'm totally fine though, he didnt hurt me at all. God was definetly protecting us!!

Anyhow, thats all for now...please keep Amy in your prayers, its funny because I talk about "our surgery" and "when were in the hospital" like were both getting surgery...but I'm going to get a bed next to her and wear a gown and do everything she does so she wont be lonely. But in reality its really just her being operated on so please keep her in your prayers! We're being admitted on monday and the surgery is tuesday morning.

Until next time....

It's been some few days.....

2007-09-22T01:01:00.000-07:00

Amy Here! --One of our favorite sayings here in Uganda is "some few days/minutes/hours/weeks" Its used instead of "a little while ago". Another favorite saying is "ok! Nice time!" which is used instead of "see you later".

So much has happened since Sept 14 and yet not a lot. Time flies here. Parts of the country are under a state of emergency because of the torrential rains that have come with the onset of rainy season and the forecast shows no relief until mid november. Some districts are totally wiped out. Imagine living in a mud hut with a grass roof and have hours of rain a day. It reminds me of the sunday school song "the wise man built his house upon the rock". Although here- there is no option so everything is built in mud! Needless to say, thousands of homes have been washed away and many bridges linking crucial northern and eastern areas have been destroyed or are impassable.

Here in Jinja we've been experiencing some frustrating power outages and water shortages. Last week we were without power for 5 and half days. And the night the power came back on, the water was cut off. We didn't have water or power last night which was espeically handy since we have brought Sophia and Melody over for a playdate/sleepover with Phin. Bethany had to go to town to do some important emailing so i was left with the 3 hyper kids for a couple hours. After our dinner of macaroni and rice (yummy and creative i know!) i put them all in the shower area in 2 buckets. Soph and Mel shared the big bucket and Phin had the small one. I just sat back and watched as they all went wild with their cups in the 6 inches of water they were all sitting in. AS sophia was getting out for me to wash her hair, she slipped and fell and hit her face on the tile floor which made a nice little hole in her lip! I picked up my poor dear girl and was hugging her and just as i had her covered in a towel, the power went out! Sooooo convienient. So as i was holding a sobbing sophia, and while both Mel and Phin were screaming "candle! Candle!" i somehow managed to find my way to our match stack and lit a candle. I put it in the bathroom and then got my headlamp and tended to soph's bleeding lip. Then phin came out and i got him ready for bed while i let mel just relax and chill in the tub. So Aunty Befamy came home and we put the kiddo's to bed and finally had some time to relax and chill ourselves.

This is our nightly routine: Make phin supper, play with him, bathe him, put him to bed. Crack open our cold sodas, grab our "u and me's" (chocolate bars from dubai), light the candles and sit at our table playing skipbo for an hour or 2 or 3- depending on our energy level. Then we read and go to bed! Every night!

Bethany and I are starting to get more involved here and are doing more leading in Bible study on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Next week Bethany is sharing at the big 40 ppl cell on Tuesday and i'm sharing at the smaller 15 person cell on Thursday. We are both a little bit nervous but it'll be fine because its just what you do here.

Today our dear friend JP leaves for Entebbe and things will definitely change. This guy is so sweet and genuine and Godly and a great leader in the church, in our cell and in our group oif friends. HE'll be missed for sure. And as much as me and Beth HHHAAATTTEEE going to kampala, we'll definitely make the trip to see our great friend! Ok until next time...

2007-09-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

The photo above is of (from right to left) Madrine, Ronnie, Paulson, Raoul, Andrew and JP in the hat (the person the party was for)

The two guys are Paulson, and Raoul. Raoul is the one smiling and him and Phin are best friends.

The 3 girls are Carol, Sylvia (people say sileeviah here) and Blessing.

Last night was definately in the top 5 funnest times we've had in Uganda so far, and not much will be able to top it!

So we have this amazing friend John Paul (JP). He's our cell group leader, friend from church, an amazing preacher, and just a spectacular person! We're very very sad to say that he's resigned from his job in Jinja and is going to go back to school for a really cool program that he's going to do so good in. He's moving to Entebbe for that which is about an two hours away if you don't include in the 'jams' that can add another couple hours that.

So last sunday, bethany and I had our friends Carol, Blessing and David over. Jp was supposed to come but he couldnt make it which was excellent because while Carol and Blessing were watching 'dream girls' me and beth and david were huddled in the kitchen planning a sweeeeet suprise party for Jp! Whenever anyone celebrates birthday's here they sometimes say its a sweet 16 so we planned Jp's going away party as a "super sweet 16" (thank you for the inspiration Mtv!)

Bethany and David and I planned all the details and texted everyone on the guest list the details. WE made up a whole big elaborate lie all about how David was going to tell him that he was making pork (which is a super big deal here) at our house and the 4 of us were going to hang out with Phin and a watch a movie and eat supper together. Thursday nights is fellowship across town so the majority of the guestlist was at that fellowship that JP was also at. We were very careful to tell people that this was going to be a big surprise and to keep it that way.

At 7:30 Jp and David show up at our gate and we are not ready at all! Everyone is up on our balcony but the candles are all lit (yeah for no power nights) and everyone was talking and being loud. So i ran up on the balcony and Carol and Blessing helped me blow all the candles out and everyone ducked down.

Jp and David are terrified of our dogs and so we held them at the gate by telling them we had to put the dogs away before they could come in. So they get out of the car and we tell them right off the bat that we need them to come quickly help us move these beds that are on the balcony just to keep them from the rain if we need too. We walk up the steps and onto the balcony and everyone yells SURPRISE!! and we totally got him so good. He was so happy. He had never even had a birthday party in his life before. Hes 26.

Beth and I kinda went all out and bought happy birthday signs, food, streamers, balloons (BYOOOOOOONS!!!! in Phin's language), and prizes. We played really funny cheesy party games like 'I have never" which got fairly intense and even included some broken couch arms. WE played this game called Matthew Matthew Mark Mark and you have to keep this beat and say like Amy Amy Bethany Bethany while clapping your hands and hitting your knees and keeping time and it sounds lame but its really funny and hard. I (amy) was out on the first round because clapping and hitting and talking and keeping beat at the same time is just a bit out of my reach at this point. We also wrapped some prizes all relating to JP in newspaper and layered it like crazy with tape and stuff and then split everyone up into 2 teams and all you had was a fork and spoon to open the package and you cant use your hands. One person is trying to open the package while the person next to them is rolling a dice and trying to get a 6. When they get a six they grab the package and utensils and pass the dice to the their neighbor and so on.

The prizes were a tie with dogs on it because JP is ever wearing a tie and he haaaates dogs, an onion because he has many layers (stolen from shrek and also a last resort), water wings because Jp is a terrrrrible swimmer, and a chocolate bar because he's such a sweet heart! Shout out to Shelly.com for her care package which provided the chocolate bar free of charge to us!

For the party we prepared Papaya, Pineapple, Bananas, Carrots, Cucumber (chukumbah as is said here), gnuts (same thing as peanuts but we have to roast and salt them ourselves), no bake cookies, batambuze buns with blue band, jam and peanut butter, and Carol made the pork and Blessing came over and cooked "irish" which is what people here call potatoes. I helped her make it and we packed banana leaves around the inside of the pot to keep the steam in and keep them from burning!

At the end of the night everyone took turns saying things about JP and not just your typical "oh hes really fun and nice and cool and a good friend" but really sincere, genuine heartfelt beautiful things about him. Then after everyone was done that, he went around and said a unique and genuine, sincere thing about every single person there. Bethany and I were fighting tears the whole time and while this was going on Phin was so helpfully gathering all the empty pop bottles from around the balcony at our feet. He was a trooper the whole night.

When we were all saying goodbye, Blessing (her name suits her to a T) came up to me and hugged me, thanked me for the party and said that she's never met 'whites' like Bethany and i. She said she has never seen white people so interested in making real friendships and helping people not just by throwing money around but by actually physically helping. We put chairs away and sound equipment away after the concert we helped with and people could not stop talking about how humble we are that we stayed till the very end. I started crying because i felt so awful to be white at that moment and be part of a race thats done awful things to these people. I told her i was so sorry white people have made them feel that way and i'm glad that beth and i can just love them like theres no difference. because there isnt. at all. Some of these friends are life long, we can tell. So until next time...

School and Meds

2007-09-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

So we thought we'd just write a quick lil update about how our various amani activities are going. As far as preschool goes, things are pretty good! We are working right now on making a little packet of info for people who are coming to help us because we're trying to be really consistent with the kids. Its easy for volunteers to come to amani for a short time and really coddle the kids and let them get away with anything, but especially in preschool we really aren't doing them any favors by letting them misbehave. So we are making some rules so that we can all be on the same page in terms of how to manage behaviour (and misbehaviour). And we are writing little profiles about the kids as well so we can all be on the same page in terms of how each child tends to behave. We also are trying to make scheduled lesson plans with goals for the week for each group in school. I'm really enjoying being a part of it...sometimes progress is slow, and some days it even seems like were going backwards but all in all, i really like it.

So the mumps is still making its rounds through Amani. Joyce has recently come down with a wicked case and her little face is soooo fat! She looks like fat albert. or she's in a fat suit. Its really funny.

As far as Phin news goes...we are having a good time. He likes to talk about things that are "gone", like one night we saw a frog and then it hopped away so he said "frog gone!", and when he finished his beans he said "bean gone" and when we flush the toilet he says "poop gone!" its pretty cute.

And right now we're in our friend David's internet cafe and Phin is running back and forth between me and bethany, all the while calling both of us Amy! He still can't seem to grasp the concept of 2 different names. We have a good friend Immy (pronounced eemee) and Phin has a pretty easy time when we're all together because he calls us all Amy!

Uncle Raoul just got here and him and Phin are like best friends in the whole world now. Phin drags him around through the supermarket next door and tries to get him to buy him ice cream. It's pretty cute seeing them together.

Ok so we should go put our little loaner munchkin to bed! Until next time!

Slowly, slowly

2007-09-12T00:40:00.000-07:00

’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, “Thus says the Lord!”

O how sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to trust His cleansing blood;
Just in simple faith to plunge me
’Neath the healing, cleansing flood!

Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just from sin and self to cease;
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest, and joy and peace.

I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!

The many faces of Phineas David Howard Little

2007-09-10T03:38:00.000-07:00

So we had a little photo shoot with Phineas the other day...we were at a wedding and after he was being really cute. He makes this funny face that we just call "the face" and its just too funny to not put up pictures of it. He really is devastatingly adorable...we love him! So far we've had a really good time with him. Its tiring but we love him to bits. Enjoy the pics!!!

Mischevious.

"The Face"

Happy.

"The Face II"

Just plain cute.

Pictures from the past week

2007-09-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Momma King, this is your sweet joyce holding up the leaf and cracking up. Christina (teenie beanie) is on the left.

Check out the difference between our amani babies and these kids from the village. I love this photo.

This is me and some of my friends from Kikondo. The big lake in the background is Lake Victoria where Katie and I fished for Tilapia and caught 9!

Here is a photo of some kids in the village of Kikondo where Katie Davis and I went last friday. She has a good blog too,

http://www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/ THese kids are so adorable and we love going to visit them.

We never get tired of being taken advantage of!!

2007-09-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

So today me and bethany wanted to trade out 2 twin beds in for deckers, or bunk beds! We thought that i would be an easy task but it has yet to prove itself as that yet....

Bethany and i left our house at 10am and went to Iganga Road where there are some furniture shops and we pull up on our bodas, hop off, and begin to chat with our new "friend" Ronald. We brought him back to our house to take a look at our twin beds to see how much he could give us for them.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a 1000 shilling note and told my boda man to give the 500 balance to beth's boda man. He refused and said it was 1000 shillings to take us from iganga rd to our house on kisinja road. We started into our usual schpeel about how we are not tourists("see? this is our house, NOT a hotel!"), and we know the price of things ("we know this ride should cost us maybe 300 shillings but because we are white you charge 500") and i politely by quite firmly asked for my money back and i would give him my 500 shilling coin. He refused once again. Things got a little heated and after about 7 minutes of solid arguing the boda man biked away with us yelling at him " you are cheating us! you are a thief!". The remaining 2 boda men were so kind to us and were apologizing for that guy and so we gave them 2000 shillings each which is a solid 1500 shillings above the price of our boda ride. THe men were so appreciative and we said, make sure you tell your thief friend that we gave you so much extra because you were kind and didnt cheat us.

Ronald came in, looked at our beds and we agreed on 60,000 shillings and we added on another 30 thousand for the deckers, plus 8000 for transporting the beds. We also agreed that we could pick up the beds at 3:00pm the same day. Now, many times in Uganda we have noticed that people will tell little white lies just to tell you what you want to hear and when someone says "yes it will be ready at exactly 3pm" it really means, " i dont want to lose your business or money so i am going to tell you what i think you want to hear even if it means its not the right time."

So bethany and I visited Hope and Phin and chatted about some last minute details regarding Hope's leaving and our taking Phin and we also picked up the new Harry Potter book thats been circulating around our group of friends! (slim pickings on reading material here and we almost bought the new HP in Nairobi but couldn't afford it) AT 4 we decided to go back into town and check on our beds.

So we get 2 more boda men and take the same 8 minute bicycle boda ride from Nile Cresent to Iganga Rd and hang the 2 men 1000 shillings to split between them and the SAME THING HAPPENED as about 4 hours before! so bethany marches across the street, gets 2 500 coins for the 1000 note and plunks the money into the boda mans hands and we leave, slightly annoyed, to say the least!

AS we walk up to the shop i say to beth, "nothing has been done". We talk to Ronald and he tells us that since 4 hours before he had been getting some timbers. We get into a discussion of how he had told us 3, we REALLY need them beds because PHin is moving in with us, and finally we decide on midday tomorrow (12pm sunday). We leave but before we do i say to him, "if these beds are not ready at midday, you are giving us our money back and we are going somewhere else."

Sometimes its frustrating to be white here. People think that just because you are white, you are rich and we're like "no! really! in canada we are poor university students with buckets of debt and we're too old to be under our parents insurance so we have to pay for our health care and car insurance and even though it looks like we have loads of endless money, we had to work ourselves raggad to come here!"

And even though the difference between paying 500 and 1000 shillings is 30 cents, its the principle. Its not cool to cheat people, here or in canada. and Sometimes we don't care because whats 30 cents here and there but when people are sooo rude and so blatantly cheating you, it gets old.....real fast!!! It happens every single day and that combined with the endless marriage proposals, it wears on you.

But fear not! Tomorrow is another day and we even found our beloved cheese sauce today so we will start the day fresh and new!

We are also fasting and praying sunday and monday for Hope and Phin, that a miracle will happen. That the judge will grant favor on her adoption request and that She will have the time to get Phin's visas, a plane ticket and she will be able to go home this week. Anyone at home is welcome to join us. We are fasting from midnight tonight till 6pm tomorrow, and the same thing the next day. So please join us as we ask for a miracle! God Bless you all!

p.s....we still LOVVVVVVVVE Uganda!

Deckers

2007-08-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

So I'm sad to say that its not looking good for Hope and Phineas. Hope has to leave on monday and its not looking like shes going to get the ruling she needs. So tomorrow we are going to get our beds converted to bunk beds aka. "deckers", and get phin a mattress to sleep on. We have decided to stay in our little house instead of moving, its going to be squishy but our house is so cheap and we love it so much that we just cant bear to move. Were staying with the hopes that we will get our ruling soon and Hope can come get her little bundle of joy as soon as possible. Pleeease keep praying, Hope is devastated to be away from Phin but it cant be helped.

In other news, Amy and our adorable new friend Katie who we love so much went to Kikondo today to go fishing with Musa. (I was going to go but I felt like I should stay with my lil preschoolers.) They were supposed to be back by 1:30 for the outing we had planned with the toddlers but were delayed by musas mom who was mad that they didnt stay for the meal she had prepared even though they SPECIFICALLY asked her not to prepare anything because they had a "program" (plans) that they had to be back for. They caught 9 fish altogether, (katie = 0, amy = 2, musa = 7) Oh actually katie wants you all to know she caught a minnow but she had to throw it back!!!

Please keep Hope and Phin in your prayers, and also us as we take Phin. Our lives are going to be really different! Pray that we wont mess up this child too badly while shes gone!

Until next time...

A Historic Grand Music Concert

2007-08-27T04:51:00.000-07:00

So last saturday we helped out with a concert that our friends have been working so hard to put on. They called it "A Grand Music Concert", but it was often referred to as "historic" for a little extra emphasis. It was basically a community event with all kinds of famous christian artists from Uganda. It was free and just meant for people to come and hear about God and have a good time. They also had free HIV/AIDS testing so that people can learn their status.

We both helped out with finances which was a big need, it was fairly expensive for the venue, (Jinja Town Hall), and all of the artists that are really famous around Uganda. Amy made a general donation and I helped out with advertising and bought some radio ads. We also helped out and made some posters and paid for the photocopying. They were really appreciative, its crazy how much difference like 40 dollars from us can make. We also volunteered to be the head ushers and put together a little team of ushers to help seat people.

We arrived at town hall at 9:30 in the morning and helped set up chairs, and did just general running around during the day. The concert was supposed to start at 2:00, which of course means that people start showing up around ten to three. I was STRESSED thinking this concert is going to be a disaster, no one is coming, and just generally panicking. But sure enough, as the day progressed people started filtering in, and were still arriving at 5 and 6:00!! Overall it was a huge success. People had a really good time, and there were some really talented performers. A dance team from Kampala came called Sacrifice Divine, and they were UNREAL. I stood there feeling painfully white and wishing so bad I could dance like them, they were sooo good. Also a kids choir from Walukuba, (a kind of suburb of Jinja) and they sang and danced and were generally adorable. Also our friends were in a choir and prepared three songs that they sang, one of which was a really cool Congolese song with sweet dancing. Again...we are so white...

It ended around 7:00 and we stayed around to help take down chairs, it only took like an hour and a bit, which seemed like no big deal to us. But our friends were so appreciative and just couldnt believe that we had come so early in the morning and stayed all the way until the end. We were like, seriously, no big deal! It was a super fun day and a really neat thing to be a part of.

Other than that, the most exciting news we have is that Hopes mom sent us a care package consisting ENTIRELY of mac and cheese. I almost passed out when I saw it...I cant wait to go eat dinner!!!! Thank you Janie!!!! You made our MONTH. At home, mac and cheese is a food group for us and you just cant find it here...so were just slightly excited.

Please keep praying for Hope, September 4th is sneaking up really fast and its difficult for us to plan ahead when we dont know whats happening. Please pray!!! Thanks.

Until next time,

Amyandbethany.blogspot.com

bedsheets and hospital food

2007-08-23T05:48:00.000-07:00

So this morning as we were piki-ing into town amy was chatting with her piki man and he told her that he knew our piki man from the accident and that he was still in the hospital! So he gave us his name (johnson) and where he was staying so we could go see him. So today after preschool (where we coloured fish and hung them from the ceiling and Steven made up a song called "fish in the water" that has been stuck in our heads all day...) we headed over to the hospital to visit our poor piki man. We looked everywhere and couldn't find him...we couldn't even really remember what he looked like to be honest. We asked all the nurses and no one knew who we meant.

As we were about to leave we passed a man with a bandaged leg. Blood was seeping through the gauze, which was resting on a paper bag to keep his mattress clean - his bare mattress with no sheets. He was laying wearing only shorts on this plastic mattress with blood all over the mattress and all over the floor. He had taken his IV out because the saline was all gone, and when we asked why they said they couldnt give him any more saline because he was bleeding too much and they didn't have any blood to give him. Apparently there is no blood in Jinja...its all in Kampala at Melago Hospital. He had been given some pain killers but was in pretty clear discomfort and wasnt getting any more because of the IV situation.

He was waiting to have surgery on his leg, he had a compound fracture and his bone was sticking out of his leg. All of the operating theatres were full and so they were waiting for one to empty. When one empties up they will most likely just operate on him without any extra blood, which is especially dangerous because hes anemic and needs blood as it is. Oh and theres only one anesthetist for all five theatres - and they have no ventilators, just ambu-bags, and they use ether as anesthetic. (which hasnt been used in north america since like 1492 because there is no way to regulate dosage, other than "oh look hes waking up - give him some more.")

So as were talking to the doctor, he asks us if we are going to help out and bring medication. Then he proceeds to write a list of medication that this man (Moses) needs that the hospital doesnt have. Its a government funded hospital so patients dont have to pay for care, but they do have to bring their own sheets and certain medications. So we went to the pharmacy and for about 10 dollars bought what this poor man with no family needs to fight the raging infection that he would have certainly faced otherwise. We also brought him some food and juice and buns to eat, apparently social workers bring food (another essential service not provided by the hospital), but who knows when or if or what kind of food it is. He was very thankful, he didnt speak a word of english but the nurse conveyed his thanks. We promised to come tomorrow and visit him again.

Needless to say, this was a bit of a traumatizing experience. As soon as we left I just burst into tears, I cant imagine being alone in a place like that, and the best care available to me is a surgery that will quite likely cost me my leg, if not my life. For me, my time so far has mostly been going from amani, to home, and into town to get groceries or email. We live right in the heart of suburban jinja. This hospital looked like it was straight out of the movies or national geographic and it was just a real reality check that there is a lot more need in uganda than we tend to see on a day to day basis.

Anyhow, this is once again too long, please continue to pray for Hope - we got a text from her saying that the judge has called for her file, whatever that means. Her lawyer thinks it will be soon. Were hoping it will be before september 4th when she has to go home. PLEASE PRAY more than ever...Hope needs to go home really badly. And phin needs to go with her.

Until next time - be thankful for bedsheets and hospital food.

Picture Post!

2007-08-22T03:49:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone! here are some photos. The little baby in the cape is precious Katie! (thats for you rach and air!) and then we have MIchelle (shelly.com, shells and cheese) with christopher, olivia, chloe, josephine, and hunter making Noah cry. Then its Me and Sophia! This was just after she stopped crying because she was getting her hair blowed dry to get braided! Enjooooooy!

Bethany and Amy- 0...... Car- 1

2007-08-21T05:13:00.000-07:00

So Bethany and I, along with poor little Ruthie and George, got SMOKED by a car on sunday afternoon. Taking boda boda's is a very convenient and typical mode of transportation, if not the safest, it gets you from a to b. Usually in one piece! There are 2 types, abicycle boda is just that. a bicycle and you sit on the back of it. We were on a piki piki which is like a small motorcycle, kind of a like a vespa. Some have baskets on the front even. SO on this piki were bethany, holding george, me holding ruthie, and our boda man. It was a tight squeeze but its a way to save money and if there is only one piki around- its our only choice. FOr those of you who are familiar with JInja, we got hit right in front of the restaurant Leoz, on Main Street. The lady who hit us was coming across main so it was her fault. We don't really remember how it happened, just that she kind of t-boned us and we slid across the front of her bumper, scraping the paint off and our skin as we went!

Bethany landed with George underneath her.I landed holding ruthie away from the ground with one hand kind of like a mama cat holds her kitty by the scruff of its neck! Neither George nor Ruthie had ANY speck of dirt or anything on them. That in itself is a miracle as the usual boda vs. car incident results in death or serious injury. Praise the Lord it was sunday and there wasnt man people around and the car was going relatively slow!

So we get smoked by the car and all of a sudden we're on the ground with about 100 people crowding around us with about 4 ft of breathing space. I am screaming because my leg is ripped up and i bit through my lip and broke my fall with my elbow and i'm scared to death about the kids and bethany is cradling george sobbing because she though she had crushed him to death. When beth gets in a traumatic situation or is scared, she cries, I get MAD MAD MAD! So there i am, barking orders at everyone, getting people to get help and take ruthie from me and poor bethany is thinking she just killed george. A man takes ruthie from me and immediately flips her upside down and is holding her like a dead chicken by her feet!!! I FREAKED out and was screaming at him to give her back and a woman gives her to Bethany. We later learned that people in villages normally turn children upside down when they are hurt to check for broken bones so again, PTL that she didnt have any broken bones that would have been messed up by being held upside down!

So i called our friend David and he met us at the hospital. We called Siouxanne, the nurse here, and she came and helped us out SOOO MUCH! we were so happy she was there. She cleaned our wounds and everything and helped us calm down. Word gets around quickly in a town like jinja and in 20 minutes, seriously, we had 6 friends at the hospital to make suer we were ok! And i had the most random people calling my phone. (Rach and air- Iddi called and was so cute!) Danyne- the director of AMani showed up and took care of all the little details about the crash. A funny thing was that we could have gone to the police but we would have had to wait till 2pm because thats when they come back from their lunch break! While we were on the porch of the hospital, diana, Danyne's 7 yr old daughter, says so quietly, almost to herself, "God is bettah than a doctah".

From there we went home and chilled the rest of the evening with Hope and Phineas and our awesome new volunteer friend Katie!

Some things that are different when we get hit by a car in Uganda as opposed to Canada:

-Ambulances would have been called for Me, Bethany, the Piki Driver, Ruthie and George.
-Police would be called and more importantly, SHOW UP!
-People would not come out of the woodwork to watch 2 white girls lay on the ground sobbing and screaming.
-Upon arrival at the hospital, the kids would have got a LOT more than a once over if doc's were told they were just hit by a car.
- people wouldn't tell you to "stop crying, you will be fine" like the second you step into the hospital, they would say its going to be ok, but they'd let you cry, because when you get hit by a car with 2 orphans you NEED to cry about it!
- When you said your names were Amy and Bethany, they wouldn't put your meds in paper bags labeled, "Amiya" and "Lynn"
- if you said you landed on your elbow, they might take an xray. Here they just crank it in all directions and if you dont cry out in pain, your will be fine.

So i'm so happy no one broke any bones as getting surgery in Uganda is sketchy at best! We are doing fine and recuperating in with some boxes of pringles, indian chocolate bars, and ER season 4 dvd!

We'll post photos of our war wounds soon! Love you all!

Auntie. The cake is where?

2007-08-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sooo FINALLY I (bethany) have made it onto the schedule with the toddlers! I'm sooo pumped. My heart really is in the toddler room so much more than with the little ones. I mean they are all cute, but i just love those tods. I get to do preschool with them every morning and it is such good motivation to get out of bed...its really the best thing. Amy helps too three days a week but she has to do meds at 8am mondays and thursdays so she comes after that and helps with the kids that need a little one on one attention.

There never used to be preschool, but we have this really great volunteer Isabelle from Britain and she is a preschool teacher there. She has started up this amazing preschool program for the kids that is just so great. Its gone from chaos and running around and eating play-dough to three structured groups of kids actually learning and I just love being a part of it. Of course seeing as I only started a few days ago, its taken some getting used to for both me and the kids. Isabelle is in Rwanda for 10 days so I'm doing her job, which makes me kind of like a substitute teacher...and we all know how kids treat substitute teachers. Yesterday they were miserable little brats and almost all of them lost at least one star from the star chart. And two got spanked. But today they were much better.

At the end of the week the kids with enough stars get to go on a special outing, so today we took the kids that were good to the upstairs suite of amani (thats for adoptive parents who visit) and we baked cake and let them watch movies. The good kids this week were Maria (shes such a hard little worker erin!), junior, dan, emily, and steven. We watched half an hour of snowdogs, 45 mins of aladdin, and 30 minutes of Curious George. While we were waiting for the cake to bake they started getting really bored of tv (these kids NEVER watch tv...) and so I took them, picked them up, and threw them onto the big couch with the comfy cushions and they were laughing soo much and jsut being so adorable. Then they would sneak into the kitchen and i would chase them back into the living room and they were SCREAMING at the top of their little lungs....it was super fun until one of the mommas came up and told us to shut up because the babies were sleeping downstairs. Ooops!! We really had too much fun.

In other news, weve been trying to take ruthie with us lots to get her good one on one attention. We thought she was like ten months old, turns out shes almost TWO years old!!! She weighs like twelve pounds. Were determined to get her fattened up. Today I had her on my lap in the tube in our pool and I had a sucker which she really wanted so i gave it to her and her whole face was blue after like five minutes. She would suck it for a while and then stick it in my face to share with me. Then she would realize she was in the water, start to cry, then see the sucker, stick it in her mouth, and stop crying until she realized she was still in the water. Adorable. We would put up a picture but SOMEONE forgot her camera. Oh well...next time!

OH and one more thing, some of our friends are putting on an outreach event, its a big concert meant to have young people meet other young people and hear about God, and weve been helping a lot with coordinating. I volunteered to pay for all of the photocopying of the posters and flyers, and also for them to put ads on the radio. It cost me like 30 dollars, but the radio ads are a whole months salary for a ugandan, and they wouldnt have been able to do it otherwise, it meant a lot to them. If you gave me money for this trip and are wondering where its going, thats one of the places! Were getting up bright and early tomorrow to hand out posters.

Anyhow, this is too long. Thanks for reading, its really encouraging to hear people say in emails, "oh i read your blog all the time!!!" Sometimes it feels like typing into an abyss. SO thanks!!! Hope you are all well...we miss you all. Please continue to pray for Hope and Phin, she didnt get her ruling on the 16th like we thought, but shes supposed to get it before the end of the month. Lets hope so!

Take care.

Caca Central!

2007-08-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well last night was a night bethany and i won't soon forget. I had taken Ruthie (a TINY one year old) with me all day and even brought her swimming with me and she was being so quiet and not herself at all. Normally she's really whiny if you put her down after you've been holding her but she didnt cry ALL day! So she had to be changed after i was holding her out by the pool and i took her up to our room and put her on my bed. I made the mistake of taking off her diaper before i had a clean one under her and she had diarrhea explosion ALL over my bed. She acutally was able to hit my fitted shit, top sheet, and my blanket all in one shot. Talented baby she is! So after i got her all cleaned up and soaked my sheets in detergent bethany, myself and Imi, (the ugandan girl who lives with her boyfriend in the other apartment of the house we live in and who we LOOOVE!) came to amani for beth to get george for the night and for us to help out with the supper chaos. So Ruthie didnt eat anything at all for supper and i was a bit worried about her so i packed her supper incase she wanted it later. We then went to Hope's house for pizza supper and ruthie was so sedate and george was his usual adorable cuddly self.

Long story short, we are lying on my bed (me and beth) talking about how peaceful ruthie looks while she sleeps and on cue- she wakes up and 5 seconds later is barfing the biggest baby barf i've ever seen ALL over my bed AGAIN. so we get her cleaned up and i give her some oral rehydration stuff and put her to bed again.

I wake up at 4:30am to an awful stench and change ruthie. Bethany wakes up and rubs georges back only to find her hand covered in diarrhea. LIke we're talking head to toe rhea blowout. He looks up at her and says "aunty- caca" and she scoops him up and while she bathes him as he whimpers at the freezing cold water at 4:30 in the morning, i undress her bed and bleach her mattress. We put George to bed on the bare mattress and then go outside to wash (by hand mind you) our gross sheets and blankets.

It was a spectacular baby sleepover. Until next time...

exposed to ugandan culture...

2007-08-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

So the yesterday me and Amy were sitting at our table playing skip-bo in our typical saturday afternoon tradion, and I go outside to check our laundry on the line and I see a woman sitting just outside our fence directly facing our door with three babies lying on towels all looking right into our house. So I say hi and she calls me over (after informing me that skippy just threw up all of the leftover spaghetti we gave her) and asks me for money for her baby. I actually had no money on me so I apologized and went back inside. I sit back down to our skip-bo game and this lady proceeds to whip off her shirt and begins breastfeeding right there, ten feet away from our open door. Had this been the first time we had seen this, we might have been surprised. But exposed women breastfeeding is not entirely uncommon here. Amy also had an interesting experience being called over to our neighbours' house for tea, and greeting their elderly mother who was sitting topless in the living room. We were also invited to attend the christening of their little daughter "Phillip" but were in Nairobi. Its really an interesting reflection on western culture...when we told this story to our ugandan friends they held up a "Life & Style" magazine we had on our table, flipped to beach photos of skantily clad celebrities, and said "THIS is indecent exposure!" Fair enough...but it definitly takes some getting used to!

Last night we had Mary Cameron (who we affectionately call MC hammer), melody, and sophie sleep over. Mel slept in my bed, likely for the last time considering how much sleep i got, she fell asleep around midnight, a good 4 hours after the other girls. And woke me up roughly 15 times in the night. Lucky shes cute... And then they came to church with us and sat like pro-stars through a very long service. There was cake at the end so everyone was happy.

In other news our dear darling michelle went back home to cali on friday...we said an emotional goodbye to her at the airport in Entebbe and are missing her tons already. We are however glad to hear that she is already working on our care package which ideally will contain 90% Kraft Dinner mac and cheese...knock on wood.

If anyone is interested, baby Judah was recently adopted from Amani and this is a link to a newpaper article about him coming home to Santa Clarita, CA with Gunner and Cindi Gunderson.
http://scvtalk.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=740

Okay until next time! peace out.

PS Congratulations to our two friends Riley and Sarah, and Matt and Maddy who just got engaged this week!!

More new baby photos and Phin's birthday!

2007-08-09T00:45:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of little 10 month old, 8 pound 11.5 ounce daniel. Believe it or not that is his smile. TOO cute! i love love love this little guy. He was the one who was found on the back of his mother with a whole potato in his mouth. He is extremely malnourished.

We got another new boy yesturday. His name is Edwin and hes about 9 months. His mom is in prison and came with 2 guards to hand her baby over to Amani. She is HIV positive and the prison is unwilling to provide the meds that would allow her to still breastfeed and not infect her son with HIV and they are also not willing to give her extra food so she is able to feed her son. So until she is out of prison, Amani will be his home. Its too sad.

There is a photo of me (Amy) holding Phin with HOpe next to me, BEthany next to her and MIchelle on the end. Michelle is going home tomorrow and has been spending the morning with me and the babies at Amani and helping me give meds. IN a couple minutes i'm going to Rippon Medical Clinic and taking Jonathan who's lost 1 kilo in the last week but is eating good. HE has night sweats and night fevers which are signs of Malaria but with the weight loss its most likely TB. so we're going to get a chest xray to see for sure.

There is another photo of a baby with a blanket tied to her head. That is Katie (aka Mr.T). Last time i was here she was sooooooooooooooo sick. LIke edge of death sick and Rachel and Arielle nursed her back to health and now shes a huge fatty! She gets her AIDS cocktail at 8am and 8pm and thats really saved her life. She is doing so good and will be accompanying BEthany and I to the airport in september to welcome back Rachel! (you can check out her blog at http://www.olegirlsmission.blogspot.com/)

The baby in the blue dress and yellow sweater is my dear little Ruthie! She is a DOLL, she has the cutest little chipmunk smile and such a sweetheart. I was taking her to church that morning and had got her all dressed up it!

There is another photo of Daniel and you can see just how small he is for 10 months old. He can hold his head up but thats about it. His upper arms are just bigger than my thumb. He is quickly gaining weight though so thats awesome!

Phin is in a photo with his awesome yellow sweater vest. 2 days ago he had to get his eye sty drained because it was so badly infected. HIs eye looked HORRIBLE. So poor HOpe takes him to the good clinic, IAA, and Dr. Charles (who we take all amani kids too) said she needed to get it drained like quick time so she went to Rippon Eye center and the doctor said he was going to make a small incision in the inside of his eye lid and gently drain out the pus and blood. So they give him a shot to numb the eye and don't even wait a second for it to numb anything and just slice. So Phin lets out a blood curdling scream because a strange person is slicing his eye ball open and then the doctor sqeezes SO hard and all this puss shoots out and Hope is bawling because a nurse is holding down her baby and the doctor is hurting him so much and shes telling the doctor to stop and they just bandage up his eye and send them on their way! ME and bethany were waiting at her house and she comes aroudn the back and just breaks down! it was awful but now Phin is doing much better and Hope is too and everyone is over the tramatizing eye draining incident. Hope didnt want to put his eye cream in that night though so i was the bad guy and did it for her! :) So the photo with the cute baby with the eye patch is our dear little Phineas David Howard Little and his unbelieveable mom, Hope.

There is photo of a girl in a red school uniform and thats Rachel Arielle and I's special girl, Esther. She is our friend Richards neice and the moment you meet this girl you fall in love with her. She is so smart and Rach and Air paid for her school fees so she could go to a really good school. She is devastating!

PTL!!! (praise the Lord!)

2007-08-07T05:40:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of little Jackson Moses Littleton who will soon be going home to america to his amazing mom and dad erin and scott. They have sweet bracelets you can get on their blog www.thelittletonfamily.blogspot.com The grease all over his face is from the loads of chicken he ate!

Last night Michelle, Bethany, Hope Phin, Jackson and i went to our congolese friend, Raoul's house for supper. His sisters Deborah, Linda, Natalie, and Mary made us the yummiest meal and we LOVE LOVE LOVE going for supper there. The sisters can only speak french so converstating is a bit difficult but we get by! They made up spagetti, fish, chicken, irish (potatoes), and rice. so good. Phin has been sick with a gigantic sty in his eye and hasbeen under the weather a bit and supper was late last night and his babysitter had fed him a meal in itself right before we left to go so he really wasnt feeling the meal. Hope was trying to eat her watermelon for desert and phin was being cranky and not listening so she said "Phineas! Sit down NOW!" and it was so strange but he didnt even bend his knees to sit he just bum dropped onto the cement floor and CRUSHED a bowl under his monstorous weight. He is large for a 2 year old, just super super sturdy and will make an excellent football player. It was quite a sight and he scared himself so bad. it was hilarious. Jackson is used to eating at the babys home and doesnt get seconds so he was just mowing down the food, like going full throttle his last meal on earth style eating. And lucky auntie michelle took him for the night and he pooped so much in his diaper that it was up to top collar of his jammies!! He woke her up this morning at 6:30 by singing and rubbing her ear. He usually goes to bed around 7:30 and he fell asleep at 10:30 with michelle after an hour long bath in a little plastic bucket and she gave him a cup and a truck to play with and every time he would pour the water out of the cup he'd yell "Allelujah!" (people aren't really good at saying h's here)

JAckson is superly into singing songs and one of his all time favorites is 'touch my body' but until recently he only knew one line so the song would go "touch my body, touch my body, touch my body, touch my boooody" but now he sings "touch my body, touch my body, touch my spirit and make me whole".

Yesturday i was in the toddler house giving meds and i came across jackson sitting on his potty and just singing his little heart out to praise and worship songs. i came in while he was belting out "do to others, do to others, what you would have them do to you. do to others, do to others, what you would have them do to you. for this is the command from the law and the prophets, do to others do to others, what you would have them do to you!" so of course i ran to get my camera to video this beautiful little guy singing so preciously and when i came back in he was singing "do not repay evil with evil but overcome evil with good". i told him i was going to send the video to his mommy and he said, "yes i want to sing!" --so erin you might have the next michael w. smith on your hands!

So this morning i babysat pHin for Hope while she went to meet with people in the courts and so me and phin and their neighbor boy james, hung out for about an hour. When hope came back she gave me GREAT news about how her husband kevin had talked to his boss and they've agreeed to let hope stay till the end of august when we except she'll be able to go home WITH phin because she'll hopefully have a ruling on august 16th so make sure to keep praying about that! But me and bethany are quite excited because as much as we wanted to take phin for hope, we REALLY REALLY love our little teeny tiny house and are really looking forward to living in it for another month until our friend Rachel comes from Minneapolis to join us! (Rach we love you and are PUMPED to see you!!)

This sunday at church is women's sunday so they do everything! the preaching, the praising, the praying and they cook for the entire church so me and bethany are going with our friend Domalie to help bake cakes with the church ladies for the sunday service! And bethany and I are contributing cases of soda because we are usless with ugandan cooking.

A mama at Amani, Mama Doreen, has a very sick mom up in gulu and is unable to pay the 50,000 shillings it costs for the bus so bethany and i gave her the money today and she looked like she was going to cry, it meant so much to her. So thank you for giving us money because it allows us to help lots of people out here!

Ok its Taco night at hopes and Raoul brought over his tv and dvd player for us to watch a MOVIE!!! we've been talking about which movie to watch all week in anticipation for this day! Tonight is also bible study so at 7 we'll be heading on over to our friends Davids house, and this week we'll have a testimony to tell our friends. About the power of prayer and the good news of hope! Ok thanks everyone for praying and keep it up= its working!

Sleepover Time!!!

2007-08-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

!

Last night bethany and I took Mary Cameron, Melody, Sophia and George for a sleepover at our house! It was so much fun and all the kids were sooo wonderful. I slept with Sophia, Beth slept with Georgie and MC and Melody slept on the floor between our beds on our dufflebags filled with clothes! It was an awesome time and here are a bunch of photos of our party!!

MC was such a sweetheart and woke bethany up this morning by rubbing her head through the mosquito net. she refused to sleep on a bed and wanted to sleep with Mel on the makeshift bed between our beds. Mel woke up with a bad dream in the middle of the night but went to sleep right away after she remembered where she was. I looked down at them around 4am and melody had turned herself around and so her head was where her feet used to be and she was halfway under my bed with only her legs sticking out. So i dragged her from under my bed and put her back properly.

THis morning george and melody had to caacaa at the same time and while bethany was holding melody on the toilet, george couldn't wait and squatted down and pooped all over our bathroom floor then dragged his feet all through it! So beth got the pleasure of bleaching our bathroom floor and bathing a poopy baby at 7am! This morning MC also told us that she had donut in her diaper as well as chapati!

Soph slept next to me on my bed and i woke her up this morning and she looked at me with a HUGE smile on her face and climbed into my arms..!! That made me year! Every day i'm so thankful to be back here with these precious children and my sophie.

In other news, we got 2 new boys at amani yesturday. Ones name is Asherife and the other's name is Daniel. Daniel was brought to us from a white lady who was in a village outside of Jinja and found him on his mom's back. She asked the mother why such a young baby was eating solid food and she told her that her baby was over 9 months old. He is about 6 or 7 pounds and very very malnourished. His rib cage is gross and his limbs are skin and bones. He is doing much better now however. Asherife was found by the police after local people had told the police that he had been sitting at a bus station for 2 days. His mother had abandoned him there. He is doing very well at amani but also looks a bit malnourished.

So here are some photos for all of you! Obviously the one of the camel is of me and beth on MOmbasa Beach in Kenya. Thats the INdian Ocean we're beside. Sophie is the beauty with the wild hair and green shirt (thanks Jan and Ava!- she was wearing ava's nike sandles and ava army pants too!). Bethany is brushing Melody's teeth while Mel sits in our bathroom sink. There's a close up of Mel's smiling face proudly wearing the star necklace her mom sent her (SHE LOVES IT!) Georgie Melody and Sophie are on the floor eating spagetti, Soph has the pigtail puffs. There is another of the beach in Mombasa where women are beating octopus to untoughen the meat. (is untoughen a word??) and another of Mary Cameron looooving her spagetti and ragu sauce we picked up in nairobi. There is one of me and JImmy getting his breathing treatment with me at the international clinic. He had pnemonia there.

Good News!!!!!

2007-08-02T01:07:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, here is a picture of Phineas so you can all see who were talking about, isnt he so CUTE! So we were at Hopes for dinner last night (shake and bake yumm) and she was telling us that theres this form called an i600 that might be expiring and if it does she might not be able to take phin for 4 months, but we found out last night that not only is it not expiring, she may actually be able to take him in a month, which would mean she would only have to leave him with us for 2 weeks!! It feels like FINALLY we are getting a break...thanks so much for all your prayers and keep it up because its working! We will update when we know more for sure, but it looks like things may actually go our way...Hope says thank you so much for all your prayers, it means so much to her to know she is in so many peoples thoughts.

This one is about 2 minutes before Phin passed out on the couch...

This one is Amy cooking on our stove...it makes our house scorching hot so we usually use it outside.

THis one I like because first of all were with our two precious darlings Sophie-baby and Georgeums, and second because at least once a week me and amy will end up dressed the same, either matching or opposites matching like in this pic...we got dressed separately I swear...

Left Behind

2007-08-01T01:41:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone! This is Amy blogging here. So Bethany and I, along with our wonderful friend Michelle, just got home this morning at 10am. We left JInja last Thursday at 8:30am and boarded our bus for Nairobi Kenya! The bus ride was utterly indescribable. Think of the worst road you've ever been on and times that by 100 and then by 12 hours and you have the bus ride from hell complete with 6 foot pot holes, dirt road highways and almost breaking the sound barrier at points. We had our bags fall from the over head storage compartments and lucky me got to carry my bag on my lap the whole way there. Add to this all, we were in the VERY last row and were air borne about 40% of the time. We FINALLY made it to Nairobi and were greeted by our wonderful friends Tillas and Charles' smiling faces. It was sooo strange to go to Nairobi and feel almost at home. It is a completely modern city with traffic lights, sidewalks, good sanitation, cool buildings that are taller than 5 stories, beautiful parks, the only national park in a city in the whole world, and numerous other super cool things to see and do.

We went and chilled at our guest house for a few hours and then started checking things out. We went to a sweet supermarket called Nakumatt and litterally went crazy in the aisles looking at all the food we havent seen in weeks! After a couple days in Nairobi we headed back onto another wonderful "luxury" coach bus and drove the 8 hours to the eastern coast of Kenya to a resort town called Mombasa. Our "resort"'s name was Container! It was a good 10 minute walk from the beach and when we saw that our toilet had no seat, we felt right at home like we were in JInja! I didnt have a mosquito net to sleep with so we turned the fan on high to guard us from the skeeters. We did have a tv all to our own with 2 channels. One showed mostly latin soap operas dubbed into english and the other showed mostly Kenya news spoken in Swahili.

WE went to the beach, and the got to swim in the indian ocean! me and beth rented tubes and litterally went wild in the waves for a good 2ish hours on our last day there. it was a full moon so the tide was suuuuuper high and came in sooo fast you could walk at a normal pace and it would be lapping at your heels. We saw a fisherman while we were snorkelling at a reef about 1km off of the shore and he had an octopus so.....we bought it and cooked it on the beach and ate it for lunch!! it was not that good and anyone who knows me will be shocked to learn i ate octopus considering how i will not even touch a pea or a bean. We also got to ride camels on the beach which was super cool. We knew we were going to have to make a trip to the coast since we are here for so long and because michelle is leaving on the 10th of august, and its her birthday that day, we just had to go all together! We took 3 night buses so we wouldnt have to pay for hostels and scrimped and saved and cheaped out on a lot of things and had the best time ever. We came home a day early because we miss our babies at amai too too much and couldnt be away for so long. Me and Sophia are having a date tomorrow, and mommy and me day!

OH funny story and the reason why this post is called left behind---. so last night we were 2 hours into our bus ride home from nairobi and we make a stop in a town called Nakuru. Me and beth get out to find a bathroom and when we're back in some dinky little cafe bathroom, a man comes in and yells "YOUR BUS IS LEAVING!" so we yell back " TELL THEM TO WAIT 1 MINUTE!" so we hurry up and get out to the road about 30 seconds later and our bus is GONE. so me and beth immediately start flipping out because we were a bit scared being in a random kenyan town, in a bad area of it, surrounded by men and not a woman in sight. These guys start coming up to us and we realise they are helping us and we tell them we have no money for a taxi- everything we have is on the bus. So i use this man's cell phone to call MIchelle who is still on the bus. Only problem is shes sleeping AND her cell is turned off. So we run over to a taxi and we all jump in to chase down the bus when it comes crawling around the corner.

I was soooooo mad and so scared that i kinda of yelled at the bus driver but seriosuly! who sees 2 white girls leave a bus and then drives away 1 minute later when he KNOWS they arent on the bus? so he points to this man beside him and says " you talk to this one" and "this one" is the man who closes the curtains on the bus and hands out glucose cookies and pop. So me and beth are steaming mad and storm back to our seats at the back of the bus and plop down and start laughing so hard and texting people on our cell phones. MIchelle wakes us and has no idea any of this has happened.

Needless to say we all had a great time and were safe and sound the whole way! Until next time...

Aunty Emmy and Aunty Feffany

Coles Notes on Life in Uganda

2007-07-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some little things that would have made our transition to life here a touch easier if we knew them before hand!

- when you need to susu (pee) don't count on a nice white tile bathroom, count on a hole in the ground, a weird cement trough urinal, an empty side street, the side of the highway or- if your lucky, a pitch black 'normal' toilet stall with no seat, no TP, the foulest smell alive, and a jump rope cable dangling from the tank sitting 5 feet up the wall behind you that might flush if you yank it enough times.
-it's totally normal to see various forms of poultry in your compound and for them to make wicked noise at ungodly hours.
- your not a christian if your are baptist or don't attend 'overnights' (10pm to 6am) prayer meetings every friday plus church on sundays, home cell on tuesdays and fellowship on thursdays
- have a cold, cough or an infection? its acutally called 'a little bit of malaria' and if you acutally have malaria, you call it malaria too and you can look forward to about 2 bouts of it per year.
- medicine in pill form are called tabs
- white girls get to look forward to a really sweet kissing sound as they pass men- dont worry though- it translates from lugandan to mean " your a mzungu and i want a mzungu friend"
- your not pretty, your smart
- your not smart, your clever
- you dont get food for take out, you get food for take away
- if you want take away juice, you get it in a plastic bag knotted at thetop and you bite a small hole in the bottom and suck thejuice out.
- you dont go on the internet or check youremail, you surf or browse
-EVERY price is negotiable.
- you dont barter, you barGAIN
- taking a small child on the back of a motorcycle, sitting side saddle is normal and even safe. taking a bicycle and sitting side saddle over the back tire with a kid is even safter but runs the risk of A) having to get apush start as bodamen laugh at how fat you are B)have to get off at a a particularly steep part ofa hill because its acutally faster for you to walk or C) almost pass out because of the smell that emits from a man who's been biking up hills all day in the blazing african sun and doesnt wear deoderant.
- its normal to go to a resturant, ask your server about a dish thats on the menu and have them stare blankly at you and tell you they've never heard of it and so you just order tea for dinner once again.
-when asking if you like something, ppl will say "do you take....." not do you like....
- you dont smoke, you puff
- your not scared of things,you fear them
- its not hurting you, its paining you
- cooking on a 1 element gas stove outside is luxurious and a super white thing to do since 98% of the populaion doesnt use refrigeration and they cook on charcoal or with parafin
- the following items are best and most easily transported on the back of a boda bicycle 1) small children 2) 4x2 wooden shelf units ...4 at a time 3) 2 twin sized beds standing lengthwise and tied with bits of rubber 4)small fridges...big ones are best suited to wheelbarrows 5) TV's
- Benny HInn is a miracle man who attracts more ppl to his crusades in uganda than nelson mandella and you will deeply offend anyone who you tell that benny hinn is really a money laundering crook.
- the singer R. Kelley is a pedophile in america but in uganda he's a much loved gospel singer
- the majority of people will answer you by saying FINE to your hello.
- a package of pure glucose is a normal snack for small children (a litteral package of PURE glucose)
- its safe and totally legal to have a ride at a fair be made out of rotten wood and rusty steel. A big swing like at west edmonton mall, swing of the century style. this one has about 20 too many seats and probably about 500 llbs over capacity but its packed none the less with people bumping into eachother for the price of 30 cents a turn. YOu sit in your bucket seat thats hanging 6 inches off the floor of the ride, (10 feet orso off theground) and you just pray that your legs dont get mangled on the jagged rusty steel like the people in front of you and it almost makes you thankful for your updated tetanus shot.
- don't be alarmed if you see a man on the ground, surrounded by 15 other guys who are beating him up because he stole and he should have expected thiswould happen.
- children will hold any manner of nasty cockroaches, praying mantises, poisionous toads, geckos, snakes or huge dragon flies, but if a dog comes around or they see a stuffed animal, they will scream bloody murder.
- some weights can be measured in terms of small puppies
-there is no distinction between between male of female in coversation. you are called either this one/that one or guay meaning you.
- its logical to have street lights on during the day and off at night.
- driving downhill is called sloping
- you dont turn down the volume, you decrease it. and you dont shove over or move down, you extend or push up.

this is just a little funny post for all you! we're doing fine and having blast still!!
love amy and bethie

butterfly kisses

2007-07-19T01:36:00.000-07:00

hi everyone,

just wanted to put up some photos for you all to see! this first one is of my baby georgie porgie. i love him so much. he was just on my lap but he fell asleep and was too sweaty so i put him on the couch.

this one is me and ame when we went to kikondo, musas village across lake victoria. please note the sweet braids. amy just took hers out last night but im a little more patient and im keeping mine in for a little longer.

This is little maria, a girl who is the definition of mischevious. we took her to get her hair done and at first she didnt like it and refused to look in the mirror but she loves it now. i took a million pictures of the process but she wouldnt let me take a picture of the finished product because she was mad for some reason. sorry erin! she looks ADORABLE though.

this one is melody, we took her to get her hair done and she was reeeeally really cute. she got a little fussy at the end but was a realy trooper. she LOVES chicken and soda and when we asked her what she wanted she just kept saying soda. and chicken. i was like melo what KIND of soda, and shes just like "chi-cken!" and so chicken and soda it was. She was soooo proud of her new hair and was telling michelle- another volunteer and our good GREAT friend- to be careful putting on her jammies so as not to mess up her hair.

While we were at Quick step, waiting for mel's hair, Michelles boyfriend Raoul, came over with 2 boys he had picked up from the village named steven and daniel. Steven is 12 years old and weighs about 20-25 pounds. his growth is severely stunted and he had a head to toe raised, very angry looking rash. Raoul was taking him to Rippon Clinic but we have to go because they have to restart the server so uintil next time!!

Note to self: NEVER steal in Uganda!

2007-07-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

We found a house! I think Amy forgot to write about this yesterday so I'm just going to write a lil tidbit about it. Its perfect for us, its actually one of two basement suites in the downstairs of this mansion. There is a lady who lives upstairs (janet, our landlady, nicest woman alive) and then the downstairs is divided into two suites. A mzungu (white) man lives in one and we live in the other. Its one bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Small but we dont really need that much space. AND it costs half as much as our guest house we were at before because were sharing a room now. Its on a really beautiful compound with a super nice pool (!!!) and its really safe, big fence and gate and three guard dogs who we love! Blackie who is brown, Brownie who is tan, and Skippy who is black. We like skippy the best. Shes really cute.

Um okay funny sidebar. Everyone in Jinja loves to blast music out of their shops so you can hear it when you pass by. Right now there are two different songs being blasted out of the internet cafe were in...I kind of feel like im going to have a seizure. One is Jehovah Jireh straight out of 1995. Its just too funny, like no one seems to notice that were listening to two totally conflicting BLASTING musics. I love Uganda!

Oh and heres a funny little cultural tidbit for y'all. Yesterday we were waiting with our friend Michael and he was telling us about how his house was broken into not too long ago and he saw the theif leaving. So what do you do in Uganda when you see a theif running away from your house? Why you chase him down and beat him to a pulp, of course! If someone sees and calls the cops, and they manage to get there in time, the theif may escape with only a severe beating. If the cops dont get there in time, you die. No big deal. Thats how it is here. I asked Michael what happens if you kill someone and he said, "that depends. did you kill a theif?" Me and amy were shocked. Michael said that theyre trying to reduce thievery in Uganda... no kidding. Anyways, we made a mental note never to steal anything here!

Today we went with Amys friend Musa to his village across lake Vicky (victoria) called Kikondo, but pronounced Chicondo. We were actually MOBBED by the kids, like 40 kids all grabbing at our hands and pulling at our clothes...it was a little overwhelming. There was one point near the beginning where we were sitting on Musas front step overheating because of the 40 sweaty children packed around us all grabbing our arms (they think its really funny that when you push on our skin it goes white for a second and then back to normal) and yelling at us in luganda, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. But after a bit I just adjusted I guess, and I was fine. They LOOOOVE to have videos taken of them and then look at them...they scream and scream and laugh. I took some pretty cute vids of them singing and doing calypso dancing.

They played this funny game with us where everyone stands in a circle and holds hands and they sing this song in luganda and when it gets to a certain part in the song you do this little dance move. And you go around the circle and everyone takes a turn. Lucky me I was near the beginning and I got to wow them all with my incredibly WHITE girl dance moves, they almost died laughing at us...haha. They actually have a lot of games that involve some form of dancing and me and amy were singled out a disproportionate number of times to dance. Embarassing.

Oh and Musas family made us this HUUUUUGE feast...like two tables FULL. This was my first experience with really african food. So far I havent eaten anything too too exotic, we eat in mzungu restaurants because its more foodsafe, its not recommended to eat in a lot of places here for our weak white stomachs. They made for us whole talapia fish. Like WHOLE fish. Like I had to break it in half and pull the meat off.. Im fairly sure i swallowed like 15 fish bones. They also made a dish called Chata which basically is a steaming ball of brown dough that just looks utterly repulsive. Musa was so exicted, Chata is his "best dish" and was so pumped for us to try it, so i did!! It wasnt as bad as it looked but not the best thing ive eaten here for sure! Also we ate rice, beef (so tough i couldnt chew it into two pieces to swallow so i almost choked on this massive hunk of cow), pineapple, apples, mangos, carrots, cucumbers, and potatoes. I actually really enjoyed most of it! And we had to eat EVERYTHING on the table...we were ready to pass out by the end of it. Yummy but its hard to eat like an african.

Well my times almost up so I should go. Please keep my (bethany) family in your prayers, my aunt passed away yesterday and this is a tough time for my family and for me being so far away. Until next time...

New Things In Jinja

2007-07-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone. This is Amy posting here! So some exciting news! We got 3 new babies at amani this week. One is about2 weeks old andweighs 1 kilogram. Thats about 2.2 pounds. crazy!! Hes in our incubator but it has no temp control and hes not on oxygen or any monitoring systems. He was kept warm at Mulago hospital with a kerosene lamp and now he has some sort of gas poisioning from the gas fumes and his skin is really grey. His new name is Isaiah. We also got a little boy whos in the toddler house named Nathaniel and he is the fattest kid in there! hes soooo precious and cute buthe has these sores all over his arms and on his back. He was just found abandonded. Holly is the new baby 2'er and shes about 18 months and was abandoned also. The afternoon Nate came i held him for an hourand he looked so sad andjust how you would think an abandonded baby would feel andlook. He's healthy though so thats good.

Today i took Debra (a 4month old) and Tolofina (a 20 monther) to theclinic because Tolo probably has TB and Debra needs this lesion on her belly button burned off. I took Tolo on one hip and Debra in a sling around me and set off in the blazing heat for the clinic. Tolo saw 2 dogs and started crying her loud cry and stopped just as we got to the clinic. There were these 4 mormon missionaries in the clinic and this old lady was so so nice and took debra for me while i took Tolo out side to jokokuba her (litteral translation is a bit scary- to beat her) but i just lightly smacker her leg. I didnt use the jokokuba stick :) She cried and Cried and cried and sobbed because last time i took her there last week- she got an injection and didnt have too much fun. I think she remembered this andthats why she was have such a spaz attack. I called bethany and over tolo shrieks told her to GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME!!!!!! meanwhile that nice mormon lady had taken debra into the doc's office while she saw him and then waited till beth got there to help me.

I took sophia into town today and got her hair washed and plaited (braided) at Quick Step Hair Saloon. my friend Roger did it for me and for 5000 shillings. THats about 3 dollars. This is an interesting little tidbit. My friend makes 80,000 shillings every 2 weeks so he is getting paid 60 CENTS an hour. Isnt that ridiculous? He takes care of his 4 sisters andpays rent andschool fees on that salary. And thats a GOOD paying job.

Bethany brought george ( who we affectionately call George MIchael and Georgie Porgie) over to the salon to hang out while soph got her hurr did. We are trying to teach george careless whisperer right now but so far hes only mastered the words aunty and no. but today i put his dirty nappy in the garbage at oiur house and he said " aunty caca in there". caca means poo. and susu means pee in lugandan.

OK so i have 4mins left of internettime so i'm going to wrap this up. PEace out all. We are LOVING life in jinja!! UNtil next time...Wey ba lenyo.

Love Aunty Emily (no one can say amy here) and Aunty Bethan ( no one can say bethany either)

2007-07-06T00:13:00.000-07:00

Soooo we are finally here!!!
Sorry for the delay in updating the blog but the internet cafe isnt really close to us so its kind of hard to get to. THis first week has been kind of crazy....meeting a million people and getting to know the babies. I should probably say that i have a really fussy baby on my lap right now so this may be shorter than id like...hes soooo precious his name is Adam and hes for sure the cutest baby in the preemie room. Amy is next to me with little Katie on her lap sound asleep...Katie is too cute her hair has grown and it looks EXACTLY like Mr. T, which i like to call her!
We really are having so much fun. amy is loving seeing all her old friends and im loving meeting them all. Ugandans are such amazing people. They are so content with what they have, which most often is nothing. Some of our friends live in one bedroom (literally) shacks with curtains for doors and cook food in a little stove in the corner and they are sooo happy.

Yesterday we took some kids to town and took them out for dinner...Maria and Emily. Maria is going to be adopted with another boy named Musa and is such a little character! She loves to pretend shes mad at you and then when you ask her whats wrong she laughs hysterically. And if you dont ask her whats wrong she will actually become mad at you...super funny. They were just wired (could have been all the candy we gave them) and were screaming and laughing and showing us how to calypso dance. It was soo so fun.

Oh and we got our hair braided...like extensions! My hair is sooo long now and it toook forever...9 hours for me and 8 for amy. Its super low maintenance though so we like it though. And we are currently in the process of looking for a house. RIght now we are staying in a guest house which is nice but 6 months is a long time to not really have your own space so we've decided that were going to try to find somewhjere else. Right now we;ll live just us and michelle and then when rachel and arielle get here well live with them. We've had a tough time finding something that meets all of our specifications and is safe enough but I'm sure we'll find one soon.

And for those of you wondering about amys bags (which have been lost this whole week), apparently they are here and we are sending a driver to pick them up tomorrow which is such an answer to prayer! If they get here that is....lets just hope they arent opened and nothing is missing.

Um so i dont know what else to say! I know theres a million things i could say but its so hard to explain in an email and adam is getting reeeally fussy so i should go.. but feel free to comment on here and ask questions we can answer. Thanks for all your emails we miss you all are thankful for your prayers.

Fundraiser #2!!

2007-06-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

So after much planning, stress, and anxiety, my (Bethany's) coffeehouse fundraiser is finally over! I somehow managed to put my back out pretty badly the day before, which was just such a treat! I lay on the couch in tears while my mom phoned around and got other people to do all the stuff I couldnt do from the couch...which was most of my todo list. But broken backs and meltdowns aside, everything went off without a hitch! (Other than the fact that we baked waaaaay too much food.) I had so many people volunteer to help, and some really talented musicians who graced the stage. I think that everyone had fun (well I did at least) and I raised 1500$$!! Not as much as Amy but still pretty awesome. I'd love to put up some pictures but turns out my batteries for my camera no longer hold a charge...so I didnt manage to get any pics. But you can take my word for it...it was just lovely. Thanks to everyone who helped out in any way, it couldnt have happened without ya!

And oh my goodness we leave in 13 days!! Anxiety is messing with both of us in different ways so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers...these are going to be a tough two weeks for us. Until next time....

Bethany (and Amy)

2007-05-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

Yeah for Garage Sales and Crappy May Long Weather!

2007-05-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!!!
Well I have great news to report. Today I, Amy Frances Marigold King, undertook the biggest of all backyard extravaganza's and held my very own garage sale fundraiser!!

I'm also very proud to report that the final tally of the night was 2532.19 cents! (dont ask me where that 19 cents came from though!). Thats right 2500 dollars! isnt that incredible? it was a raging sucess and, minus a few mishaps- i.e a disgruntled neighbor's screaming at an old lady customer of mine resulting in the police being called- it was a GREAT sucess. Now i'm officially stating that this will be my last garage sale EVER.

We started the day out at 6am....let me back thsi up just a bit though. I acutally started the day out at 1 am with a bout of severe vomitting which just really put me in the garage saleing mood. luckily i'm so resilient and this youthful bod of mine bounced back in time for my 5:45 am wake up call. After getting soaked in the rain and yelling (out LOUD!) at my stupid signs that wouldnt go into the ground , a lovely friend came over and helped me pound them into the ground. Apparently 'the club'' is not a useful hammering tool!

It was time for a timmy ho's run so i went and got 6 coffees and 2 dozen delcious donuts! YUMMMMY. Then it was time to kick it into high gear. After a slight crying breakdown, we did the only reasonable thing and called on the good Lord to stop the rain and by golly did the Big Man ever come through!! (not that we thought otherwise though:))

The sale technically started at 9am but by 8:30 the professional garage salers and old people alike were flocking into our cul de sac just itching for sweet garage sale treasures!

At About 10:30am Les and Nora Belanger, my bosses at the ice cream store, came to set up their mobile hotdog wagon to nourish the famished shoppers! They are sooooo kind and i love them so much! All the proceeds of the sale went to me too so that was excellent!

Time went by pretty quick and before we knew it the day was done and we were closing up shop with basically nothing left over, which was awesome!

the day was a huuuuge sucess and now I'm one step closer to outfitting a whole village with new school uniforms and play clothes! Yippee!!!

bethany's coffee house is well on its way and and is still planned for June 9th. there will also be a small silent auction with exciting goodies to bid on!!
PEACE OUT! AMY

BOOKED!!!

2007-04-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

Soooooo after 3 months of stressing about prices and dates and seat sales we both have finally booked our flights!! Amy got hers a few weeks ago...she found a pretty smokin seat sale and took advantage. Me? I had too much racked up on my mastercard to be doing any sort of international travel booking so I held off. Lucky too because a week ago my lovely bosses offered to so generously buy my ticket with their airmiles!! Probably the highlight of my year...and today after one hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with my lovely aeroplan agent I am officialy booked too. Its probably the best feeling ever to have this dealt with, it has been looming over us for so long. And now its all taken care of! Amy flies out of toronto on June 28th and I fly out on the 27th. Its crazy because this makes it feel so much more real. Yay!

Thats the really exciting news. Other than that, Amy is planning a big giant garage sale fundraiser, the date isnt quite set yet. And I'm planning a coffeehouse fundraiser at Saanichton Bible Fellowship Church on June 9th at 7:30pm. Anyone is welcome! If anyone actually reads this yet please keep us in your thoughts and prayers...things are falling into place pretty nicely and we'd like things to keep on that way! Thanks for reading!! Peace out.

for your viewing pleasure

2007-03-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

this is sophia, a princess and the sweetest girl you'll ever meet
this is angella. shes a porker and boy can she laugh!!!
the village of kikondo with lake victoria in the distance.
kikondo village kids. we would visit them and hang out.
a common site. preschooler's taking care of babies

duane-ie, bobbo, georgie and arnie. out for an ice cream treat. bobbo wants more. thats why hes throwing a fit.

Yeah for Income Tax!!!

2007-03-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

it's that time of the year again and all i (amy) can say is yeah for income tax! a check for 1200 bucks is in the mail coming to me, going straight into my "saving for jinja account"!

Bethany had to get a new- old car because her's pooped out and starting melting (litterally!) but all is good because shes selling the melted one for parts and will be selling the new-old one before we go.

bethany is planning a sweet coffee house to raise awareness and funds for the trip and she's going to have some sweet local talent help her out. and if you've ever wondered what her voice sounds like- check it out because she's got a killer one.

my garage sale is in the works. our minnesotan friends did 2 garage sales and raised 4 grand so i'm hoping to make at least 1000 at mine but we'll see.

anyways- keep checking back for updates.

friends, don't get me wrong: by no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back."phil 3.13-14

(julie from amani if you read this, its true- i stole this verse from your facebook:))

3.5 months to go!

2007-03-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!
Beth and I (amy) created this blog to keep in touch with all our friends and family while we are away in Jinja Uganda Africa (no big deal). We are really really pumped to leave and start living and working at Amani Baby Cottage.

For those of you who aren't as familiar with our plans here's whats going down from july 07 to january-ish 08:

We are going to Amani Baby Cottage (www.amanibabycottage.org) in Jinja Uganda. Its an orphanage to 60 gorgeous kids ages 0 to 5. These kids come from the worst beginnings you could imagine but once at Amani, grow and flourish with the love of the workers and all the volunteers, which is what we will be doing.

This blog is to keep all of you informed on how things are going before and during the trip.

You post comments right on the site if you want, its really easy! Or if you'd prefer, we've made a gmail account which is amyandbethany@gmail.com. OOOR if you'd like to email us individually you can do so as well.

So keep checking back from time to time and see whats we've been doing in preparation for the trip.

These first pics posted our of our MEC adventure today where Beth got a big duffle, a nalgene (soo handy) and a smaller back pack for carrying the nalgene and diapers and baby clothes from our trips to town with the babies!

Enjoy!!

Peace out,
Amy and Beth