I’m back in the states now fully recovered from some crazy jet lag. The trip was almost indescribable. I experienced so much joy my stomach hurt from laughing so much, and so much sorrow that my face was raw from all the tears I cried. I’m going to do my best to share the photos and stories from our trip to Uganda. It was truly the trip of my lifetime and when I boarded the plane home I knew I was leaving my heart there forever. I can’t wait to return. Some of this is from my journal excerpts and some of it is just me filling in the gaps. In order for me to make this as smooth of a story as possible I’m putting it all in one post. It’s going to be a long one with hundreds of photos and links, so grab a cup of coffee or tea, and maybe a few doughnuts….or some take out chinese if your a slow reader, and enjoy……
Day 1 – Monday January 11th 2010.
Today we boarded a plane to Amsterdam. It was a long flight but we got to Amsterdam safely. I am traveling with 4 other people – I should probably introduce them as they are going to be key players in this whole story.
Sharnessa – my dear friend from church. 6 months ago we decided we were going to go on this trip together (see the blog post below) and we did!
Laura – another friend of mine who is the US representative of the IAM children’s family. Amazing woman of God. Very focused individual. The main organizer of this entire trip.
Tony – Laura’s husband. Our protector and provider while we were there. Kept us safe, kept us on task and kept it fun. :-)
Shanna – 16 year old girl who has a huge heart for missions. We met her just two weeks before our trip (she goes to church with Laura) but by the end of our trip we all felt like sisters. Shanna is in Africa until March.
Day 2 – Tueday January 12th 2010
So due to the time change we lost the last half of day one. We arrived in Amsterdam around 5 am their time after leaving PDX at 12 pm PST time. We flew for 10 hours – I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this whole time change thing for days. :-)
We spent a few hours in Amsterdam on our layover, I was told when I got off the plane not to take pictures in the airport so I just have to journal this part. Dutch people have LOTS of cheese and amazing chocolates. Everything was soooo expensive though, I opted into just buying a simple sandwich and some water (which ended up costing me $12 and was about as good as a McDonalds sandwich). We then boarded the plane to Entebbe airport. We arrived in Entebbe International Airport at 8 pm their time. Was immediately told (again) not to take pictures in the airport……and being that most of the workers carried semi-automatic rifles I decided I would skip being a rule-breaker for the day. Went through customs uneventfully and then headed on outside.
Outside the doors of the airport a huge group was waiting for us jumping up and down with excitement. We met Mama Susan – you can read about her and the IAM children’s family here – http://iamchildrensfamily.org/ and then loaded all of our stuff into their van and headed to the hostel where we would be staying in Kampala. The greetings here are amazing. I was hugged by so many people who I never met before and their smiles and joy were so contagious.
Our first experience at African driving. OH MY GOODNESS. For starters they drive on the left side of the road with right hand drive vehicles….so confusing. Kampala is a city of 20 million people ( or so I was told) and they have 6 stoplights. In the entire country. The rules of the road are – whoever gets their nose in first goes. Bigger vehicles have the right away over smaller vehicles which have the right away over boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis) and they all have the right of way over pedestrians. Total insanity – we found it was best for the health of our hearts to just focus on the conversations with the people in the van with us and only look out the side windows….not the front. The trip from Entebbe to our hostel in Kampala took about an hour.
The hostel was a true hostel (you’ll be seeing lots of pics below). I have to say I was more scared of the white men staying in the hostel than anyone else on the trip. . Marijuana smells throughout the night and prostitution surrounding us, not to mention the toilets. Oh the toilets. We were advised to use the pit latrines to save water. I’m not going to lie – I walked the extra distance and used the extra water to spare myself that experience. Our first night they had rented out our room to someone else and so we went into the dorms. 14 beds – 1 room. Though caves is a better description for these beds. Us 3 girls all suffer from claustrophobia….this part was an experience for sure! Thank goodness we were able to get the room to ourselves….I didn’t realize this at the time but it is quite normal to rent the rooms out by bed not by room so often times you end up sharing your space with many other people….often with no separation by gender. Thank goodness we got it to ourselves. :-)
After unloading at the hostel we headed over for dinner at the home (it’s about 11 pm at this point and we’ve been traveling for 24 hours = exhausted!) . Dinner was amazing – watermelon, pineapple, eggs, toast, and rice. But we didn’t stay long, our brains were all shutting down at this point and we headed for bed. Here are some pictures of the hostel to give you something for the imagination…..
Showers and the water conservation note.
The shower on the left was always cold….shower on the right was occasionally hot, occasionally. :-)
The hostel – not such a bad place once you got used to it. The price is hard to beat for sure!
In the picture on the left you can see a room in the upstairs towards the end of the building with no window. That would be the room they attempted to put us in after the dorm room….we vetoed it due to the fact that it was completely open air, and a tree came right up into the room, anyone or anything could have climbed in. We decided that we really did want to SLEEP in our room and not be hugging our knives and mace the whole night. Our room that we got after that was perfect! It even had a lock! 
The photo on the left is the hut we got in after the giant cave-like dorm room. We ended up really liking it, it was a small room, but it had 3 sets of bunk beds which was perfect since 3 of us shared the room. We each had a bed to sleep on and a bed for our stuff which gave us some floor space. The picture on the right is a wide shot of the huts and the camping area in front. Tent camping at backpackers – 6,000 shillings per night = about $3.00. Our room 15,000 shillings per night = about $7.50. Rooms come with mosquito net, pillow and sheets, not bad at all!
Sharn and I all tucked in with our nets.
Despite the nets, we still got covered in bites, but they definitely helped minimize the damage, and actually it was kinda fun having the nets around us. I always wanted one of those princess beds with the big drapey pink net around it when I was little….mosquito nets are the next best thing!
The orphanage where we would be spending a LOT of time. :-)
Day 3 – Wednesday January 13th 2010
Our first full day in Uganda.
A journal excerpt from the day “It has been amazing to me how special we are being treated. We spent today visiting the orphanage and purchasing buckets for the water filters brought with us from the states. Filters are for families that need the clean water” (side note: water-related illnesses are the leading cause of death for children 5 and under in Africa so part of our mission was giving out filters from sawyer.com to families that desperately needed clean water) “I’m really excited to see what all happens while I’m here. I’m prepared for God to break my heart. I want definition to my life. I want whatever it is that God has for me. We drove by a lot of slums today. The poverty blows me away. Life is rough here. People live daily with diseases that we never have to worry about – typhoid, malaria, cholera, TB and AIDS.”
Today was mostly spent gathering buckets for the water filters. The filters that we brought with us require a clean bucket that has never been used for chemicals in order to be able to work. We needed 85 of them. It took an entire day of driving to nearly a dozen places all over Kampala before we were finally able to track down the majority of the buckets. Before we headed out on the hunt for buckets we went to the local Mzungu mall (Muzungu = foreigner/white person. Children yell “Hi Muzungu” everywhere you go.) We exchanged our money and for a few days we got to be millionaires. My $900 cash that I brought with me equaled 1,768,500 shillings. It was a nice feeling…..
The bucket hunt was quite the hunt. Just in case you are ever searching for 5 gallon buckets in Kampala, they can be found at the Nice Plastic Factory, this will save you LOTS of driving, trust me! (just in case!).
Sharnessa – the Ugandan millionaire. :-)
On the left is a mall cop. Notice the semi-automtic rifle. I would imagine if our mall cops were armed like this we would have a whole lot less shoplifting.
On the right a drive by view of the city. You can see a small slum in the lower part.
On the left, one of the nicer roads in Kampala (I’ll be showing the normal roads farther down…..they look like creek beds!)
On the right, the taxi van driven by our wonderful driver Simon….we spent a lot of time in it so I felt it deserved a picture all of it’s own.
Once we finally tracked down the buckets the boys we were with helped us negotiate a price. I believe we ended up paying around $4 per bucket….not bad at all!
Barnabus (one of the guys we spent a lot of time with) is the dude in the blue shirt, center picture and Jessy is the dude in the red shirt, right photo.
A mosque from a distance (aka….I shot it out the car window)
As we were driving by Mendala Stadium ohhhing and ahhhinng at how pretty it was we were told an amazing story…
Pastor Ponsiano Rawkatale, the founder of the IAM family, (father of Barnabus pictured above and 9 others…he passed away a few years back) was a pastor back in the 70′s during the reign of Idi Amin. (If you have no idea who I’m talking about the movie “The Last King of Scotland’ was about him). Idi Amin decided at one point in his reign to publicly execute all of the Christian pastors in Kampala. 300 pastors were rounded up into Mendela stadium for a public execution…..Ponsiano included. However the general that was supposed to carry out the execution was in a terrible car accident on the way to the stadium and broke both of his legs. Since he wasn’t there to over see the execution the person in charge of the prisoners decided to release all of the pastors.
Back at the orphanage we got to spend a little more time with the kids before heading back to our hut-sweet-hut. This little boy here is Stephen. He is 4. 2 years ago he was dumped at the IAM orphanage covered in sores, sick, starving and nearly dead. He was nursed back to health and has made a nearly full recovery now.
Two more of the kids – Peace on the right you’ll see in a lot more of the pictures. This girl was a blast…..loves spiderman and batman, has an awesome singing voice and some killer dance moves.
On the left is Matoki – aka green bananas. Picked green because if left to ripen the monkeys will eat them. Matoki is a staple in most Ugandan diets, typically it’s mashed and cooked and served with a sauce (if available). I expected it to taste like an unripe banana, but was surprised that it had a more starchy taste. I actually really liked it….not a whole lot of flavor but with the sauce it ended up being really nice. Almost tasted like rice with a cream sauce…..almost. On the right is Ugandan razor wire. Most of the nicer homes have walls and most of the walls have smashed bottles at the top of the wall to keep people out.
Day 4 – Thursday January 14th 2010
Today we spent the day recovering from jet lag and just hanging out with the kids.
“Today has been amazing. It was our second full day in Uganda. We spent the entire day playing with the kids at IAM and giving them gifts. I met a precious 3 year old girl named Gold for just a few minutes. She might be able to be adopted. I totally fell in love with her. She scarred up from being abused as an infant. I asked one of the boys there to find out about adoption procedures for Uganda. I am really moved by this particular little girl and haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since then. I know and believe that my husband and are going to be adopting someday. If this girl becomes available I want to bring her home with me. She is so beautiful and precious. ”
After meeting this girl I left my sunglasses on for the rest of the day – my mascara was everywhere. LOL.
When I asked about Gold’s story I was told that as a 7 month old baby her mom could no longer care for her – the common solution is to beat the child to death. I know…..horrible. I don’t get it either….this is just what I was told. Instead of killing her daughter the mom dumped her on ladies doorstep in the middle of the night. The lady had cared for her for two years, but no longer could take care of her, so decided to try and relocate her to this home. You can see the scars covering Gold’s legs in the photo on the left above.
Tony spent most of the day making the buckets into filtration systems for families. This required him drilling a hole in the bottom of all 85 buckets….manually (no power tools here) and then installing the filter in the hole. The system works with the aid of gravity – you put dirty contaminated water in the top bucket and it runs through the hose and filter into a clean container. After being filtered through this system the water is supposedly cleaner than bottled water. With proper cleaning (backflushing with clean water) the filter is said to last for over a million gallons of water. 1 filter can literally provide an entire family clean water for a lifetime with no need to ever purchase new filters. You can see the details about the filters from their manufacturer here – http://www.sawyerpointonefilters.com/.
I hope to be going again for this same sort of mission and in the meantime I know of people I could send filters to if anyone is moved to purchase a filter for a family.
Some of the kiddos….
Cameras were such a novelty. Every time we started to take pictures we were surrounded by kids who wanted to see the little digital representations of themselves -below Shanna and Sharn showing kids their photos.
Laura and Sharn brought some jump ropes from the states for the kids – the girl jumping on the left is Gloria, my parents are her sponsor and she’s been here in the states on tour with orphanage choir….it was so fun getting to see her again a year and a half later.
Little Angel – this girl was so fun, always attached to one of us Mzungus from the first day. We all adored her….
The little one on the left is Yvonne – she was scared to death of white people. It took her a few days, but she eventually warmed up to us and quit crying everytime we walked into view.
Sharn and Lydia – center. And right—–oh I wish I could remember this ones name. She was a doll! She said it with such a sweet little lisp too. :-)
The road to the orphanage, and the laundry line.
Evening prayers
Day 5 – Friday January 15th 2010
I woke up this morning feeling less-than amazing. I tried to drink a lot of water, get some protein, but sadly it didn’t help. I ended up making a dive out of our (currently moving) van into the grass just in time to barf my guts out in front of lots of people. Oh joy. I ended up having to head back to my hut for a few hours until I started feeling better. Shanna and Sharn hung out with me…was very nice of them! After a couple hours of being horizontal I thought I was fine and we headed over to the orphanage. I got there and was still fine until I ate, and to the toilet I went. Barfing in African toilets is an experience….let me tell you. Everyone should have to do it at least once, ok, maybe not. Actually, I hope you never have to. It wasn’t so great. I laid on the couch for a few hours – at one point I got up enough strength to walk outside and get some photos of Tony giving out some of the filters and then a few of the rain after that. But that little bit of walking took it out of me, and after awhile I asked our driver to take me back to the hostel. Once there I slept……and slept…..and slept. I think I fell asleep at 3pm, woke up briefly at 10 for some water, and then was out again until 7 am the next morning.
African rain….I called it a monsoon and they laughed at me and told me “No, it’s just rain….monsoons keep going and going” The rain only lasted about an hour but oh wow, there was a lot of rain….and I’m a Washingtonian so I know my rain! 
Tony walking some of the local woman through the use and care of the water filters before distributing them.
And our eggs. Despite the unusual appearance, the eggs were really good. They are just more whitish than American eggs.
Tony told me all the chickens in Africa are anemic.
I believed him.
Later I found out that they just have a different type of chicken over there and most of the eggs have white yolks.
Yes, I am the one that looks up when someone says “gullible is printed on the ceiling.”
Day 6 – Saturday January 16th 2010
“Another amazing day in Uganda! Spent the morning traveling to the property that the orphanage is wanting to move to (sidenote- the orphanage, through money earned on their mwaba children’s choir tour last year, purchased 6 acres of beautiful farmland outside of Kampala. They want to develop it in the future to be a self-sustaining village and school for all of the children and widows currently at the home) It was jungle out there! Heard monkeys in the bush, saw a giant anthill and picked maize. Afterwards came back and did VBS with the kids. They are so precious. Each one is a treasure. I’m blown away by all of the love they are showing – the joy they have with so little. We have a busy week ahead of us”
I am going to share a few pictures of the land itself, but if you are interested in seeing it ALL, you can click on this video that Laura made last year right after they initially purchased the property…you can see it’s more cleared off in my photos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-at6yi-QMA
Sharn next to an anthill, the property, and Simon our driver….ON an anthill.
Ruth, the one with the machete, was also our cook while at IAM. :-)
On the right, Sharn and Eunice pick some maize for dinner later on. Just and FYI if you are ever in Africa….I think their corn has a different name because it tastes completely different than our corn. The best way to describe it….rubberish. They didn’t believe us when we told them that our corn was sweet.
Once we finished up at the property we headed back for the VBS. We had a blast with the kids….they are SO much fun!
Sharn teaching the VBS lesson.
Once we finished up with the VBS we headed to downtown Kampala for some shopping at the East Africa market.
Then we headed over to the local mall to meet up with Gerald Ray for dinner – “Gerald” to Tony and Laura, and “Ray” to everyone else. Tony and Laura sponsored and mentored Ray for years, they paid for his university training, and Ray considers them his Mom and Dad.
Ugandan Italian Pizza
Ray took us up to the roof of the mall after dinner. A tripod would have been super nice at this point, but those darn airline weight regulations kept me from bringing one. :-(
Day 7 – Sunday January 17th 2010
Today was my day to teach VBS at the orphanage. Since my day happened to fall on a Sunday and their was already a worship team at the church the lucky children were spared of my attempts to lead them in a song. I taught a lesson and then we did a craft with all of the kids and some of the adults there too.
Once we finished up with the VBS craft and lesson we headed up to join the main church behind the orphanage.
Shanna snuggling with one of the kiddos….
Earlier this morning us girls had been getting ready for church in the hostel bathrooms when we met 3 other girls that were from America. The girls were stationed in Kampala for their YWAM (Youth with a mission) Discipleship. We had a great conversation and discovered that we lived nearby each other in the states (Salem and Yakima). We decided later on that evening that we wanted to visit the ministry that the girls were working with.
The ministry was very mutli-faceted, but it’s main focus was the rescue and restoration of former LRA (Lords Resistance Army) children. It was amazing connection, Cameron is the white guy you see in charge of the ministry – he was explaining how everything had come together with the ministry. The kids in these photos are former child soldiers rescued from the conflict in Northern Uganda.
That evening Tony set up a projector screen in the church and invited the local kids and families to come and view the Jesus film. The film was dubbed in Lugandan and told through the eyes of children.
I have to say the only thing we REALLY didn’t like in Africa was those annoying mosquitos.
Day 8 – Monday January 18th 2010
Another full day in Uganda. This morning was “touristy junk” as Tony called it. We drove to the equator which was nearly two hours outside of Kampala. All 3 of us girls on the trip were homeschooled (or in Shannas case, she IS homeschooled) so being that we were homeschooled (and for those of you familiar with homeschooling you will “get” this) we found the science of the equator super fascinating. I think we are all nerds at heart. Not saying that non-homeschool people wouldn’t dig it, I just thought it was especially homeschoolish of us to choose a scientific thing to visit instead of a touristy thing. We were totally fascinated by the water spinning different directions on the opposite sides of the equatorial belt, and seeing the water go straight down on the belt was pretty sweet too. Yeah….homeschool nerds at heart. That’s us! :-) Just in case you didn’t know – water goes clockwise North of the equator, counterclockwise South of the equator and gets sucked straight down when you are standing directly above the belt.
Getting our water demonstration.
African art from the shops by the equator.
“Stoney” best darn soda. EVER. It seriously needs to make an appearance in the states.
On the way back to IAM from the equator we stopped to buy our kiddos some drums at one of the shops on the way. It was kinda fun seeing how they stretch out the hides to make the drums.
Anthills….everywhere.
Once we arrived back in Kampala we spent some time just hanging out with the kids at the orphanage. We did some crafts and then just played.
Kids L-R, Top – Bottom
Reagan, Angel (our little shadow while we were at the orphanage), Jamelia, Gloria, Mark and Mathias, and Lydia (with Gloria in the background).
Desire and Yvonne.
Yvonne was completely scared of white people for the first little bit, but by this day she had finally warmed up to us. She even sat in my lap and colored for a bit. Big change from running and screaming when she first saw us. ;-) Such a precious little sweetie!
After some time spent playing with the kids, Sharn and I headed out to meet some friends of hers for dinner. Lovely Ugandan and American couple, we got to share stories, talk about ministries and laugh a lot with each other along with some delicious food at “Javas” Which quickly became our favorite Ugandan restaurant. :-)
Day 9 – Tuesday January 19th 2009
My first order of business this morning was to head into downtown Kampala to meet a lawyer. My husband and I had talked and prayed, and decided that we wanted to work towards adopting Gold – the little girl I had met the week before. So….Enock, one of the Rawkatale boys, and Simon drove me downtown to meet with an attorney to figure out all the paperwork and legalities for the adoption.
After meeting with the attorney I came back to the orphanage and we headed out to some of the neighboring slums to give out water filters to some of the families that were in need of clean water.
Yes that is flies on the bread, and yes, that is what this family is having for dinner.
Some of the kids from the slum.
When we had finished handing out water filters in the slums we headed up to a baby’s orphanage – the Sanyu babies home. Sanyu babies home and the IAM orphanage are 2 of 5 orphanages in Uganda approved by the the government for adoption. The home was so amazing, the amount of children was overwhelming, and the needs were huge, but you could tell this particular orphanage had a very loving staff. Of course that doesn’t take the place of a parent by any means, but the volunteers at the orphanage were doing the best they could and you could see how much they just loved the kids. All of the kids in the orphanage (from what I understood) were abandoned as infants, some were found in pit latrines, or in ditches on the side of the road. It was heartbreaking seeing some of the photos that they had on their walls of the condition that the children had come out of, but so cool to see that the staff was doing their best to give these children a chance at life.
I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside the orphanage at all, but was able to get some photos outside on their porch of us playing with them.
Sharnessa with two of the kids.
Little Moses and I – He latched on to me the second I walked in. He was 4 and had been taught some English, so every few seconds he would say “Take a picture of Moses” and then he would smile for me. SO sweet! :-)
These two boys serenaded us with “Kum-Ba Yah” while we played with the other kids. It was amazing how well these two could sing and drum on their toys.
After some time spent there we had to head back to backpackers. It was our last day at the hostel and we were moving on to stay with a friend of Laura and Tony’s name Ian.
When started loading our stuff in to Ian’s Range Rover, his friend/roommate Gordon (who quickly became our new friend) asked me if I knew how to swim, and then tossed me a life jacket. I didn’t get it until I saw Ian’s driveway…..
We ended up having to hoist all of our suitcases over the wall around Ian’s compound and then hike in through the mud.
As we were hiking through the mud, Gordon popped around the corner to video us Americans hiking through the mud – I’m still waiting for that lovely video of me screaming as my leg sinks into a hole to pop up on facebook. I’m sure it will any day……
We stayed at Ian’s house that night. He had a proper shower, well, actually a water closet – you know the ones where there is shower head next to the toilet instead of it being in a actual shower space? It didn’t matter though, it was hot and I loved it. :-)
Later on that evening we had the quite the adventure….or scare I should say.
Shanna had an asthma attack late in the evening, it progressed pretty quickly and eventually she had to be carried piggyback, nearly unconscious, out of Ians driveway to his car (yes through the mud, in the dark, at midnight) and then driven through the crazy Ugandan roads to the nearest hospital. They took her to a room right away, but then the doctor and nurse left. A minute later her windpipe completely closed and she passed out. We yelled for the Dr and he came back and immediately gave her a nebulizer and some oxygen. She came to and ended up being fine after a few hours, but it was to close for comfort. Had we been just a few minutes later getting to the hospital we don’t know what would have happened. God was definitely protecting her that night.
Day 10 – Wednesday January 20th 2010
We woke up bright and early this morning to make the drive out to Jinja, nearly 2 hours outside of Kampala.
The drive out there was beautiful….
Once we arrived in Jinja we went down to the waterfront on Lake Victoria to catch a boat out to Lingeira Island. When we got to the waterfront we discovered there was no dock at all, and then found out that there parasites that lived in the earth surrounding the water. Basically, unless we wanted parasites, we would have to be carried out to the boat by someone who had grown up in the water around the lake and was immune to the parasites.
Sooo…….we all were carried, that was quite the experience, let me tell you!
The boat ride was slow….we were told there were also pirates that occasionally targeted the lake, so we were kinda wishing the boat was a bit faster. But….we did make it there safe, no pirates attacked us, and the ride over was actually very beautiful.
When we arrived at the island we were greeted by a huge group of kids.
Before going to the island we were told that in the past the island had a 95% AIDS rate. We weren’t 100% sure of the current rate because testing had not been done recently. One of the gals on the island told us that she thought it might have gone down a little in the last few years because a lot of the people with AIDS had died. There was a huge abundance of kids and very, VERY few adults to be seen.
We settled in the first evening – I was exhausted at this point and took a nap, and then closer to sunset got up to take some pictures before retiring for the evening.
I loved how this shot captured all the silliness of the kids….this is the missions base on the island.
Andrew and Karina’s home – they are the leaders of the missions base, they were actually in the states at the time we were visiting, but we still got to eat breakfast in their kitchen.
Tony showed the Jesus film that evening in Lugandan.
The sunset that evening over the muslim village and Lake Victoria.
The older boy here is Mustafa, and the younger one is his little brother Omalu. They were my little shadows the entire time I was on the island. They both had SO much joy. It really was contagious. In fact they would often just look up at me and burst out laughing for no reason (or maybe it was because I looked funny to them…I’m not sure) We walked all over the place together. They didn’t really know any English, but at one point they got in a shoving match with a few of the other boys and I told them all to “Be Gentle” and for the rest of the evening I had little echos saying “Bedentel – Bedental” :-)
And our roommates for the evening…..
Day 11 – Thursday January 21st 2010
We woke up this morning and headed out to do VBS with the island kids.
When we got to the spot where we were supposed to teach there were no kids to be seen.
So…..Laura took a balloon out of her bag, blew it up, tied it, and sent it flying.
A second later a little boy came running to get it.
Soon a few more followed and before we know it we had 40 kids, then 60 kids, and soon 100 kids.
It’s amazing what you can do with a balloon.
Laura with “Mama O” (aka Olive) our translator.
Me teaching with Mama O, and yeah, that’s an anthill to our backs.
This little girl came towards the end - we got a chance to pray for her later, we’re not sure what had happened to her, but we could tell she was very, very ill.
Later on that afternoon, Sharn taught the kids how to play duck, duck, goose. So much fun! Then I took a little walk around to try and capture the beauty of the island. This place was truly gorgeous – no cars, no electricity other than the solar panels on the mission roof, no running water, just pure and natural beauty – God’s creation at it’s best. I have a feeling heaven will look like this place, just minus all the suffering and sickness of the people.
The only I have to say that heaven would DEFINITELY not have (besides sin, pain and suffering) is the pit latrines.
Just picture holes in the ground.
Nearly constant 100 degree weather.
Actually I really don’t have to say anything other than that….
When we first arrived at the island and asked where the toilets were, instead of being given directions we were just told to follow our noses.
Took us about 2 seconds to find them.
Sorry to gross you out…..
Day 12 – Friday, January 22nd 2010
Today we woke up, had another amazing breakfast, said good-bye to everyone on the island and sailed on back to Jinja. When we got to Jinja, Simon picked us up and we headed out for little more site-seeing.
First on the agenda was visiting the source of the Nile -
Lake Victoria on the left and the Nile on the right.
Then we headed over to the Bujagali falls.
You could pay this guy 10,000 shillings (about $5.00 ish) and he would float down the falls holding only his bucket and let you watch.
Sharn, Shanna and me.
Amazing acrobat that was doing a small show at the falls
After this we all hopped back in the van and headed to Kampala. We got back to Ians house that afternoon, I got to take a walk around the neighborhood with Gordon so see some of the neighborhood. It was something I hadn’t really had a chance to do while in Kampala and I loved it.
Day 13 – Saturday January 23rd 2010
Today we headed over to the IAM family for a youth conference. We were all supposed to be speaking at it, but due to scheduling chaos, only Laura, Pastor Robert and Gordon ended up being able to share. Public speaking is not my thing, so I was a little relieved not to speak – I felt much more comfortable getting to chat with the kids one on one, and thankfully I got to do quite a bit of that.
During this time I got to have a conversation with Enock regarding the adoption of Gold and I had to face some bad news. It turns out that her guardian had changed her mind about letting her go, and then had found the biological Mom and that Mom had decided that she didn’t want to let Gold go either. I had a really hard time with this news, especially considering how Gold’s mom had treated her as an infant. From what I understood….and I would love to hope that I misunderstood here, but I don’t think I did, Gold’s Mom had decided to re-claim her. I was totally heartbroken at this news and I am still trying to figure out what on earth God is trying to do in this particular situation. I’m praying for this sweet girl daily and hoping that her mom changes her mind and decides to let her go. I just can’t even think about what that poor girl might be going through now. It breaks my heart. :-(
Once we finished at the conference, Shanna, Sharn, Gordon and I head out for a walk. Today was our last full day in Kampala (at least for Sharn and I) and we wanted to get out and have a few last experiences. We walked for a mile or so to Old Kampala and then hopped on some boda-bodas (crazy motorcycle taxis) and headed over to the Makarere University.
The first set of boda-boda drivers
Makarere University was beautiful
They had these giant stork-like birds everywhere. We were a little freaked out being that they were about as big as we were and when they fought it sounded pretty vicious.
Sharn and I, and Gordon and I.
After we finished touring the University we hopped into a taxi and headed to Java’s for some dinner.
Sunset over Kampala
We headed back to Ian’s after this via a few more boda-bodas.
(I know the pic on the right is totally blurry….but considering I took it while hanging on to Gordon and the boda-boda man for dear life, while clutching my camera and trying to snap a picture….not to mention it was taken AFTER the pic I took above….yeah, I think it’s alright)
Day 14 – Sunday January 24th 2010
Our last day in Uganda. We got up this morning and headed over to church. Today was the kids presentation day – they sang and danced and quoted memory verses for nearly the entire service. It was so precious!!!
After church we began to gather our things and prepare for the long journey back home.
Words can’t even begin to describe the amazingness of this trip. My life has been changed forever. My heart is so open to the things of God right now. I can’t wait to head back to Africa. I’ve been home for nearly two weeks now and I can honestly say I feel homesick. I miss it over there so much, and my life has been touched by the people over there in such a huge way. We don’t realize how blessed we are here. We say it all the time, but until we get to see it in real life it never really hits us.
If you are interested in helping with any of these ministries mentioned in this post please contact me at jessicalemmonsphoto@gmail.com or at 360-431-9265 and I will get you whatever contact information you may need. Child sponsorship is one of the largest needs that I know of right now, but there are also huge needs in areas like youth ministry, construction, vocational training (in ALL areas), marketing, music, nutritional training, animal husbandry etc. Really…..anyone can help in just about any way you can think of. The needs are huge, so huge that it’s endless, but if each one of us does at least one thing we can make a huge difference.
Our point and shoot got some video and a few photos, but I’m having technical difficulties today with youtube and can’t get the video on here…..maybe another time! We spent the next 2.5 days traveling home and arrived just an hour before my first appointment (just enough time for me to shower and change out of the clothes I had been wearing for the last 3 days…GAG!). Our box arrived about an hour after we did (go USPS!) and we were home. It was quite the trip – good thing I really love my husband because that bike was not made to be sat on for such a long period of time!!!
