:)
Hello party people!
Now for the usual essay-length update, although it's only for 4/5 days this time, so hopefully it'll be a leeeetle bit shorter... As I write there's some awesome Michael Jackson music blaring out in the internet cafe which is making me rather happy! Weather's nice and hot today, lots of sunshine to build up the tans that the team are gradually getting while all of you enjoy classic English cloud and rain. Although to be fair, you all have toilets so I won't gloat too much...
Thursday 22nd - We were all ready to go to Gilgal at half10 but got a letter (classic late African timing) saying that they have mid-term exams so we didn't need to go! It was a real blessing because we were really tired and expected to have an insanely busy week as we were setting up the vulnerable women's group and kids' choir and continuing with the boys' group. It was a beautiful sunny day so I sat outside with music and a book and chilled :D We're slowly covering our prayer wall with arty glittery stuff to the point that we can't stick anything else on. It looks awesome! There was heavy rain and sun at the same time in the afternoon so we went out exploring under our umbrellas to find the rainbow, but apparently Uganda doesn't have any. There just wasn't one; it defied the laws of physics!
So, the main exciting news is the start of Vulnerable Women's Group! Bearing in mind I have limited internet time, we'll call it V.W.G from now on cos it's much quicker to type that. We thought there would only be about 5 ladies cos it rained just before 3 when the meeting was meant to start, and here everything stops when it rains. But we had 33 or 34 women from all round the village crammed into Mum and Dad's front room! It was amazing to see so many people, and apparently there are going to be lots more next week. By the end we had to put 4 mats on the floor and people were sitting on other people and one lady couldn't even get in the door! It's obviously a much needed group. We all introduced ourselves and explained what the group will be for. It's means to be for them to talk and share their experiences and encourage one another in the difficult situations they face. If they stand together as women, they'll be stronger to fight the problems they have. It was a great encouragement to see them all there. One difficulty was that all of them want/need financial help, and obviously we're not here to give handouts, and we had to explain that. It can get very frustrating to constantly be asked for money, but I'm praying for patience and that people will see what we can offer is worth far more than just a little bit of cash.
We have some prayer points:
- For a bigger place for us to meet with them when the group expands, which we're sure it will.
- For all the women to hear the announcements on the village loudspeaker about the meetings, and that they would KEEP TIME! (that's a real problem here)
- We want to start a candle-making business as a source of income for the ladies. They need to be self-sustaining to escape from the poverty they live with and we can't afford to buy the equipment for them to start the business. Please pray that when we write a proposal to Ugandan companies, they want to donate and support the idea. Then we can buy some small machines and wax for the ladies. We can get training for them from the Oasis project Bambejja in Kampala, cos the women there make candles. It's a really useful thing to do; everyone here uses and needs candles and nobody is currently doing it. Please pray that the whole thing goes ahead smoothly and that we have wisdom about how to start it and run it in a sustainable way.
Friday 23rd - Had to get up at 5:45. I HATE FRIDAYS. On matatu at half past 6 to get to Kampala. The stupid taxis are so unreliable that sometimes we leave at half6 and get there at 8:45, but this week we got there at 7:45!!!! SO annoying, but it meant we could briefly check emails before walking up to the project from the Oasis offices. We had a talk from an amusingly named guy - Zedde Mzungu. Bearing in mind he's Muganda, the last name really is hilarious! It was all about Ugandan churches, denominational differences and witchcraft, which cleared up a lot of the questions we've been having lately about that sort of thing. Twas helpful. Then we talked about the holiday in January with Maree - we can only afford to spend 300 pounds on it and the budget price we got from the trustworthy holiday company was $1465!!!! :O We were so disappointed. Means we're going to have to cut LOADS out of it, as in virtually everything! We're trying to decide how to split our time between a safari park and a lake with a beachy island... Hopefully if we minimise travel it'll cost less and we might just have to go for less than the allotted 2 weeks. We could spend some relaxing time in the village though. Anyway! One of the Oasis International Placements arrives this week (tomorrow in fact) and we've invited her and the 2 IPs who are already here to come and visit us sometime. It's nice seeing friendly mzungu faces! When we're in Kampala I deliberately smile at every mzungu I see to make them feel like they have fellow mzungu friends in the middle of the crazy city, but they all look at me like I'm a freak!! Seriously, we're all so moody, we should smile more when we walk down the street! I've decided to keep grinning at white people till i get a smile back now lol...
Got a package from Auntie Boo, Uncle Chris, Lol and Char when we went to the post office on the way home. It was SO good!!! It had a lovely card in it and made me feel all loved :) Plus they sent PROPER ENGLISH CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh the joy :D
Saturday 24th - Washed my hair early in the morning as a bit of quiet time and luxury... I shampooed it twice :) It's amazing how you begin to appreciate the tiny things! Started reading "The God Delusion" by that legend of an open-minded man, Richard Dawkins. Cracks me up how McIntyre's reply book thing, "The Dawkins Delusion", is like a tenth of the length. Classic! Olive and Pastor George, the guy who led the church we visited last Sunday, came to visit with their little adopted daughter called Joy. She was lovely but scared of our white skin! Bless her. While we were talking to them, the 5 of us realised that we're all slowly morphing into one another... We finish each other's sentences, the others now say mate all the time like me and I say hun ALL the time like Nicky. I hope we're not too different when we come home!! Well, not in that way, I hope God changes us in lots of ways! Argh stop rambling Flick... Back to Friday. He left us his internet for a little while, which was a blessing. Meant I got to read some emails :) Kids club started at half2 and went on till 4. The kids had fun running around playing games. We did the story of Samson and I acted out the part of a very convincing strong man, even if I say so myself! As usual it started raining halfway through, so we took the choir under the porch and did some singing with them. They loved it! Yesterday (Sunday) this guy called Albert came to visit; he's in an African dance/band troupe that travel all over Europe performing. they're going to London in 2 weeks to do a few concerts (how jealous am I?!) and he said he'd teach us how to do proper African dancing, and he'd teach Kids Club and choir too :D :D :D I'm SO excited! What a great opportunity for the kids!
After Kids Club we headed to Gilgal for boys and girls group. I went to the girls one this week but there were less girls cos it's visitation weekend (whatever that means!) and some from P7 had exams. Please pray for those students; P7 is the last year of primary school and at the start of November, somewhere between the 1st and 6th, they have their really big exams to see if they can progress to senior school. It's a very stressful time for them, so please pray that they're filled with peace. We didn't have a translator so the group was pretty difficult; we did the story of Mary Magdalene, such a wicked character in the Bible. By the end they seemed to be getting the ideas of devotion and redemption really well though; I LOVE the story of how she goes to anoint Jesus' body and thinks he's the gardener. I just love it :) I was very embarrassed to cry in front of the girls when Becky was talking about it! We spoke to one of the P7 girls afterwards; she needs a lot of support so we're going to meet with her again sometime soon. La Tormenta in the evening (THEY KILLED SANTOS!!!!) and beans with chapatti for dinner - one of our favourite dinners :D
Sunday 25th - Church in the morning was loooong as always but not too bad. I managed to read quite a bit of the Bible during it! I miss Vineyard SO much; it's a very different experience of church but I'm reminding myself that there's no 100% right way of doing church. I just love my family at Vineyard :) After a really quick lunch we went to visit 3 of the women from V.W.G. They were so excited about us going to see them! We left at half3 and didn't get back until 8 :S Pastor Ben and the kids were really worried about us, bless them. The first lady was a widow called Winifred. She had a little mud house with a grass roof like most of the people in the village and sat and talked with us. We told her about the candle-making and craft ideas for the ladies, cos she was looking for some help. She has grandchildren to look after and send to school. One of the kids standing outside had a massively distended stomach; we think it was worms cos she didn't look that malnourished. She was really lovely :) She hadn't managed to buy sodas to serve us so she gave us 3000 shillings to buy our own soda. Seriously, that would have been SO much money from her. We didn't want to take it but we had to out of politeness; that's the way it works here. Her generosity and kindness really touched my heart. It humbles me every time. We just don't expect them to be as giving as they always are when they have so little; it reminds me of the lady who puts her 2 bronze coins into the offering somewhere in the Bible.
The second house was with a lady called Margaret, who was the aunt of another lady called Grace, the mother of a third lady (can't remember her name :S) who had a little son called Junior. They had this little mud house too but they'd decorated it specially for our visit with white cloths and flowers. We put them in our hair and made them laugh when we left :) It was a lovely time. All the 3 women shared their stories and secrets with us; the lady who's name I can't remember is in her early 20s and lost her husband very recently. She tried to get a job by going with a man, but he impregnated her so she couldn't work and had to go back to her Mum. They are desperate. We prayed with them, it's all we can do, and again told them about our plans for the ladies. They seemed really supportive of the ideas so we're going to get them started ASAP. After that they served us tea and biscuits :D We had so much fun! It's like finding sisters, just in a different country. Sounds weird but it's true! The third house was something else... There are 2 ladies living there, called Justine and Lydia. Both have young children and look pretty young themselves. They live in a brick house, still only one room just slightly taller. They rent it from Lydia's husband. He has left Lydia with her children for another woman, so she has 2 children to care for and is very heavily pregnant (about 8 months). She can't work and they literally have nothing. They use fabric and curtains to close off the living part of the room when people come to visit; the only thing behind the curtain was a mattress on the floor. Lydia told us how her husband left and comes back demanding rent, sleeps with her by force and then leaves. She can't say no because he'll beat her or chase her out of the house and she has nowhere else to go. The women here are sometimes powerless to change their situations, even if they wanted to. They can't afford contraception. He has infected her with HIV and so the likelihood is her children have it too.
Justine looks really young, but it actually very old. She has six children; the oldest is a boy who's already married and is 18 years old. People here sometimes get married to alleviate their own poverty - needless to say, it doesn't work most of the time. She has 2 of her children living with another relative somewhere else and the 3 youngest ones are living with her. Her husband lives in the village but is never around; he has also left her for other women. He drives past on his boda and his children see him, run shouting "Daddy!" and he just drives right past and ignores them. What an awful example of fatherhood. It broke my heart listening to her story. At this point it was getting dark outside so the room was lit by the flame of a paraffin burner, and it was just so poignant. It's hard to explain; being somewhere like that, smelling the mud of the walls and hearing the insects outside and not being able to see beyond the few people sitting around you... It's a whole other way of seeing the world. Meeting women like that, who are so glad just to serve us tea and sit with us for awhile, who thank us for being there and spending time with them, when really it's an honour for us. A genuine privilege. I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am to be here. She is so strong, to stay with her children like that and still be joyful, because she really was a gracious person. She shone with it! Then we found out she has HIV and doesn't take medication because she's scared as she doesn't know how to take it. It sounds silly, but that's the extent of the lack of education here. We're now thinking about organising for someone (probably Olive because she has a clinic) to come and do a health seminar for the women on one of the Thursdays. If we could get a bell to ring over the loudspeaker system when they need to take their medication, then that would help. We're also planning a Youth seminar day sometime in December, and will do one for the women around the same time. There's so much we want to do, so many ways that we could serve these women. Justine had this little girl curled up on her lap, her daughter Esther, who is also HIV+ and it just broke me inside. It's so unfair. How can their Dad just leave them? Please pray for those women that we visited.
So it's now Monday and I have to get off the internet; 2mins left! I'll write more on here either on Friday or Monday. Thank you for keeping up with me :) Feel free to email or write whenever:
felicityosborn@gmail.com
and
Flick Osborn
Oasis Uganda
PO Box 3518
Kampala
Uganda
Lots and lots of love to everyone at home. Thank you for praying :)
Flick
xXx
Monday 26 October 2009
Monday 19 October 2009
13th - 21st October 2009
Hi everyone :)
We've had a manically busy week as usual! Lots of funny bits, some awful bits. Overall, I've probably had my most difficult week so far because of homesickness. It comes and goes, but this week I've just wanted a hug with people that I know and love at home :( On the plus side, life moves fast here and there's lots to do, so I'm learning how to get on with it and think outside my emotions because there's more important things to do here. Thank you to everyone who's praying - we've had a lot of trouble with sleep, so some prayer for that would be much appreciated. I'm waking up a lot during the night, all of us are having nightmares and Lucy woke up shouting about 4 nights ago. It makes us all tired, and we need to have lots of energy to cope with the heat and be the best we can for the children, so a change in that situation would be great. We've made some headway with the new things we want to set up - boys group started 2 days ago (more about that later!), choir starts this coming Saturday and the vulnerable women's group starts on Thursday. Please pray that we have wisdom about how to run these groups in a sustainable way so that they continue when we leave, and also that we'll have compassion and understanding for the people we meet. We also started counselling some of the girls from Gilgal school yesterday, which is a fantastic opportunity to show them how valued and loved they are. Again, more about that later!
Om Monday we had an amazing time swimming :D It was SO GOOD to be surrounded by water rather than bathing out of a bowl!!! And we had real showers so I got a bit carried away and washed my hair twice... It made me happy :) We drank soda and bought cake for Becky's birthday and it was generally awesome. A little tiny bit of Western life can be nice when you're in a rural area so much of the time! It is definitely making me appreciate what I take for granted at home. We sunbathed and relaxed... Miraculously, I wasn't wearing suncream (sorry Mum) but didn't burn! Talking of miracles, there was a giant raincloud coming right for the pool and we could feel spots of rain starting, so we prayed cos we didn't want to catch pnuemonia in the pool and die (!!!) and, I'm not even joking, the whole cloud REVERSED and moved in the opposite direction! 10mins later and the sky was totally blue again :) After a lovely day we went home and had soda and cake with the family. The kids loved it! Uno as usual, and then bed. Becky seemed to have a really good birthday. Admittedly, the cake wasn't the same as at home, but it really wasn't bad. The icing was yummy times! :)
Tuesday 13th - Went to a little nursery school that we walk past on the way to Gilgal in the morning. The kids always run out squealing and waving so you can imagine how over the moon they were that we were at their school! The lady who runs it is awesome; her house is next to this little wooden school building and she single-handedly teaches about 40 kids all day and obviously loves it. She's building another space to teach in on the other side of her house... They all wear little pink uniforms and she's put alphabet cards up in the classroom! It's very cute :) It's nice to be able to make the kids' day like that. We played some games and sang some songs with them then headed home for lunch. In the afternoon we went to the tailoring school and we were fully prepared for that to be awful cos of last week! But it was soooo much better - we took some fabric and spent time sewing with the girls all laughing cos we found it quite challenging... Lucy and Ellie managed to sew some hems but I couldn't even make the machine work for ages cos it's manual and the foot pedal is a total pain :) We're starting to get to know the girls better, which is a blessing. In the evening we did some creative stuff to decorate the house; I made loads of glittery stuff to stick all over the prayer wall so now the living room looks awesome! Then this guy called Maddy, who lives next door, came to visit cos he was going back to Tanzania on Wednesday to start his 4th year of medicine at uni. We went to visit him later and he gave us tea :D It was nice, we're being made to feel so welcome... We cleared our plans for a boys group, choir and vulnerable women's group with Pastor Ben and Mama Rachael, so that's REALLY exciting!!! We can't wait to get those started...
Wednesday 14th - Spoke to Nina and Nonno this evening (love you both lots!) It was really nice to hear familiar voices from home.. Went to Lilo today as usual and did the story of Samuel; the younger kids went great and they seemed to love it. We've decided to make them special folders to put all their craft stuff in so they can keep it all once we leave. They tend to ruin it all in the dust if we just give them the stuff they've made! We're learning more names; during the big game of dodgeball at the end I was sitting under a tree with a lot of the mute and physically disabled children and just talking to them. It was really nice :) Matebbe (the mute boy who's always the first to say hello to us) came over with his feet covered in some sort of resin from a palm leaf and I had to pick it off for him :S It sounds gross but it was kinda lovely, represented what we're here to do, which is serving the kids. The older group didn't go so well; we're having trouble connecting with them and getting them to respond to us in the classroom, so please pray for that. There are some older guys who would be great to have onside cos they seem to dictate the mood of the class! We just need to persevere and be patient - please pray that we have good, creative ideas about what to do with the older group. We're going to try some gardening at some point I think :) Becky's bible study went great in the evening and that's pretty much Wednesday done!
Thursday 15th - Had a difficult day :( Really missing people from home and struggling with the food here. It's very stodgy and after a while eating it can become a bit of a battle - please pray that I can get through that and just enjoy the food, cos we're blessed to have enough to eat compared to other people here. I need to hold onto my perspective! Becky and I went for a walk after going to Gilgal and bought some soda which made me feel better! Gilgal went really well this morning, apart from them starting 20mins late, which really put our time under pressure :S the kids enjoyed the story and games again, as always, and P5+6 went so much better! They're talking to us more; I think the question box idea is helping. Thank you to everyone who prays for us because it really does make a huge difference :) The name game with nursery only had one minor injury this time, which is better than the usual screaming that erupts when 80 kids all stampede towards one person! There's one boy, I don't know his name, who's a little star in that class! He's always beaming and has the most lovely little face. It's such a privilege to stand up in front of kids like that and be loved by them without much reason..
Uni deadline for Oxbridge; I'm feeling so nervous for the interviews already!!! Not looking forward to it at all... Hopefully I'm not flying home for no reason, otherwise I'll be gutted at the waste of money! Had a very interesting experience in the evening... Pastor Murenzi (headteacher at Gilgal) came round with another pastor from Kasawo. It was really kind of them to come all the way just to meet us. We sang "Amazing Grace", them in Luganda and us in English. It was really beautiful, but then he said he felt he should pray for Nicky... I was next to her on the sofa, he made her stand up so I put a reassuring hand on her back cos obviously I thought she might be a bit freaked out! All of a sudden he's yelling and spitting everywhere and trying to push her over!!! It was HILARIOUS, I can't even describe it to you! We were all trying not to laugh cos we didn't want to be rude and you have to teach pastors with respect here, but we were all cracking up. Ah it was one of the best moments of the trip :D
Friday 16th - Went to Teacher Jo's in Kampala instead of doing theological training. She gave us some help with teaching methods and stuff for the older kids at Lilo. It was so good being in a relatively normal house! She has this beautiful place in a green, grassy compound in Kampala... We had toasted sandwiches with CHEESE for lunch!!!! Yum yum yum... Still panicking about Cambridge interview (please pray!)
Saturday 17th - There was an insane amount of rain and thunder last night which kept us all awake. The metal roof is not good when it rains!! Part of the ceiling kinda split open too, so it'll be interesting to see what happens with that... We did washing and tidying in the morning as usual, then a girl from Lilo came to teach us sign language. Nicky and Lucy learnt a lot so they'll have to teach the rest of us who were doing the chores! It's hard keeping the house tidy with 5 people and so much stuff in only 3 small rooms. Very different to home, but we love it. It's amazing how your priorities and expectations change here; we feel so lucky to have that house cos we see how other people live in way more difficult and cramped situations. Kids club in the afternoon went great; we started our week of doing the story about the wise man and the foolish man and where they built their houses :) the kids met Scruffy the puppet again and seemed to like him (although one kid is always scared!) We're starting a choir next Saturday, which is gonna be good. Hopefully lots of kids will come; please pray that we all know how to run this in a way that works for them! Somehow I don't think getting them into lines ready to sing is gonna work all that well...!
I don't actually know much about girls group at Gilgal cos when we turned up there were loads of boys there for boys group..?! It wasn't meant to start till next week but Ellie and I took them to play football (looooads of yelling involved with that) and then did the story of Samson with them. We're doing a series on strong men of God in the Bible and they liked the idea of that. They wanted to do James the apostle next week, so we need to do some research for that... I'm properly excited about the boys group!!! It's gonna be so good once it gets going. We want to train some of them up to lead it once we've gone, and I think starting a mentoring programme for them between each other will work well. They were really receptive and talked a lot; it surprised me! There's so many issues with men abandoning their wives, marrying loads of women and not working to support their kids here, so the men need to be cared for an educated as well as the girls. There's often a focus on the girls and not enough done for the boys.
Sunday 18th - Went to visit a church in Kasawo with Pastor George in the morning. FOUR HOURS LONG!!! But the church was fantastic; they had some good teaching and were really lively! Everyone came up to us at the end to greet us and shake hands :) We did some singing and dancing in both services (they like it when the mzungus look silly) and Lucy did the preach. She was so good; she's really growing and coming into her own while we're here. It's great watching people's gifts grow and new gifts forming in them. Anyway, we've been invited there to a traditional African wedding in the next few weeks, which we're VERY excited about!!! We have to buy proper African outfits, called gomezes, to wear...
In the afternoon we had our one-to-one things with the girls from Gilgal where they could share their testimonies and stories with us. Some shocking stuff came out of that. We spoke to 8 of them and most of them have been shuttled around various family members all their lives cos their parents didn't want them. Lots of them had to work for food and not go to school, or had stuff done to them by witch doctors. That's a really big problem in the community - I know it sounds silly and magicky, but people really think there's power in it, which means that they're fearful and the witchcraft stuff can actually work. It's something we're constantly battling with, and it gets very tiring for us cos we're not used to it. Anyway, one of the girls has previously found the body of a child sacrificed by a witch doctor. Two of them are orphans and have nowhere to live outside of the school. One girl was gang raped. I don't want to share any names cos obviously these stories are personal to them, but please pray for all of them. They are all so beautiful and strong; it takes my breath away. They aren't small and sad and weak like the stories make them sound. They're overcomers who keep on fighting what's happened in their past and work really hard to make a new way in life for themselves. They're truly an inspiration. Please pray that girls group and "counselling" with us will be a blessing to them and that they'll learn how precious and loved they are.
We also learnt of a situation with a local pastor who we know quite well - he takes all the funding given to him by a Swiss organisation. Instead of using it to run a school, he has it for himself and we don't know what to do. He also has many wives, including young girls. One of them comes to girls group, and has nowhere to go now. She's been backed into a corner cos he pays for her education, food and clothes and also does the same for her younger brother and sister. If she doesn't do what he wants and sleep with him then she'll literally have nothing and now she also feels responsible for her siblings cos both their parents are dead. Please please please pray for her. She's a wonderful young woman. Also pray that we (and Pastor and Mama) will have wisdom about what to do in this situation, and pray that the man will change.
Monday 19th - DAY OFF!!! We made pizzas with the family in the evening and it was awesome! :) The kids loved it; most of the family hadn't tasted cheese before! The Italian side of me was very proud; they actually cooked properly in the Ugandan oven :D Esther fell asleep on Becky and couldn't eat hers, it was very cute! My SAQ form for Cambridge is due in on Thursday so that's quite a stress... It's almost done though and Mum and Dad are being awesome and helping me with it. I'm actually writing this really early on Wednesday morning cos my blog got deleted/lost on Monday with the slow internet connection right before I published it... SOOOO annoying!! Today we're in Mukono having our Oasis day off, going swimming again. Such luxury! We're gonna buy soda and have nice lunch.. Ah I'm excited! I should probably write about yesterday while I'm here actually..
Tuesday 20th - Ellie's birthday :) We were meant to go to a school in the morning at 10 but the pastor didn't turn up till 12, so that was a bit of an issue!! We obviously ended up not going cos we had to be back for the tailoring school at 2. African time is a real issue; everyone's always late! When we get home we'll probably be so used to it that we're the same, turning up everywhere an hour after we've arranged to be there :S The tailoring school went great again, although we were all lazy and tired from sitting around all morning! It gave me a much needed chance to get my journal up to date though... We started making dresses out of paper at the school and I actually sewed and made one!!! It was awesome :) I have to finish in next week but I can bring it home and show everyone - Nina, you would be proud! I met a lovely girl called Florence who's 15 and has been at the school for a year already; she was very patient with me and helped me with my dress. Bless her! In the evening we got out the water slide Maree gave us for the family and the kids had great fun sliding down it and getting muddy and washing-up-liquid-y! I felt really quite ill in the evening, so please pray that I get better and feel as good as possible. Being not well just drains us of energy here.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling now :) Congrats for reading this far, you're all stars! I'll speak to you soon, and I'm gonna try and upload some photos now....
Loads of love and hugs
Flick
xXx
Junior, our new little brother! Quite possibly the most awesome kid I've ever met...
We've had a manically busy week as usual! Lots of funny bits, some awful bits. Overall, I've probably had my most difficult week so far because of homesickness. It comes and goes, but this week I've just wanted a hug with people that I know and love at home :( On the plus side, life moves fast here and there's lots to do, so I'm learning how to get on with it and think outside my emotions because there's more important things to do here. Thank you to everyone who's praying - we've had a lot of trouble with sleep, so some prayer for that would be much appreciated. I'm waking up a lot during the night, all of us are having nightmares and Lucy woke up shouting about 4 nights ago. It makes us all tired, and we need to have lots of energy to cope with the heat and be the best we can for the children, so a change in that situation would be great. We've made some headway with the new things we want to set up - boys group started 2 days ago (more about that later!), choir starts this coming Saturday and the vulnerable women's group starts on Thursday. Please pray that we have wisdom about how to run these groups in a sustainable way so that they continue when we leave, and also that we'll have compassion and understanding for the people we meet. We also started counselling some of the girls from Gilgal school yesterday, which is a fantastic opportunity to show them how valued and loved they are. Again, more about that later!
Om Monday we had an amazing time swimming :D It was SO GOOD to be surrounded by water rather than bathing out of a bowl!!! And we had real showers so I got a bit carried away and washed my hair twice... It made me happy :) We drank soda and bought cake for Becky's birthday and it was generally awesome. A little tiny bit of Western life can be nice when you're in a rural area so much of the time! It is definitely making me appreciate what I take for granted at home. We sunbathed and relaxed... Miraculously, I wasn't wearing suncream (sorry Mum) but didn't burn! Talking of miracles, there was a giant raincloud coming right for the pool and we could feel spots of rain starting, so we prayed cos we didn't want to catch pnuemonia in the pool and die (!!!) and, I'm not even joking, the whole cloud REVERSED and moved in the opposite direction! 10mins later and the sky was totally blue again :) After a lovely day we went home and had soda and cake with the family. The kids loved it! Uno as usual, and then bed. Becky seemed to have a really good birthday. Admittedly, the cake wasn't the same as at home, but it really wasn't bad. The icing was yummy times! :)
Tuesday 13th - Went to a little nursery school that we walk past on the way to Gilgal in the morning. The kids always run out squealing and waving so you can imagine how over the moon they were that we were at their school! The lady who runs it is awesome; her house is next to this little wooden school building and she single-handedly teaches about 40 kids all day and obviously loves it. She's building another space to teach in on the other side of her house... They all wear little pink uniforms and she's put alphabet cards up in the classroom! It's very cute :) It's nice to be able to make the kids' day like that. We played some games and sang some songs with them then headed home for lunch. In the afternoon we went to the tailoring school and we were fully prepared for that to be awful cos of last week! But it was soooo much better - we took some fabric and spent time sewing with the girls all laughing cos we found it quite challenging... Lucy and Ellie managed to sew some hems but I couldn't even make the machine work for ages cos it's manual and the foot pedal is a total pain :) We're starting to get to know the girls better, which is a blessing. In the evening we did some creative stuff to decorate the house; I made loads of glittery stuff to stick all over the prayer wall so now the living room looks awesome! Then this guy called Maddy, who lives next door, came to visit cos he was going back to Tanzania on Wednesday to start his 4th year of medicine at uni. We went to visit him later and he gave us tea :D It was nice, we're being made to feel so welcome... We cleared our plans for a boys group, choir and vulnerable women's group with Pastor Ben and Mama Rachael, so that's REALLY exciting!!! We can't wait to get those started...
Wednesday 14th - Spoke to Nina and Nonno this evening (love you both lots!) It was really nice to hear familiar voices from home.. Went to Lilo today as usual and did the story of Samuel; the younger kids went great and they seemed to love it. We've decided to make them special folders to put all their craft stuff in so they can keep it all once we leave. They tend to ruin it all in the dust if we just give them the stuff they've made! We're learning more names; during the big game of dodgeball at the end I was sitting under a tree with a lot of the mute and physically disabled children and just talking to them. It was really nice :) Matebbe (the mute boy who's always the first to say hello to us) came over with his feet covered in some sort of resin from a palm leaf and I had to pick it off for him :S It sounds gross but it was kinda lovely, represented what we're here to do, which is serving the kids. The older group didn't go so well; we're having trouble connecting with them and getting them to respond to us in the classroom, so please pray for that. There are some older guys who would be great to have onside cos they seem to dictate the mood of the class! We just need to persevere and be patient - please pray that we have good, creative ideas about what to do with the older group. We're going to try some gardening at some point I think :) Becky's bible study went great in the evening and that's pretty much Wednesday done!
Thursday 15th - Had a difficult day :( Really missing people from home and struggling with the food here. It's very stodgy and after a while eating it can become a bit of a battle - please pray that I can get through that and just enjoy the food, cos we're blessed to have enough to eat compared to other people here. I need to hold onto my perspective! Becky and I went for a walk after going to Gilgal and bought some soda which made me feel better! Gilgal went really well this morning, apart from them starting 20mins late, which really put our time under pressure :S the kids enjoyed the story and games again, as always, and P5+6 went so much better! They're talking to us more; I think the question box idea is helping. Thank you to everyone who prays for us because it really does make a huge difference :) The name game with nursery only had one minor injury this time, which is better than the usual screaming that erupts when 80 kids all stampede towards one person! There's one boy, I don't know his name, who's a little star in that class! He's always beaming and has the most lovely little face. It's such a privilege to stand up in front of kids like that and be loved by them without much reason..
Uni deadline for Oxbridge; I'm feeling so nervous for the interviews already!!! Not looking forward to it at all... Hopefully I'm not flying home for no reason, otherwise I'll be gutted at the waste of money! Had a very interesting experience in the evening... Pastor Murenzi (headteacher at Gilgal) came round with another pastor from Kasawo. It was really kind of them to come all the way just to meet us. We sang "Amazing Grace", them in Luganda and us in English. It was really beautiful, but then he said he felt he should pray for Nicky... I was next to her on the sofa, he made her stand up so I put a reassuring hand on her back cos obviously I thought she might be a bit freaked out! All of a sudden he's yelling and spitting everywhere and trying to push her over!!! It was HILARIOUS, I can't even describe it to you! We were all trying not to laugh cos we didn't want to be rude and you have to teach pastors with respect here, but we were all cracking up. Ah it was one of the best moments of the trip :D
Friday 16th - Went to Teacher Jo's in Kampala instead of doing theological training. She gave us some help with teaching methods and stuff for the older kids at Lilo. It was so good being in a relatively normal house! She has this beautiful place in a green, grassy compound in Kampala... We had toasted sandwiches with CHEESE for lunch!!!! Yum yum yum... Still panicking about Cambridge interview (please pray!)
Saturday 17th - There was an insane amount of rain and thunder last night which kept us all awake. The metal roof is not good when it rains!! Part of the ceiling kinda split open too, so it'll be interesting to see what happens with that... We did washing and tidying in the morning as usual, then a girl from Lilo came to teach us sign language. Nicky and Lucy learnt a lot so they'll have to teach the rest of us who were doing the chores! It's hard keeping the house tidy with 5 people and so much stuff in only 3 small rooms. Very different to home, but we love it. It's amazing how your priorities and expectations change here; we feel so lucky to have that house cos we see how other people live in way more difficult and cramped situations. Kids club in the afternoon went great; we started our week of doing the story about the wise man and the foolish man and where they built their houses :) the kids met Scruffy the puppet again and seemed to like him (although one kid is always scared!) We're starting a choir next Saturday, which is gonna be good. Hopefully lots of kids will come; please pray that we all know how to run this in a way that works for them! Somehow I don't think getting them into lines ready to sing is gonna work all that well...!
I don't actually know much about girls group at Gilgal cos when we turned up there were loads of boys there for boys group..?! It wasn't meant to start till next week but Ellie and I took them to play football (looooads of yelling involved with that) and then did the story of Samson with them. We're doing a series on strong men of God in the Bible and they liked the idea of that. They wanted to do James the apostle next week, so we need to do some research for that... I'm properly excited about the boys group!!! It's gonna be so good once it gets going. We want to train some of them up to lead it once we've gone, and I think starting a mentoring programme for them between each other will work well. They were really receptive and talked a lot; it surprised me! There's so many issues with men abandoning their wives, marrying loads of women and not working to support their kids here, so the men need to be cared for an educated as well as the girls. There's often a focus on the girls and not enough done for the boys.
Sunday 18th - Went to visit a church in Kasawo with Pastor George in the morning. FOUR HOURS LONG!!! But the church was fantastic; they had some good teaching and were really lively! Everyone came up to us at the end to greet us and shake hands :) We did some singing and dancing in both services (they like it when the mzungus look silly) and Lucy did the preach. She was so good; she's really growing and coming into her own while we're here. It's great watching people's gifts grow and new gifts forming in them. Anyway, we've been invited there to a traditional African wedding in the next few weeks, which we're VERY excited about!!! We have to buy proper African outfits, called gomezes, to wear...
In the afternoon we had our one-to-one things with the girls from Gilgal where they could share their testimonies and stories with us. Some shocking stuff came out of that. We spoke to 8 of them and most of them have been shuttled around various family members all their lives cos their parents didn't want them. Lots of them had to work for food and not go to school, or had stuff done to them by witch doctors. That's a really big problem in the community - I know it sounds silly and magicky, but people really think there's power in it, which means that they're fearful and the witchcraft stuff can actually work. It's something we're constantly battling with, and it gets very tiring for us cos we're not used to it. Anyway, one of the girls has previously found the body of a child sacrificed by a witch doctor. Two of them are orphans and have nowhere to live outside of the school. One girl was gang raped. I don't want to share any names cos obviously these stories are personal to them, but please pray for all of them. They are all so beautiful and strong; it takes my breath away. They aren't small and sad and weak like the stories make them sound. They're overcomers who keep on fighting what's happened in their past and work really hard to make a new way in life for themselves. They're truly an inspiration. Please pray that girls group and "counselling" with us will be a blessing to them and that they'll learn how precious and loved they are.
We also learnt of a situation with a local pastor who we know quite well - he takes all the funding given to him by a Swiss organisation. Instead of using it to run a school, he has it for himself and we don't know what to do. He also has many wives, including young girls. One of them comes to girls group, and has nowhere to go now. She's been backed into a corner cos he pays for her education, food and clothes and also does the same for her younger brother and sister. If she doesn't do what he wants and sleep with him then she'll literally have nothing and now she also feels responsible for her siblings cos both their parents are dead. Please please please pray for her. She's a wonderful young woman. Also pray that we (and Pastor and Mama) will have wisdom about what to do in this situation, and pray that the man will change.
Monday 19th - DAY OFF!!! We made pizzas with the family in the evening and it was awesome! :) The kids loved it; most of the family hadn't tasted cheese before! The Italian side of me was very proud; they actually cooked properly in the Ugandan oven :D Esther fell asleep on Becky and couldn't eat hers, it was very cute! My SAQ form for Cambridge is due in on Thursday so that's quite a stress... It's almost done though and Mum and Dad are being awesome and helping me with it. I'm actually writing this really early on Wednesday morning cos my blog got deleted/lost on Monday with the slow internet connection right before I published it... SOOOO annoying!! Today we're in Mukono having our Oasis day off, going swimming again. Such luxury! We're gonna buy soda and have nice lunch.. Ah I'm excited! I should probably write about yesterday while I'm here actually..
Tuesday 20th - Ellie's birthday :) We were meant to go to a school in the morning at 10 but the pastor didn't turn up till 12, so that was a bit of an issue!! We obviously ended up not going cos we had to be back for the tailoring school at 2. African time is a real issue; everyone's always late! When we get home we'll probably be so used to it that we're the same, turning up everywhere an hour after we've arranged to be there :S The tailoring school went great again, although we were all lazy and tired from sitting around all morning! It gave me a much needed chance to get my journal up to date though... We started making dresses out of paper at the school and I actually sewed and made one!!! It was awesome :) I have to finish in next week but I can bring it home and show everyone - Nina, you would be proud! I met a lovely girl called Florence who's 15 and has been at the school for a year already; she was very patient with me and helped me with my dress. Bless her! In the evening we got out the water slide Maree gave us for the family and the kids had great fun sliding down it and getting muddy and washing-up-liquid-y! I felt really quite ill in the evening, so please pray that I get better and feel as good as possible. Being not well just drains us of energy here.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling now :) Congrats for reading this far, you're all stars! I'll speak to you soon, and I'm gonna try and upload some photos now....
Loads of love and hugs
Flick
xXx
Junior, our new little brother! Quite possibly the most awesome kid I've ever met...
Monday 12 October 2009
10th - 12th October 2009
Hey again :)
It's our day off again but this one's special - it's Becky's 19th birthday! To celebrate, we're having soda (fizzy drinks) with lunch and then going swimming at a really posh hotel in Mukono :D And guess what that means....... A SHOWER!!!!!! I'm going to wash my hair five times and BASK in the amazing invention that is running hot water. I barely even remember what a tap looks like!! Ahhh I'm so excited; in case you haven't realised, I CAN'T WAIT to get there!!!!!!!
OK so this weekend... Saturday we had a tidy up and sorted out undies and did the usual slow morning stuff. We had a pretty late night on Friday cos we watched this awesomely terrible soap called La Tormenta with the family and kids. It's our little evening tradition now :) From Thursdays - Sundays it's on at 8pm so we watch it before/during dinner. It's Spanish so they've dubbed it terribly and the people in it reeeally can't act. It's hilarious! Right now, Trinidad is wandering blind in the undergrowth, Enrique (I kid you not) is trying to kill Maria-Teresa's Dad (to steal his land) and Santos Torrialba has been arrested for attempted murder even though he's innocent. It's classic, we should have it in England! Maybe you guys could Youtube it or something, just to see how hilarious it is... Anyway, after that we played Uno and cards with the family so we had a late night. Saturday morning we had an awesome prayer time, just sitting with God and hearing from him. We keep getting Bible passages to read about faith which is pretty cool -
Romans 5 vs1-5: "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." HOW AWESOME?! He is so with us, which really is an encouragement.
Psalm 37 vs 3-7: "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes."
Then kids club on Saturday. We played a lot of games like 'In the boat on the land' (Ugandan classic) and the balloon game, which is rapidly becoming a favourite! We had less kids this week but still about 30 of them. Mama Rachael is such a good translator, we thank God for her :) The whole family are a ridiculous blessing! They look after us and show us love ALL the time! Junior is the most awesome boy ever. He runs around like a maniac, snores reeeally loudly and has this hilarious concentrating face where his tongue just hangs out of his mouth! So funny :) Then Saturday afternoon we had girls group which went amazingly well! We had loads of girls, probably about 25 and had to use a classroom in the local school cos there were too many to fit into our tiny house! We did testimonies and sang some songs (they always laugh at us... can't think why) and a lot of them asked to see us in private so they could share their testimonies and have some prayer and advice. What a privilege! We've decided to do a series on strong women of God in the Bible so that they can really learn what precious jewels they are, and how strong they are. I'm really excited about that! Saturday evening was more games and La Tormenta with the famild :D Mama Rachael made beans and chapattis for dinner, which is one of our fave meals!
Then church on Sunday. It was insanely long again, it's about 4 hours including Sunday school. I do miss church at home! We don't get fed much at church here, so we have to make sure we do our own personal Bible reading and group Bible studies and worship/prayer times. It's good discipline but I'm really aware that we could always do more. They have a time in church for the "choirs" to come up and sing, and we are now one of the choirs! There's only a few people in church so pretty much everyone is in a choir... We're officially called "Frankie and the Eagles" because I get called Frankie so much here. People just can't say Flick or Felicity very easily, so I'm widely known as Frankie. I'd say I probably respond to Frankie more than my actual name now! We got the church up on their feet and dancing which was cool... We might be going to a bigger church in Kampala next week to do some songs, introduce ourselves and preach. Please pray that God puts a passage/message on one of our hearts so that we can be prepared and go there in the Spirit.
We were meant to do community evangelism in the afternoon but we had a long afternoon at home instead cos Benedict wanted us to rest, so we swept and mopped the whole house (even behind the furniture which was FILTHY cos neither of the other teams cleaned there at all!) and rearranged all the furniture in the living room. It looks a lot more spacious, clean and just ours now :) We did our washing too, we're turning into proper little housewives!
So there you go, that's the basic update so far. Oooo exciting stuff on Friday on the way home from Mukono - we had TWENTY-FIVE people in one matatu (minibus/taxi thing) which is only meant to hold 14 people!! And only 3 of the 25 were children... Crazy times! Plus the driver was going at about 70mph on a 30mph road; I really did think we might have died. Please pray for road safety while we're here, and the general health of all 5 of us!
Right, I'm going to put some photos up on Facebook cos it's just not working on this silly thing... Enjoy! Thank you for reading again :) Lots and lots of love
Flick
xXx
Us in our new African clothes with Benedict and Mama Rachael :)
It's our day off again but this one's special - it's Becky's 19th birthday! To celebrate, we're having soda (fizzy drinks) with lunch and then going swimming at a really posh hotel in Mukono :D And guess what that means....... A SHOWER!!!!!! I'm going to wash my hair five times and BASK in the amazing invention that is running hot water. I barely even remember what a tap looks like!! Ahhh I'm so excited; in case you haven't realised, I CAN'T WAIT to get there!!!!!!!
OK so this weekend... Saturday we had a tidy up and sorted out undies and did the usual slow morning stuff. We had a pretty late night on Friday cos we watched this awesomely terrible soap called La Tormenta with the family and kids. It's our little evening tradition now :) From Thursdays - Sundays it's on at 8pm so we watch it before/during dinner. It's Spanish so they've dubbed it terribly and the people in it reeeally can't act. It's hilarious! Right now, Trinidad is wandering blind in the undergrowth, Enrique (I kid you not) is trying to kill Maria-Teresa's Dad (to steal his land) and Santos Torrialba has been arrested for attempted murder even though he's innocent. It's classic, we should have it in England! Maybe you guys could Youtube it or something, just to see how hilarious it is... Anyway, after that we played Uno and cards with the family so we had a late night. Saturday morning we had an awesome prayer time, just sitting with God and hearing from him. We keep getting Bible passages to read about faith which is pretty cool -
Romans 5 vs1-5: "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." HOW AWESOME?! He is so with us, which really is an encouragement.
Psalm 37 vs 3-7: "Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes."
Then kids club on Saturday. We played a lot of games like 'In the boat on the land' (Ugandan classic) and the balloon game, which is rapidly becoming a favourite! We had less kids this week but still about 30 of them. Mama Rachael is such a good translator, we thank God for her :) The whole family are a ridiculous blessing! They look after us and show us love ALL the time! Junior is the most awesome boy ever. He runs around like a maniac, snores reeeally loudly and has this hilarious concentrating face where his tongue just hangs out of his mouth! So funny :) Then Saturday afternoon we had girls group which went amazingly well! We had loads of girls, probably about 25 and had to use a classroom in the local school cos there were too many to fit into our tiny house! We did testimonies and sang some songs (they always laugh at us... can't think why) and a lot of them asked to see us in private so they could share their testimonies and have some prayer and advice. What a privilege! We've decided to do a series on strong women of God in the Bible so that they can really learn what precious jewels they are, and how strong they are. I'm really excited about that! Saturday evening was more games and La Tormenta with the famild :D Mama Rachael made beans and chapattis for dinner, which is one of our fave meals!
Then church on Sunday. It was insanely long again, it's about 4 hours including Sunday school. I do miss church at home! We don't get fed much at church here, so we have to make sure we do our own personal Bible reading and group Bible studies and worship/prayer times. It's good discipline but I'm really aware that we could always do more. They have a time in church for the "choirs" to come up and sing, and we are now one of the choirs! There's only a few people in church so pretty much everyone is in a choir... We're officially called "Frankie and the Eagles" because I get called Frankie so much here. People just can't say Flick or Felicity very easily, so I'm widely known as Frankie. I'd say I probably respond to Frankie more than my actual name now! We got the church up on their feet and dancing which was cool... We might be going to a bigger church in Kampala next week to do some songs, introduce ourselves and preach. Please pray that God puts a passage/message on one of our hearts so that we can be prepared and go there in the Spirit.
We were meant to do community evangelism in the afternoon but we had a long afternoon at home instead cos Benedict wanted us to rest, so we swept and mopped the whole house (even behind the furniture which was FILTHY cos neither of the other teams cleaned there at all!) and rearranged all the furniture in the living room. It looks a lot more spacious, clean and just ours now :) We did our washing too, we're turning into proper little housewives!
So there you go, that's the basic update so far. Oooo exciting stuff on Friday on the way home from Mukono - we had TWENTY-FIVE people in one matatu (minibus/taxi thing) which is only meant to hold 14 people!! And only 3 of the 25 were children... Crazy times! Plus the driver was going at about 70mph on a 30mph road; I really did think we might have died. Please pray for road safety while we're here, and the general health of all 5 of us!
Right, I'm going to put some photos up on Facebook cos it's just not working on this silly thing... Enjoy! Thank you for reading again :) Lots and lots of love
Flick
xXx
Us in our new African clothes with Benedict and Mama Rachael :)
Friday 9 October 2009
6th - 9th October 2009
Hey everyone :)
So this week I've been completely terrible at keeping a journal so this is gonna be a lot shorter and less organised! Hope everyone at home is doing OK - remember you can always send me emails or letters to let me know how you are. It's good to hear from home! :)
Tuesday.... Weaving in the morning again, shockingly I actually managed to do it!!! I now have a red and white pattern that I'm going to keep practising on till I properly get how to do it. I want to attempt to make a purse before we leave... Tuesday afternoon was the tailoring school again. That's the most difficult/interesting part of our programme I think. The translator didn't turn up (!) so that made communication a slight issue! Some of the girls couldn't speak English, others didn't really want to talk, although we met one lovely girl called Mae. Hopefully it'll get better; I think it's something we need to persevere with and just focus on building up some friendship with the girls. It's a relatively new project that they want to expand - they want to make it a proper school for technical disciplines, with places for the women to sleep if they need to. They're trying to get a bigger building planned and sorted out, and want to extend the area that the project serves cos it's the only one of its kind in the region. I was a bit ill on Tuesday, feeling rough. I think a lot of it is down to stress, trying to do a uni application from here, as well as the heat and the amount of energy we're using, running around after the kids and all of that. In the evenings doing skipping and dancing with them really does wipe us out at the end of the day! Homesickness is becoming a bit of a thing too. It's weird but I'm thinking about Christmas a bit, and also Mum's birthday on Monday (love you Mummy!) and it's only 6 days till we've been here for a whole month. It seems like so long thinking of it like that! On a positive note, I've had an African skirt custom made to fit me :D It's blue and it's AWESOME!!
Wednesday - Taught at Lilo this morning, the school for the disabled children. I did the story and the craft, pretty much led it, and it went well.. There were some more kids there who we haven't met yet, lots more mute ones. That seems to be a real problem here, but those children are always the really loving, friendly ones. There's one boy who makes my day every time I see him :) We're slowly learning their names but I'm going to make name labels for all of them to make it quicker and easier; doing stuff like that is a great way to serve them. I love the small things you can do :) Some of them can barely breathe cos they get so excited when we wave at them!! That's all it takes, just one small wave. Amazing really. We've decided on an overall theme for our teaching while we're here, which is who God is and what that means for us, so we have a different word for every week. It's really exciting having a vision for our time here like that! We're doing a series on women in the Bible for the girls group on Saturdays and also want to do that in the tailoring school once we've got some friendship sorted. We're thinking about the best way we can start a choir and a boys group too cos it's difficult to engage with the boys and we need to offer something more. There's a lot happening here, you can really feel things are moving forward especially for the kids and it's a privilege to be a part of it, even though there is still a lot that needs doing! Lots of need and not enough time to meet it all ourselves. Ellie led Bible study this evening and it was awesome :) We were kept awake for a good few hours by a thunderstorm too; lightning was literally lighting up the whole entire room. We have a corrugated iron roof, so the rain was making a huuugeee amount of noise!
Thursday - AWESOME DAY!!!!! Gilgal this morning; I was feeling rough as, but it went really well. The kids love us! :) We don't get long with each group but we pack in a story and some games and a song and they seem to have fun so it's all good. Running around can be a bit of a joke at times as even the 4 year olds are faster than me... I'm being serious!! The P5/P6 group, who were kinda difficult last time, were a lot better cos we gave them a chance to write down questions and stuff they want to do with us and we brought a special box for them to put them in. Made them feel a bit more involved I think, so that gives us something good to work with :) The P7 group were a joy, as before.. It's so good to have time with a smaller group cos it's more chilled out and less all over the place. It chucked it down with rain just in time for our walk home. We got soaking wet! So when we got back, we sat on the sofas and thought "hmmmm how fun would it be to run outside in the rain....." It was a pretty major storm by this point, TIPPING it down with rain!! So in the end we just put shorts on, ran outside and had the most amazing time ever!! It was SO MUCH FUN!!! :D The kids ran out halfway through when were were holding bowls under the leaking rooves and just throwing it all over each other. Ah it was awesome :) Then we sat in our towels with toast and hot chocolate!! It was almost like being back at home! Bible study at Esther's house was a bit of a trek away but it was good times once we got there. She cooked an insane amount of matoke and sweet potato for us to eat, and we then had to have dinner AS WELL when we got home :S Needless to say, we're all going to come back the size of elephants!!!
And now it's Friday and I'm sitting in the Mukono internet cafe feeling stupidly happy that I get to read emails from you lovely people :D We have a random day off because it's Independence Day here (public holiday) so we can relax at home instead of rushing into Kampala for theological training. Cos I have some spare time, I thought I'd show you some photos of our time here :) Take a look and laugh your socks off!
This is me attempting to do some washing... We now have help from Esther, a lovely lady who lives in the village, cos it took us so long! You'd be surprised at how tiring it actually is. I'll never look at washing machines in the same way again - whoever invented them was an actual genius!! Becky and I do everyone's underwear washing twice a week, which can actually be kinda relaxing sitting out in the sun :) In case you didn't notice, this is a pre-accident photo!
This is my AWESOME leg injury from the accident :D I was so impressed, we took photos of it most days. It's healed over very quickly (thank you God) and now doesn't hurt at all. I think my nose has been permanently damaged in some way cos it clicks sort of funnily and is definitely different to how it was before, but it's all good! I'm SO thankful it wasn't any worse; just thinking about it makes me feel sooooo blessed :D :D :D
This is the toilet... I'm sure you'll agree that it's utterly joyous....!! Nothing quite compares with struggling to hold a torch and loo roll in the pitch black at night while squatting and hearing strange insects buzzing weirdly close to your ear. Plus the constant awareness that there are doubtlessly cockroaches somewhere underneath you - GOOD TIMES! You can just about see the hole in the ground in the one on the left :) We're actually used to the loos now though, it's not a big deal......! Ahahaha..
This is
me trying on Mama Rachael's African clothes :) Pretty self-explanatory really!
I wanted to upload some more but haven't got time cos the computer's being horribly slow... I'll put some more up on Monday and hopefully some videos too. Lots and lots of love to everyone, please keep praying for us!
Flick
xXx
So this week I've been completely terrible at keeping a journal so this is gonna be a lot shorter and less organised! Hope everyone at home is doing OK - remember you can always send me emails or letters to let me know how you are. It's good to hear from home! :)
Tuesday.... Weaving in the morning again, shockingly I actually managed to do it!!! I now have a red and white pattern that I'm going to keep practising on till I properly get how to do it. I want to attempt to make a purse before we leave... Tuesday afternoon was the tailoring school again. That's the most difficult/interesting part of our programme I think. The translator didn't turn up (!) so that made communication a slight issue! Some of the girls couldn't speak English, others didn't really want to talk, although we met one lovely girl called Mae. Hopefully it'll get better; I think it's something we need to persevere with and just focus on building up some friendship with the girls. It's a relatively new project that they want to expand - they want to make it a proper school for technical disciplines, with places for the women to sleep if they need to. They're trying to get a bigger building planned and sorted out, and want to extend the area that the project serves cos it's the only one of its kind in the region. I was a bit ill on Tuesday, feeling rough. I think a lot of it is down to stress, trying to do a uni application from here, as well as the heat and the amount of energy we're using, running around after the kids and all of that. In the evenings doing skipping and dancing with them really does wipe us out at the end of the day! Homesickness is becoming a bit of a thing too. It's weird but I'm thinking about Christmas a bit, and also Mum's birthday on Monday (love you Mummy!) and it's only 6 days till we've been here for a whole month. It seems like so long thinking of it like that! On a positive note, I've had an African skirt custom made to fit me :D It's blue and it's AWESOME!!
Wednesday - Taught at Lilo this morning, the school for the disabled children. I did the story and the craft, pretty much led it, and it went well.. There were some more kids there who we haven't met yet, lots more mute ones. That seems to be a real problem here, but those children are always the really loving, friendly ones. There's one boy who makes my day every time I see him :) We're slowly learning their names but I'm going to make name labels for all of them to make it quicker and easier; doing stuff like that is a great way to serve them. I love the small things you can do :) Some of them can barely breathe cos they get so excited when we wave at them!! That's all it takes, just one small wave. Amazing really. We've decided on an overall theme for our teaching while we're here, which is who God is and what that means for us, so we have a different word for every week. It's really exciting having a vision for our time here like that! We're doing a series on women in the Bible for the girls group on Saturdays and also want to do that in the tailoring school once we've got some friendship sorted. We're thinking about the best way we can start a choir and a boys group too cos it's difficult to engage with the boys and we need to offer something more. There's a lot happening here, you can really feel things are moving forward especially for the kids and it's a privilege to be a part of it, even though there is still a lot that needs doing! Lots of need and not enough time to meet it all ourselves. Ellie led Bible study this evening and it was awesome :) We were kept awake for a good few hours by a thunderstorm too; lightning was literally lighting up the whole entire room. We have a corrugated iron roof, so the rain was making a huuugeee amount of noise!
Thursday - AWESOME DAY!!!!! Gilgal this morning; I was feeling rough as, but it went really well. The kids love us! :) We don't get long with each group but we pack in a story and some games and a song and they seem to have fun so it's all good. Running around can be a bit of a joke at times as even the 4 year olds are faster than me... I'm being serious!! The P5/P6 group, who were kinda difficult last time, were a lot better cos we gave them a chance to write down questions and stuff they want to do with us and we brought a special box for them to put them in. Made them feel a bit more involved I think, so that gives us something good to work with :) The P7 group were a joy, as before.. It's so good to have time with a smaller group cos it's more chilled out and less all over the place. It chucked it down with rain just in time for our walk home. We got soaking wet! So when we got back, we sat on the sofas and thought "hmmmm how fun would it be to run outside in the rain....." It was a pretty major storm by this point, TIPPING it down with rain!! So in the end we just put shorts on, ran outside and had the most amazing time ever!! It was SO MUCH FUN!!! :D The kids ran out halfway through when were were holding bowls under the leaking rooves and just throwing it all over each other. Ah it was awesome :) Then we sat in our towels with toast and hot chocolate!! It was almost like being back at home! Bible study at Esther's house was a bit of a trek away but it was good times once we got there. She cooked an insane amount of matoke and sweet potato for us to eat, and we then had to have dinner AS WELL when we got home :S Needless to say, we're all going to come back the size of elephants!!!
And now it's Friday and I'm sitting in the Mukono internet cafe feeling stupidly happy that I get to read emails from you lovely people :D We have a random day off because it's Independence Day here (public holiday) so we can relax at home instead of rushing into Kampala for theological training. Cos I have some spare time, I thought I'd show you some photos of our time here :) Take a look and laugh your socks off!
This is me attempting to do some washing... We now have help from Esther, a lovely lady who lives in the village, cos it took us so long! You'd be surprised at how tiring it actually is. I'll never look at washing machines in the same way again - whoever invented them was an actual genius!! Becky and I do everyone's underwear washing twice a week, which can actually be kinda relaxing sitting out in the sun :) In case you didn't notice, this is a pre-accident photo!
This is my AWESOME leg injury from the accident :D I was so impressed, we took photos of it most days. It's healed over very quickly (thank you God) and now doesn't hurt at all. I think my nose has been permanently damaged in some way cos it clicks sort of funnily and is definitely different to how it was before, but it's all good! I'm SO thankful it wasn't any worse; just thinking about it makes me feel sooooo blessed :D :D :D
This is the toilet... I'm sure you'll agree that it's utterly joyous....!! Nothing quite compares with struggling to hold a torch and loo roll in the pitch black at night while squatting and hearing strange insects buzzing weirdly close to your ear. Plus the constant awareness that there are doubtlessly cockroaches somewhere underneath you - GOOD TIMES! You can just about see the hole in the ground in the one on the left :) We're actually used to the loos now though, it's not a big deal......! Ahahaha..This is
me trying on Mama Rachael's African clothes :) Pretty self-explanatory really!I wanted to upload some more but haven't got time cos the computer's being horribly slow... I'll put some more up on Monday and hopefully some videos too. Lots and lots of love to everyone, please keep praying for us!
Flick
xXx
Monday 5 October 2009
28th September - 4th October 2009
Hey everyone :)
I'm going to try to keep this a teeeeny bit shorter this time, partly so that you don't have to read so much but also because I've been rubbish at keeping my journal up to date this week! Things are insanely busy here; it's hard to find time to fit everything in and to find the space in the day and in my head to write properly. I'll go day by day again and try to include most of the exciting stuff :)
Monday 28th - DAY OFF!!! Yay :) Internet as usual, some shopping at Garden City... We realised that there's a beauty treatment place there, which we might go to the day before we come home so we're all pretty when we see people again! My head and nose were still pretty bad today but I keep surprising myself because I'm more resilient than I give myself credit for! I've been brave so far, considering I'm normally such a wuss.. Awful traffic on the way home, it was exhausting just sitting in the matatu for that long with the bumpy roads and dangerous driving. I pray all the way home when we're on one of those things!
I found a "secret" place to go and do my writing and chill out today - it's in one of the pig stys at the back of the house! How funny?! It's pretty clean though; I'm going to sweep it out and buy a Ugandan mat to put in there. I took a cup of tea and my notebook and my speakers and just sat for a while. It was lovely :) It's in the middle of lots of trees so it's very peaceful - just my sort of place. I'm not sure it'll take the place of the bench on top of the hill at home though... Thank you God for keeping me safe today and helping me be brave enough to cross roads without panicking :) Help me not to worry about applying for uni; I know things are in your hands.
Tuesday 29th - "I am insufficient in all I will face today. I insufficient strength to resist the temptations that I'll come up against. I have insufficient wisdom to make the decisions I have to. God, I am entirely dependent on you today." We visited Mama Claire and Mama Joshua today to learn how to weave and make African crafts with them. It was very cool but I was totally rubbish! Good times... We're thinking about making a website and catalogue with them for their business so we can market it back home and help them earn some more money, cos they're struggling a lot at the moment. They make mats, purses and bags, really beautiful things. We went to a local tailoring school at 4 where we met some young women who are being trained in sewing etc. That was a bit different! The translator there wasn't good, asking us lots of stuff in English and not translating for the girls so they were a bit excluded. That's exactly what we don't want, because we want friendships with these women so we can help them practically in the difficulties they face day to day. They expected us to share something from the Bible, which we weren't aware of, so I had to do a random spiel from Jeremiah 31 - there's nothing like an unexpected challenge to stretch your faith!
I also tried on a gomez, which is a traditional Ugandan outfit for women here. It has p
ointy shoulders... In fact, here's a photo! I look very beat up in it (awful actually!) cos of the accident, but try to ignore the bruises and cuts etc :) The girls found it hilarious and sang wedding music; apparently people wear them to get married! We had an awesome prayer time tonight, just thinking about the kids work and how passionate we are to see some changes in the community. There's so much to be done and we need wisdom to know how best to serve the kids and young women particularly here, and how to make sustainable changes that they can continue for themselves once we leave. There have been things here that have broken our hearts, things that have given us hope, things that have challenged us in our faith and showed us how we need to take more risks for God.
Wednesday 30th - Taught at the disabled school today :) This week we split them up into younger and older kids so we could spend an hour with each of them. It worked SO much better! We did the story of Moses parting the Red Sea and got all the kiddies to act it out and help us tell the story. The younger ones love craft stuff, but we're quite short of resources so there's only so much we can do with them. The older ones are harder to reach; it's difficult to get the balance of telling the story right so that they get a deeper understanding of it but also aren't patronised because of the age range. Please pray that we'll get better at doing this! They love the Balloon Game (that's a definite favourite) and dodgeball though, so if the worst comes to the worst we can just fill the time with that! In the afternoon we had Bible Study again - I led that on Revelation 4 and it seemed to go well, so I was happy! :) Very different to what we do at home, so it was a bit of a leap into the unknown... We get a lot of that here!
Was quite homesick today. I've been missing normal doughy white bread and cheese... cheddar cheese...... I miss going out with friends too :( I just want to go out and not have to worry about being groped by random African men, proposed to, accosted to buy stuff etc etc.. I really want to go on an underground train, know where I'm going and not nearly die in the process of getting there!!! I miss my family :(
Thursday 1st - Taught at Gilgal school today :) It went really well because we actually managed to plan properly this time! We knew what to expect. The youngest and oldest groups are the easiest because telling the story is easier to gauge and do flexibly. P5 and P6 are the 11-13 year olds, and they're the hardest mainly because the age range goes from about 10-18 in that group. It's almost impossible to engage them all and get the messages across that we want to, but we're going to keep trying new things till we find a way. Games, a Bible story and trying to get some English in there is the best way to do it I think.. The groups are just soooo big, it's a challenge but we'll get there. The kids are fantastic across the whole school, esp in P7. They're a great group cos we can really relate to them and share with them as friends, plus there's only about 20 of them at most. There's a girl called Sarah in that group who's a little star :) She's so loving and generous with herself and her time. She carries our bags back home for us, bothers to talk to us as real people, not just "the white people." She's a real blessing.
There was some terrible news today. The lady who lost her baby last week is called Nakato. She had another little son, who was very ill - we could tell just by looking at him. He had a skin disease, swollen stomach and joints... He didn't even have the strength to cry. I stroked his leg when we were at his house to try to stop him crying. He died at 1pm today. It is indescribably difficult to see a child, to feel an element of pain for that child, then to hear that they've gone, just like that. Died for a probably preventable reason. I have been really angry about it, deep down inside. I hate the fact that we see this, we have to look death in the face, and we can do nothing but try to comfort the people who are left. We went to offer our condolences again like last time, and again we saw the body. The pain in the mother's face was so evident; it was terrible. I can't describe it. It physically hurt me to see her with his body, the second child that she's lost in a week. If that's how it felt for me, I cannot imagine her pain. I wish we could do something, but all we can do is pray and cry with someone. It tears me up that children here die so easily when they're all precious and they should all live to be as old as I am now and far beyond that. Why should I be alive just because of where I'm born? I'm no more important than them.
Friday 2nd - Theological training at the Bambejja project in Kampala, then the Oasis staff team meeting. A very long day, with lots of travelling. We're all exhausted by the time we get home! The matatu rides are so long and bumpy... The theological training isn't great to far, it's a bit boring and not very helpful! But we're trying to just get on with it and learn as much from it as we can. We met a guy called Carlos and his brother Steve to talk about holiday stuff this afternoon :D We're going to have the best holiday EVER!!!! (Oops, apart from Nerja 09, sorry girls!) We're staying in Uganda cos it's cheaper.. Going to a big lake where we can do watersports, then 2 different safari parks, one in the West and one in the North. As we travel we're stopping off at other places on the way, like the equator :) Then we're going to Kampala for a day, then to an island in Lake Victoria that has white sandy beaches!!!! I can't wait :D We're hoping it will cost less than 300 pounds for 2 weeks... We'll probably go in the last 2 weeks of January I think. I'm so excited!!!!! I'm still feeling relatively OK regarding the accident, but my legs went all shaky and I found it kinda difficult to breathe when we got to the place where it happened today, so please pray that God keeps me brave and strong :) He has been SO good to the team so far, helping us to bond and form great friendships and he's been with us every step of the way. It's amazing how he provides for us all the time.
Saturday 3rd - Kids club! It went really well, had more kids this week which was great. This week I'm making them all name badges, then we're going to get laminated so they have something special to look after :) Had lots of fun playing games, singing songs and doing craft stuff. They're great kids and a lot of them have next to nothing because they come from quite small homes in the village. BUT, they're so full of life! They're fantastic to be around, I just love them! Sometimes when we come back late from Kampala, we get loads of kids jumping out of the bushes yelling and running at us! It's hilarious, always makes us jump :) We also had our first session of girls group today - this is something we really want to grow while we're here. We want to see more girls coming and them being raised up to know how much they're worth and how much they're loved by God. Women here can sometimes be downtrodden, but Rachael has this great saying - if a man is the head of the family, a woman is the neck and the neck can turn the head whichever way it wants :D how awesome is that?! Classic Ugandan misphrasing today: (Mr Sopp, I know you're reading this and I know you'll appreciate how funny this is!!!) In girls group Rachael asked Becky, who's getting married next summer, "When are you going to make time for the hot love?"
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Classic!
Aaaanyway, before I crack myself up too much about that I'll move onto the evening's events... We were missing clubbing so we turned all our lights off, put some music on really loud and waved torches around and had a rave! It was actually amazing! :D We had soooo much fun, the kids came in dancing and everything! They loved it... Bit of a workout really, good for us! We've introduced clubbing in Uganda....!
Sunday 4th - Church lasted THREE AND A HALF hours today!!!! How ridiculous?! We did our best to concentrate for the whole time but it was pretty tough... We had to go up the front and sing a few songs... We did one Ugandan one and an English one just for good measure! I wanted to upload a video that I took of church but my camera's just run out of battery, how annoying. So all the photos I was planning on putting up here will just have to wait till Friday! After church we did some washing, sweeping and tidying... We're being good at keeping the place tidy bearing in mind how limited the space is! Hopefully Mum will send me out some hangy storage things and some CHOCOLATE (wink wink nudge nudge Mum!!!!) soon... We visited some homes today with people from church. It was totally random, heard some VERY dodgy theology about denominations and stuff. It's too long to explain now (I have to do UCAS stuff!) but basically the church here is very confused about how denominations are split up and teach some weird stuff, backing it up with stuff from the Bible that they take totally out of context. We're going to have to ask some serious questions I think...
And now, as I type, it's Monday and I'm in Makono thinking that this, which I really was intending to be short, has now grown to a ridiculous size. Ooops, sorry people! :) If you're still reading then obviously you didn't mind too much though! It's hot but much calmer than Kampala, so we're all feeling much more chilled out and relaxed than we usually do on our days off. I have SO MUCH to thank God for this week; it's been busy but exciting, full of challenges but also amazing stuff too. I can see the changes he's making in our team and in me as an individual too. I'm learning a lot :) Thank you for all your prayers - they really do make a difference. Prayer points for this week:
- That we'll be imaginative, creative and discerning about how best to teach the children.
- That our themes and main messages for the teaching and girls group would be right for the people we're trying to serve and that we're able to be flexible and just go along with what seems like the right thing to do.
- That we would grow stronger and closer as a team. We know we've got everything we need to fight the battles we need to here, and to come out on top, but we need constant compassion and energy which can be tough!
- Nakato and her family. Please pray that they are comforted, strengthened and sustained over the next weeks and months.
- A little boy called Derek that we met at Sunday school yesterday. His Mum abandoned him, so he now lives with his Auntie. He's 1 1/2 but he's the size of a 3 month old. Please pray for him to be looked after well.
Thank you so so so so much :) I can't tell you how much I'm missing you all but writing this does help me feel like I'm still with you a little bit! Please feel free to write to me or email me; I'd LOVE to hear from you, I really would. It's hard here without your lovely faces around all the time. I'll do my best to reply to whatever you guys can send, if you have time!
Tons and tons and tons of love. God bless :)
Flick x
I'm going to try to keep this a teeeeny bit shorter this time, partly so that you don't have to read so much but also because I've been rubbish at keeping my journal up to date this week! Things are insanely busy here; it's hard to find time to fit everything in and to find the space in the day and in my head to write properly. I'll go day by day again and try to include most of the exciting stuff :)
Monday 28th - DAY OFF!!! Yay :) Internet as usual, some shopping at Garden City... We realised that there's a beauty treatment place there, which we might go to the day before we come home so we're all pretty when we see people again! My head and nose were still pretty bad today but I keep surprising myself because I'm more resilient than I give myself credit for! I've been brave so far, considering I'm normally such a wuss.. Awful traffic on the way home, it was exhausting just sitting in the matatu for that long with the bumpy roads and dangerous driving. I pray all the way home when we're on one of those things!
I found a "secret" place to go and do my writing and chill out today - it's in one of the pig stys at the back of the house! How funny?! It's pretty clean though; I'm going to sweep it out and buy a Ugandan mat to put in there. I took a cup of tea and my notebook and my speakers and just sat for a while. It was lovely :) It's in the middle of lots of trees so it's very peaceful - just my sort of place. I'm not sure it'll take the place of the bench on top of the hill at home though... Thank you God for keeping me safe today and helping me be brave enough to cross roads without panicking :) Help me not to worry about applying for uni; I know things are in your hands.
Tuesday 29th - "I am insufficient in all I will face today. I insufficient strength to resist the temptations that I'll come up against. I have insufficient wisdom to make the decisions I have to. God, I am entirely dependent on you today." We visited Mama Claire and Mama Joshua today to learn how to weave and make African crafts with them. It was very cool but I was totally rubbish! Good times... We're thinking about making a website and catalogue with them for their business so we can market it back home and help them earn some more money, cos they're struggling a lot at the moment. They make mats, purses and bags, really beautiful things. We went to a local tailoring school at 4 where we met some young women who are being trained in sewing etc. That was a bit different! The translator there wasn't good, asking us lots of stuff in English and not translating for the girls so they were a bit excluded. That's exactly what we don't want, because we want friendships with these women so we can help them practically in the difficulties they face day to day. They expected us to share something from the Bible, which we weren't aware of, so I had to do a random spiel from Jeremiah 31 - there's nothing like an unexpected challenge to stretch your faith!
I also tried on a gomez, which is a traditional Ugandan outfit for women here. It has p
ointy shoulders... In fact, here's a photo! I look very beat up in it (awful actually!) cos of the accident, but try to ignore the bruises and cuts etc :) The girls found it hilarious and sang wedding music; apparently people wear them to get married! We had an awesome prayer time tonight, just thinking about the kids work and how passionate we are to see some changes in the community. There's so much to be done and we need wisdom to know how best to serve the kids and young women particularly here, and how to make sustainable changes that they can continue for themselves once we leave. There have been things here that have broken our hearts, things that have given us hope, things that have challenged us in our faith and showed us how we need to take more risks for God.Wednesday 30th - Taught at the disabled school today :) This week we split them up into younger and older kids so we could spend an hour with each of them. It worked SO much better! We did the story of Moses parting the Red Sea and got all the kiddies to act it out and help us tell the story. The younger ones love craft stuff, but we're quite short of resources so there's only so much we can do with them. The older ones are harder to reach; it's difficult to get the balance of telling the story right so that they get a deeper understanding of it but also aren't patronised because of the age range. Please pray that we'll get better at doing this! They love the Balloon Game (that's a definite favourite) and dodgeball though, so if the worst comes to the worst we can just fill the time with that! In the afternoon we had Bible Study again - I led that on Revelation 4 and it seemed to go well, so I was happy! :) Very different to what we do at home, so it was a bit of a leap into the unknown... We get a lot of that here!
Was quite homesick today. I've been missing normal doughy white bread and cheese... cheddar cheese...... I miss going out with friends too :( I just want to go out and not have to worry about being groped by random African men, proposed to, accosted to buy stuff etc etc.. I really want to go on an underground train, know where I'm going and not nearly die in the process of getting there!!! I miss my family :(
Thursday 1st - Taught at Gilgal school today :) It went really well because we actually managed to plan properly this time! We knew what to expect. The youngest and oldest groups are the easiest because telling the story is easier to gauge and do flexibly. P5 and P6 are the 11-13 year olds, and they're the hardest mainly because the age range goes from about 10-18 in that group. It's almost impossible to engage them all and get the messages across that we want to, but we're going to keep trying new things till we find a way. Games, a Bible story and trying to get some English in there is the best way to do it I think.. The groups are just soooo big, it's a challenge but we'll get there. The kids are fantastic across the whole school, esp in P7. They're a great group cos we can really relate to them and share with them as friends, plus there's only about 20 of them at most. There's a girl called Sarah in that group who's a little star :) She's so loving and generous with herself and her time. She carries our bags back home for us, bothers to talk to us as real people, not just "the white people." She's a real blessing.
There was some terrible news today. The lady who lost her baby last week is called Nakato. She had another little son, who was very ill - we could tell just by looking at him. He had a skin disease, swollen stomach and joints... He didn't even have the strength to cry. I stroked his leg when we were at his house to try to stop him crying. He died at 1pm today. It is indescribably difficult to see a child, to feel an element of pain for that child, then to hear that they've gone, just like that. Died for a probably preventable reason. I have been really angry about it, deep down inside. I hate the fact that we see this, we have to look death in the face, and we can do nothing but try to comfort the people who are left. We went to offer our condolences again like last time, and again we saw the body. The pain in the mother's face was so evident; it was terrible. I can't describe it. It physically hurt me to see her with his body, the second child that she's lost in a week. If that's how it felt for me, I cannot imagine her pain. I wish we could do something, but all we can do is pray and cry with someone. It tears me up that children here die so easily when they're all precious and they should all live to be as old as I am now and far beyond that. Why should I be alive just because of where I'm born? I'm no more important than them.
Friday 2nd - Theological training at the Bambejja project in Kampala, then the Oasis staff team meeting. A very long day, with lots of travelling. We're all exhausted by the time we get home! The matatu rides are so long and bumpy... The theological training isn't great to far, it's a bit boring and not very helpful! But we're trying to just get on with it and learn as much from it as we can. We met a guy called Carlos and his brother Steve to talk about holiday stuff this afternoon :D We're going to have the best holiday EVER!!!! (Oops, apart from Nerja 09, sorry girls!) We're staying in Uganda cos it's cheaper.. Going to a big lake where we can do watersports, then 2 different safari parks, one in the West and one in the North. As we travel we're stopping off at other places on the way, like the equator :) Then we're going to Kampala for a day, then to an island in Lake Victoria that has white sandy beaches!!!! I can't wait :D We're hoping it will cost less than 300 pounds for 2 weeks... We'll probably go in the last 2 weeks of January I think. I'm so excited!!!!! I'm still feeling relatively OK regarding the accident, but my legs went all shaky and I found it kinda difficult to breathe when we got to the place where it happened today, so please pray that God keeps me brave and strong :) He has been SO good to the team so far, helping us to bond and form great friendships and he's been with us every step of the way. It's amazing how he provides for us all the time.
Saturday 3rd - Kids club! It went really well, had more kids this week which was great. This week I'm making them all name badges, then we're going to get laminated so they have something special to look after :) Had lots of fun playing games, singing songs and doing craft stuff. They're great kids and a lot of them have next to nothing because they come from quite small homes in the village. BUT, they're so full of life! They're fantastic to be around, I just love them! Sometimes when we come back late from Kampala, we get loads of kids jumping out of the bushes yelling and running at us! It's hilarious, always makes us jump :) We also had our first session of girls group today - this is something we really want to grow while we're here. We want to see more girls coming and them being raised up to know how much they're worth and how much they're loved by God. Women here can sometimes be downtrodden, but Rachael has this great saying - if a man is the head of the family, a woman is the neck and the neck can turn the head whichever way it wants :D how awesome is that?! Classic Ugandan misphrasing today: (Mr Sopp, I know you're reading this and I know you'll appreciate how funny this is!!!) In girls group Rachael asked Becky, who's getting married next summer, "When are you going to make time for the hot love?"
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Classic!
Aaaanyway, before I crack myself up too much about that I'll move onto the evening's events... We were missing clubbing so we turned all our lights off, put some music on really loud and waved torches around and had a rave! It was actually amazing! :D We had soooo much fun, the kids came in dancing and everything! They loved it... Bit of a workout really, good for us! We've introduced clubbing in Uganda....!
Sunday 4th - Church lasted THREE AND A HALF hours today!!!! How ridiculous?! We did our best to concentrate for the whole time but it was pretty tough... We had to go up the front and sing a few songs... We did one Ugandan one and an English one just for good measure! I wanted to upload a video that I took of church but my camera's just run out of battery, how annoying. So all the photos I was planning on putting up here will just have to wait till Friday! After church we did some washing, sweeping and tidying... We're being good at keeping the place tidy bearing in mind how limited the space is! Hopefully Mum will send me out some hangy storage things and some CHOCOLATE (wink wink nudge nudge Mum!!!!) soon... We visited some homes today with people from church. It was totally random, heard some VERY dodgy theology about denominations and stuff. It's too long to explain now (I have to do UCAS stuff!) but basically the church here is very confused about how denominations are split up and teach some weird stuff, backing it up with stuff from the Bible that they take totally out of context. We're going to have to ask some serious questions I think...
And now, as I type, it's Monday and I'm in Makono thinking that this, which I really was intending to be short, has now grown to a ridiculous size. Ooops, sorry people! :) If you're still reading then obviously you didn't mind too much though! It's hot but much calmer than Kampala, so we're all feeling much more chilled out and relaxed than we usually do on our days off. I have SO MUCH to thank God for this week; it's been busy but exciting, full of challenges but also amazing stuff too. I can see the changes he's making in our team and in me as an individual too. I'm learning a lot :) Thank you for all your prayers - they really do make a difference. Prayer points for this week:
- That we'll be imaginative, creative and discerning about how best to teach the children.
- That our themes and main messages for the teaching and girls group would be right for the people we're trying to serve and that we're able to be flexible and just go along with what seems like the right thing to do.
- That we would grow stronger and closer as a team. We know we've got everything we need to fight the battles we need to here, and to come out on top, but we need constant compassion and energy which can be tough!
- Nakato and her family. Please pray that they are comforted, strengthened and sustained over the next weeks and months.
- A little boy called Derek that we met at Sunday school yesterday. His Mum abandoned him, so he now lives with his Auntie. He's 1 1/2 but he's the size of a 3 month old. Please pray for him to be looked after well.
Thank you so so so so much :) I can't tell you how much I'm missing you all but writing this does help me feel like I'm still with you a little bit! Please feel free to write to me or email me; I'd LOVE to hear from you, I really would. It's hard here without your lovely faces around all the time. I'll do my best to reply to whatever you guys can send, if you have time!
Tons and tons and tons of love. God bless :)
Flick x
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