10th - 16th November 2009

Hey everyone! (Especially Mum, who just texted me asking why my blog isn't up yet...)

This week has been a really tough one, probably my toughest yet. My back has been playing up all week, which makes everything else more difficult. The pain meant that I had to stay at home all day Tuesday, which was very frustrating, and I've been taking painkillers all week. Those of you who know me well know that I HATE taking painkillers! :( That combined with lack of sleep made me feel more homesick than usual, which obviously adds up to everything else becoming more of a challenge to cope with. There were some really awesome positives to this week, as you'll see when you read the blog. Bear with me cos emotions have been all over the place and I'll try to be coherent and not talk rubbish while I describe what we've been up to!

Tuesday 10th - The girls went to do weaving at Mama Claire's while I sat at home and did nothing. Bad times! The top of my back was all pulled tight like an elastic band around the shoulders and neck and I couldn't move much or sit in the same position for too long. Pretty rubbish to be honest! My sleep was pretty disturbed on Monday night (please pray for better rest) which made everything seem worse. Feeling a little bit like I can't unravel myself, with everything mixed up inside cos of the lack of sleep and pain and other stuff going on too. Felt a bit useless on Tuesday, as if I have nothing to offer, only empty screwed-up-ness. Now you see what Imean by the all over the place emotions! Had some quiet time which helped; Hosea 2 is a beautiful passage that basically sums up a lot of things for me at the moment.

Galatians 5 vs 1: "It is for freedom that Christ has set me free."
Isaiah 60 vs 18+19: "You will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise. The Lord is your everlasting light."
Micah 7 vs 19: "God will have compassion on you and tread your sins underfoot and hurl ALL your iniquities into the depths of the sea."
Proverbs 3 vs 3: "Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."
Colossians 3 vs 12: "You are God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved."

Drank an inhumane amount of coffee too; that's what happens when you're sitting next to a kettle and there's no milk to make English tea! I'm pretty sure I'm now addicted to coffee, as I haven't had any yet today and have a splitting headache :S Maybe I should stop drinking it now! Bit of a scandal for the family while the girls were out at the tailoring school in the afternoon; a pair of speakers that were stolen from their house THREE years ago randomly turned up and they had to go and identify them and meet the people who supposedly stole them. There's been a mix-up with the police so a young man is in prison who shouldn't be - please pray that he is released asap cos prisons here are notoriously unpleasant, to say the least.

Wednesday 11th - A ridiculous day, absolutely ridiculous. Team issues have been building for a while, and it all came to boiling point on Wednesday. Overall as a team we work brilliantly together; we all bring our strengths (and our weaknesses) and balance each other out. The work we're doing is going well and we're really enjoying it. BUT, when you live in such a small space with 4 other girls, and you not only live together but work together, travel together, have all your leisure time together... There's no escape! I love all four of them like sisters, and we're all very close, but little annoying things became too much for all of us on Wednesday. Some people are louder than others, and there's a split down the team between who is more similar. It doesn't divide us and there's no exclusion whatsoever, but it's there nonetheless. After little annoying thigns, like spraying the house with insecticide WHILE I WAS ASLEEP IN BED till I was gassed out of my mosquito net (no joke!), or unplugging chargers when other people need to charge something, I suggested a team talk in the evening and thankfully things are mostly sorted out. We just all need to try to find ways to cope with our stress from being away from home, and vent to each other about the little annoyances without talking about each other behind backs. There's a point where it goes from constructive talking to try and find a solution and moves into bitchyness, and I don't want that at all. Please pray that we can all be honest with each other and keep our perspective when we get annoyed; the vast majority of the time we have a fantastic time with each other, and I don't want to lose sight of that and I know the others don't either. Please pray that we're not undermined and that we can be sensitive to each other's needs and support one another when we need it most. It's hard when we are the only immediate support network for one another here; we've left everyone else, like you lovely people, at home.

Anyway, other stuff from Wednesday. We went to Lilo in the morning; my back was hurting and things were quite tense between the team, so it could've gone pearshaped but it didn't (thank you God!) We did the second half of the Joseph story and got them allto dress up with props and toilet roll again (limited resources, desperate times = desperate measures) ... They loved it though! Cos we acted last week they had more of an idea about what to do. We even got one girl to narrate the story for our team :) The performances were awesome, felt very proud. Bex looked after Natalie and Nico, who were both in strange moods. Natalie seemed quite upset but we couldn't work out why or what to do about it (she's mute). The big game of Dodgeball at the end went down a treat... I cuddled a lovely little girl called Charity for quite a while; I definitely have a natural baby-shaped space on my hip, I want to take her home!!!

After Lilo we got home for lunch and didn't have time to do much before V.W.G at 3. Not many ladies came on time, as always, but we talked about the strategy for the group again and explained about candle wax and stuff. We have a quote of 120,000sh (4o pounds, there's no pound sign on the keyboard, how annoying?!) for 1kg of wax, which makes 1400 candles. We would sell a packet of 10 candles for 2000sh so you can do the maths! The packaging only costs 2500 for all those 140 packets, which seems really cheap - yay - so we're going to try to start making them before Christmas. We've organised for a lady from Bambejja to come and train them, but we need to invest 200,000sh to buy a machine that the ladies can make candles with on a rota. The rest of the time we're going to give them moulds that they can use at home. It all takes a lot of organisation and planning! Hopefully all the ladies involved are going to contribute 10,000sh so they can buy the first lot of resources to start making the candles etc. Exciting stuff but it still needs a lot of prayer :)
After V.W.G we had bible study, as usual, which Lucy led really well. Then before dinner we had our team talk and cleared the air, thank goodness, and dinner was really awesome after that! We had a lovely time altogether, making chapattis with Mama Rachael and Jonathan (her oldest son). While we were sitting outside Max the dog fell asleep on my lap in an extremely cute way, wish I could've put a photo up of him!

Thursday 12th - 101 days till we go home, 58 days since we've been here... We planned to do the story of Jericho at Gilgal this morning cos of how often we've had people from home say about bringing walls down while we're here. When praying for Gilgal and the whole situation with the Pastor there, we felt that the story of Jericho was very important, so we decided to do it with the kids. We planned to take each group out onto the field for a game, then do the story with them, then march around the field with each class individually, singing and shouting. As we were walking into the nursery group we changed the plan; we decided to do 15mins with each group,playing a game and telling the story, then we took the whole school out onto the field at the end. It was MENTAL!!! We had all the kids following us around, shouting and singing their Ugandan songs. We took them round the classrooms, all over the grass and they loved it! It got a bit insane after a while; I was exhausted cos I was leading all 400 of them around, yelling "Alleluia" (it's a chant thing that they do) at all of them, and trying to 'sing' loud enough for them to hear which song we were doing! It was really powerful though, especially when we felt that story was so important for them. We made shakers out of empty toilet rolls, cupcake cases (to stick over the ends) and rice, which a few of the kids could walk round shaking. It was AWESOME! Such a sense of fulfilment to actually do something that we felt was so significant for them.

Then in the Prayer and Praise bit at 1 o'clock (which we didn't want to stay for but got forced into!) the Pastor turned up. He walked through the kids, parting them like they were the Red Sea and then led the whole thing. It was really difficult to shake his hand and be polite to him and pray with him etc when we know that he lives a life of such double standards. But then I guess we all get stuff wrong, we all need God's grace and he's no different from anyone else. We're trying to pray for him, which is difficult but it's a good discipline to get into; God loves him and so should we. Please pray for him. Please pray that he realises the extent of his wrongdoing and that God touches his heart and opens his eyes to himself, and gives him the courage to change. It turns out that this was our last day at Gilgal before the really long Christmas hols start at the end of November; we want to stay in touch with as many of the kids as possible, so please pray that we're able to do that through Kids Club, boys group and girls group. I love the children there, and especially at Lilo, and the thought of leaving them really cuts me up. I don't want to only be here for 5 months and have no lasting impact; I want to have friendships with them by the time we leave, and to have encouraged them and loved them so that they know how special they are. The emotions of this last week make stuff like that all the more poignant.

We went to sister Esther's for Home Cell after Gilgal - got bodas there cos it was much easier than walking, especially for me with my bad back. Taking painkillers only does a small amount to help! As always, her hospitality was breathtaking; she cooked matoke, sweet potato, cassava, pumpkin, beans, greens and g'nut sauce!!! We then also had to have dinner when we got home. Not cool!!!! :S

Friday 13th - Bambejja again. Got up at 6 to leave at 7... Had training for 4 hours, which wasn't very helpful, but there you go! It's the principle I guess...? There wasn't enough material to fill the time so we repeated a load of stuff, did pointless exercises. Yeah, as you can gather I'm not a fan of the theological training!! We got to see Maree though which was lovely; she's leaving in 2 weeks and we'll really miss her. I can't imagine being here without her to talk to. It's a bit of a worry. Jocelyn, the temporary replacement is lovely but very Ugandan and sometimes you need someone Western who can understand where you're coming from on things. But there you go, that's life. We got a bit of planning done over lunch time which was nice :)

I actually phoned Mum from the taxi park on the way home cos I was so homesick; all the others got post and I didn't, which sucked very majorly. It just added another level of emotion on top of everything else! Hearing from home is so special when it happens and I inevitably build my hopes up for it when I shouldn't cos the postal system SUCKS!!! Love you Mum :) My Mum has that ability just to cheer me up with the sound of her voice and she has such wise advice to give whenever I need it. I'm very blessed to have her. Tried to get onto the Internet later but it wasn't working... Bad times! Spoke to Daddy in the evening on the phone (Love you too Dad!) and he told me all about a job interview he has on Friday. Exciting stuff :) I'm proud to have the family that I have.

Saturday 14th - One day left till we've been here 2 months. Woke up in a not happy place again after back pain moved to my lower back and got worse, and I didn't get much sleep again. ARGH. We got up early to go and do Kids Club at 9 instead of 2 like usual because Lilo were having a sports day and parents morning, so we went to be a part of that. We had a fantastic time! We planned a whole 90-min session like usual but only had half an hour, so we changed it completely. Luckily we had all the props etc for Joseph with us, so we got all the kids to act out what we've done for the last 2 weeks on Wednesdays and they were brilliant. I felt so proud!!! I couldn't have felt prouder, even if I was watching my own kids in their Christmas nativity!!!!!! :D :D :D They were so good, then we sang a silly song with a dance to the adults and even the older boys joined in :) There were some visitors from Japan who sponsor some ladies who help at the school and they were there to hear the school reports and meet all the teachers. It was good to see some other mzungus! The children were all dressed extra smartly in their uniforms; Natalie was wearing a blue dress with a white collar and didn't have a bit of mud on her! She was really happy to see us and came over squealing cos she was so excited. Nico was wearing beige shorts and a spotless white top and came to sit next to me. He sniffs everything before he touches it, and was sniffing my arm before he held my hand and decided to snuggle down over my lap and doze off! It was one of those lovely moments that I'll never forget. The deaf girls did a song and a sketch in sign language and the choir sang a song. It was just awesome to see them all doing their thing and having fun :) I'm going to miss that school a lot. The children are so wonderful. They even did science experiments with the most basic stuff EVER! They used a straw as a pipette and put water in a can with it, then put a plastic cup over the can, heated the can and the cup flew off! :D It's amazing what people here can do with so little.

After speeches and reports from the teachers and visitors they started on the sports day stuff and we headed back for lunch cos we were all shattered after 2 early mornings. I finished reading "The God Delusion" and also finished "The Dawkins Delusion" which was cool :) Now starting on Keith Ward and hopefully I'll be set for my Cambridge interview... I'd love to be able to argue effectively against Dawkins and express my faith more eloquently in an intellectual way. It's easy to use the cop-out of "you can't explain it completely logically, that's the point of the faith element" but I don't want to use that excuse anymore! We then went to Gilgal at 5 to do girls group. It was a challenge cos Mama didn't come with us so we had no translator. We tried to get the girls to debate about forgiveness but it was difficult cos they don't get taught to think that way in school, so it will take a while to get them to argue and ask questions properly. Sarah wasn't there cos she's still sick and Florence, her sister, said that she went back to their home in Jinja on Friday to stay with aunts and uncles. We were very sad not to say goodbye, but apparently she's coming back on the 27th Nov to pick up her brother and her sister. Please pray that she has a fresh start away from Gilgal and that she can continue with her education.

Sunday 15th - TWO MONTHS SINCE I'VE HA MY FEET ON ENGLISH SOIL!!! How weird?! We got to church late today (as always lol) and only did Sunday school cos we've all been so tired and run down. My back still isn't in the best shape so I'm trying to conserve my energy! I spoke to Nina on the phone last night; LOVE her!!! I made apple sauce with Mama Rachael last night and it reminded me of the middle of her apple pie... I really miss that pie! The apple sauce was good though.. Sunday school went well, we used the shakers from thursday for them to decorate and then did the story of Jericho again. Also invented bowling with a tennis ball and water bottles slightly weighed down :) After lunch the girls went to visit a few ladies from V.W.G but I stayed at home cos of back pain and Bex stayed at home cos of a headache. Bad times :( It was good having a break though and carrying on with some reading etc. Hadsome interesting theological debates with Jona and Timo while I attempted to read! The Ugandan theology can be pretty hardcore at times; they have a lot of absolutes, like Christians can never drink alcohol. I disagreed with that one! It's really interesting though cos it's all to do with the culture and their history and upbringing. Intriguing stuff :)

So now it's Monday and it's nearly 5pm. I'm pretty tired sitting here and we need to leave soon to go to the post office, then Shoprite to buy a few bits and then head home. It's been raining outside so the taxi park will be perilously muddy! I feel happy now though; it's been a relaxing day and I got pizza for lunch and Bex and Nicky are with me so it was easier to navigate the roads safely! We met up with Maree and had a chat, which was really helpful and reassuring. My back is killing me so please continue to pray for that. I know there will be challenges while we're here so I'm trying to stay on track and full of positivity. I haven't prayed or read my Bible enough this week and I know I need to do that more to stay strong and firmly rooted in God when the troubles like tiredness and a bad back come. Thank you so much for your support and prayers; they mean the world to me and they totally make a difference. I'm very blessed to have such support at home and I can't wait to see all of you. Only 3 and a half months to go now!

Sending tons and tons of love, and a big hug to all of you reading this :)
Flick
xXx