SCHOOLS OUT 4 SUMMER!!

SCHOOLS OUT 4 SUMMER! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! finally school has ended and i have completed my first WHOLE year at my new school i finished yesterday at half 12 exactly then got picked up by my sister and had a margherita pizza for lunch!!!!!!!! But today there is absolutely nothing whatsoever to do so i a just going to write this!! I will be in 3rd form next year ( September) and i am really looking forward to it! My class gets mixed when it goes into 3rd form and all the people i wanted in my class are there so i am really really happy! i have a few boys in my class next year which i don't want though but i will try my hardest to get on with them!! Anyway; i must conclude because i now have to go out to Tesco's! Goodbye my blogger readers and ib am indebted to you for reading my blog! Thankyou!

Immy xoxo xoxo xoxo xoxo

Dear Immy...

This week's blog is going to be in the form of a letter to my lovely sister Immy, who has read every single one of my blogs and sent me very excited emails in response to them :) Immy - I love you!! This one is extra specially for you...

It's Monday as I write and we're in Mukono for the last time. It's so weird getting used to doing things for the last time, seeing people for the last time and all of that... Today I'm really excited about coming home :D Sometimes feeling sad outweighs it but today it's all happiness and excitement :) I need to finish my packing tonight and sort out all the mess in the house. It looks like a rubbish dump at the moment - sort of like my room at home! We need to clean out the cupboard tonight and dust the table and sort out the craft boxes under the sofa so that they're nice and clean for the next team that comes. When we arrived it was pretty dirty, and it wasn't very nice for us to start cleaning and disinfecting things as soon as we arrived... If another team comes it won't be till October but hopefully it'll stay quite clean.

I'll do the usual blog thing now and tell you about my week :) Ims, you would've loved doing the mural at Lilo! We got all the handprints finished on Wednesday and it looks really colourful. It catches your eye whether you walk into the school from the front or the fields at the back. The kids had fun doing it and we played some games with them too; Nicky and Ell took some stuff so they could draw pictures of themselves then talked to them about how special and unique they are. That's one of the most important things we've been teaching them. Cos some of them are disabled, sometimes they're laughed at and treated not very well. It's just not fair, and that's why the school is so good for them - it teaches them in a way that works well for them :) We didn't have V.W.G in the afternoon cos there was some other meeting going on, so we're having it tomorrow instead. A few days we talked to Ugandan-Dad about all the plans for the group so we just need to remind the women tomorrow. It's very cool to think that they're trained now and know more than they did 5 months ago. It's a big achievement for them!

One lady called Rose always turns up on time and she's lovely, doesn't speak English but you can tell that she's over the moon to see us. She came round yesterday afternoon - Mama Rachael and some other ladies who live nearby cooked LOOOOADS of food for people from a few local churches and some teachers from the schools we've worked at so we could spend the afternoon with them and say goodbye. It was lovely but also quite sad :( They made some really kind speeches and said they want us to come back soon, only go home for a short time then come back and see the fruits of the work we've been doing! We had to give a few speeches, which obviously resulted in us crying then they prayed for us. We've made some good friends here :)Some of the older kids from Gilgal School came along - a boy called Kenneth, who's AWESOME and helped do translating for Saturday Boys Group and Sarah and Florence, who came to Girls Group and are 2 of my closest friends here. I'll miss those three a lot :( It was good to have time to say goodbye though. We prayed with them and Sarah gave me a watch to remember her by... I didn't want to take it cos it obviously meant a lot to her, but she was being really kind so I couldn't say no. I miss them already :( Church in the morning was a bit sad too, the last bit of all-singing-all-dancing African worship that I'll have for a while. It's so free in church here, you can do whatever! I know it's the same at home, but I always feel a little bit more nervous! We gave the church their presents (communion cups and a bread basket) and did David and Goliath in Sunday School. I'm looking forward to returning to Transformers at church :) I've missed the space you all have to play games! At church in Uganda we don't really have much space at all, but sometimes we sit under the mango tree (remember that song Nick sang from Zambia about the mango tree and how he made us laugh with it?!?!)

Hmmm what else did we do this week... We had Kids Club on Saturday, which was very cool cos we did a treasure hunt all around the compound. I made proper treasure maps of the compound and made them brown with a teabag then burned the edges and wrote out some challenges for the kids and did the same with them. They looked wicked! :D We hid the challenges round the compound then gave the kids a clue about the area they were hidden in, then they had to come back to the front and do the challenge before we gave them the next clue to find the next challenge. The best challenge was to run round and catch a chicken!! And we had another one where they had to stick their hands in some gunk and guess what was hidden in it :) The big prize at the end (hidden in the shower) was a crate of soda and some biscuits for them. They had so much fun! It took ages to get ready but it was definitely worth it... We said our goodbyes, the only one I haven't cried in so far, and then did Boys and Girls Groups at Gilgal. We played a type of rounders, except we didn't have a rounders bat so we used a washing bowl...!! But it worked surprisingly well! Girls vs. Boys, guess who won ;) Girls all the way! We talked to the girls about being strong women of God again and it was really good. A bit like the email I sent to you earlier, about how strong and brave they can be and how they can make good choices for themselves because they're free and loved by God. It was good - some of the deaf girls from Lilo came and one of them tied Becky's scarf round my head so I looked like a Muslim! Some of the kids asked me if I'd become a Muslim lol... It was a little bit worrying cos none of the older girls from Gilgal were allowed to come :S Pastor Murenzi was there and cos of that I think he made them stay in their dorm room. Mama Rachael went to talk to them to get them to come but they weren't allowed. It was a real shame...

I'm running out of time, not sure how much more I can write.. I'm trying to make sure I talk about what we've been up to this week so that everyone else who also reads this blog is updated! Maybe I'll just talk about food instead.... I CANNOT WAIT for tomato soup, crusty white bread fresh from the bakery and cheddar cheese :O I might explode if I think about it too much! Yummy yummy yummy :) Ooo I also can't wait for lasagne and salad. Esp that bacon, pear, tomato and avocado salad that Mum does! Mmmmm. Only six days!!!!! :D :D :D

Anyway! Is there anything else I can talk about? Gilgal on Thursday, we talked to the kids about prayer and why it's important and how we can pray. They all have this idea that you HAVE to raise your hands up in the air when you don't! It was great to hear what they thought about it though. When we said goodbye in the praise and worship session I tried to say something then started crying halfway through and had to stop :S So embarrassing! Leaving gives us an excuse to say really important things to them though, like talking about how wrong prosperity gospel is (that's when people say you're a bad Christian if you're not rich because God doesn't think you're good enough to give you money) and telling the kids how awesome they are. It's good to be able to tell them all of that :)

I have to go now, gotta go get lunch then head home. Busy evening and afternoon ahead! I'm quite dehydrated, I really should drink more water (don't tell Mum!) Love you millions Imo, not long till we get a hug! :D *does excited dance*
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And to everyone else - thank you for keeping in touch with me and reading my blog the whole time I've been here. It means a lot :) This is my last blog that'll be written in Uganda so the next time you hear from me I'll be at home! Please pray that our last few days are full of God's peace and that he protects us on the journey home. Please pray that our family gets used to us not being there and that we'll have fun today, tomorrow and Weds morning and that our last bit of time together will be full of God's grace and that we'll be able to show them how much we love them. Please also pray that our families at home are prepared for our return, that the culture shock doesn't knock us to the ground and that our debrief time in Kampala goes well from Weds - Saturday. Sorry I know there's a lot of prayer requests there! Please also hold the projects and schools we've been working at in your prayers; they need practical and spiritual provision so that they can keep on running. We'll be praying that God pours his love and life into the kids we've met and the women and families we've spent time with :)

Lots of love to you all - very excited to see you so soon xXx

27th January - 8th February 2010

Helloooo everyone :)

First of all, apologies about the lack of bloggage - internet has been hard to come by for the last few weeks. Cos of the crazy amount of time I've missed, this will be pretty long :S But I'll miss out days where nothing much happened, so don't fear, you won't be here reading this for hours! Secondly, thank you for all the birthday emails and texts and Facebook messages I got; I really appreciate it. Even though I didn't get them on my actual birthday, they're making me smile today as I read them. I'm planning on having a big fake birthday celebration when I'm back, so you'd better get your dancing shoes on :) Now, onto the actual blog...

Wednesday 27th - Not much happened, got back home and it was lovely to see the family as usual. Mum had three deaths in the family, so she still wasn't back from Kampala sorting out the burials and had been away with Josh, Junior and Esther the whole time that we were on holiday. The family all seem ok, none of the deaths were unexpected, so they're being strong and getting on with it as all Ugandans do. Please pray that they have the time and space to deal with their grief and support one another in the wider extended family unit.

Thursday 28th - Pretty standard day; went to Mukono and chilled, had lunch at a nice hotel then went home and watched Doctor Who :) It was still our holiday till the 31st so we had nothing much to do. Was lovely to be able to lie in and relax and have nothing to think about!

Friday 29th - Ell and Nick went to Kampala to sort some stuff out while the rest of us stayed at home and watched Doctor Who :D We seriously are addicted to the thing; we've somehow managed to watch all four series AND all the specials from the last few years in the space of a month and a half!!! You guys know what I'm like with music, it's essential to my survival, and I thought I'd write the words to a song that I really love at the moment:

"When the night has come and the land is dark, and the moon is the only light that we're gonna see.. No I won't be afraid, no I won't shed no tear, just as long as you stand by me. If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall, or the mountains should crumble and fall into the sea, I won't cry. No I won't shed a tear just as long as you stand by me. So stand by me, stand, Oh stand by me. Oh stand, stand by me..."
That's Jason Mraz's cover - you can get it off iTunes and it's WICKED!! Ooo also have a look for Black Swan by Athlete; it's a fantastic album, and the bonus album also called Black Swan that comes with it is great too.

Saturday 30th - Bex, Luce and I went into Jinja to do some final present shopping and have some yummy coffee at Flavours :) The matatu on the way was MENTAL - 27 people all crammed in when they're only meant to sit 14! Plus it was really old and barely managed to chug its way to Kayunga, where we had to change onto another matatu.. Bit of a crazy journey but it was worth it when we got there. When we were having lunch, Alison (one of the Oasis International Placements) randomly walked in with her friend Dawn so we ended up eating with them! Small world :) Alison, Helen, Zoe (other Oasis IPs) and Dawn were staying at Explorers Camp where we were on holiday the week before, so we decided to go stay there for the night on a whim. Ell and Nick brought all our stuff from home and we ended up booking another trip white water rafting the next day! It's half price if you do it a second time so we figured it was worth it... Not that we needed much of an excuse. Plus we got our room completely free cos we did the rafting. Good times... I've been reading an awesome book called "Glittering Images" by Susan Howarth, read it if you get the chance. It's a really clever, intricate book (Thanks Sam L! Good choice of present :D) Aaaanyway, had a chilled evening at Explorers enjoying the view and chatting with the IPs. I love that place!

Sunday 31st - White water rafting day :D Had the same safety talk from Arrogant-John, the guy who took us rafting last time, ran out of life jackets and helmets though so that was a bit of a worry but they sorted us out! Becky decided to come rafting too this time, which was very cool. The group going was MUCH bigger than last time; there were 11 boats on the river, about 70 people altogether, which made the whole day take a lot longer. We got to watch all the other boats coming down each rapid, which was pretty funny.. Our guide was a Ugandan called Juma, who was HILARIOUS and had the worst sense of political correctness ever. I am honestly not joking when he yelled at another Ugandan on a different boat to "Pass the anti-nigger cream" i.e. suncream :O We didn't know whether to laugh or cry with embarrassment! How English of us?! People here just don't have any concept of P.C.ness, it's very funny :) He was a nice guy though, we had a laugh with him all day. The water level was much higher than usual so the rapids were all huugeeee. We flipped on a Grade 3 rapid called Retrospect and were all heading for some rocks which was a rather worrying moment! We also flipped on another one called Jaws, straight after the waterfall rapid, and I got stuck under the side of the boat where there was no air to breathe. That panicked me a bit, I have to admit! It was probably only for about 5 seconds but it feels so much longer when you're struggling to get out. The boat was heavy so I couldn't move it, was a bit worrying... Anyway! Bex flew out on a massive Grade 5 one called Silverback with these big waves. If she hadn't fallen out, the boat would've flipped completely. When she surfaced she looked so worried bless her! She enjoyed it though, had an awesome day. The funniest episode was on the waterfall rapid - before you go over it there's a lot of fast moving water leading up to it, which is really shallow over some rocks. Basically, they tell you not to fall out there at any cost. So guess what I went and did: We hit a big wave and the boat tipped onto its side and I fell out and almost went over the waterfall on my own :S It was terrifying! Juma grabbed a paddle and I managed to get it and he pulled me back into the boat :S Bad times! All the other guides were panicking cos I was literally a metre away from going over the falls on my own. Funny times! What a story though :) I sat out with Bex on the last one cos I was shattered after the waterfall episode and getting stuck under the boat straight afterwards. The others did it without flipping though and even surfed a few waves right at the end! All in all a brilliant day :D

Monday 1st Feb - Pinch punch first of the month! We went into Kampala with Jona and Timo to visit the Kasubi Tombs cos they've been wanting to take us there for ages. The journey into town was epic cos all the kids are going back to school, so matatus were packed and the centre of townw as HEAVING. Getting round the new taxi park was crazy; we nearly got lost and this was in the heat of the day after 45 minutes of walking without having lunch. Not good.... Anyway, eventually we got to the tombs but (no joke) we had to pay 10,000sh to get in because we're white. Seriously I'm not even kidding - because we're not local, we have to pay more. Now that's fair enough, but they assumed we weren't local cos we were white. We've lived here for FIVE MONTHS and we're broke students doing voluntary work!!! We should've been allowed to pay 5000sh like Jona and Timo. I have to admit, I nearly lost my temper with the woman. What about mzungus who live here full time working?? Must have been 35deg that day too, so I wasn't in the best of moods! It was nice spending time with J&T though, even though the tombs weren't amazing - we saw a stuffed leopard though :S And this massive grass roofed palace where the king used to live with all his portraits and spears there. Very different to how it is now! The Kabaka of the Buganda tribe still exists but he doesn't have political power anymore, although his tribe want to change that. He lives in a palace near the Tigers Club project's football pitch that I visited a few months back (Wow, can't believe how fast those few months have gone..) After that we got some internet time at Steers cos we had to send our team project off to Oasis UK and I caught some highlights of the Premiership weekend matches - Arsenal lost to Man U :'( AND now we've lost to Chelsea too. CRINGE. Shattered and dehydrated, we returned home and had sausages and salt bread for tea :)

Tuesday 2nd - Drunk THREE litres of water during the day and yet was still dehydrated; that's how hot it's been lately! We had a nice, slow start to the day which I spent in bed reading, then after lunch we got a load of planning done. Wrote V.W.G's funding proposal and I typed it up in the evening, then planned the final design for the mural at Lilo and Ell and Nicky drew the outline onto the wall so that we could get it painted on the 3rd. Also sorted out speakers and arrangements for the V.W.G. seminar afternoon on the 3rd and generally got our lives into some semblance of order! When I was walking down the road to give an announcement about V.W.G. to the local shop, I had one of those loving Africa moments :) Groups of kids kept popping out of the undergrowth, saying hi and singing songs that we'd taught them at school. It was lovely :D A little group of kiddies came up to me on my way back, all trying to hold my hands and walked all the way home with me - Very cute! The air had that warm Africa smell of burning and flowers and car dust and the sun looked beautiful cos it was setting in those gorgeous burnished golden colours that you get, like in autumn at home-home :) Molly and Jessica and Kevin ran up to us to say hi... Little things like that are what I treasure about the village and will take home with me.

We've been praying more as a team lately, which has really helped us to plan more effectively and generally feel more peaceful about leaving Namaliri and the family. It's a very weird time; I'm so excited to come home, but at the same time I get really upset and cry all the time! I know it's to be expected but I can't find my feet, can't get a proper measure of how I'm feeling. I just want to know that we did everything we could here, that we've given all the love that we could to the children and the people who we've shared time with. I don't want to go home with any regrets or worries - I know God works in amazing ways, that we can't even begin to understand. He was already working in the people in Namaliri before we got there, and he'll safeguard the work we've done and it'll carry on if it's right for that to happen. Please pray that the last few days in the village will be full of joy for us, our family and friends and that we can really enjoy the time. Please pray that boys and girls group, V.W.G and kids club will flourish even when we've gone and that God will do wonderful things in the community. Lastly, please pray that we complete the purpose God has for us there and that he changes us in exactly the way that he wanted to when he brought us here :) This is such a beautiful country, such a special place, and I already can't wait to come back... I'm going to miss the sun and the colours, the smell of the air, the people who are so open and generous with themselves and their time. It's a privilege to get to live here and spend so much time with the people...

Wednesday 3rd - Birthday, woop! To be honest, it didn't feel much like my birthday; I was thinking how weird it is that a year ago I was surrounded by snow and ice, going to Loch Fyne for dinner with Mum, Dad, Nick and Ims. I'm going to have an awesome proxy birthday when I'm home :) In the morning the girls gave me some lovely glittery cards that they made for me, then I bought some kerosene from the petrol station, sorted out paint stuff and we went to Lilo to do the mural. We had a load of medical gloves for some reason so we used them to do the kids' handprints on the wall - we decided to do the prints in rainbow colours coming out around the school crest in the middle and we're going to write a Bible verse over the top. Not sure what yet... The wall isn't totally done but it looks fantastic! :D They really enjoyed doing it. I'm so glad that they'll have something to be proud of that they made when we leave, so that they can remember how gifted they are and how unique they all are. Plus handprints are pretty easy :) We've left quite a lot of space for next week cos a load of the kids weren't back at school yet - Ugandans are as lax with timing returning to school as in every other area of life! I saw Isaac at the shop near our house (he's one of the guys who used to go to Lilo) and he said he's finished P7 now so he's not at school anymore. Exciting news for him! I'm really going to miss him actually; he always says "how are you Madam" when he sees me and gives me a big smile and a hug. I wish he could speak more English then we could actually get to know him a bit better, hear about his family and stuff.. I want to learn Luganda better for when we come back!

After that we came home and Pastor Kernicky came from Kabimbiri (the next village along the main road from us) to do the V.W.G. seminars. None of the women came at 2, so we started the HIV/AIDS one at 3 and it went awesomely - he talked in a lot of detail, brought learning aids and all sorts. We had some drinks and doughnuts halfway through, then started the financial management talk at 5 and it ended up carrying on till half past 7!! Thankfully people rang me to wish me happy birthday so I could escape :) The women really enjoyed it though and learned a lot; it's going to help them manage the business side of the group in a really good way. Hopefully it'll really take off once we leave; we've given them all the training they could possibly need so now it's up to them. We had soda in the evening with the family as a birthday treat and then watched some Doctor Who before going to bed :)

Thursday 4th - We went to Gilgal in the morning as their term started again this week. There weren't as many kids as usual, so it was quite chilled, only about 30 or 40 in nursery.. We did the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet and talked about how we can love and serve one another. Acting out the story with actual water made the kids laugh a lot! We did some songs with the younger groups and different games with all of them, led different bits each time.. It went brilliantly! I was surprised by how easily we slotted back into the pattern of working there to be honest. Sarah was back at Gilgal after being in Jinja for ages so we saw her after the praise and worship session, which was nice. She's starting S1 at Kabimbiri High School next week, which is awesome. She seems sad though, there's a sadness in her eyes that always catches me when I look at her in the face - she gave me a long hug at the gate of our house when we said goodbye and I really think she's hurting about something. It's difficult because what can we say? After that, we went home and had lunch and chilled for a bit before going to Home Cell at sister Esther's place. It was quite a walk, but it was nice seeing parts of the village again. We saw Lydia and Justine again too :) We had the usual prayers, singing and talking at Esther's then she gave us a ridiculous amount of cassava, matoke and cow peas to eat until it was dark, then we walked home in the pitch black, stumbling all the way! Good times... Got home and then had to eat dinner. Seriously, I've put so much weight on there's no way I'm going to fit into my jeans at home!!! Major salad eating for all meals when I'm back in the UK I think...! :) I carried Esther home on my back, then we watched some Doctor Who and prayed for a bit as a team then hopped off to bed..

Friday 5th - Bambejja training again. Bad times getting up so early in the morning! We talked about going home and the ways that we might respond to our experience here in terms of prayer or financial giving or eventually coming back.. I know Oasis always have to plug themselves to get funding etc but sometimes it feels like we're on the receiving end of that a little bit too much! It was good to talk about it as a team though with Gill, who's the mzungu head of Oasis cos she understands the process of culture shock and going home etc. So strange to think that we'll be coping with all that in such a short space of time!! In the afternoon we led the prayer meeting and did washing of feet again, got all the staff to wash each other's feet in groups and answer questions on different parables Jesus told about serving others. It worked awesomely even though we planned it very last minute :) Nicky and Ell went to the cheap railway market at lunchtime and bought a set of table mats and an apron for Mama R and the family as some of our leaving presents. Then we headed to the post office to pick up packages - Luce got FIVE!! I got a lovely Christmas present from Auntie Lucy - thank you :D xxx

Saturday 6th - Sorted out all the craft boxes and medical box for the next team and made an inventory of everything that we really need to type up soon.. Then we all got a load of packing done. I know it seems early but there's so much rubbish and all sorts of stuff round the house that we can't leave it all til next Monday! It was very strange to pack - my black suitcase weights a ton :S I'm not sure it'll be allowed on the plane. It's got a load of toiletries in that I need to take home, presents for people, photographs and cards and stuff... I'm giving virtually all my shoes and clothes away, so they won't weigh my other bag down too much. I just hope I don't have to pay an inordinate amount of money to check my suitcase in at the airport!! Kids Club didn't start till half past 3 cos no kids were around, but when they eventually turned up we did the banner that we've been planning with them. In the morning Luce and I wrote Kids Club on it and painted the letters black, then we put the kids' handprints all around it. It looks fab :D It's for the counselling centre when Mum and Dad eventually get it built, so that they can hang it up for the kids club meetings that they do in there. They've already bought the land and cleared it of trees etc so now they're just waiting for enough funds to start the building work. We want to fundraise that money for them when we get home. Even Molly and Jessica and Kevin came to do their handprints, which was lovely :) For once Molly decided that she wasn't terrified of us! After that, we cleared up reeeeally quickly and went down to Gilgal for boys and girls groups. They went awesomely too! We talked about being strong men and women of God - I did girls group with Bex and Luce and we played a few games then got the girls to say qualities that a woman of God should have and wrote them on the board. The hot potato game made sure that they all said something rather than just sitting in silence! Then we looked at some of the Bible stories about women that we did before Christmas and the qualities that they had, and then looked at how the girls could all be strong women of God in a practical way too. It doesn't feel quite finished yet though, so I want to buy some mirrors for them to write the qualities on next week at our last meeting, so that they have something to keep to remind them who they are in God :) I'm going to miss those girls so much - Florence, Sarah, Bright, Victo, Mercy, Sarah no.2 (!) and Precious were all there with a load of other girls too. How nice are their names?! It's like that Quaker tradition of naming your kids after characteristics... Aaanyway that's about it from Saturday!

It's now Monday and my internet time is almost up, so I have to go. No time to talk about Sunday School! Sorry for how long this entry has been - congratulations for getting to the end!! :) We're in Kampala today, buying medication and having health checks done before coming home, having our last nice lunch at Cafe Javas before we go home too :D Can't wait, I'm hungry! 3 mins left.... Sending tons and tons of love to everyone at home and really looking forward to seeing you all again, especially lovely little Maggie who I haven't met yet :D Take care of yourselves and I'll try to write again before we leave the country. Millions of love and the biggest hug ever especially for Mr Dan Bentley, who I know will pull through the latest saga in his soap opera life ;)

xXx

Holiday!!! (18th - 26th January 2010)

Hey everyone :D

I'm in an internet cafe in Jinja today, wearing a loooong floaty, colourful summer dress and big sunglasses. Good times! We're on the last few days of our holiday, staying at a place called Palm Tree Guesthouse for a bit of luxury before we go home. We have a swimming pool and proper sheets on our beds - everywhere else we've slept here, they have these horrible think woollen blankets that make you unable to breathe, so actual cotton is a bit of a relief! It's a lovely place. I got a load of present shopping done yesterday in the little shops down Main Street in Jinja. We've been getting boda bodas everywhere, which is lots of fun :) Don't know why we don't do it more often, aside from the blatant dangerous side of it!

Before we arrived here in the centre of Jinja we were staying at a place called Explorers Camp right near the Nile. It had a beautiful view and a great bar where we just spent a few days relaxing and reading and eating good food. It was very cheap but we had such a lovely time. It was a centre for water sports and stuff, so a lot of people stayed there permanently so we got to know some of them. I met a lady who had a shop just outside; she had a little 18 month old boy called Nathan. He saw me and ran up to me, clung to my legs and wouldn't go back to his Mum. Quite embarrassing! :S Apparently he used to be looked after by a white lady so he loves white people, whoever they are. Very sweet!

We arrived there on Thursday and then on Friday we went white water rafting, the activity company linked with Explorers Camp. It was EPICALLY AMAZING!!!!! We did a whole day of rapids from Grade 3 - Grade 5, which is the highest raftable grade I think. There were 6 of us in a boat (we met a great couple from Australia and spent the day with them) and we had an insanely arrogant guy caled John from Explorers who basically took the trip. To be fair, he did have some reason to be arrogant, being a muscly tanned water sports instructor, but I just wanted to push him out of the boat into one of the larger rapids by the time half an hour was up! 2 other boats went down the river with us, causing lots of splashing competitions the whole day. Needless to say, we were soaked and had an awesome time. There was one waterfall we went down where Ellie and I accidentally let go of the boat but somehow managed to stay inside it, whacking our heads. She couldn't do the last 2 big rapids and I now have half a black eye! There was another one we went down called Silverback, which was huuugeeee and choppy and a bit mental, and Nicky fell out of the boat and was holding on to the side from OUTside the boat, then got swept away into the rapids. Looked like so much fun! Obviously we all had life jackets and helmets (no need to worry Nina, Mum and Nanna!!) but even so it was really disorientating being in the rapids. We were the only boat not to flip over right till the end, and we flipped in this massive Grade 5/6 rapid cos John tipped us over. Bad times! It sounds silly, but I can now see why people drown cos even wearing a life jacket, in the 5 seconds before I popped back up to the surface, I couldn't tell which way was up. The whole day was amazing and finished with a big bbq which made it even better. I have a DVD of us doing the rapids so you can all see that when we're home.

Speaking of which, only 3 weeks and 5 days now - how weird is that?!? That could almost be the length of a holiday... We get back to the village tomorrow, then work starts again on Tuesday the 2nd Feb, then we leave the village on the 16th before we do 5 days of debrief in Kampala. Crazy... At the Explorers place, there was one night when a load of Americans were staying. I wanted to go down to the bar in the evening and have a drink but they were all in there getting absolutely wasted and going a bit mental. It was nowhere near as big as in clubs or bars at home, but it totally freaked me out - part of me wanted to be there but another part of me wanted to run away cos it was so loud and busy and generally different from what we've been doing for the last 5 months. When I get home I can't wait to go out with friends, but at the same time I think I've underestimated how much of a shock it'll be. Maybe I'll just hate it! :S On Saturday after white water rafting my back and arms were pretty painful (we paddled down 30km of river, and most of it wasn't fast-moving rapids!) so I had a back massage at a spa near the camp place. Loveeely times! In the evening we had a nice meal out at a more expensive restaurant to have some nice team time and good food. It was a bit disappointing, but we got dressed up and made an effort anyway :)

So back in time to before we arrived at Explorers Camp. We stayed on Ssese island for 2 nights. Getting there was fairly epic! Our vehicle arrived to pick us up an hour and 10mins after it was meant to, so we almost missed the ferry across Lake Victoria from Entebbe. It was a loooong 2 and a half hour journey to get to Entebbe, then the ferry took 3 and a half hours, so we were pretty tired by the time we got there. When we got to the port, it was 5 past 2 and the ferry had already left. We literally sprinted to get to it, looking ridiculous carrying all of our bags, but they very very very luckily reversed the ferry to pick us up. Apparently that never happens! God was definitely keeping an eye on things for us :) Our rooms weren't wonderful at Ssese but we were right on this white sandy beach and went swimming in the lake and for short walks up and down the beach. There was a beautiful sunset and the food was good. So all in all not bad! We did a lot of reading and sunbathing on our full day there, then had a BBQ on the beach in the evening round a bonfire, which was lovely. The ferry left the island at 8am every day, which was gutting cos it meant we barely got any time there, and we had to get up at 6am on the 21st! But at least we got there in time and got to Explorers without too much trouble.

I think that's pretty much it for holiday news... Not sure if there's anything else to report! It's the 26th today (Happy birthday Nonno and Oli! Lots of love) and my English teacher's baby is due - it's been a complicated pregnancy, so please pray that it goes well and that it's a safe delivery that is peaceful and calm for her, her husband and their little 3 year old Tom. Not sure what else there is to write... I'd better stop I guess, got a few emails to send. Hope everything at home is good, for all of you reading this. Sending lots of love and a big hug, as always.

Flick xXx

13th - 17th January 2010

OK so second blog entry of the day, the catch-up continues...

Wednesday 13th - Nicky and I got up at half past 7 to take an announcement down to the shops at the bottom of the main road so that the ladies would know that V.W.G started at 2pm because we were having training. When we got there, it was closed. BAD TIMES!!! We decided to buy cake and come home and make coffee, which was a surprisingly pleasant start to the day :) We found out from Mama that Kevin and Ivan's Dad (a family that live down the path towards Gilgal School) died last night and the burial was later on during the day. We couldn't go because we were running V.W.G - we saw Kevin as we were walking back from the shops and he looked so different. Usually he runs up to us, grinning and clapping, but he was with a group of older boys and looked totally blank, didn't respond to us at all. Later he came back to the house when we were doing our washing during the morning and seemed a bit brighter and more cheerful though. It was very odd - please pray for their family, especially the children. Their Mum will now have a real struggle on her hands to provide for them all.. We tidied the house, did washing and sorted stuff out generally before Alison (an Oasis International Placement) came to visit us with Nusuula from Bambejja, who came to train the V.W.G how to make liquid soap and shampoo. They came at about half 1 and we showed them around then had some lunch before the ladies came. They had a great time learning a new skill and really seemed to enjoy it. I went up to Lilo to check on the wall with Alison to see the work the builder was doing and he was already finished! :) It looks great, much much better to paint on compared to how it was before. The training went well; the ladies seemed really excited to be learning something new. It's good to see them that happy. We've asked Nusuula to come back next week while we're on holiday to train them how to make bars of soap as well. Hopefully by the time we leave we can set them up with some resources to start producing the stuff properly so that they can start selling it locally. The sooner they have some income the better. Nicky led the Bible Study after V.W.G then we had a chilled out normal evening before bed...

Thursday 14th - NIGHTMARE last night! At half past 12 Lucy and Bex discovered an ant infestation in their room, complete with ant eggs, safari and soldier ants, little normal ones AND flying ones :( It was awful. They were all over their stuff, coming in through holes in the walls and through the ceiling so we had to clear out everything to sweep the room, clean their stuff and spray insecticide over EVERYTHING. It took us till half past 2! Such a Ugandan experience... Dad came to help us though and poured paraffin on the massive nest round the back of our house. It was one of those situations I won't forget for a while :) We slept in a lot in the morning to make up for the craziness, watched some Doctor Who and Scrubs then did a load of planning. We're getting better at organising stuff - we've got a plan for each of our groups for the last 2 weeks we have in the village in Feb and we got the January team report done too. Should be awesome, we've got some good stuff planned. You'll find out all about it in my next few blogs... My back was pretty painful all day, I pulled a weird muscle on the bottom right hand side which stopped me from moving properly all day - I definitely took too many painkillers but the pain still didn't shift :( We had a chilled prayer session in the evening and that made it better though, so good times! It was a really lovely time relaxing and spending some time with God.

Friday 15th - Up at 6:30 because we all slept in :S Training with Zedde again at Bambejja, and I bought a load of presents for people at home from the bead shop there :) Cost a bomb but everything I got is beautiful! Then went to the internet cafe on Kampala Road to try to sort out a money transfer between my accounts before holiday starts but it wouldn't work. I tried everything; it was incredibly stressful. Managed to get Mum to sort it out from home, thank goodness :) I love my family!! We got to the taxi park late, everyone was tired, then when we got back to the village we were surrounded by drunk men when we tried to buy phone credit at the shop. It was just ridiculous! I was so tired I even fell asleep on the way home, despite the insane bumps and potholes :) We had beans and sausages and cheese on toast for dinner though, so that kinda made up for it.

Saturday 16th - We slept in till quarter past 11. Amazing!!! I don't think I've felt so rested since we got here... We were meant to have Kids Club in the afternoon but Mum thought we were on holiday already so told everyone it was off, so we had the day to do housework and rest. It was a shame that we couldn't do what we'd planned with Kids Club, but we're going to try and get it done the next time we see them. We went to the wall and got the first coat of water based paint on there and then a coat of oil based paint on top too, so it now looks very white and ready to paint properly. It was really fun, we took some music and Jona and Timo came to help too :) I got a lot of paint all over me and in my hair, but it came out with a bit of scrubbing! I don't think we really did much else during the day... Made noodles and watched 3 episodes of Doctor Who. Ah man we sound like such TV addicts, I swear we do work too!! We're not just bumming around out here :)

And now it's Sunday 17th and our 2 weeks of holiday time officially started this morning :D :D :D :D We're going to Sesse, an island on Lake Victoria on Tuesday for a few days, then we're going back to Jinja on the River Nile and going white water rafting and staying there for about a week. I'm really excited to get there :) Hopefully we'll find an internet cafe there so I can email home and write a bit on here. It's quite cold and cloudy as I write (by Ugandan standards!) and it's going to rain soon. You can feel it in the air... We're just going to some gardens at a nice hotel here to chill out with some music, so hopefully the rain will hold off for a bit! I might get a nice cup of English tea :D

Under 5 weeks till I'm home now - scary to think about it. Not long till I see you all, really looking forward to it :) Sending tons and tons of love and a big hug,

Flick
xXx

6th - 12th January 2010

Hi everyone :)

Sorry it's been 2 weeks since I wrote a blog. We had internet at home for a while, but now the laptop's broken so we're back to once a week internet time again. It was nice to have it while it lasted though! The main news for this entry I guess is this: I got into Cambridge! :D So big smiles and high fives all round! As you can imagine, I'm over the moon and very very very excited. Thank you to everyone who prayed when I came home for the interview; it really did help. I felt so peaceful about the process this time! I'd better start with the blogging now as I have 2 weeks to do and it's going to take me forever :S

Wednesday 6th - Found out about Cambridge, good times! A couple of us went to Mukono to buy fruit juice and biscuits for Kids Rally at the weekend while the rest of us stayed at home doing housework and bits and bobs. We had V.W.G. in the afternoon and it was mainly a social one. We intended to have training on that week but we couldn't organise it with the lady from Bambejja who does our training, so we had to postpone. The ladies were really good about it though - they're used to Ugandan time - and we had soda as a treat to apologise. We had a special dinner cos it was Becky's 3 year anniversary with her fiance, which was pretty difficult for her, so salt bread, sausages and chips went down well. Then hot chocolate, marshmallows and popcorn while we watched Doctor Who in the evening. It doesn't get much better than that, even in the UK! Maybe a takeaway pizza would've been good though... Anyway, the girls made me a beautiful banner to say well done for Cambridge, very sweet of them, which I'm going to take to my room and hang up over my desk :D Ah how cool to think that I'm actually going there!!!

Thursday 7th - Didn't do much, bit of a random day. We met Reverend Livingstone, the director at Lilo school at 9am to talk about the mural and get his approval. He agreed so we're using one of the outside walls near the pit loos...! We're planning to paint it white all over, then do the school crest in black in the middle with the motto underneath, then get the kids to do their handprints all over the rest of the wall in red, yellow and orange. It should look awesome :) If we can find a ladder then we're going to write some Bible verses over the top too. Please pray that we think of the right ones to put up there! We had a bit of an awkward situation with Lilo; the director and headteacher asked if we could give them some money to build a permanent structure at the back of the building they already have. They asked in a lovely way, it's just they have a need for it more than they have a need for the mural cos their temporary wooden classrooms are being eaten away by termites. The problem is, we wanted to do something interactive with the kids, that they could appreciate as their own lasting work. That's why the mural is such a great thing to do with them - no matter what their abilities physically or mentally, they can all put their handprints on the wall. We don't have enough money to pay for the building and we felt terrible about it. We can't use our budget money and we just don't have enough personal money, but that's really hard cos we love that school and more than that we love the kids, and if we could do it then we would. It's an urgent need for them, such a shame that we can't help. It's especially difficult when Oasis over-budgeted for us, so we DO have team money sitting in a bank account but we just can't give it away like that cos of the precedent it sets for future mzungu teams. Ah well. We can pray for them :) In the evening we spent HOURSSSS sorting out crafts for the kids rally - we're expecting 150 kids at most, so we prepared that many stars, holepunching them and tying them together with ribbon for the kids to decorate them. EPIC!!! It was a pretty late night as we tried to get all our packing done for Kids Rally over the weekend...

Friday 8th - Training in Kampala as usual - Zedde Mzungu from Calvary Chapel church ran the session on suffering. It was pretty good... I'm still not a massive fan of the training or the 6am early starts, but it's all for a good reason I guess. We left Kampala early in a vehicle that we hired to get to Tororo in Eastern Uganda for the Kids Rally. We went home to pick up all our bags then set off on the almost-4-hour-long journey. It went suprisingly quickly though; the land looks very different. There are barely any banana or matoke trees, but lots and lots of flat land with bushes and not so many trees, lots of pineapple plants and sugar crops and some maize crops too. There are way more cows because traditionally the tribe of Eastern Uganda is called Teso and they're cattle farmers. It was really interesting to see the differences in the area - the houses were pretty much all circular mud huts in the villages, with straw rooves. The towns were similar to Central, with iron rooves and bricks. Watched Scrubs in the evening after lots of soda and fish and chips for dinner, then had an early night cos of the insaneness of Kids Rally the next day. The guesthouse we were staying in was really nice, with toilets and running water (albeit cold running water!) and an actual bar. Not that we used it!

Saturday 9th - WHAT AN EPIC DAY. There are no words to describe quite how mental, awesome, stressful yet fun and generally amazing this day was!! But I'll try and describe it anyway :) We prayed for the day on Friday night and prayed that lots of kids would come, that it would go really well etc. We were expecting about 100-150 kids at the very most and prepared everything for that estimation. We got THREE HUNDRED children!!!!!!! Ah it was insane... We put them all into teams and gave them name labels and spent the morning playing games as planned. We did the balloon game, the get-the-domino-out-of-the-flour-with-your-mouth game, a clothes relay, ball and spoon races, musical statues and musical bumps, wheelbarrow races (which almost killed me when I had to demonstrate!) and a memory verse game with balloons. They loved it - their fave was definitely the flour game! What amazed me the most was the way we all worked together as a team, depsite the craziness and flexibility that we had to show cos of the change in numbers. Some of us did name labels and put the kids into teams, some demonstrated and explained the games, Bex spent ages making extra star crafts for the extra kids to do. I was so proud of us as a team! Even though it was stressy, we made it work and it became fun because of that. It shows how far we've come cos we definitely wouldn't have been able to do that right at the start of our time here. Anyway, lunch was meant to be after the memory verse and games at 1, but it ended up not being ready till about half 3 / 4 o'clock! Typical Ugandan timing again... We improvised and Nicky did the talk and we did the drama sketches to go along with it before lunch. Our theme was shining like stars for Jesus so we talked about what we can do to love other people like Jesus did, and acted out the parable of the Good Samaritan and Jesus washing the disciples' feet as examples. Then Nicky talked about how we're all unique and made differently, just like every star, and we each shine out who Jesus is in very different ways. It was an awesome talk and went really well with our memory verse - "You are the light of the world. Let your good deeds shine out for all to see." Good times! We didn't have enough of the craft stuff for all the kids, so we decided to do that at Sunday School the next day instead.

After we were done with the kids stuff, we had lunch in the Pastor's house (they cooked us meat, SUCH an honour from them) and then went for a walk around the village to see Dad's home. He grew up there so it was lovely to see all the places that he can remember from his childhood. The poverty in that village was astounding. The houses were so small for large numbers of people. There's a culture of polygamy there so there are far too many children for the adults to look after. There's also a high rate of HIV so the adults die of AIDS and the kids are left to fend for themselves without any access to food, education or safety. It's a very difficult cycle to break without ruining their culture in a lot of ways. You have to westernise them to some extent to give them different ways of overcoming the problems they're having. For example, they used to be cattle farmers and have tons of land for grazing their herds, but now there are lots more people living in the area using the land as farmland for crops, so there's less room for grazing. To help break the cycle of poverty, you have to introduce more western ways of generating income, like we've done with V.W.G with the soap and candle making. But to me it just seems presumptuous to wander in and tell these people with such a different culture and history to us to do things our way... Dad has some land there left to him by his grandfather where he wants to set up a community project with an orphanage, tailoring school and vocational and healthcare training for people living tbere. It's an awesome vision and they're not farming the land in faith for when it happens :) We saw the house where he was born all those years ago and it's still standing. His eldest living sibling was born in 1936 so it's been there for a huge amount of time - it was great to hear him speak his own language (Atteso) and be greeted by long lost cousins and members of his family. We didn't meet many of his brothers because they have big problems with home-brewed alcohol addiction and were down at the local drinking shop while we were there :( Such a different side of life. It was amazing if a little shocking to see it. The views were beautiful and we had about 50 kids following us through the bush while we walked! The situations those kids are in is awful - if they have parents/carers, they often earn only 1000sh a day. That's about 30p. Plus global warming is having a huge effect and ruining the seasons for them, so farming and crops are being thrown way off kilter and are failing much more often than they used to.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Sorry, it just really shocked me in some areas. So many geographical and cultural contributing factors into their poverty, as well as social ones - it makes it so hard to solve the problem. I guess we can just do little things to make the kids smile :) In the evening we watched an Arsenal match at the guesthouse (I was SO happy!!!) and had chips for dinner, but it took over an hour and a half to arrive. I was not impressed. We complained, cos it seriously can't take that long to deep fry some sausages and chips. Half an hour at most but over 90 minutes?!?! :O We were quite hungry... Watched Doctor Who with Jona and Timo for a bit, then headed off to bed.

Sunday 10th - Church in the morning was fantastic! We did Sunday School for an hour at 9 and made all the star crafts with the kids - they loved it :) It was good to leave them with something to take home. We also left glitter glue and pencils with the teachers to keep cos they had so little. Some of the children led us in some praise and worship, very talented kids here! After that we went back into the main church meeting, which ended at 12 so that we could eat lunch and leave promptly. It was brilliant, lots of singing and dancing and the people were really happy to hear us sing and introduce ourselves. The pastor's wife stood up to welcome us and said that we'd really blessed the kids and they'd come home talking about the day they had on Saturday, which made us feel so happy! And then she said that all the adults were proud of their kids, which surprisingly overwhelmed me cos I've never heard a Ugandan say that before, especially to such a large number of children who are mostly orphans. The choirs were lovely, then Ellie preached on church unity and the images of the church as the body and bride of Christ, which went really well. All in all, a good morning :) We saw baboons on the way home in the vehicle so we stopped to take lots of photos :D It was soooo cool!!! We fed them bananas and we saw Mummies with little babies clinging to their tummies. Epic! After a loooong journey we got home to see Mama and arranged to meet Danny, a mzungu guy who came on an Oasis GAT team last year - he came for dinner then stayed the night and travelled back to Kampala with us on Monday. It was great to finally meet him cos we've been in contact for over a year since I was on the summer team last year and it was good to spend time with a mzungu guy for once! Ah I miss all the banter of my guy friends at home...

Monday 11th - Good but bad day... We went into Kampala at about 12, had a lazy morning so the family could spend time with Danny. He's doing a Theology degree at a Bible College in the UK so we had some good chats about what to expect from it and how to challenge your faith then piece it back together again so that it's stronger as a result of the intellectual study. He said some cool things, I didn't realise how much there was to think about in terms of matching up all the different parts of my faith. I've realised that there are things I accept just cos they're what I've always believed, but studying religion means I won't be able to do that anymore. I'm really excited about that actually :) I won't write about everything we talked about, it would take far too long! When we got to Kampala we had lunch at Cafe Javas again - yummyyyy!! I had chicken and cheese quaesadillas and guacamole and chips, happy times :D Becky was feeling really ill though, with a fever and aching all over while all the rest of us had headaches and bad throats and blocked noses. We decided to get a special hire home when I randomly threw up in the loo after my lovely lunch *cries* It was horrible! What a waste of good food. When we got home, everyone felt pretty crappy :( Bex hda a temperature of 39.2 - she basically had the high temp thing that Nicky, Ellie and I have had already. It sucks big time! She recovered pretty fast though, by Tuesday in fact, so that was good.

Tuesday 12th - We were meant to meet the builder at 9am to talk to him about plastering and painting the wall at Lilo in preparation for the mural, but he didn't turn up. BAD TIMES!! We got up early when we could've had a lie-in... The DVD player was broken so no English TV to pass the time :( :( :( And we all felt like crap! As you can imagine we were feeling pretty sorry for ourselves and wallowed a bit. I'm making it sound worse than it was; we had a pray and went to the tailoring school in the afternoon and did actually do something with our lives :) There were no ladies there though, very disappointing, so we just talked to Pastor Alex for half an hour then left to go back home and look after Becky. I wish that part of our programe was easier, I really do. The builder ended up coming at 5pm so we sorted out a price of 140,000sh for him to buy the materials to plaster the wall and to pay for his labour.


So that's it for now - as I write it's actually the 17th January, and I haven't had internet until now cos we've just come into Mukono, so there'll be another blog entry for you to read too in a bit :) My hands and back are aching now from all the typing (I had to do our team report for January and send it to Lisa, and I've already done my emails...) so I'm going to go and get lunch then come back in a bit.

Sending lots of love and hugs back home,
Flick
xXx

29th December 2009 - 5th January 2010

Happy new year!

It's hard to believe that it's the start of a new decade... Hope you all had an awesome new year celebration, whatever you were doing, and that this year is full of exciting adventures and fulfillment for you. We spent the new year in a place called Mto Moyoni in Jinja, on the banks of the River Nile. It was an absolutely beautiful place, full of trees and flowers. It was nice to be in a different place, with such lovely surroundings but it felt a bit weird too. I'm not a massive fan of going away from home cos it feels quite detached from what we've been doing in the village. We stayed in little circular rooms and even had running water :D It was heated by solar power and we had two days of rain though, so hot water was slightly too much to wish for. But still, it was awesome actually feeling properly clean and soap-free! My favourite place was a hammock on top of a hill, with an amazing view down the river. We spent new year's eve there, round a bonfire and watched some fireworks that the posh hotel across the river set off at midnight. It was a very different experience but one of those once in a lifetime things that's really important to appreciate. I missed our traditional family meal - we always have venison stew, wild boar stew and pheasant (my Nonno loves game :D) It's one of my fave meals of the whole year, so they promised me we'd have a fake new year dinner when I come back :)

The retreat itself was good, but not all that relaxing. I don't feel very rested since coming back; it feels like a bit of a dream that didn't quite happen, like the retreat wasn't really there. I think it's the underlying stress about hearing back from Cambridge this week. I'm not panicking about it cos I know that God will sort it out, I did my best and couldn't have said or done anymore. I'm content about it in that sense, happy within myself and proud that I managed to go home and actually manage the situation even though it was so crazy! But of course I still wanna get in :) I just want to know now to be honest. Thank you everyone who did pray and is still praying and sending good luck etc for me. We did some cool prayer and Bible stuff on retreat but I wish it had been a bit freer, with more time for self-expression and writing and painting. I like space just to be quiet and still and rest with God without feeling stressed or busy or pressured, but it felt like we had a busy programme with 'appointments' to keep, instead of God-led time. Hmmm...

I sound like I'm complaining a lot, sorry! We had a hilarious canoe ride on the Nile, in which the boat began to fill with water and the guy taking us out had to scoop it out with his hands . Good times! We're waiting to do the white water rafting till our holiday, when we're staying in Jinja for 6 days. It's scary how fast the time is going now; after our holiday, we only have 2 weeks left in the village and we've got less than 2 weeks till the holiday now. Argh!!! The food at the retreat place was yummy, we had pasta bake which was actually DELICIOUS (I'd forgotten how much I loveee pasta...) and lots of fruitage :)

So that's Thursday till Sunday covered. Wednesday 30th we planned for the kids rally, which goes from the 8th - 10th Jan (this weekend). It was surprisingly quick and easy to get the games and story stuff decided, thank goodness, and we're now really excited about it. We're going to a place called Tororo in Eastern Uganda, where people tend to be a lot poorer than here in central. It will certainly be a different experience to what we've become used to. The tribes there are different so we won't be able to understand any of their language. Luckily we've requested to have 5 translators, so we can manage to organise the potential 150 kids we'll have for the Saturday funday thing. We've been not as busy as usual for so long that it's nice to have lots of things to plan for and do. I feel a bit discouraged when I think about December, as if it was a bit of a floaty month when we didn't really do anything, but I forget how much we've done. Vulnerable Women's Group had their candle-making training and we've organised the soap/shampoo and financial training for them, we did a week at Bambejja, we did the kids Christmas party and the youth seminar and the gaps in our programme gave us time to spend with the family, getting much closer with them. I'm really glad we had that space now :)

The schools all restart in the first week or so of Feb, so we'll be back at Lilo and Gilgal then. This Thursday we're meeting with Pastor Livingstone, who's the director at Lilo, so talk about our plans for the mural on the wall outside the school loos. I CAN'T WAIT for that!!! Soooo excited to be able to make something lasting with the kids that they can look at with a sense of pride and achievement cos they made it :) How exciting! Today we visited a project run by a local youth pastor called David - he has a 'family' of young guys and they have a brick-making project that they're trying to grow. He rents land for them at the moment but they're trying to buy the building they live in at the moment so they can provide better care for the guys. They have an awesome vision :) Please pray that God encourages them and gives them hope and excitement about where he's taking them, and that they have their spiritual eyes so fixed on God that they know where he's leading them, even if it seems weird! I might go for a walk through the village later just so I can see some of the ladies and spend some time with different people, who don't necessarily come to the groups we run. I don't do that enough.. We're going to the tailoring school in 20 mins I think, at least if we manage to get lunch before that!

Not sure what other news I have... I am very grateful to everyone who stays in touch, thank you :D It's been a massive blessing to have people caring for me from home and watching over us in prayer while we're here. I was reading a bit in Colossians 3 today about prayer, and how important being grateful is. I was thinking, when we view everything that we have as a blessing and provision from God, it makes not having certain things much easier. If we're expecting loads of material things and have unrealistic expectations of what our faith will do for us materially, then we'll always be disappointed and bitter and angry with God. That's the danger of prosperity gospel in Uganda; if you don't have stuff like cars or money or nice clothes, it's because you haven't believed in God enough, you don't have enough faith, God isn't satisfied with you. It's a disgusting, destructive message to teach, which undermines everything I believe about God. His love, his acceptance of us no matter what, the unconditional nature of his grace and friendship... Anyway, sorry, rant over!

Something you guys could pray for or raise awareness about is the law that the government are currently trying to pass here in Uganda, making homosexuality a crime and the punishment in some parts of the law is the death penalty. It's a horrific idea, and the USA and UK have already said they'll withdraw all the financial support they send here if the law is passed. I've attached some links at the end which gives more information about the law itself... The president here is Museveni and he's imposed himself for an illegal third term in government. It's a democracy here, and politically things are stable and it's one of the richest countries in Uganda, but that wealth is shared by a tiny minority, and the resources that Uganda has aren't used wisely by the government. This could be a hugely prosperous country, an example of what Africa could become as a whole, but because of stupid levels of corruption normal people have much lower standards of living than they should. The anti-homosexuality law is just one part of a morally corrupt government. Please pray that the law doesn't go through, that politicians' eyes are opened and they don't stand for such awful treatment of people. There is lots of debate going on in the country as a whole about this at the moment and it's a time of great change, so please pray that it stays stable and that God moves in ways that we might not even see but that will nevertheless change the nation for the better. Please also pray that the church takes an honourable, loving, gracious stance on the issue - there can often be a lot of condemnation and horrible treatment of homosexuals, and it NEEDS to stop.

OK I have to stop now, time for the tailoring school. Thank you for reading this far again! Sending tons of love and a big hug to you all in the new year .. Only 46 days as I write until I'm home. Can't wait to see you all :D

Flick xXx

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/uganda-death-sentence-gay-sex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/28/ugandas_do_ask_do_tell