This Is My Song.....: January 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

Kampala Holiday!

About 2 weeks ago, we had a week off. We headed to Kampala to send off our dear friend Rhonwen Hamer, the Australian! We miss her already! We had a wonderful time staying with Laurie and Bill Stough, long term missionaries with AIM. It was so wonderful to stay in a home, to cook dinner, relax, and watch a couple movies. I’m not complaining about living at the “Crystal Hotel” but there is something to living in a home over a hotel, I’m sure you can understand.
Sarah and I had an adventure to get our passports re-stamped in Port Bell. We had a great boda man, Quraish. He is so great to ride with because he gives us a little Kampala tour. He tells us where the schools are, the factories, stores, whatever he tells us! It’s great! When we arrived at the border, which was the end of the road before it ran into Lake Victoria. We ended up having to wait about an hour and a half so Quraish walked with us around the market, and then we chatted by the Lake. He is from a village 2 hours away from Kampala, married with 2 children and he grows COFFEE!! I was so interested to hear how this all works from someone who actually does it themselves. He is such a nice person. All in all we got our passports stamped, yay!
We had some good time to debrief with each other about how things are going and we have gained a lot of motivation to work at Smile! Hoping to start on some projects that I will keep you posted about as they go on!
We then spent a day at a resort and man was it a good idea! Speke resort is one of those places I always see a brochure for or something and its outrageously expensive so I don’t have a chance to stay there. We went in to use the pool for the day. It is 1 foot short of olympic sized and Amazingly Awesome! It was so nice to relax and spend time with friends we may not get to see for quite some time. Thank you Lord for making this possible! I definitely have to say this was a good way to start the new year!

Sunday, January 29, 2012

THE Nile Source

The boat we rode in to see the Source!

The beginning of the Nile!

African Camping :)

Photo at the beginning of the Nile!!!

Best place to stay in Jinja!

Shops along the water.

Our view from our room at Surjio's!

On our way to see the Source!!

Enjoying the Amazing pool!

Waiting for the Smile van during our taxi mishap.

Well since we stuck around Tororo for Christmas we all decided we would go on 'holiday' to Jinja for New Year's! We booked ourselves a stay at Surjio's! It was fantastic. Surjio's is a lovely, quaint place. It was nice and quiet, had a lovely pool, stone oven to make PIZZA, and the staff was SO wonderful!
We spent the weekend doing a bit of shopping in town, and visited the orphanage Surjio's wife runs down the road. It was so lovely, very organized, and gave us some ideas to implement to Smile, hopefully.

Surjio (the owner) was so nice and chatted with us. He suggested we go down to the water and get a boat ride to the Nile Source. So we did. It took us longer to bargain the price of our ride than to actually get to the source and back, but it was worth it. We rode over to this little island where there was the posting of the Source of the Nile. Our boat driver explained to us why they chose this spot of Lake Victoria the Source of the Nile.

We spent New Year's Eve chatting with a lady named JoAnna from England who was spending her holiday season volunteering at an orphanage outside of Jinja for 4 weeks. She was so pleasant and we had a great evening with her! We counted down and celebrated with some other UKer's that were staying at Surjio's. There were even fireworks in town that we got to see a bit of through the trees at the end of Surjio's driveway!

We headed back to Tororo on New Year's Day and had a little miscommunication with the taxi man and ended up having to get out and wait for another taxi to come pick us up a little ways out of Tororo! Thankfully the Smile van was able to come and get us! God is definitely watching over us here. It all turned out just fine.

We had a great weekend of relaxation, GREAT 'Western' food, and a great time meeting new people!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Smooth.

Step 1: Breaking up the floor.

Step 2: laying the new cement

FINAL!!!! Nice smooth floor!

Smile Africa Ministries (SAM) was recently given money to refinish the "shed" floor! I didn't get a photo before they started working on it but the 'Step 1' photo looks similar to some large patches of the floor prior to the start of the project! THANK YOU to the donor!
The shed is used for SO MANY functions! The kids eat breakfast and lunch there, have nursery class, greet visitors with singing under the shed, we have afternoon prayers or church under the shed, and sometime the widows have their weekly class there. It gets used so much and EVERYONE is so grateful for the new smooth cement floor. Now we can go back to using it and the nursery kids can now take naps on the smooth floor!

The day the kids were allowed onto the floor I was working in the baby room helping the kids eat porridge and I heard all this chanting, yelling, laughing, and singing going on outside. I went to the window and looked out towards the shed to see all the kids running onto the new floor jumping up and down. They were so excited for the blessing of the new floor! I was taken back at how they reacted and its such a humbling and needed reminder that all we need is enough, and nothing more.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

For the First Time.

On Sunday we went to a village about 45 minutes from Tororo. Pastor Ruth had asked us to come with because she and an elder from the Tororo Pentecostal Church were going to present a Name to the church. Now the funny part is I don’t remember the name of the church because I don’t know how to pronounce the name of the village. (sorry).
Anyways, the woman in the village who has started the church her name is Margaret. Margaret is a full of life spirited woman! She was so welcoming to us! We had a warm welcome of plastic lawn chairs seated in front facing the congregation, and water bottles. The church structure is a dirt floor, lumber as the walls to hold up the tin roof and they have mudded half way up the walls all the way around. There were about 15 adults and 15 children there.
It is normal in Africa to have testimonies at the beginning of the service and while they were sharing a girl Joyce, stated that we were the FIRST Mzungus she had ever seen. WOW!! What an honor. Yet, the pressure to leave a good impression for what they will think of mzungus! ...still trying to wrap my head around it. It kind of felt like we were an exhibit in a zoo because more and more children were coming from the village to see and they would stand outside the church and just stare in at us. It’s something I am fairly used to but it is actually exhausting. But the worship time was fun and lively and we had a good service. They were so happy to be an official church and for visitors “us” to be there.
After church we were welcomed to Margaret’s home and she filled us with lunch! We had chicken, matoke, rice, millet bread, and cabbage. The normal african meal. She was so welcoming and kind.
A funny story to end this post is during our time we had to use the toilet. So Pastor Ruth came with us to show us where it was and we walked to find it. Yep. Four walls built of sticks with dried tall grass as the “shower curtain” so to speak, and inside was the bathroom. Rocks, no hole. So...it was an experience. Yet, Africa is making me less surprised by any event we encounter. The phrase I use is “It’s Africa, anything is possible”.

Worship time!

Margaret

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Jose (Jo-Say)

Well if you don’t recognize this little face then you haven’t been reading my blog! haha caught you, just joking, no pressure! Anyways Jose is my favorite kid at Smile. I call him my little buddy! There are no words to describe what it feels like to have a little one run to you for a hug when you arrive or be the first to pull on my skirt when I get there and when I look down he is Smiling ear to ear!! So stinking cute! If I ever feel down I go to Jose!
I don’t know much about his story. However, this is what I do know. He has an older brother named Emma and another little sister, who doesn’t come to Smile. He lives in the village Bison (Bee-son); side note, I do not think it is a coincidence that the village is spelt like BISON for us NDSU fans. He has a Father who works in town as a business man and his mother left them a couple months ago because the father was very sick, so she thought he was going to pass away, he didn’t and she returned so now they are together. This is all I know of him. But it is very interesting how attached you can be to a little one when we barely communicate. Actions speak louder than words. There will definitely be tears the day I have to say goodbye.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Photo Booth :)

Well one evening we were waiting for something before we wanted to watch a film together! So I said Rhonnie let's do photo booth! This is what came out of our 20 minute adventure! Enjoy! God has truly blessed me with amazing teammates/coworkers/friends! Rhonnie has headed back to Australia and we miss her dearly!! (I hope these make you laugh!)

Whoa, we're on a roller coaster!

Look at that beautiful sunset!

Can Rhonnie's head get any smaller?

Sunday, January 15, 2012

GO BISON!!

If I didn't post this I wouldn't be a true BISON fan! For those of you who DON'T know...my alma mater North Dakota State University Football team WON the NCAA Division I National Championship against Sam Houston!! I was bummed I couldn't attend but I cheered from Uganda, Africa!

GO BISON!!

Now I Get It.....

My gal Toria from TH!!!

My gal Nana from TH!!

Life. It’s a puzzle. Well I think I have put a couple pieces together!
I graduated in 2009 from NDSU with a Bachelors in Music. When I finished I knew I didn’t want to teach music but that I love it and will continue to use it throughout my life. I also knew that I wanted to work with teenagers, to help them in all that goes with the crazy life of trying to get through your teenage years, especially in this generation. Which through some 10 months of trial working in Grand Forks at ACC, I took a step of faith, took an unpaid internship working at TreeHouse as a Youth Outreach Specialist. During my internship, I felt like God would open the door to continue working at TreeHouse long term and that would be that. I was wrong.
I continued with TreeHouse for the next 10 months as a paid full-time employee on a short term contract. Through LOTS of transition and frustrations God closed the door for me to work at TreeHouse long term. This was a very low day. All that I had worked for, all that I thought I knew, all that I wanted, was gone and back to ground zero. This is when God told me to go to Africa and I became a nanny for 4 months before leaving.
The I Get it Now is this. Through many situations, so far, in Africa I have been able to use MANY skills and experiences I had at TreeHouse here! Praise The Lord! I’m so glad I can see that now! It is funny to realize this but it all of a sudden hit me when I said the other day, “sorry I keep referring to TreeHouse”.
TreeHouse also increased my love for high school students and wanting them to see the potential they have without trying to be someone else. Which is why I am currently waiting to hear back from Graduate School Applications for my Masters in School Counseling. Prayers would be greatly appreciated and accepted! I won’t hear until March!
I was and still am so very THANKFUL for TREEHOUSE! I learned so much working in that position. Not just about working with kids but about non-profit organizations, management, managing groups of people, self discipline, and myself. I’m glad God lets us see why we have gone through where we were and I’m grateful for where I am.