Mohawk Mishap

Everett had been begging me to cut his hair for a couple of weeks.  He wanted a mohawk again after a failed attempt to grow his hair out long like Karson's.  So  45 minutes before church I decided it was the perfect time.  What was I thinking?  I was in a hurry and not thinking 100% clearly and I plugged the clippers in and began the process of shaving the side.  After one good swipe, about 1/4 of his head shaved, there were sparks, a pop and a cloud of smoke.... I had forgotten to plug the clippers into a step-down.  The power here in Uganda is 240 volts, most American things will only handle 110 volts, thus the need for a step-down to convert the power.  Jason usually handles plugging in all the appliances and electronic gadgets, but I was in a hurry and was trying to get it done quickly.  So, 20 minutes before church, Everett had a big swatch shaved out of his head and the rest was long.  Most kids would have freaked out and worried about going out in public with their hair messed up.  Not Everett.  He thought it was hilarious and thought it would be so funny to go to church with his hair like that. Just another case of Everett being Everett.

Luckily another missionary family just up the street had a pair of clippers that we could borrow and Jason hopped in the car to save the day.  Walking in the door with just 18 minutes until church started, Karson kept a totally strait face and informed Jason that now the power was off (something that has been happening more frequently, so totally believable).  And that is a perfect example of Karson being Karson.....always the jokester!   Crisis adverted though and we even made it to church before the praise and worship team had finished their songs to start the service.  Life is never dull here in Uganda...

Stitches Uganda Style!

The "Spring cleaning" bug bit and Jason and I were cleaning the house and rearranging some things.  We started moving something into the kitchen and the edge scraped over the top of my foot.  Thinking nothing of it I said "ouch" and kept going until we got it moved.  I looked down and there was blood trickling down my foot.  As I looked closer there was  a nice clean surgical type incision about an inch and a half long.  Jason bent down and looked at it and immediately decided it needed stitches.  Whatever it was had cut pretty deep and needed attention.

Now when you have an issue here in Jinja you have two choices, a private clinic or Jinja Main Hospital.  I have experienced first hand the filth that is Jinja 'Pain' and I knew there was no way I was going there.  We bandaged my foot and made a call to our friend Katie.  Luckily she was at home and had experience in providing stitches. Jason stayed behind with the kids and I drove myself over to Katie's house.  There on her living room floor, my 'doc' Katie put a stitch into my foot.  She tried to put another but for some reason the needle did not want to go through my skin (apparently I have tough skin, only second to her dog!).  So with one stitch and a few Steri strips I headed home. 

Ugandan Birthday Celebration

Jason and I were just pulling in the gate arriving back home from a long exhausting trip to Kampala, when Morris our Askari (night guard) was there to greet us on his day off.  He was there to invite us to his birthday celebration at 5:50, I looked at my watch and it was 5:00. All I wanted to do was go inside, see the kids, take a shower and crash.  Instead, we loaded up all the kids and went to celebrate with Morris for his birthday.  As we were loading up we had no idea what to expect, how long we should stay or what in the world we were going to feed the kids or when.  The kids were already hungry and asking for dinner. When we arrived Zippy, Morris's wife, was busy preparing a meal outside in lots of sagiris, which are outdoor cookers. Morris invited us all in to sit and poured us all some juice, which is the polite thing to do in the Ugandan culture.  In his politeness he poured us all a huge mug full of Coke, just what every Mom wants their child to have at 6pm.

I went outside to help Zippy with the cooking and she put me right to work.  We were preparing rice, matoke (mashed bananas), meat, cabbage and pineapple.  As I was watching Zippy masterfully work with the small sigiris it hit me that the "play" kitchen we had built for Hadlee's birthday was more of a kitchen than Zippy had to prepare this huge meal.  She had no stove top or counter space, just a rock to sit on and several outdoor cookers going all at once.  She was doing this all while 9 months pregnant.

All of us packed inside celebrating 

When the rest of the guest arrived we all went into their house, which is a room that is no larger than 7 feet by 11 maybe 12 feet.  By the time we all were seated there were 8 adults and 7 kids squeezed into their house. We started the celebration by Zippy giving a small speech and praying for Morris on his birthday and welcoming all her guests.  Morris cut the cake and served it before dinner. He also served everyone a bottle of soda, mountain dew this time.  Another sugar rush for our kids! Apio, Zippy and I then went outside, in the dark, to serve the plates. We ate dinner and visited.  Unfortunately, Hadlee had a tummy ache and we had to leave, but it gave us a reason to make an exit and get the kids in bed after a long day.

At one part of the night, somewhere between the first coke and the cake, Karson approached me and asked if we were eating dinner there.  I told him that I thought so (it hadn't really been talked about at all, but since I was busy helping prepare dinner, I thought that must be the plan).  Then he told me, "Ok then, I will be sure to try a little of everything and keep eating even if I don't like it."  Then, after he saw Morris pulling out the birthday cake, Karson came to me very worried, saying that Morris was doing too much and he felt bad because he knew how little Morris and his wife had.  I tried to explain to him that this was a joyous occasion for Morris, not to feel bad, but to help celebrate his life.  Karson still couldn't quite shake a feeling of guilt, but he really made an effort to make it a special night for Morris.  I love his heart!

Morris and his wife Zippy

I was amazed at Morris and his wife's hospitality and her ability to cook a huge meal for 15 people outdoors and 9 months pregnant.  Jason and I have been truly blessed by our Ugandan friends here and having these glimpses into their culture, and being invited in as their friends and family is so incredible to us.  Morris and his wife are such an example of finding true joy in the absence of material things that so much of our American culture tells a person they need to have in order to be happy.  They truly inspired me to be thankful for what I have and treasure these moments.

The meal they prepared and shared with us.

Apio serving plates in the dark

Pierce on a mission heading outside

Balance in this Life

How do you find a balance in this life we are living?  Being in a third world country, trying to lose the last shreds of our first world mindset?

Moving into a different house recently, I find myself doing what would probably come natural to any Amercican in a new home for their family.....making it look nice.  I found myself contemplating what I could do to transtition the raw, concrete floors into something "nicer" and easier to keep clean.  Then it as if I wake up again, take a look around me, and realize where we are and that I can live with concrete floors.  Who needs tile when the majority of people we come in contact with have dirt as floors?

BUT how do I tap in to this balance of Third World vs. First World life?  How much do I deny myself or deny for my kids because life has choosen to deny it for so many others?  WHERE DO I DRAW THE LINE?????  Some lines are easy, as in "Yes, we can live without a t.v.", but others are much more blurred.  Do I take us down to two meals a day because others are lucky to get one?  Questions like these are what I am finding my brain being bombarded with on a daily basis lately.  Sometimes emotionally it feels like too much and I just want to scream.....scream for the unfair hands that so many of my daily companions have been dealt.  Am I saying that these companions need a western styly house with tile floor?  No!  Some of the happiest people I have met here have had the least in terms of material possessions. 

But I am saying that NO mother should have to watch their child starve to death when there is such excess of food in other parts of the world.  I am saying that NO mother should have to sit on a dirty, rat infested, hospital floor for four days, waiting for someone to care more about her son's life than about a few shillings they could make from a bribe. 

PLEASE, someone, help me find a balance to this life God has called us to live.

Field Trip Fridays

The kids and I home school and usually we are able to fit five days of work in to four school days.  That leaves us Friday free for Field Trip Fridays!  It has been very important to Jason and I to involve the kids in as many steps of our ministry here as we can.  It wasn't just our lives that changed drastically when we moved here, but theirs also.  We want them to understand what we are doing here and most importantly WHY we are here.  FTF came to be as my way of making sure that the kids stay involved.  During the week, Jason usually rotates through the kids, taking one or two with him into the villages when he can.  Fridays are our day as a family to all minister together.  We have been trying to visit different types of ministries around the area, giving the kids a glimpse of different ways that people are working together, under God's name, for His purpose.

This Friday we visited a ministry called Ekisa.  http://www.ekisa.org/  While there are many orphanages in Uganda, very few will allow children with disabilities.  Ekisa is a home for these disabled children, that so many in the rest of society here, are ready to just cast away.  We had an incredible time visiting and loving on the kids in this ministry.  Nothing makes me smile more than to see my kids get down on the floor and truly care for these other children.  Here are some pictures from that day........ (and yes, Pierce had pigtails because Hadlee did that day and he insisted on some too!)

Fresh Meat Anyone?

Getting meat here has been tricky from the beginning.  In Luweero, where we trained, the issues were that our power was unreliable so we couldn’t store up meat, and yet to buy any we had to travel about 2hrs, so it wasn’t something we could just get as needed.

In Jinja there are some meats available in the local grocery store, or supermarket, as it is called here.  At a supermarket you can usually find whole chickens and minced meat (ground beef).  It doesn’t always look trustworthy though, with questionable temperatures in the coolers, and meats stored right next to ice cream.  Here are some images of what the supermarkets look like…….

Meat is mostly sold in market (I'll get pictures of market soon.  It is quite the experience).  

The sight of the raw slabs of meat hanging, often all day in the sun, with no type of refrigeration, flies all around, does not necessarily scream “Mmmm, let’s have steak for dinner!”.  So for the first nine months in country we have avoided most meat, aside from the occasional chicken or mince meat, which was still wary at times.  These last two weeks things changed though.  We were eating lunch at a local diner run by a lady from Australia.  We noticed she had filet on the menu.  Jason had been craving a good steak, pretty much since the plane landed, so we gave it a try.  IT WAS DELICIOUS.  I asked Jude where she bought her meat from because all I had seen was the market booths.  She told me about a butcher in town that she had been using for quite some time and that if I told him that Jude sent me then he would make sure that the meat was fresh and cut the way we (as in Westerners) like it.  Ugandans have many different uses for different parts of the animal that we would not even think of, so if you don’t specify, you will end up with all types of cuts of the meat

We decided to be brave and give it a try.  The whole pieces of steak were actually quite a bit cheaper than buying the mince meat in the supermarket, so I even thought that I might start trying to mince my own meat, if I can get the right attachment for my Kitchen Aid.  Best of all, the meat was so good.  It has to be bought a couple of days before you intend to use it and really worked on to tenderize, but the result is worth it.  I still have to hold my breath when I buy it and get past my American thoughts of how meat should be handled though.  My stomach turns slightly every time I go to buy some, but I am sure I will soon get used to it.  Here is our butcher……

Our Church Here

I wanted to try to give you all a glimpse of our lives here.  One of the hardest things to leave behind in TX was our church family.  We absolutely LOVE Brazos Fellowship and miss our friends, fellowship and the sermons so much.  God has given us another gift here in the form of Accacia Community Church.  It is a nice mixture of Ugandans and other missionaries.  The services are in the backyard of the pastor, underneath the trees, surrounded by God's beauty.  I even received quite the sunburn this past Sunday because the shade shifted after the service started.  Here are some images from a normal Sunday morning for us......

 Hadlee hasn't quite developed enough courage to attend the Sunday school class yet, so she usually sits with us and colors.  Our pastor throws a lot of "Amens" into his sermon and Hadlee never fails to answer him with her own "amen", much to the delight of the crowd!

 The family before the kids break into their own class.  We all worship together.

The worship and praise team.

Impromptu History Lesson

One of the many things that I have come to enjoy here in Uganda is homeschool with the kids.  It definitely is a challenge at times, having 4 kids with different needs all at one time, but it has given me a chance to see what they are each gifted with, as far as scholastics are concerned.

   

 With Pierce I usually try to do the basics of preschool, practicing his alphabet, counting (both in English and Luganda), colors, etc.  With Karson, I have a full second grade curriculum from Sonlight, which Hadlee and Everett both sit in on for history, bible and science.  Then the three older kids break for individual work on math, reading, handwriting, spelling and language arts, for their individual grade.  So far this has worked for us and as Pierce gets older I will probably separate them two and two.

In history we have been studying the Vikings Era.  Sonlight does a great job in tying all subjects together for one theme.  This past week however, I had to jump ahead in time and have an impromptu history lesson with Karson.

He had taken some computer paper and a stapler and disappeared to work on a creation of his own.  He was so excited to share this creation with me, but when he walked into my room for the big reveal, my facial expression greatly disturbed him.  I couldn’t hide my thoughts and it really confused him.  He had done a great job on creating a mask and hood.  This is what he walked in looking like………..

Needless to say, to help explain my look, we got on the computer and had a little history lesson.  I found an image of the KKK where he would see that his mask looked exactly what they used to wear and why it might come as a slight shock to see my little boy wearing it.  He decided his just needed a new color!

Update on Karson

Other than a couple of episodes with hives, Karson hasn’t had anymore issues since the last post.  Everett, however, has.  

The other morning Everett woke up with the same swollen face that Karson had been sporting.  It must, undoubtedly, be something biting them in their sleep.  What changed is that Karson sleeps on the top of a triple bunk bed and Everett had been on bottom, with no one in the middle.  Everett decided to move to the middle bunk, which I am assuming just put him in closer quarters to Karson’s biting bug/spider/whatever it is.  Later that day Everett also broke into hives, so I am assuming that the face swelling is the first sign and the hives are just a reaction to the poison (or whatever they are reacting to) still being in their body.

Yesterday morning Everett appeared to be a little puffy again, but nothing huge like before, but then again, just before bed, more hives.  So now we have the fun task of taking apart the beds, again, and trying to find this pesky critter.  Pests have been one of the biggest hassles for us so far.  First with bedbugs then fleas and now this creepy, biting, mysterious bug/spider.  Oh, and we can’t forget the very, very annoying ants that are everywhere.  Here is an image of them in the kitchen, late at night, after they thought we had all gone to bed!

What is Happening to Karson?????

For the last week and a half something keeps happening to Karson that we have no explanation for.  We have asked ourselves all the logical questions, but he keeps waking up looking like this.....

There is no pain associated with it although one time he did say his arm felt weird.  It has happened three times and it changes which side of the face it happens on.  We have searched his bed, changed all his bedding, moved him to our room even, but we can't figure it out.  Then, during the day he keeps breaking out in horrible hives like this.......

The hives happened again today during school.  He woke up with one spot, but they progressively got worse and all he was doing was school work with me.  We have thought about everything he has eaten (no changes in diet), any plants he has played with, no changes in detergent or anything with the laundry.  We truly have no explanation of why this is all the sudden happening.  We are worried that the reaction is going to be more severe, possibly moving to his airways.  Luckily we have an epipen on hand, but please pray that this gets better and not worse.  And if anyone has any thoughts we are open to hear them.

A Sad Farewell

Today has been the first full day of back to life without my mom here.  The house feels so very empty.  Pierce still asked if he could nap in Meme's room, even though there is no Meme to fill it.  I can 100%, without a doubt, say that being away from our family and close friends is the absolute hardest part about being in the mission field.  There are many lonely days.  Even being away from a church family that we were so very close with is extremely hard.  I know God can strengthen us through this goodbye just as He has done the past ones.  It sure is tough though.  Tough to see your children so very sad about goodbyes, about Grammy and Papas seen through Skype that they long to hug.  Just tough.  The peace of knowing we are right where God wants us does help though.

Today was filled with all of us trying to adjust back to routine.  Karson keeps having these horrible allergic reactions (post with pictures soon to follow) to something we can not find, so he spent most of the morning in bed, knocked out by allergy meds.  So with school looking doubtful, Jason and I decided to get some things moved over to the new house, search the town for bargain deals on things still needed and most of all rest.  A drive to Entebbe and back is exhausting, but adding to that the emotional drain we have all felt these past two days, just left us all unexpectedly tired.

I will write a post soon on the house and what our living arrangements look like here.  With pictures!  This mama is headed to bed though.  Of course, first I have to round up four kittens that are being scattered around our room by their crazy mother cat.  I guess that is what we get for letting our teenage cat get knocked up.  She really is insane I think!

Welcome to my life!

As some of you may already know, I moved to Uganda with my husband and 4 young kids in January 2012.  It has been quite an adventure and I thought I would start this blog to share all the crazy happenings that piece together to form my life.  A life I am blessed to have, through ups and downs, and am thankful to God for every moment.  Jason, my husband, covers our ministry blog, but I as I was washing poop out of my eye the other day, I thought to myself "I should blog about this".  I realized that it didn't really fit with the ministry stuff so I decided to start this blog for anyone interested in the day to day antics of life in Uganda.  Hope you will enjoy this crazy, blessed life of mine.