One Day at a Time - Tuesday

After the day we had yesterday, I decided to not leave the confines of the gates of our compound today!  In reality, we just had so much that needed to be accomplished here at the house.

For the past 11 weeks I have been hosting a bible study at our house for other missionary women in the community.  We have been going through Beth Moore's study "Believing God."  It has been incredible.  We had our last weekly study last Tuesday so today we did a brunch together before we begin another one next week.  So yummy!!!  It was a beautiful morning so we met outside under the cabana and enjoyed a different breakfast item brought by each person.  It was great to have that time of fellowship together.  It was funny because one person mentioned that they had seen macaroni and cheese in town and I really thought the brunch might end just then so everyone could go see if there was any left on the shelves.  

While I was enjoying ladies' time, Jason was doing home school with the kids.  As an offer of gratitude, I slipped him a plate of all the delicious breakfast foods!  Every Tuesday he has has the task of keeping the kids occupied so we could have our time together, so it was a well deserved cinnamon roll!

Lunch today was rice, beans  and pineapple.  We usually try to eat very Ugandan for our lunches and at least one to two dinners a week.  Not only is it delicious  but it really helps on our food budget.  We you can get the best pineapple you have ever tried for around $0.50, you might as well take advantage of it!

After lunch it is rest or nap time for the kids and office work for the grown ups.  Usually we are able to get most of our office work completed on Mondays, but yesterday's craziness didn't allow much time for admin stuff.  Healing Faith does not have a paid person on staff at the moment to help take care of a lot of the administrative side of things so we handle most of it ourselves with the help of an incredible volunteer staff and board back home.  Jonathan Stark of Daniel Stark Law Firm dedicates so much time and services to help with Healing Faith's finances and anything relating to the non profit side of the business.  We are so thankful for all the help that people donate to make this ministry work.

Some of the office work that keeps us busy is writing newsletters, budget reports, tracking ministry expenses and reports, dealing with lawyers on this side of things to keep work visas current, planning mission team itineraries, malaria research and more.  Usually this takes 1-2 office days for us here.

After rest/work time it was on to lawn care.  We have not had any luck locating a decent lawn mower that is in any sort of reasonable price range, but have a rather large yard to manage.  We did recently purchase two Ugandan weed eaters though........

This is Sparks and her brother's name is Johnny (football).  The kids named them!  Unfortunately even they can't keep up with the grass that grows during rainy season. So until we figure out a lawnmower solution, we have a few guys that come in with their real weed eaters about every 3 weeks and help us out.  The kids follow behind and help rake things up and there is usually always someone local that asks for the grass trimmings, so they load them up in sugar sacks.  Pierce thought it was funny today to run around pushing over the packaged grass bags.  He gets that mischievousness from his daddy!

The day wrapped up with omelets made with the freshest ingredients you can get!  All the yard work must have made the kids hungry because our family of 7 went through 2.5 dozen eggs and Mom, Jason and I only had an all together total of 7 eggs!  The weather was still amazing so we enjoyed this dinner outside under hundreds of huge fruit bats flying overhead.  Meme finished up the boys' school book, one of my favs - Pippi Longstocking, and then it was lights out.  Although Pierce always manages a way out of bed somehow.

And that is a look at our Tuesday! (No machine guns today!)

One Day at a Time - Manic Monday

Not to try to ruin the picturesque image I left with you with yesterday of us lounging by the pool, next to the beautiful Nile river while birds chirp and monkeys play, but OH MY GOODNESS!!!!  Can I just say how thankful to God I am for our day of rest and family time that we had yesterday, and the fact that we went to bed early because WHAT A DAY IT HAS BEEN!!!!

Let's get right to business...........

7am- wake up to the cries of Pierce and our cat (called kitty meow meow) for milk.  Seriously, the cat can be sound asleep until she hears the word milk and then I swear her cry mimics Pierce's!

- get breakfast for the kids and try to sneak in some quiet time.  I know, I know, I should be waking up before the kids to truly have 'quiet' time with Him, but my eyes just won't cooperate these days!

- we usually try to start school around 9am, but this morning we knew things would be crazy so we started early.  Karson is doing 2nd grade, Everett 1st and Hadlee kindergarten work.   Pierce hates to be left out so I have some pre-K stuff that I try to do with him.  Being 100% transparent here though, Leap Frog Letter Factory, more often than not, becomes his lesson for the day!  You have to give me some breaks though, I am only human!

- Here in Uganda there is something called your Local Chairman (LC1).  You could equate it to a neighborhood mayor, without the HOA fees!  Well, we knew that we were supposed to officially register with the LC when we moved into this house.   We have been putting this off due to many reasons.  One being that it would inevitably come with a request for money that he should not be asking for and then a decision for us to make.  Do we a) pay the bribe and get on with life or b) refuse to pay the bribe, remind him that he should not be asking for this money in the first place, and hopefully stand firm that we are not to be bribed in the future.

   Well, due to circumstances that we will get to at a later time, we could not put off registering any further.  Jason and I head off on foot to the LC's office to become officially part of the neighborhood at 11:45 (after getting all paperwork finished up and running into town to print documents.....man do I miss having a printer!).

Along the way we almost get plowed over by one of these ugly things, no lie!

Apparently we stood between him and the local dumpster and that is not a safe place to be!  And don't ask me what that grotesque thing is hanging from it's neck, because I still have no clue!  Just disgusting !

- We arrive to the LC's office just to find out that he is not home.  We call to actually set up an appointment (I know that would have made sense to begin with, but it is not customary here).  He asked us when we could come back, to which we replied 2:30pm.  He replied " Great, so I will see you in 30min". (yes, you read correctly, it was 11:45 at this time)

 So, we rushed home, got lunch ready for 9 people (meanwhile I am also changing out of my 'appropriate' Ugandan attire into clothes that I wouldn't have a heat stroke in, in this weather).

Jason and I literally piled some noodles on a disposable plate, shoveling it into our mouths as we walked back to the LC's office, tossing the plates in the maribu stork infested dumpster along the way, and arrived for our appointment.  

    

The LC welcomed us to chairs on his porch, aka office, and I used my best Lugandan to make a good first impression "Oli Otya, Moojabale" (How are you?  Thank you for your work/job).  The problem was that there was already a guy there with business that we sat through for 45min while they took care of business.

 I had Luganda lessons at 1pm so by this time I had to figure out a clever, yet respectful way to excuse myself and not offend the guy that we are hoping to build a relationship with (for very important reasons!)  Luckily, there was a small break in between his helping of this other man so I took my leave, ran to the nearest boda boda (motorcycle taxi) to get home asap.  My instructor was waiting for me at the gate so I made my apologies and ushered him in (only after guaranteeing him that our dogs wouldn't attack him....Ugandans HATE dogs).  I don't think it was a mere coincidence that his first lesson for me was how to properly tell someone that you are sorry for inconveniencing them.  It is Nsonyiwa, just in case you ever find yourself in a similar experience! (surely it was coincidence!)

 At the end of my hour long lesson, Jason still wasn't back from the LC so I went to our driveway to wait for him, to let him in the gate, eager to hear how it went.  Little did I realize that a herd of cows were grazing on our patch of land between the fence line and street and I was plopped down in the line of fire.  Long story short, after a 20,000 shilling ($8) 'fee', our registration was complete.

- We are at roughly 3:30pm at this point and I realize that I haven't even made my Monday market run and needed things for dinner.  I asked a close Ugandan friend of mine if she needed anything from the market and needed a ride so we loaded up and headed to my weekly run. 

I pulled in to the same parking lot I always do, every Monday, only this week it was late in the day instead of early morning, like usual.  As we pull in this VERY angry security guard starts waving a machine gun at us, yelling something I couldn't understand (if only I was past lesson 3 in my Luganda!).  I asked Apio what was wrong and she reassured me that he was probably just drunk. (how is the fact that this angry guy with a gun was only drunk supposed to be reassuring????).  

He would not let me park and I had no other options.  I quickly looked at my list, decided what I had to have for dinner and asked Apio if she would mind getting it for me and gave her money for a boda back home, because I had to leave quickly (at this point the armed man was beating on our van.)

- A little bit frazzled, but safely home, all was well!  I got to skype with a friend that I dearly miss and (one of the perks of living here) got to eat an amazing dinner fixed by my dear husband.  We are able to get the BEST cuts of meat from our butcher.  Seriously, I was able to cut my meat with my fork, it was so tender and we paid about $2/lb for it.  Such a treat.  Please don't get me wrong.....even on our worst days here, I would not trade a day of it for anything.  God has given us such a peace through it all and we are truly blessed.

Ahh just another Manic Monday...

One Day at a Time - Sunday!

Often we get the question, "What does a normal week look like for you?".  This is an almost impossible question to answer though because we hardly have a "normal" week.  We have a weekly schedule ( I love schedules!), but I don't know that we have had one week that we have been able to complete it exactly as planned.

So, I thought I would take you through this week!  It will be quite an accomplishment for me because it would mean that I will blog each day.  Maybe this project will get me into a good routine of blogging more regularly.  Here we go...................

Sunday!!!!  I love Sundays.  Jason and I have focused more on truly making our Sundays a day of rest and a day of family time.  Focused, intentional time spent praising God, learning more about him and loving on our kids.  We have been truly blessed here by a relationship that we formed last fall with one of the rafting companies here in town, not only providing hours of entertainment to adrenaline junkies, but also doing some amazing things through their non profit.  We met them last fall when my brother-in-law was visiting and wanted to fish the Nile River.  We went through their company.  They offered to let us come swimming anytime we wanted to at no cost.  I don't know if they realized what they were offering or how much we would take them up on their offer!

Usually, at least one to two times a month, we load up in the van and head out to the pool right after church.  The pool is right on the amazingly beautiful Nile River and 80% of the time we are the only ones there on a Sunday afternoon.  Occasionally there will be the random backpacking crowd, just in from kayaking or rafting the rapids, but it is almost always peaceful.  JUST what we need at the end of one week, to renew for the start of another. 

Our Sunday this week:

- quiet time in the morning!  The kids lounge around, eat breakfast, watch a movie, while Jason and I have some coffee (for me)/ tea (for him) and time with the Lord.

- Acacia Community Church, usually 10:30-12:30, depending on Pastor Terry and the Holy Spirit within him :)

- load up the van and head to the Nile!

- Jason gets the kids in swimsuits and sunblock while I order lunch for everyone.  Even Meme gets in on the pool action. 

- the kids swim, the adults rest poolside while we wait on lunch

- while we are eating, a real treat for the kids is that the camp has a tv with cartoons!

- after forcing the kids to let their food settle, it is back to the pool, and usually we join in on the swimming at this point! 

- Once everyone is adequately water logged we head back for some more cartoon time and the adults are usually able to get in a game or two, usually Ticket to Ride or Rivals of Catan

- load up and head back to town (it is about a 20min drive to the river)

- stop at Mrs. Sheryl's for samosas!!!  These are an incredible local food that can be stuffed with just about anything.  We get the beef!  It is a palm sized, triangular, fried food that is the closest thing we have to fast food. (of course, by fast, I mean that we have to call on Saturday to place the order and be there at a certain time to pick them up on Sunday, but it is close!)  At $0.19 each, you can't really beat them after a day at the pool when no one feels like cooking.

- Usually by the time we eat and shower we are all ready for bed. 

This week was exceptionally long and Jason and I crashed by 8:45!  Man, are we getting old!

 Even the drive is peaceful and amazing!

 This time together is so needed at the end of our weeks and we are building memories that I hope the kids keep forever.

Sleepy, sleepy kids at the end of the day.  Pierce was doing the head-bob and Everett tucked him in close.

Sunday is Samosa day at the Segner house.  It only takes about 3 dozen to feed this crew.