Cocus

Sweet Cocus! Cocus stole my heart from the start. He can always be found holding tight around my legs! I love the way he looks up at me and says "auntie Jessica! I love you!" He is such a cuddle bug too-always, always in my lap or holding my hand. I love his smile and his laugh. He has such a squeaky voice and he is so special to me. Cocus was found by Kelsey Anderson last year at a medical clinic she was doing. He had TB of the spine but that is gone now except for his little hunched back that I miss having lay against my chest when it was story time. Oh cocus! You really do make me feel so loved. He is so clingy that sometimes I would almost topple over him just trying to walk somewhere sigh..but I love it and how I miss him now. Cocus is just a really good kid. He's playful and nice to other kids usually haha well...in school he would be naughty sometimes. But he is bright and I love the way he does things. Cocus LOVES to play soccer and kick the ball around. He also loves to play running games even more than most little boys! He is really fast and really good at sports! I tried to find a picture of Cocus's natural smile! its the best! but I cant seen to find one right now! I miss him so much!

I haven't felt this "Uganda sick" in a while because I think school is taking my mind off things. But today I getting an email from Momma Esther AND just thinking about Cocus has reminded me of my heart for these kids and for Uganda. Please pray for me because I'm still adjusting to things here in some ways and I really do want to go back to Uganda to be with these kiddos.

Jerom

Jerom is a sweetie! He likes to crinkle his nose, he likes to play in the sand and he loves to laugh. I remember his sweet voice and the way he would be so eager to get approval. Of course all the kids would say "auntie jessica! auntie jessica! you see!" and hold up their art for me to see but for some reason I could always hear Jerom's voice above the rest! When we went on nature walks he would bring me dirt clots and rocks and weeds haha anything he could find that he could show me! I miss Jerom. He brings me so much joy.

Oscar

 

Oscar is a character! He has the best sense of humor and he is so sooo smart! He teaches all the aunties and uncles new Lugandan words and he loves to pretend he is the teacher. I remember playing school outside with the kids that Oscar would always be the bus driver or the teacher or the dad or basically any other person who got to make decisions or order people around. haha not that he was bossy or anything he just liked being in leadership positions! haha Oscar stole the show any time we did memory verses too! he is so smart and really good at memorizing things and spelling! Oscar could be so sweet too. He would lean up against me and say "I love you auntie Jessica." He was mischievous a lot of times but we all love him! and he pretty much has one of the best smiles I've ever seen.

Don

DONNIE!

Don has the best smile and the sweetest heart. He has one bottom tooth that is growing in and he’s just precious. He had his teeth removed because they were rotting but now the grown up teeth are coming in. until they all get here he uses dentures to help him eat solid food. The dentures are really white and perfectly straight and when the Go Now team came he had them in and they all said they were confused at how perfect his teeth looked before they knew they were fake! Haha Don is 3 years old and he loves to dance and laugh and sing. He is so happy of a little boy and he likes to sit in everyone’s lap and rub their arm hair. Haha Don will start going to school soon but I know he’ll do great because he is so obedient and nice to everyone! It took him a few days to understand the concept of sharing crayons but after a while he was really good at it! He also loves being a helper! Don is so sweet. I still remember his sleepy smile the morning I told him goodbye. Oh Don… You are the sweetest!

Joel

Oh Joel! Joel is a goofy kid. I remember one of the first nights I was there all the kids got new toothbrushes and they ran out of small ones so Joel graduated to an adult sized toothbrush! Haha he was ecstatic. His eyes were so wide and he was so proud it made my heart glow! It was as if he finally reached a sort of manhood. He is the second oldest boy at the Rafiki home and he, like Joshua, is becoming a leader for the rest of the kids. Joel likes dinosaurs and lions. He likes art too! He is really an artist! He is 6 years old and he already understands foreground and background. Pretty impressive! Joel is so sweet. I love tucking him in at night and hearing him say I love you. His smile is so cute. You can tell he is going to be a handsome man one day! Joel is really independent and he’s good at following directions so he was really good at all our art projects and activities. I miss Joel’s sweet curiosity. He would always be asking me more about the things I would teach them or about what I meant when I said something. He is such a sweetheart.

"Come on Come on Come on!"

"Our God is greater
Our God is stronger
God you are higher than any other
Our God is healer
Awesome in power
Our God..."

Joshua

Joshua is my friend. He is 8 years old and really smart. He laughs a lot and is really becoming a leader amongst the Rafiki kids. I love him so much and miss him dearly. That smile of his is so precious. And he likes to sing while doing everything so we get along great! What I miss most about Joshua is his laugh! It’s great. I loved seeing him at school. He is really eager to learn and to do his best and it was awesome seeing him interact with his friends.  Joshua is one of those boys who likes to play outside and get dirty but he also is a thinker. You can tell he really watches and listens to what you say to him. I miss Joshua so much. He is so special to me.

Nature Walks

Uganda is a beautiful place. The trees are so green and the dirt is so red. I miss that fresh smell in the air. One of my favorite things to do is go on walks and look at all the neat stuff outside! There are such amazing things out there. I took the kids on many nature walks pointing out fun things along the way. We saw some beautiful birds and butterflies! Even I learned a lot along the way! Godfrey would point out all the different kinds of trees and tell me what things the trees were used for and stuff. For a couple of seconds I would have all the kids be very still and be very quiet and we listened to all the birds sing for a little bit. That part was fun because there were so many birds and it was so loud! and the area was beautiful! Its fun to quiz them on the way asking "Who knows what animal that is?" We got to see cows, goats, chickens, sheep, and there was this one incident with ants... haha there was literally an ARMY of the most ginormous ants on earth that were swarming across our path in long lines! The kids were really scared but we grabbed the littlest ones and leaped over them with no injuries! I sometimes took a bucket with me to collect fun things with like leaves and flowers. But at the end of the walk my bucket weighed a ton because of all the rocks and branches that they somehow fit into it. haha it was truly an adventure and i love to get the kids outside of the gates of the house! even baby Abby got some fresh air with us a couple of times!

This is the area where we stopped and listened to the birds! It was beautiful.

necklaces

One day I made necklaces with the kids! They each spelled their names out using beads with letters on them :) it was so fun! and the kids really loved them. It was impossible to get around the table fast enough to help everyone spell their names so I let them try it by themselves haha so some necklaces need some decoding!

 

As you can see they had LOTS of fun! The next 4 days they were taking the necklaces EVERYWHERE with them! they became pretty filthy, the beads were chipping and the yarn was crusty haha! The thing is these kids love things that they can call their own. They have to share almost everything so when there is something that literally has their very own name on it and is for them only they are so excited. In fact one of the sweetest things was when Fauziya and Esther got letters from their supporters. They carried around those letters for days, kept them in their beds and would show them to everyone. It was so so so sweet. They are so thankful and feel so loved by your letters. I know I've talked about how the people of Uganda are some of the most thankful people I've ever met. But they really are!

here are the girls playing together in Esther's bed with their necklaces on :)

"my nails are boo-T-fullll"

Carol, Annet, Esther

One afternoon I painted sixty toe nails and sixty fingernails! It may have been a little harder than I had anticipated. It was right after nap time and everyone was a tad bit fussy at first. It took the girls a really long time to decide which color each of them wanted. While trying to convise Fauziya that the sooner she picks the sooner her nails will look pretty, I look over and Esther is bumping the red polish with her bottom (which should not be on the table in the first place) and I caught the bottle in mid air! Both Emma and Jerom are wailing "I want to be a girl" because I just explained to them that nail polish is for girls only no boys allowed so I ran upstairs and got a big bouncy ball for boys only to settle them down. Annet was crying because Carol just ruined 3 of her freshly painted green toes by stepping on them while reaching to rip the pink polish out of Fauziya's hands.  And Brenda is laughing histerically at the fact that Joshua just popped the boys only ball on the fense and she's shoving her hands in my face to paint them next. Phew!!!

I am not exagerating!! I had to just stop and take it all in for a second. I did not want to forget anything because it was so beautifully chaotic! I loved it! It was so fun! Maybe painting that many nails is a two person job? Oh well it was wonderful!

Merry Christmas?

So me and Laura have been wanting to watch Elf since we saw it in the stack of DVDs! but we just never got around to it! Well finally last friday, movie night, we got to be in charge of picking the movie and surprise we're watching Elf tonight kids! I think Laura, Rachel and I enjoyed it the most out of everyone... haha it took Moses only 45 mins for him to ask me "is this a Christmas movie?" Yes. Yes it is. Christmas is my favorite time ever! In fact I listen to Christmas music all year round (privately of course, otherwise people would complain). The first day I got here Carol was humming "jungle bells" and I knew right away we were gonna be good friends. Anyways it was just fun to be on the Equator, in Africa, in August, but watching Elf. The thing is there are no seasons so no one has any reference point (like if it's getting colder or not) to know if Christmas is coming soon. So I really do think the kids were confused. To confuse them even more Saturday's stations were about how Jesus is King! and we told the story of Jesus' birth, drew pictures of him in the manger and then the next week colored decrotive crosses with baby Jesus in the middle! I think they may have noticed.

They each got to decorate their own crown-complete with jewls! Everyone loves wearing crowns! But they may not have understood the whole concept of Jesus being king too well because when I yelled "Who is king?!" every one said "MEEE!"  Hmm...oh well I think we really just wanted an excuse to make them :)



And then we did bubbles!

Watercoloring and jump ropes!

We did some watercoloring with the kids! It went surprisingly well! And it was so fun! they loved it!

Me and Don practicing the 'rinse the brush before switching colors' technique

Brenda is such an artist!



I'm feeling sad today because I'm not in Uganda but this video cheers me up! Hope it does the same for you!

I'm home!

Hey! I'm back home! I landed in the Houston airport, had some Chuy's on our way to Austin and got to sleep at about 3 am! Then today I woke up at 5pm! I was shocked! Jet lag is real! and now its 3:42 in the morning and I'm wide awake.. anyway I'm actually something like two weeks behind in my blogging. I plan to finish showing you the rest of my trip though! I don't want to just stop so abruptly!

Thank you for your prayers and support! I just wanted to let you know I'm back safely and had an amazing time in Uganda! Thank you so much!

the Africa posts will continue :)

Loving One by One

I went on a few medical clinic trips during the first half of the summer with Sherry's team. Sherry runs an organization called Loving One by One. She has a children's home doing homeschooling called New Creation (I also taught P4 there) but she has a separate school at another site too. Ally, Laura, and I visited it one day. It was so awesome! All these kids are great! they walk miles to this house where the school is set up but the classes are maybe 15-20 students each which is a really good amount compared to over 50 students at most primary school classes.

this is the school's gate! the apples each say a student's name on it! awesome!

We cleaned and organized A LOT of books!

We helped this class study for their up-coming exam!

this is one of the outdoor classrooms

Sherry has bought new land and her ministry is growing! We also got to visit there one day too! She calls it Grace Land because it is a gift from God. The realitors were showing her swamp after swamp and she was about to give up on the dream until...

It is absolutely beautiful! the view is amazing and she was so happy the whole time pointing out where each building was going to go. There will be a school, homes for orphans with a house mom in each, a clinic, a guest home where teams will stay, a well  and a church both for the community to use, and a garden for crops and livestock. It seems they thought of everything! It is so cool.

When we got there the kids saw us in the big van and came unning after us so excited! they held hands and hung off of us the whole time that we were touring the land. They even prayed with us and sang songs. Then it started to rain so we took them with us down the road! It was so fun having all these kids laughing and singing in our van!

hello!

Laura's sister Rachel is here! I'm so happy! It's so good to have a good hello after a few days of hard goodbyes. Rachel and Laura are going on a Safari later this week so its just me and the kiddos! I'm excited though it should be fun!

Rachel, Abby, and Emma!

Whenever it rains the kids MUST go and get their sweaters. haha its really cute! Here they are at lunch all bundled up even though its 80 degrees and humid.

I don't think I've talked too much about Annet but I am completely in love with this girl. She
couldn't find her sweater and started to cry so I gave her my jersey. It was of course
a dress on her but she looked so cute and was so proud to be wearing it the rest of the afternoon!
Annet calls me Auntie Sesska. She is just so sweet and so expressive. It hurts my heart to think
of going home without her.