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.

Goodbye to the Go Now team. You guys are so awesome. We miss you so so sooo much! Seriously! These next weeks are going to be so quiet without yall.  I love each of you so much (in case you couldn't understand me the other night when I was sobbing goodbyes to yall). I'm gonna miss you but I know we will be together again! This summer has been so fast and so fun!

I love you Uncle Saido

I love you Auntie Taylor

I love you Uncle Richie

I love you Auntie Jen

I love you Auntie Bianca

To make it even worse Ally left the next day! I miss you Ally! You are awesome! Thanks for letting us adopt you :)

I love you Auntie Ally