Aug 13th - a FULL week!

I keep notes all week long about things that are happening here so I can share with you who pray and support us financially and emotionally in the work in Budaka. This week, I have narrowed it down to 23 pictures from which I can only send a few. So, let me try to summarize the past 7 days:

• On Monday, we sent the children home to their clan/families for 5 days. Pastor Rogers and I met with them that morning to tell them and he began by saying, "we have decided not to send you home till December..." Most of the kids were very quiet and somber, having thought they were getting sent home to see some extended relatives for a few days. Others were excited they didn't have to go. Then he told them he was just kidding and they were all going that morning. The first 2 pictures you have show the excitement of most as they heard. You can see some who are not quite as excited. I love the smile on Sarah's face on the far right of the first picture! The 2nd picture shows Bartholomew as he got up and began dancing around at the news. It was a fun time! All the children came back on Friday or Saturday and were SO excited to be back. Several gave big bear hugs upon their return. I'm so glad they both enjoy going and coming back! 
• On Monday morning also, a witchdoctor had been to the front of Pastor Rogers' house and left chicken feathers in a pile. This is a kind of curse to make his life miserable. We know that God is much more powerful than these curses (you can see them in the picture), and we chuckled, burned the pile of feathers and went on with our day. Thanks to all of you who continue to pray for our safety physically and spiritually here. 
• On Tuesday, Pastor Rogers, Abby and I went up to Pian Upe, the largest game reserve in Uganda. We were scouting to see if our next team (the E! team) could go there with our kids and see the zebras, giraffes, lions, etc. that are there. To make a VERY long story short, we won't be able to go there with the team. We encountered the worst roads I've seen in Uganda (and that's saying a lot!). There were 3 stuck semi's and 4 stuck buses in our way at one point (praise God for the 4-wheel drive we had rented!). Our own car broke down in Katakwi, a small village a short way from Pian Upe, where we spent 3 hours waiting for someone to fix the fan and radiator. We did not see any wild animals and had only about 30 minutes in the reserve before we had to head home. We did, however, get to meet some of the Karamajong, a people group that has been largely untouched by the modern world. Quite an experience! We also got to see a new kind of fishing - the nets you see in the picture. It was a wonderful adventurous day...but we know now it won't be a place we will bring anyone anytime soon! 
• While the other children were away for 5 days, we got to have the 4 (who have no clan/family to go to) over for dinner and to spend the night. What a fun-filled evening and morning with Natasha, Vanessa, Isaac and Moses. We played games, ate "American" food and laughed a lot together. 
• On Friday, when the kids started coming back, Abby and I went down to welcome them back. 

[More pictures in the next post]

Aug 6th - More cleaning...and new shirts

The first picture is of John and Amos wringing jeans. Takes 2 fairly strong boys...

Then they take the wet clothes in basins to the hanging area...where I raised up under a low wooden bar...and hang up the clothes.

The last picture is one of all the kids in their new t-shirts from the Vancouver Friends Church. They were so happy! Thanks to all of you at VFFC who sent these t-shirts with us.

Okay, enough for this week. Thank you for your prayers, your financial support, your moral support and your communication. I'll talk with you next week.

Laurie

Aug 6th

Friends and Family:

This last Wednesday was the final day of school for the 2nd term (of 3) for Cornerstone School. The parents come and pick up the children's report forms, telling how their children did academically. Pastor Rogers was out of town, so I went to our 29 kids' classes (Moses isn't in school yet) and looked at each child's performance and talked with the teachers about their progress. As you might imagine, it takes a couple of hours. I also brought all their final exams home so I can look over them and see how we can help the kids during the holidays. Lisa, who is about 6 years old, has tuberculosis and has been quite sick, so came in 37th out of 37 children in her class. We will be working to get her up to par again for next term. She is feeling better, but is still weak. Our top performer this term was Natasha, who was #1 in her P5 class. We are proud of all our kids - they work hard in school.

This morning the children went home to their clans/families for a 5-day holiday (mandated by the district government here in Budaka). They were excited to go...and also these days are excited to return. Only Charity had not been picked up by the time Rogers and I left for our weekly meeting in Budaka.

The first picture today shows John and Brenda in the bakery. During these 4 weeks of holiday (except, of course, when they are at their family homes) we will be taking 2 children per baking day to learn and help in the bakery. John and Brenda made banana bread and Irish Soda bread with Abby and I. They loved being down there and getting to help make all the goodies.

The next 2 pictures are of, 1) Ronald washing jeans and 2) Ronald and Amos scrubbing those jeans. I will send another email with 3 more pics of the clothes washing routine. This particular day was the boys washing day. They wash 4-5 days per week. It takes them about 2 hours in the morning to wash all the clothes and sheets. The older boys help with the little ones who can't wash their own...or at least can't wash their things well.

Some of you have asked about ebola. There has been an outbreak in the far west of Uganda and it looks like it has been contained. At last count, I heard 18 people had died. One traveled to Kampala for help and so possibly infected more people on the way or there, but there have been no cases from there yet. We are in far eastern Uganda and have had no cases and they don't anticipate any. Ugandans do not travel often from their home communities, the schools in the ebola area have been closed (200 of them!) and no travel for school groups has been approved until the situation is over. Thank you all for your concern. Please pray for these families who have lost loved ones to this tragic disease.

On a much more mundane note - I had a mild concussion this week after raising up under a low hanging wooden bar. I cut my head, was disoriented for several hours, but by evening I was okay. The cut didn't require stitches and all is well now. Gotta watch those low bars!!

I trust all of you are doing well. Thanks to you who have been writing each week. I so enjoy hearing from you, and try to respond to each one, although my internet is quite slow in Budaka and sometimes I wait 5 minutes and the reply still doesn't send. Sorry for those of you who haven't had a response.

One more email coming your way...

Laurie

July 30th - July...and cold?

The rainy season seems to be staying around a bit longer than usual this year. We just had a very large storm come through here in Mbale this afternoon. The winds and rain made it seem like a hurricane. And now it is quite cool. Actually, in the past week I have used a blanket at night due to the cold temps. It's down to the low 70s at night - quite a change from our normal 80s at night. I've even worn a light sweatshirt 2 days since I've been back...

We have had such a demand for bakery products that we have expanded to 4 days a week baking instead of 3. And, in addition to that extra day, Abby and I have had to do a bit more baking on Sundays. I'm sure we will figure this out soon, but the requests for banana bread and other American sweets just keep increasing. We have just added a new selling location out west of us in Kadama. Kadama is smaller than Budaka. Our night watchman has a small business there, and asked if he could take some banana bread and pumpkin cupcakes (a new big hit!) and try to sell them. He took some samples and 6 to sell. He came back 5 hours later saying he had sold all of them and wanted 20 this week! Please continue praying for us as we try to keep up with the orders. We need wisdom for what the next step is. We have several challenges: our oven is too small and inconsistent (can go from 250 to 500 without anyone turning the dial - I brought back an oven thermometer and now we have figured out why so many things were getting burnt!), keeping quality up with more hands in the making/baking, finding the least expensive ingredients at various places, etc., etc. So, we are asking the Lord what is next and would appreciate your prayers. (Ann - thanks so much for the cookie racks - the stacking has really helped with space problems in our kitchen, which is really a bedroom that is about 10'x10'.)

Our older 3 children, Brenda, Natasha and Ronald, have begun coming to the adult service on Sundays (unless they are serving in children's ministries that day). I have included 2 pictures from yesterday's church of the 3 of them. I am so proud as I look over and see them listening and digesting what the sermon means for their lives. Also, watching them worship the Lord really encourages me!

School is over for this term and we will have the results for our kids on Wednesday. The kids are excited to be on holiday. Abby is spending more time with them doing fun activities both outside and inside.

A really funny thing this past week: Abby was explaining to the kids why she can't spend as much time with them now since she is working in the bakery 3 days a week (about 6 hours each day). She asked them if they knew why we have a bakery at Cornerstone. Their response? We are making our American food to eat at our house! HA! They think I have spent the past 6 months making all those cupcakes, cakes, cookies, etc., and am eating them all. So funny!! She straightened them out and now they are telling others that the bakery items are for sale to pay for their food and clothes.

Okay, have to go for today. I love you and love working with you in the Kingdom of God...seeing to the welfare of children and adults here in Budaka, Uganda. Thank you for shouldering this responsibility with me.

Love,

Laurie

PS - no snakes this week. Yahoo!

July 23rd - Full steam ahead...

It feels like we have been back in Uganda for a month already. We have jumped right back into life here and are having a great time with the kids, the church and our many friends. Here are some highlights from this week:

• Repairing kids' clothes - 2 hours on Saturday afternoon
• Baking an extra day (Sunday afternoon this week) due to 3 new businesses. One wants 48 muffins and 20 slices of banana bread every Monday. Great to have new business! Now to adjust schedules so we can get everything baked every week.
• The chickens have stopped laying, so we have sold them off. We are pretty sure we will not continue raising chickens after 2 failed attempts. 
• No electricity for the first 3 days we were here, but now it has been almost constant since Tuesday evening. A great blessing! 
• Dealt with Ronald, who punched Isaac in the eye because Isaac wouldn't obey him. Isaac's eye is swollen, and I'm sure black (hard to tell since his skin is black ;). Had a poignant time with Ronald talking about exercising self-control - we've been teaching on the fruit of the Spirit with the kids on Wednesday nights.
• A neighbor's chicken jumped up on one of our windows and forced itself through the bars, then couldn't figure out how to get out. She was making LOTS of noise and flapping her wings, quite scared of her situation. Had to go and help her out. Pastor Rogers told me that 1) I should have had chicken for dinner, and 2) Ugandans would have run out of the house - apparently there is a belief that if a chicken flies in your window, it is bringing evil spirits. 
• Already had three new flashlights (called "torches" here) fail to work. How can that be??
• LOVING the new Kindle Touch - thanks, Tim and Cindy - reading at night is so much easier!
• Someone was throwing large rocks and bricks at the house one night after we were in bed. Sounded like they were being lobbed so as not to hit the house, but to scare us. I had the nightwatchman (Seth) come down and he looked around. As he was looking, the policeman who watches over a house down the way came by and asked if we needed help. It appears he was trying to scare us so we would again pay him for watching our house. He told Rogers we really need protection. Hmmmm....from whom? 
• One night, about 1:30am we went out to the latrine (Abby and I always go out together for protection), I went in and, as I was opening the door to go out, I noticed a snake up on the wall over my head. His head was close to mine, but apparently he was asleep. I hurried out and went in and called Rogers, who came with 3 others, all armed with large sticks. The snake got away from them, but within a half hour, Seth was able to track it down and kill it. He called to us and we went out to see that it was truly dead. It was some kind of poisonous snake (no one has or knows a name for it). Needless to say, I am quite wary to go into the latrine either during the day or the night! 
• We got to show the kids a Bible Adventure movie last night - David and Goliath. So fun to hear them cheering when Goliath was slain, and booing when David's brothers were mean to him. 
• I have included 2 pictures - one of a sunflower in our front yard, and one of our backyard with pumpkins, watermelons and eggplant growing. There are about 150 sunflower plants in the front and they have maybe 10 of the flowers set on. We will be using them to extract oil for our cooking. The produce from the backyard will be used in the children's food.

So, as you can read, life continues here unabated. Thanks to all of you who have been keeping in touch through e-mail, to you ladies from Hesperia who sent a card in the mail, to those of you who pray for us on a consistent basis, to those of you who continue to give so that this ministry stays on its feet and to those who pray for the emergencies that occur. You all help us continue in what we are called here to do. Thank you! I look forward to hearing what is happening in your lives too.

Laurie

July 16th - Greetings from Budaka!!

It is so great to be home again. I'm upside down with jet lag (just got in 2 1/2 days ago), but so excited to be here.

I got out of the van when we got here and greeted the kids - lots of screaming and excitement on both sides! - then said I had a surprise in the van. They were so excited. I opened the door, and there was Abby. The excitement got exponentially greater. It was a wonderful reunion! We then went and spent some time with the kids, and Abby settled into leading the fun games the kids love. The first picture you have is of her leading Four Corners within a couple of hours of getting here.

The second picture is our staff this morning after receiving their new shirts from KidZone Preschool in southern California...one of our sister schools. The front says "Cornerstone Uganda Ministries, Budaka" and the back says, "Touch a life, Save a nation." (Thanks to Pastor Bill for the slogan!) Susan, Lisa, and all the staff and kids at KidZone - THANK YOU for the shirts! They have been so well received. The staff is excited to send you personal notes of thanks...which you should receive in a month or so due to slow mail service between our countries.

Church was wonderful yesterday and we were received so well by our brothers and sisters here. No one knew we were coming...Rogers only told the church that they were going to have "visitors." Really fun to surprise them also.

We have many things to take care of today - there are a couple of rats in the house, so need to get a trap today; the ants seem to have invaded some of our living spaces while I was gone, so have to get bug spray; the propane tank is empty as the bakery needed to use ours, so have to go get a full one; no food in the house, so have to go to market and restock; get supplies we have brought for the school, church and orphanage kids, so will hopefully get to that tonight.

For those of you who have been praying for our safety - Rogers says things have calmed down a lot in Budaka and they have even arrested 2 people who were poisoning people, so it seems we are a bit safer than we were before. Thank you for praying. God is continuing to protect us, and I feel a bit more free to be out than I was the few weeks before I left.

We are happy to be home and I am so glad Abby is here with me.

I know I will have more to say to all of you next week, but I think I need a nap right now ;). I'll be so glad to be over jet lag in a few days!

I will be excited to hear from you...and hopefully will again have internet in Budaka. (We came back to no internet and no electricity...O, Uganda!)

Love you all!

Laurie

July 13th - We're here

Just a quick update - we made it to Uganda and are in a "hotel" for the night in Kampala. We'll leave in the morning for Budaka. Got here at almost midnight...2pm west coast time.

All is well. Thanks for praying for us!
Laurie