The Power Goes Out for What Seems Like the Hundredth Time, and Frank Risks His Life on the Side of a Mountain!

Well, this week has been quite interesting. We could only include some events, as there was so much to write about. First of all, we’ve been told that the rainy season begins in March, but it has been raining for the past week at least once a day. Strong winds and thunder and lightning have come with it, making for some impressive damage to almost all of our banana trees out back as well as a lot of time without power.

On Sunday Frank and I were both feeling sick so we stayed at the office all day. We were supposed to go to an introduction party, a bride was introducing her husband to her family, but unfortunately we couldn’t go. These ceremonies are where the groom is expected to pay the bride’s family a minimum of three cows for her. At first we were quite interested to see this in person, however, after talking about this custom with some Christian locals we realized that this “ownership” of the wife results in her often being treated as a bought object instead of a human.

Monday was a public holiday and we were feeling better, so we went to look at some of the shops in Mbale. We also went to play catch with a football outside our office and within minutes about ten neighbourhood children asked if they could join us. So, Frank taught the older boys how to play American football while I played soccer with some of the younger children. It was a lot of fun and the kids stayed for about 3 hours; I think they would’ve stayed all night if we hadn’t told them that we had to go.

We also walked around town with Vicki, looking at some of the hotels and then we went to a wedding meeting. In Uganda, people have 5-6 meetings before their weddings to go through the budget and raise money. They sell pop, and auction off mystery gifts to raise money. We didn’t stay the whole time though because dark clouds were looming overhead…

Halfway back to the office, the skies opened up and we were caught in a torrential downpour. The three of us tried to take cover, but Frank and I were completely soaked anyways, so we decided to run back to the office. Within minutes it looked as if we had jumped into a swimming pool. Hundreds of locals who were taking cover were laughing at us, as they thought it was funny that we’d go out into the rain. This tropical rain is something we’ve never experienced before!

On Tuesday I (Frank) went with the FH engineer to look at a school structure being built two districts from Mbale. When we arrived it rained VERY VERY hard for about two hours, which the locals said would make it impossible to reach the school on motorbikes because of the severe mountain slopes, and washed out roads. We decided to go anyways, as I was thinking to myself “Self…how bad can it be?” Well needless to say, it was really bad. During the trip we came off our bikes twice, and the other bike went over three times. We looked at the school structure being built and I had a chance to see the existing school structure. I have included a picture of the old school structure. About 800 students go to school at this school, with about 80 students who sit on rocks on the floor in each of the classrooms (photo). The community with the support of FH has now built 4 classroom blocks (photo) making learning conditions much better. When we finally reached the office in Pisway (photo of town) it was still raining, making it impossible to go back, so we were forced to stay the night. It was such a beautiful but cold place (+5 which is COLD by African standards) perched on the slopes of Mount Elgon. I thought Livingstone (the engineer) was going to freeze to death as he was shivering the entire time we were there, while I on the other hand enjoyed the break from severely hot weather of Mbale. This area used donkeys for transporting crops and everything else as it is impossible even with motorbikes to reach most places, so there were very many of them in the area and they kept us up at night because of the constant “EEEE AWWWW”ing.

On Friday morning I (Amber) woke up with a huge red welt on my leg that looked like a big bite of some sort. It was okay and we continued on as usual with devotions, prayer, and worship. But at mid morning…SNAKE!!! That’s right; I was coming out of our room, and saw a green snake stretched across the hallway. Well, as you may know, I wasn’t about to call Frank because he would’ve passed out in the hallway beside it, so I called for Paul. But there are two Paul’s and they were trying to decide which one of them I was calling. I yelled that I didn’t care which one of them it was; it could be both but just to come out here now! Needless to say we’re having snake soup for supper (just kidding), but that snake will never return.

Our prayer requests for the week:
· Please pray for the children who are returning to school this week, and for Amber who’s been asked to teach some classes- many of them have about 100 students in them.
· For families who are required to pay increased school fees.
· For good health.
· That the computer training that Frank will do will be effective and useful.
· That the sessions that we do with the youth about vocation, education, and relationships will speak truth to them.

In week two, Amber now has black hair, and Frank finally can say hello in the local language!

Week #2

Sat., Jan. 17 was our day off, I went to the Salon to get extensions and then braids in my hair. Although I asked for blonde, I received black with some gold strands in it…not quite the same. It took 9 hours to do, and by the end of the day I was extremely hot, but glad to have experienced a salon in Mbale.

While I was at the Salon, Frank attended a wedding reception with Livingstone, Miriam, and Victoria. Because there weren’t any utensils and they ran out of water at the wedding, Frank says that some of the guests were washing their hands with Coke before eating. It was very interesting to attempt eating rice and stew with his hands. (He says that he only ate a few mouthfuls.) There were also many street kids running around at the reception, trying to get food. Frank gave one of them his plate of food and then ten of them began fighting over it. The street kids are children who have either been orphaned, or they leave their families because there are too many children and they are not being taken care of. (Some families here have as many as 20 children)

On Sunday, Jan. 18 we went to St. Andrew’s Anglican Church with Miriam. They have 3 different services, 1 in Lugandan, 1 in English, and 1 in Lumasaba, which is the local language. We went to the English one of course, and found that many of the songs were the same. The pastor seemed humorous, unfortunately, it was difficult for us to understand her accent. The service was 2 ½ hours long, which is much longer than most of us are used to.

From Monday, January 19-Thursday, January 22, we have been going out to the field, 3 days in Makhai and 1 day in Bufukhula. You may remember that last week we asked you to pray that we would adapt well to the weather, and your prayers have been answered…well, in a different way. It seems that the weather has adapted to us instead, and it has been cloudy and a bit cooler the days that we have been doing home visits. Home visits consist of walking to the homes of sponsor children to ask the families how the children have been doing in school, health wise, spiritually, and whether they’ve been helping out during the school break. (The children don’t return to school until February 2).

This week we’ve had a group of faithful children who follow us everywhere. On Wednesday and Thursday they were with us from 11am-4pm, no matter what we’re doing. Yesterday when I was doing some filing and Frank was working on the computer, they just sat outside the window staring at us. They have also sung us some songs and played tag with us.

Yesterday (Thursday), we were in Makhai and watched some men who were building an office for the church. They use bricks that are hand made from the dirt here and fill in between with cement. There were some women making lunch for the men, which consisted of posho (maize flour mixed with water), beans, and some meat with vegetables. I got a chance to try to stir the posho, but it was very thick and difficult to stir. At one point I almost pushed half of it out of the pot and onto the ground! The women all thought that it was very humourous!

Today the Regional Director and the Executive Director came for a meeting, so we got to listen in on some of the inner workings of FHI. Also, it’s Frank’s birthday, so we’re going out to the Resort Hotel for a nice meal tonight…maybe we’ll try some tasty goat!

This week please pray for:
· The other staff here, as many of them have been falling ill with malaria and other things.
· That we would continue to be patient so we can hear what God is asking us to do.
We are thankful that the weather has not been so hot and that we continue to be healthy!

We've Arrived!

Mulembe (hello) from Mbale! After a long journey (50 hours…with only a four hour nap in Calgary), we arrived in Kampala, the capital city, on Monday night at 11 pm Uganda time. We stayed in Kampala for 1 ½ days at the Adoni guest house where we met the staff at the FH Uganda national office and went through a day of training. On Wednesday, Jan 14 we were driven by taxi to Mbale, where we will be staying for the rest of our time in Uganda. During the three hour drive we enjoyed very beautiful scenery including dense forests, sugar cane fields, tea fields, and sadly, monkey road kill. We found it amazing that during the three hour drive there was not a time where there were not people walking or bike riding on the side of the road…there were people literally everywhere you looked, most of whom were children, as they are still on school break till the beginning of February.

The seven staff here in Mbale are very kind and hospitable and we already have become very good friends with them. We were pleasantly surprised by the room we’re staying in, and the shower offers a refreshingly cold shock in the mornings! We could use the shower bags we brought because they would definitely heat up in this weather, but so far the cold shower here has been a needed cool down.

There is a lady named Victoria staying in the compound with us. She has been cooking us wonderful meals, even ones that Frank will eat, which means that she is an amazing cook. The fruit here is amazing! They have every kind of fruit, and in abundance. I think that if a person can get sick from eating too much pineapple and mangos, we will as we eat a lot of them. Cooking in Uganda, we have realized, is a full time job for a cook. Since there is no kitchen, cooking is usually done on a kerosene burner (similar to what we would use for a camping stove) and there is no refrigerator or sink, so she must walk to the market before every meal to buy food (not a short walk) and clean up is done in a little wash basin. This is amazing since she sometimes cooks for the whole staff. Amber had the opportunity to help prepare a meal, which took about an hour and a half, as preparing rice requires the separating of each grain of rice from tiny stones, and cutting fruit and vegetables with a knife which would cause bruises instead of cuts if used as a weapon.

In the morning we are awakened by roosters (who don’t stop for about an hour) and dogs. There are also goats here that try to steal the bananas from our banana trees in the back of the property, but our guard (Abraham) who is approximately the size of Amber, usually chases them away. The guard comes in the evening to guard during the night and is armed with a bow and arrow.

We are thankful that we are already over our jetlag, and today was our first day in the field in a village called Makhai.

Thank you for coming alongside us in this journey. Some specific prayer requests include:
We would be able to adapt to the heat.
We could be a blessing to those around us.
We would understand the culture here and be able to offer our knowledge and skills in an appropriate and useable manner.

As we need to use an internet café, we will usually be posting on our blog on the weekends. We’d love to hear from some of you back home!

Love, Frank and Amber

PS: Forgot to put pictures on my computer before comming to the internet cafe, so I will post them later.