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!