Photos from the past year

Thanks for praying for us. Thanks for supporting, encouraging and walking with us over the past year. We are recovering well and loving time with our families.

Today I took food away from a starving child…

View of our Pediatric Ward

One of our Malnutrition Children

Famine has hit East Africa. Food prices across the world are near record highs. Though Bundibugyo is not in famine, the resultant increased food prices combined with the seasonal decrease in harvest has brought over a dozen starving children to our pediatric ward these past 2 weeks.

Today, I took food away from Birra, one of these children. It felt very counterintuitive, mean, rude and even crazy. This 2 year-old child, who weighs 10 pounds, was eating a local banana type fruit called matoke. Her eyelids, hands and feet are swollen from the edema caused by lack of protein and a liver reaction to her slow wasting by starvation. Her mother stared at me in disbelief. Was she not doing the right thing? My friend, the nurse Charles, helped me explain to her that the food the child needed was the formula provided by UNICEF. The formula had all the nutrients she needed. It was also portioned out to help her body adjust to the intake of nutrition and prevent her heart from going into failure. Eating the matoke would fill her body with empty calories and keep her from drinking the not as tasty formula. For her to survive, we had to take the matoke away- until she returned to normal health.

Similarly, last week at our team meeting we discussed the hardship of living here. Sure, it is difficult living here, but what really makes it hard is the inability to sooth the hardship with our normal comforts. If we want to goad each other, we just mention “Breyers Ice Cream,” or “Chic-Fil-A” or “DQ Blizzard” or any other number of unattainable commodities and therefore forbidden words in our house. Beyond delicious foods, we also lack restaurants for dates or time of quietness. People with needs often knock at our door at 7am and we listen, serve, pray with people in desperate situations all day long. Jogs, bike rides and visits to the market are heralded with a cacophony of children’s voices yelling Majungu (white person.) It is hard to get away. Hot showers, let alone baths are not always available. Electricity providing light and internet is not consistent and are reliant on forces outside our control such as sunlight or the government. Yesterday, two phones ran out of charge during an interrupted monthly conversation with my brother. This makes it difficult to escape the troubles and needs that are constantly pressing on us.

Interestingly, David, in Psalms 73 speaks about such a thing. He compares himself to those around him. He sees them as without troubles, swollen fat with indulgences and doing only what they care to do. He, however, feels stuck, probably longing to be a simple shepherd again on the hillside instead of being in charge of a kingdom. He indicates all the normal comforts of his had been stripped away. Nevertheless, God is still with him. He concludes that God is his desire and there is nothing in heaven or earth that he desires more.

I long for Breyers Chocolate Chip Mint Ice Cream, or a Wendy’s Frosty and large fry. However, not being able to seek solace with these precious commodities is forcing me to learn how to seek comfort from Jesus. He has taken away my matoke that I may feast from the table he has prepared for me.

A bit of an update...

In the one year and four months that WHM houses have had grid electricity, we have been without it for at least half of that time. A month ago, our transformer blew out again (maybe the 5th time?). The electricity man no longer answers my frequent phone calls. When Travis called him, he promised that the transformer was sent to Kampala (3 weeks after it went out!) and that we would have electricity soon. Practically speaking, that means that we light our fridges (propane or kerosene), transfer all our cold or frozen goods, try to remember to charge electronics in the day when the sun is abundantly charging the solar powered batteries, use the generator for an hour for internet on cloudy days, and are very careful with the amount of lights we use in the evening. This also means that any blogging to be done when the kids are asleep does not happen. So, in this somewhat quiet and sunny moment, I will attempt to display through photos the activities of the past weeks. What a few weeks it has been!

RMS celebrated "Teacher Appreciation Week" and it is obvious

that RMS students love their teacher, Miss Anna!

Aidan is now old enough to be interested in playing with cars

so it is a joy to see my two boys play together.

Aidan loves to play "hide and seek" and making his mom laugh!

After CSB Sunday Fellowship, Lilli, Aidan, Olvie and the

Minister of Spiritual Development played drums together.

Farewell, "Grandfather" Kevin Party in our backyard

The OGs (Female Alumni) do a dance presentation for the Homecoming

The OB/OG (old boys/old girls...alumni) Homecoming Celebration Evening Gathering included speeches, dances, more speeches, and more speeches.

Kevin and the Board of Governors for CSB watch the OB v CSB student football match.

While our kids are troopers, they are not always smiles when the day has been long, their tummies are hungry, it is hot out, and they are ready to go home!

The OB v CSB match ended (thankfully!) in a last minute tie.

The OBs and OGs cheered on their fellow OBs on the field.

The line up for the game.

Bwampu Steven, the "son" of Tata Kevin joins hands with Kevin

for a walk to the middle of the filed for kick-off.

Walking around campus

Tim and Trisha Manarin and their 3 kids, friends from Kampala, visited us for the weekend and were good sports about joining in all of the festivities. This included tubing down the river, meeting people at CSB, watching the match, shopping at the market, and eating pork muchomo. We are so grateful that they braved the road here and joined us for some friendship.

When they arrived, Patton pulled me aside and whispered, "Mom, while they are here, I am going to pretend they are my brothers." He loved time with the boys!

As sickness floated around our house for a week, my friend Sharifa called to see if she could come over. When I told her of the sickness, she immediately said she was going to her garden to bring me bananas. And she did! Beautiful bananas from a beautiful friend.

Kevin shares and challenges us all at the CSB Staff Fellowship on Tuesday nights.

I was grateful to see my dear friend Christine as she came to visit her husband Edward. She brought beautiful crafts made by the ladies of her church's "Self-Help" group that meets weekly for friendship, Bible Study, and craft together. If anyone needs some paper bead necklaces, I have a few (hundred)...

Every week, we try to spend a little bit of time in the back yard, creating a playspace. So far, we have a sandless sandbox and the beginnings of a pirate ship. Pictured here are the kids decorating the inside of what one day will be their own playground!

A Consuming Fire

Our day began early at 3am when Pastor Sam called from Fort Portal to tell us that the WHM home built and lived in for 15 years by the Chedesters, soon to be home to 17 year WHM missionary Pat Abbott, was in flames.

After we both woke up a bit and realized that we were not having a bad dream, but that the FP house really was on fire, we called Jeff and Cheryl, dear friends to both the Chedesters and Pat. For years, Jeff has petitioned his Member of Parliament for a fire truck for the town of Fort Portal. Only a few months ago, did the first-ever fire truck appear on the streets. Gathering up volunteer firemen and the new truck, they tried to salvage what they could. Unfortunately, the fire was fast and consumed everything. It was only 5 nights ago that we were sleeping there.

It appears to be an electrical fire as similar ones have occurred in the last year due to power surges.

Pat had moved all of her belongings into the house and they were waiting for her mid-August arrival back to Africa. She is currently in America fund-raising for the "Women of the Proverbs" project. When I asked her what she thought about losing all of her possessions, she said, "Amy it is just stuff. It will all burn up someday anyway. I am just glad that no one was hurt."

But a house is always more than a just a house; it is a home. The Cash family tearfully remembered the 15 Thanksgivings spent with the Chedesters there. The Chedesters raised their children there. Pat had carefully selected paint colors for the walls in order to give her new home her own touch. For the past six months, our own little family found refuge there in the midst of malaria, team transition, and the many demands of life in Bundibugyo. We called it the Peace House.

In the midst of such tragedy, God left his fingerprints to remind us that He is here and does have a plan for the future of WHM in FP and specifically for Pat. Besides a few clay pots, only two items were not burnt, the journal writings of pioneer missionary Jim Elliot and the book "He Has Made Me Glad." In the middle of the latter book, unsinged was a photo postcard of the Road to Bundibugyo. Not sure what that means, but it does remind me that Pat always has a home here, where the road ends.

MediQuest

On Saturday afternoon, a white land rover with Kenya tags made its way on to the WHM property, with five young women in the back wide-eyed from their harrowing drive over the Bundibugyo Road. Bruce and Kate Dahlman, with AIM, have been leading this medically-oriented group throughout Kenya and Uganda, visiting various models of public health, medicine, and agricultural projects.

Interns Sarah and Olvie did an excellent job hosting the women, leading a community tour, and even explaining the proper use of the outdoor cho. On Saturday night, we enjoyed pizza together and getting to know each other. Sunday included a lengthy church service, lunch, community walk, drive to see the Congo border, Ugandan food dinner, and an attempt to watch "War Dance" (cut short by no electricity and bad dvd). This morning, the group toured the Nyahuka Health Center and prayed together over the patients there. After a quick lunch, they hit the road in effort to hit the construction zones at lunch time (ie no workers to slow them down!) and for a swim at Kluges Guest Farm. We pray that God used their experience here in some way to open their hearts towards working among the poor with the gifts that God has given each of them.

A significant moment in CSB history

Via a MAF flight in which the alternator went out ("But I realized that the plane does not run on electricity" says Kevin...kinda like our lives in Bundi), Kevin Bartkovich, founder of Christ School Bundibugyo arrived to his home of over 10 years.

Pictured here is Edward Isingoma, Headmaster of CSB, Kevin, Founder of CSB, and Travis, Chairman of the Board of Governors for CSB.

The next eleven days with Kevin will include the first ever "homecoming" dinner of OB/OGs (old boys and old girls...alums), chapel service, teacher fellowship, student fellowship, meeting with Edward, Travis, and teachers, seeing the lives of CSB grads, eating Ugandan food and catching up with old friends.

We are grateful he is here safely. We are thankful for his heart and years of service in effort to see godly leadership emerge among the Babwisi people.

We are also grateful for his wife, JD, and his family that is stateside, who sent us yummy goodies and entertaining movies! Webele!

And we're off...

Almost packed, with errands in town such as getting cell phone airtime, finding one of our sponsored students to give univ fees, paying for wedding photos for a friend, getting diesel, picking up dairy meal for the cows, one more stop to the bank, and then attempting to make it over the mountains...

On the drive in, we had an "Indiana Jones" moment when we looked across at where the road on the next mountain should be...and like Indiana, we had to have faith that the road had not disappeared! One never knows what they will find on the road to Bundibugyo, or if the road will even be there...

Travis is feeling better enough to get in the car and go, but still is weak, so thanks for your prayers for his improving health and for a sense of humor for us all.