Facts of Life....

Africa is a difficult place to live.  This may be the understatement of the year.  The sheer act of existing in a village here leaves no time or energy for possibilities of ‘getting ahead’.  

Even if access to clean water exists for a village, it still means making multiple trips a day and usually waiting in line to fill your gerry can (interesting tidbit on these below).  If no clean water source is near, miles must be walked to bring back as much as possible, a fire built and water boiled over the fire before consuming, which means gathering more firewood.   Getting water is often a job for the children.  It is not an uncommon sight to see a child Lila’s age and size carrying a large gerry can.  And they are quite heavy when filled.  

With no refrigeration, indoor plumbing or other ‘luxuries’, meals (or rather MEAL for most) must be picked or purchased and prepared each day.  There are few vegetable or meat options because of spoilage and cost, so most survive on a diet of starches.   Herding cattle back and forth to pastures can be a full days’ journey.  

With few or no changes of clothes, things must be washed by hand, usually requiring a trip to the nearest water source to be scrubbed in dirty water by hand and hung to dry, something that happens infrequently as there is usually nothing else to put on while laundering the clothes on one’s back.  

Dirt roads filled with potholes make travel very difficult, so unless a village is located within walking distance to a larger trading center, getting supplies, food, medical care and education can be extremely difficult.   Many times villages do not even have dirt roads and have to go through fields to even reach the nearest dirt road.  Below is a photo of one such village we visited.  I have yet to figure out how anyone can even find these villages to assist them.

Despite the circumstances, smiles seem to come easily to Ugandans.  Children run out if they hear a car and a simple wave seems to make their day.  We stopped and passed out ‘sweeties’ (aka dum dum lollipops and plastic eggs filled with jelly beans, compliments of Ms. Leila at Lila’s school) during Easter weekend to many of these children, and had to show most how to unwrap them and warn them not to eat the sticks.  They were simply precious and so excited to receive such a treat.  

The children here are incredibly well behaved.  When we stopped at a place Auntie Rox has visited before to pass out clothing, toothbrushes and sweeties, the children bowed and thanked us.  One young girl received a pair of shorts and a tshirt (quite possibly the only new outfit she had ever had) only to offer them to another who arrived after we had passed out everything.  The other girl took her choice of one item and both girls left happy.   I couldn’t help but think how this same situation would have probably ended up quite differently at my own home and in my own country.   The little girl in the right photo literally dropped to her knees when I gave her underwear, shoes and a toothbrush.  

We came to serve the people of Uganda, and very much plan to continue to do that, but are seeing that they actually have much to offer us, too.   Our own children are realizing this as well.  During our de-brief over breakfast this morning, Brayden eloquently stated that it seems easier to share when you only have a little and having a lot can sometimes  cause people to become selfish.   WOW!  We are so incredibly proud of the way all of our kids have adjusted to all of the changes around them.  We know that God is working in their hearts as much as our own and are amazed at the profound thoughts and comments they are having.   We are so grateful they have the opportunity to see how much of the rest of the world lives at such young ages, and trust that the things they are being exposed to will impact them for the rest of their lives - much as they will our own. 

Okay - that’s enough philosophical writing for the day.  On the gerry (jerry) can.....during WWII the Germans used these [usually] yellow plastic jugs to carry fuel and tied them  on their tanks.  People called the Germans ‘Gerrys”.....thus the eventual adoption of the term used for the containers they carry their water in.   These jugs typically carry 5 gallons of liquid.  Try lifting 5 1-gallon jugs of milk at once to have an idea of the load the people (children!) are carrying for water!

And I’m not sure who is having more fun with the constant games of football - Rob or the kids!  Why do Americans call football soccer, anyway?! 

Seriously, we are all having an amazing time and are so thankful for all of you who are following our journey and praying for us.  Thanks so much to everyone who made donations for our trip.  The children could not be happier to receive all of the items you were so generous in giving.  We are still working on the coordination of our well and hope to have more to report on that after some meetings next week.  Blessings to everyone in America from Africa! 

From Tyler

Hi! Tyler here!

We just came back from a trip right at the Uganda/Congo/Rwanda border. We stayed at a lot of hotels (which were really mostly tents), and we drove on roads that were actually dirt with a ton of bumps.  I liked every part of it except for the very long driving.   

They measure distance in kilometers here.  10 miles is equal to about 16 kilometers (we looked that up!), but could take an hour to drive on these roads.  Before we left, I drew a map of Uganda and charted our journey.  But guess what? The driver ended up taking a different route, but I still learned a ton making the map.  

We saw   a ton of zebras, a few elephants, warthogs, hippos, water buffalo and baby crocodiles.  We stopped in a fishing village and gave out “sweeties” (they call all candy sweeties) and clothes.  We stopped at another village and gave out more clothes and toothbrushes.  The kids were all very excited and ones at the second place were very respectful and bowed when we gave them things.  It was the sweetest thing ever and made us feel good about helping them.

We are staying in a house in Kampala with clean water, but we only drink bottled water because our bodies aren’t used to the water here.  We even have to use bottled water to brush our teeth and rinse our toothbrushes!!!!!!!!!!!  One of the places we stayed over the weekend had no running water!(They filled big jugs with water from the lake for washing your hands and body (but we didn’t shower there!) and bring supplies back and forth on a canoe.  I twisted my ankle at this place, but it’s mostly better now.

I have made some friends here that are also in 3rd grade.  Their names are Wasswa (Auntie Rox’s Ugandan son) and David (his father is a leader in Southern Sudan and may be the first president there - pretty cool!).  We also play football (what we call soccer) almost every day in Auntie Rox’s front yard with the children from the community.  Most of these kids don’t own shoes and many don’t have parents.  One of the boys, Brian, lives with his 13-year old brother who works all day to make money to pay rent,buy them food and send Brian to school.  Brian has been on vacation from school, so he came and did home school with us one day last week.  He did pretty good with writing!!!!!!!!!!!!  Sometimes we have the neighborhood kids join us for lunch.  We think it is sometimes their only meal for the day.  One girl who comes over whenever we open the gate is Sarah.  She is Brayden’s age and shares one pair of shoes with her brother.  Once when she came over for lunch we had to teach her how to eat a sandwich!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

I miss everyone very much!-tyler

First trip out...

We are finally getting somewhat settled on African time and the new, unstructured routine.  Homeschooling started yesterday morning (which the kids were actually excited about).  The weather is actually pretty nice - maybe around 80F - and despite being the rainy season we’ve only had two rainstorms so far.  Power in Kamapala has already gone out three times, and last night on and off for hours so keeping food is hard.  For most people here, though, losing power isn’t an issue as few have refrigerators or much of anything that requires power.  

Kampala is dirty and densely populated, and by and large, people are very, very poor.  That’s an understatement, and something we’ll shed more light on as we go.  People are generally incredibly friendly and nice.  Most speak some english, all speak Lugandan, and then there are 57 unique languages throughout the country, so communication can be tough.

We made our first trip out of Kampala last weekend to Masindi, an area about 300 km north of Kampala.  We saw several villages, including Wasswa’s birth village, distributing toothpaste and toothbrushes, soccer balls, and the occasional sweet treats for kids.  

Africa is sad, inspiring, hope-filled and so many things at once.  Brayden's comment after his first visit to a village.... "The people in Africa seem to be the poorest in the world, but I think one day they will be the richest".  Mom: "Why do you think that"?  B: " Because the Bible says the poor will become rich and also because they do things like weaving and creating cool things here".  

Tyler's answer to the question of "What do you think about the people's faith here?"   T:  "The people here have to have such a strong faith just to survive.  It seems like the poorest people and the ones with disabilities have the most joy".  

Yes, those are actual quotes from our [sometimes] wise beyond their years 7 and 8 year olds.  

Don't mistake it, the people of this country are suffering in a huge way.  Many have no money to get food, have very very small huts to live in, have no access to medicine, education, or even basic necessities as water.  But, despite this injustice, Tyler is right - there is still a sense of joy.  The expressions on some of the children's faces do better justice than any words can....  

In Wasswa's village, Roxanne gave a quick demonstration on how to use toothbrushes and toothpaste.  Don't EAT the toothpaste!

Thank you to all who went to their dentists and asked for toothbrushes and toothpaste.  You have no idea how grateful the children we've met so far were to receive them.  There's something that hits you so hard when you see such gratitude from children receiving toothbrushes.  It puts into perspective the depth of our own habit of taking for granted.

We can't explain the joy and blessing this time was to each of us.  The kids got to feel this in a very real way....

Tyler was so excited he darted into the center part of the village with toothbrushes in hand.

And, Christi bonded with many children.

Part of our trip was to join our friends at Busoga Trust America to see some of the water wells they've built in the northern part of the country.  The water was very good, and is saving lives - literally.  Of the villages we saw that had wells, as many as 300 people use one well and each family pays the equivalent of about 20 cents monthly to maintain the well.  The are incredibly thankful.  But, many are making appeals for a second one!!!

Tyler and Brayden got to do some pumping...

...while Christi checked out the quality.

Wasswa experienced firsthand that with the blessings of clean drinking water come the risks of a splash in the face!














We left Masindi on Sunday afternoon after an amazing visit.  We thankfully made it back to Roxanne's place late Sunday night, thanks to the giftedness of our driver, Jeffrey (on right), who somehow navigated through the bad roads, walkers on the side of the highway, overstuffed trucks with coal practically spilling out, and bodas (motorcycle taxis) darting in and out of us.

Yesterday, Roxanne surprised us with a prank visit from some of her friends on the Police force.  They came in to apparently arrest me, but thankfully she rounded the corner before Christi and I had time to completely freak!  They had actually followed her over because they had asked her for Bibles weeks ago and we brought some over with us.  They were so happy to receive them!

Stay tuned and thank you for your comments and for your prayers.  

We're Here!

We arrived in Uganda yesterday (Wednesday) morning!! All of the kids did amazingly well on the trip, and even managed to sleep quite a bit on the last leg....mom was a different story, but thankfully I went to bed early that night and caught up a bit.

We arrived to a warm greeting by "Auntie Rox" and a driver to bring us to Kampala where we were greeted with a beautiful and tasty snack of fresh pineapple, homemade bread and hummus and freshly squeezed passion fruit juice. Fresh flowers adorned the table and our bedroom, and the kids are sharing a great safari room with Roxanne's son, Wasswa. As I type this I realize we were so tired we probably didn't adequately show our appreciation - we must remember to do that first thing tomorrow.

Yesterday was pretty much a fog, but we did experience our first power outage, with power not returning until about 7:30 tonight (Thursday). In case you are wondering why I keep putting the day, we are 7 hours ahead of EST.

Today we joined Roxanne for an interview of 3 women who might possibly enter Tukutana's trade school and learn to sew. The women arrived with their babies saddled to their backs and the 5 shelves that they each carried on their heads all day in hopes of selling. One of them had an equivalent of a 2nd grade education and the other two 1st grade. They all were made to leave school to start working to help provide food for their families. They each stated their biggest challenge was not being able to properly provide food for their children. It blew us away to learn that they buy each shelf for 4,000 Ugandan shillings and sell them for between 4,000 and 5,000 and on a good day can sell 2-3.  To put that into dollar terms, that's making about 50 cents per shelf, or $1.50 per day at best.  When they left, they all told our beautiful interpreter and current Tukutana member, Medina, that they hoped they were the one chosen to join the program - they were so eager to learn a trade that could enable them to better provide for their families.

We also learned each sewing machine (they are all the old fashioned kind since electricity is in such short supply) costs less than $100 in US currency. It breaks my heart that for $100 and some training, these women and their children could lead entirely different lives.

So, I was supposed to make this a short post and will let one of the boys give the details tomorrow, but the kids got to make bags of goodies (cards from American children, soap, toothbrushes/toothpaste, stickers from Trader Joes - complements of Lila saving all of hers for months, and granola bars) and deliver them with Rob and Auntie Rox to children in the cancer ward at one of the local hospitals today. They will hopefully get many more opportunities for this in the weeks to come.

Alrighty - gotta sign off and get some sleep in case the kids are up again tonight.

Thanks to friends...

Hi all - Tyler here....
Just wanted to thank Mrs. Mannion's 3rd grade class for donating $53 to our water well and also to our good friends Katie and Kevin Broderick for having a lemonade stand and giving ALL of the money they made to our water well!!
Thank you also, Katie, for encouraging Mrs. Grippos 3rd grade class to make great cards for the kids in Uganda!!
I'm going to miss you guys! Thanks alot for your support!!
-tyler

Packing Up

So, we are leaving in 29 hours.  As I type this, I am listening to our washing machine make a horrible noise that it refused to make yesterday when the repairman was here.  Our past two weeks have been a similar story. . .
health insurance cancelled (it's been reinstated after most of the day on the phone Friday!), car breaking down in the middle of the road in the rain with all 3 kids in back, roof leaking, sink stopped up, school issues around our trip....it's been a little crazy to say the least, but I truly believe it's the Lord's way of preparing us for our trip and teaching us that we can't let the little things in life distract us from our bigger mission.  Distracted we have been at times, but as Yoda would say, forging ahead we are!  I hope and pray we will be able to handle the disruptions that are sure to occur in Africa with the same faithfulness and just look at it all as one big adventure.

We are packing the last of our bags, including a huge duffle filled with deflated soccer balls and a few pumps, another with tons of donated children clothes to distribute, and yet another with 230 toothbrushes, 150 tubes of toothpaste and boxes upon boxes of chewy granolas.  We also have over 100 of the most beautiful cards made by American children for the children in orphanages and hospitals in Uganda.  A HUGE SHOUT OUT to all of you who were so generous in providing these things for us to take over.  We cannot thank you all enough for your support and will do our best to post some photos of them being distributed.

We are flying out early Tuesday morning and have a very short layover in London then off to Entebbe, Uganda.  We are scheduled to arrive at 8 a.m. local time Wednesday morning.  We will be staying with 'Auntie Roxanne' in Kampala, and venturing to a 'town' several hours away Saturday to meet with some contacts about evaluating Wasswa's village for a water well.  We hope to spend several days with them learning about their process and checking out the village together.

Please keep our family in your prayers for safe travels!!