Back in Uganda!

Hi everyone!
I just wanted to let you all know that I made it back to Uganda safely! It feels really good to be back, although I haven't made it all the way back to Jinja and the kids at Amani. Rachel and I are house/babysitting for our friend, Annie, who is the director of Watoto Babies Home in Kampala. There is a Watoto Conference in London and so we are taking care of her three girls and will be spending a good part of our days at Watoto helping with all the little babies there. Right now they have 83 babies and 75% of them are under the ago of 1!!! Needless to say, there is lots to do!
Although it's good to be back, I had such a fun time helping fly Melody and Joey home and staying with them for the past week. We've gotten to see lots of kids go home to adoptive families over the past 6 months and it was such a neat experience to get to see that side of it. It was so great to really get to know their family and be there for their first days in "The America". Their family is absolutely wonderful and, despite some issues with sharing (what family of 3 toddlers DOESN'T have issues with sharing??!!!) and overcoming a fear of the cats, everyone is adjusting really well.

Vero and Zee

Our 2 newest little girls are Veronica and Fazira. Their mothers' are in prison and these two little cuties are now Amani toddlers. We like to call them Vero and Zee (Vero's pic is on top). They are both scared, sweet and snuggly. Don't worry, Teeny Beany (not yet 4-years-old) is already their little mother, volunteering to sleep in a bed with them and rub their backs!

I am happy to say that I have a renewed sense of joy about living here. Although I have been missing Arielle, my last week has been great. I have felt a strong sense of purpose and positive feelings about life as it is now. I continue to look forward to new opportunities and life at home, but for now, I'm happy as a Ugandan girl.

Okecha

Okecha (Okay-Cha) is hard to miss. He is about 10-years-old and the size of a 5 or 6-year old. His rib cage is pushed extremely far out in both the front and back. His back is hunched and he walks very stiffly. When you touch his chest, you can feel his heart beating just under his skin. But besides just his physical appearance, I was drawn to Okecha right away. He is always one of the most eager to hold our hands, walk with us and to smile and wave as we pull into Masese. Okecha comes to eat lunch along with the 450 other children we serve each week, and I look forward to seeing him each time.
Last Wednesday, after dropping beans off and a visit with the kids of Masese, I decided to ask Okecha's grandparents if I could take him to town. I explained that I wanted to take him to the international clinic to see if there was anything that can be done for him. The grandmother agreed.
Okecha doesn't have any "smart" clothes, so on the way to pick him up, I stopped at the market and bought him some new clothes. When I pulled into Masese on my piki the children all ran to show me to Okecha's mud hut. He came out, beaming and his grandmother told me he was ready to go. He was filthy, wearing dirty ripped clothes and no shoes. I would have gladly taken him like that, but I wanted him to feel proud and respected in town. It is enough to be crippled here, and I wanted him to feel special. I handed him his new clothes (nike shorts and a jersey-like top). He put them on and we headed out...bare feet and all. The children cheered as Okecha and I pulled away on our piki. Okecha held my hands the whole ride to town. He was nervous at the clinic, and clearly had never been to a doctor's office before. He speaks no English and was too shy to say anything even to the doctor. Luckily Okecha was intrigued by all of the medical tools and warmed up when the doctor let him play with them. The doctor explained that Okecha's ribs aren't properly covering his heart, leaving his heart only protected by skin. He was born like that, and any surgeries would be very difficult to get here. Okecha was also found to be extremely malnourished. The doctor asked me about his history and I explained that Okecha's mother abandoned him when she found out he was different. He had been starving until a kind woman found him and luckily placed him with his grandparents. I explained that the grandparents appeared very healthy, as well as the others who are living with Okecha. The doctor and I had a discussion about how Okecha might not be given the same treatment as other children in his home. He is considered crippled and handicapped and people are unkind to those who aren't as "useful" around the village. I knew this though...I had seen it the previous weeks with his peers. The few children who speak English tease Okecha by telling me he is good at football and a fast runner. Okecha isn't able to run very well, and by the kids' laughter I know they are only making fun of him. Tears spilled down my cheeks as I watched this sweet boy giggling at the fact that he figured out how to turn on a flashlight. I valued him from the second I saw him, and I got really emotional thinking that people could be unkind to him to the point of neglecting him, in addition to all he has endured. The doctor prescribed some creams for various fungus and rash-like things on Okecha's body and told me the best bet would be to help Okecha grow strong.
After leaving the clinic, I took Okecha to lunch. He had his first cold drink, chicken and chips (he didn't like the chips!). He pointed at every car that went by and exclaimed excitedly in Luganda things I couldn't understand. After lunch, we held hands and walked down main street. Okecha picked out some shoes and wore them out of the shop. He chose pineapple and orange juices and calcium biscuits to bring home, along with a lollipop for right then. At the market we bought beans, rice, and g-nuts for his grandma to use for him. We put them all in a big bag along with some books I had chosen for him and headed back to Masese. When we returned, the kids came running and cheered for Okecha. My heart was bursting for him as I saw the kids admiring his shoes and smart clothes. If nothing else, if Okecha doesn't ever exceed 70 pounds, if his family doesn't treat him equally, if he is never as good at soccer as the others his age, then at least he can remember that moment when the kids cheered for him and that he was chosen to spend a day in town. I just hope to portray that I love Okecha despite his differences and they should too!
Lunch went really well on Thursday and I am happy to say that when I walked up to serve food, the children ran to show me Okecha. He is a celebrity now in Masese! We served the usual beans and chapati but added home-made peanut butter for extra protein and carrot, pineapple orange juice made by us.

Update for Arielle

Hey Everyone,
Just updating...probably mostly for Arielle, who is in the states now and probably wants to know this info! Also for the other Amani followers who live and breathe these babies and think this kind of thing is interesting.
First...Katie Bug is a toddler girl!!! She moved on Monday and looks so cute sleeping with the big girls and eating out on the toddler porch. She now wears some pretty great 1980's looking high-tops because she can't wear baby shoes anymore. She's doing well, but I can tell she gets tired.
Second...Baby Daniel and Josephine are Baby C'ers. Both are doing great with the move but Josie is kind of freaked out by her top bunk crib. Queen now looks so grown up and big in Baby B.
Today I went to Masese with Renee and Ian to do Noah's Ark puppet show and drop off the beans for Friday's lunch. We sang "who built the ark?" after the show and the kids were really cute trying to sing it. Their favorite part was "the sun came out with beaming rays!" Even though they couldn't sing it all in English, they loved the hand motions.
Our friends from Sudan came to visit for 3 days which was really fun. Caleb BBQ'd some delicious meat and we all had a great time together. They rafted and bungee jumped...none of them were scared. They missed you, Ar!
That's about it for now...I'm on my way to Amani. Hope everything went well with the travel Ar, and can't wait to hear from you and have you back!

We have really grown to love the village of Masese (Mah-sess-E) and refer to it as our adopted village. This week when we dropped off beans for our Friday lunches we brought a big stack of white paper and crayons for the kids. The kids were pumped about a plain piece of paper and a single crayon! Many of them drew pictures like a cup, a pot, or a house. They were so proud to show us their drawings. We served lunch on Friday and again, it was super successful. We had plenty of food for all of the almost 400 children (66 pounds of beans with tomatoes and onions, 200 chapati and 20 gallons of juice). Each week we are able to handle the crowd better and we are really starting to be able to have fun during it...rather than shouting and stressing like it used to be. The line flows nicely now and we like to think we look like a "feed my starving children" commercial. It's been a huge blessing getting to know the people of Masese and we look forward to visiting every time.

Amani Update

Big boy Adamu

Teeny Beany...Auntie Shana, she saw a pic of Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) in a magazine the other day and INSISTED it was you!

Baby Katie Bug

Brian and Holly
Things at Amani continue to go absolutely superbly. There has been lots of movement lately which is always fun. We said goodbye to Holly and baby Emmanuel who were adopted into a wonderful Ugandan family. Christopher and Priscilla (Katie)went home to America to live with a truly incredible family! We loved spending time with their mom, Jenny, and were sad to see her leave, but sooo happy for them all! Melody and Joseph head out Monday morning to live in America with another awesome family. Arielle will accompany Mel, Joey and their dad, Tim, to America and will be able to stay with them for a week at their home in Arizona. Mel has been one of Arielle's all-time special kids around the world and this will be a blast for her. She comes home to Uganda on the 29th. Now you must think, what will I (Rachel) do without my other half?! I am thinking the same thing and will be a bit lost without Ar, but somehow will manage myself for the 10 days. We have 2 new baby boys who came in within the past couple weeks. Baby Jonah is an infant with a beautiful head of curly hair and baby Luke is a malnourished little guy who was found abandoned in a sugar plantation. Luke is receiving extra love and care in the clinic and we hope to see him fatten up soon!
We continue to do toddler bible study a few times a week which the kids love! We pinned the Jonah on the Whale, made crowns for King David and created our own lion pendants for Daniel's story. We have enjoyed putting the kids to bed each night- bathing, jammying them, and snuggling before bed. Love you all! Peace.

An honest look at our hearts this moment...

Things are good here, they really are, but we're going to be completely honest for a minute. Almost all of our entries are upbeat, happy, excited and enthusiastic and for the most part, our time here has been nothing but all of that...but...
We have been struggling a bit for the past couple weeks. We love the people here, the children, the life, the culture...but sometimes a little hint of wanting to go home creeps inside us. Our past 2 years have been spent with our hearts, souls and selves working to serve orphans and the poor. It has been rewarding in a way I can't express, so rewarding and great that we have both seriously considered mission work as a career. But lately, we've seen the end coming and feel relieved about it. Since our first orphanage trip 4 years ago we have been consumed by this work. Life in America hasn't compared to life with God's neediest in the poorest countries. How could people spend money on a material unneeded good, when that money could feed a village for a month!? (Yesterday we talked about needing satellite tv in our apartment when we get back to the US- we kind of do though, we both love tv and have been so deprived!) Even so, we feel so confident that we were called to do this work and have known we were in the right place for all these months and years. Things are changing a bit though. Coming home and finally letting our hearts come home too sounds actually okay. We are both 24-years-old now and are ready for another chapter. We want to figure out what we are going to do with our lives. Get a job. Get married (Nap, I wasn't hinting.) Move out of our parents' homes. And almost the most exciting thing- find volunteer work and mission work at home. We are excited to get involved with helping people in our own country, our own city. Refugees or the homeless or foster kids- we are excited because we don't need to leave the service part of our lives behind when we leave Africa. That will ALWAYS be a part of us, and there is plenty to do at home too. Africa will never fully leave us. The children and people and culture will remain in our hearts forever- but home doesn't sound so bad anymore.
We still have time here and are involved in so many things that remind us that we do love life here. Coming home from Peru last year, we knew we weren't done with this work. We're going to work hard for the remaining time here and this time come home feeling finally satisfied. That's hard to admit, being here and knowing that these people can't just "come home to America" to figure it all out. Ahhh we just have mixed feelings about all of it- please pray for us.

** I can't promise you we will feel this way even tomorrow. But we wanted people to know what we have been going through the past couple weeks.

Arnold's 4th Birthday Party!

Last week, Rachel organized a party to celebrate Arnold's 4th birthday! Arnold was SO excited! He got to wear a birthday hat AND a custom made birthday crown (made by his special Auntie Rachel)! We dressed him in a typical Ugandan "smart" outfit and he looked adorable! He was so proud the whole afternoon. Uncle Ian, his special uncle, organized an obstacle course that all the toddlers took turns racing through. The first leg of the obstacle course was Uncle Ian, Rachel, and I running and pulling them in a wagon, then they quickly got into a car and were pushed to the slide, they slid down, crawled through a tunnel, and ran across the finish line! They all had so much fun and it was great watching them run across the yard with big smiles on their faces! The party ended with ice cream sundaes for all the kids and mamas, complete with chocolate sauce and sprinkles! Arnold had SUCH a great day- he peed his pants, literally!!!

Ummmmm...Feet!

Serving lunch in Masese has been crazy! SO crazy that we felt like we have barely gotten to know any of the people or children. Last Wednesday we piki'ed to Masese to deliver the 25 kilos of beans for this week's meal, but also to spend some quality time with the villagers. Our plan...to show them love, the kind of love that isn't easily shown while shouting for kids to make a line, stop grabbing and to back away from the food! We brought basins, soap and towels. We purchased water from the local well. We spent several hours washing children's feet. We had young toddlers who waddled over to the soapy water and tried not to cry as the mzungu touched them up to 15-year-old guys who had calloused soccer-playing feet. After their feet were scrubbed clean with soap and water, we dried them and painted their toenails. It was an experience everyone should have. To be down on your knees in the mud with the sun beating down on your back, dripping in sweat and touching feet that have walked for years and years without shoes or any kind of protection from the rough African dirt. Most of the feet were caked in dirt and required some rough scrubbing. Some had cuts and blisters from running and playing with bare feet. We cleaned their wounds, and covered them with band-aids. The kids then sat patiently while we painted their nails in bright red and pink colors (even the boys!). Arielle happily started singing a song about Jesus, and soon everyone Christian or non-Christian caught on and were singing about dancing for Jesus.
The first two girls, about 13-years each were nearest to the bench where we set up. We motioned to them to sit on the bench and put their feet in the bucket. One did as she was told, but the other got down and started to wash her friends feet. We were touched by her readiness to serve her friend. When we both started quickly telling her to get up and sit at the other station and put her feet in the bucket, she got the biggest beaming smile. The children were shy as we washed their feet. They laughed quietly when it tickled and glanced around proudly as their friends watched. Many parents came by and we can't tell you how many times we heard them say, "well done mzungus." Others told us we were doing "good work" and "thank you sooo much for serving the children." Amazingly, we washed and painted every child and teen's feet!
It was a humbling experience. One that we should have done before. I think the people were able to see the love and respect that we have for them. We wanted to teach the children that just because we we're white and appear powerful and rich, we're not any better. We are all equal in our (R and A) eyes and the eyes of God. No matter where we come from, our background, the mansion or village hut we grow-up in, we are the same. God loves us all.

We served another lunch yesterday to the children and I don't know if it was our work on Wednesday, but things went amazingly well. The children made a line, came through to get their beans, chapati, and watermelon-pineapple juice and went to eat in a shady spot. We saw lots of painted toenails come through the line and are happy to report that every child who came for the meal was fed.

Busy Saturday

Ar, myself and 2 of our great friends here spent our morning at a local AIDS orphanage making crafts and treats with the 40 or so children. They are all just getting over chicken pox and were trying not to itch! We asked the director if we could come and do some special things with the children and we were so happy with how it turned out. We brought craft supplies and each child got to decorate a name tag for their bedroom. Most of the kids went way out of control and overdid it on the glitter and stickers, but that's how it should be for kids. They were so proud of their crafts and hung them in their rooms immediately. After cleaning up crafts we helped them all to decorate their own cookies. They, again, loaded on the frosting and sprinkles which was great! When they saw their finished products and found out they got to eat them they gave us a big thumbs up- I think they must have just learned that Western gesture because they all wanted to show us their thumbs up. After, we played with all the kids in the yard and pushed them on the swings. They were wonderful, happy and sweet children and we look forward to visiting them again...next time we hope to bring water balloons!







Immediately after leaving the AIDS orphanage we headed back out to Mesese (the village we visited last) to feed 400 children. We have spent the past 2 days making fresh squeezed passion fruit and orange juice for all the children. We can hardly believe that we managed to make over 15 gallons! We have some people staying in our house now working with another organization and it was so great that they helped! So everyone got beans, chapati and a glass of juice. Of course it was insane and the kids went crazy even just to see us. We did the best we could and served as many as possible, but unfortunately didn't have enough. No matter how much we bring we can never have enough for everyone. When the word spreads that mzungus are here giving something, anything away, children will run from very far in hopes to receive it. These children eat only once a day normally. It is truly heartbreaking to have to tell (more like scream to) the children that the food is finished. You can imagine what it's like to look into a 3-year-olds eyes and see that her tummy is puffed out due to malnutrition and to tell her that we don't have food for her. But we simply can't focus on that...we have to remember that 400 kids did get food. 400 kids who needed a good meal got it today. While it's crazy and sweaty and stressful and sad and happy, it is all worth it. We're already planning next week's meal...

Triker Boys

These children are thanking God for the porridge they are about to receive. They thanked God when we brought them small bags of popcorn and they thank God before they eat ANYTHING. While some of these kids don't have more than 1 meal a day and others live in a house made of mud, they are taught at a young age to be thankful for everything they are given. Having parents who are alive is a huge blessing, being able to attend even the poorest of schools is a huge blessing, having 2 dresses instead of only 1 is a blessing, staying malaria free is again a huge blessing. While all of these things are blessings to everyone who receives them, how thankful are we as Americans for these daily things? People here truly do give God all the glory and credit. They worship with all their heart and soul and rely on God through everything. They may not have all their needs and/or wants but they are thankful for what God has given them. We see God in Ugandans everyday. In their dedication to prayer and thanksgiving, in their enthusiasm for praising God through music and dance, in their desire to help others although they have so little and especially in the children...they are innocent and grateful and wonderful. There is not a day that goes by that we are not reminded of the awesomeness of what God can create. He created these beautiful children and when you watch 85 4-year-old children bow their heads and pray to the One who blesses them you know God is beyond real- he is right their with them, and all of us.