Zirobwe

Just got back from four days in the village and all I can say is that I cannot wait for EAC to move out there permanently. Tuesday we went out there in the evening and had chapattis and pineapple for dinner and set up our tents. We hung out with the kiddos until we started devos. Some of our kiddos stay for devotions and sing the songs with us. Sepha is our moody little lady-if you aren't giving her your full attention she is not happy. But she loves The Lord with her whole heart and it is so inspiring to see her sing the songs like "set a fire down in my soul that I can't control because I want to know you" it is super cute at such a young age. Wednesday i got up at about 5:40am just as the sun was getting up and the bright pinks and reds were coming up just as the big bright African sun was rising it is one of the most incredible sights to see. So beautiful. I wish words could describe how it actually looks. We got to teach at the primary school next door to the church called Ebenezer. We know most of the children that go there so it was fun to be able to interact with them on a whole new level. All the kids call me Madame when trying to get my attention. Wed- we worked on numbers 1-20 and made a poster with the spelling of each number we taught the kids to songs about numbers and had them come to the front of the classroom and point out individual numbers. After that was done around we went back over to the church where we had set up camp and had some lunch. We have pineapple everyday and I am so loving it. Rest time/free time was until 3:30 we could spend some time just laying down in our tents or play with the kids. There are always kids hanging around even when you tell them all to go. I. The evening we ran a program with the kids and played games with them. We have devotions as a team in the evening and there are a particular few that stay around and sit through a devotion even if they don't get through the whole thing. Then it is time to say goodnight (my least favorite part of the day). Our generator stays on until 10:00pm and then it gets pretty dark in there. There a fireflies that are all around and flashes of lightning that are so incredible. Thursday we did the same thing only we worked on ABCs with the kiddos. It was HOT inside and out there was no way to escape the heat. In the afternoon when we were playing soccer with the kids it started to rain and then it started to pour and we all just stood out there ion the rain and got muddy and soaking wet it was so fun.We have a volunteer named Tim here right now from Haiti and he has been teaching English to the people in the village. After his night class he decided to let a Japanese lantern into the sky so everyone gathered around there were probably 30 of us around and my sweet Grace jumped right into my arms and looked up as the lantern floated to the sky - it felt like a scene from the movies it's hard to even put into words. Her mom who speaks little to no English walked up to me and said, "I like you a lot" a small phrase that made a. Huge impact-something that will stay with me forever. Friday we taught in the morning packed up camp and then headed back home.

Now on a side note I just want to tell you a little bit or a lot bit about my favorite family.
Luca- he is the dad very hard working and always involved with what's going on at the church he knows zero English
The wife- I'm not sure of her name but she always has Jennifer on her back and works super hard in manual labor as well. Always has a smile on her face
Shakira- (sponsored) about 14 and she smiles so wide and always wants to know how I am doing
Rita-(sponsored) her sponsors pay for her to go to school in Kampala an hour and a half away from the family I haven't met her yet.
Luke 11-(sponsored) my first favorite kid in the village one of the kindest boys you will ever meet. Always one of the first to greet me when we get to the village. The reason I met this whole family
Joseph 8-(sponsored) the crazy one of the group-always getting into so etching but he loves to play with my hair and cares about you.
Dorine or most people call her Dora- I am going to sponsor her. She is shy until you get her talking and then she is silly
Grace- I don't have much to say about grace except that I love her so much and words can't describe how much I want to bring her home with me.
Jennifer- still only about 10 months old and she is very shy

Such a big family but I feel like I can relate to them. I am so excited to spend the next five months growing closer to them. It makes me nervous though for March.

Half of the UK team arrived with the group from Ignis a design company and they are here to build a cattle shed. I am excited to get to know each and everyone of them. It's going to new crazy couple of weeks. Today we are headed to the village again to show them what our vision for EAC is and show the. What they will be working on while they are here. Also we are going to be doing some house visits where we will be talking to families and then praying with them as well.

Keep us in your prayers because this group of people don't have a relationship with Christ. Also keep the Ebenezer school in your prayers the teachers are very poor and some of the kids don't learn very well. Also there are several headmasters at local schools who are molesting young girls and here there is not much that can be done about that. We have children here who are sick so pray for them. It's cold season here just like home only it is really hot here!!!

October 12, 2013 4:23 PM

October 12, 2013 4:23 PM

It has been a whole month since the time I have arrived in Africa and I am still totally in love with ALL of it! Wednesday it was Uganda's Independence Day- so we had a quiet day. We spent the morning at a high school performing a skit, telling the kids why we had come to Africa & sharing about EAC. We made chapattis (thick tortillas) with pizza sauce and bananas for lunch and watched movies all afternoon while we rested for Thursday. For dinner we had French toast.Yum. Thursday morning before we started packing Scott (one of our leaders from UK) led an amazing devotion where we all spent time in worship and just meditating on the word of God. It was so refreshing. We got all packed up to spend the night in the village and headed out. The village it about 50 miles away from the compound so it takes a good hour me a half to get there. We went to a primary school in the village called Christ's ambassador- I shared the bible story of the banquet. We finished early and after the kids aphid asked me questions about the bible I let them ask me questions about America they all wanted to know about NASA and politics: two things I have no interest in. We arrived at the church and set up camp inside the church all in tents. Lizards and spiders are all over the place and grasshoppers- HUGE ones. Once the children see our van they all start slowly making their way over to see us. They ALL ask me to bring them Footballs (soccer balls). Immediately we always see out two kiddos that live next door Sepha and Kennedy. They are both so sweet. Not long after that Alex and Luke made their way over to say hi. We walked down the road to the town center collecting kiddos all along the way yelling Jangu (meaning come) our small following quickly becomes much larger. (; we ran a program there where I was able to share the story of Samson and Delilah - I had some of the other volunteers act it out which makes a whole world of difference. It was so fun and the kids loved it! We got back to camp and had chapattis. Thursday night after dinner we had a time of worship and devotion and my dad had sent me an outline for a devotion on Broken things in scripture. I was nervousness because I was unsure how much sense I was making to the team. Especially after the long day we had just had. God was quick to erasure me though- someone on the team came to me not long after that and shared how he was going through a time of brokenness and how he was unsure how god could use him. It was such a good reminder to me to be open to sharing what I am learning in scripture and how God can use it in my life. Night time in the village is more incredible than words can describe. There are fireflies every sphere the light up the area around the church we even had one that got caught in our tent in the middle of the night. It started to rain and it rained HARD- harder than I have ever heard before and it was on and off all night. We were up at 6:30 am to begin manual labor. We slashed all morning-my arms and lower back are so sore. But it is totally worth it. Today we had a bunch of kiddos here for a party and made them lunch bought them sodas, and launched a Japanese lantern in the sky to signify them moving on to a new grade. Tomorrow we have Sunday school in the village and we have two girls coming who have been here in Uganda for a month with a different organization. Monday is our day off and then back to the village from Tuesday to Friday. Friday is the day that the big UK team comes. I am excited to have lots of people filling up our house. I will keep you posted. (:

P.s. Thank you to everyone who has given my parents money and snacks to send me. I a, so thankful for each and everyone of you.

Another crazy week here at EAC Uganda!! Saturday we were able to sleep in a. Bit and then we headed over to a scripture union party. There were hundreds of high school aged kids who were there to support all of the scripture union leaders who were passing on leadership to incoming kiddos. We next and presented a skit, handed out gift to some of the outstanding leaders, and even was invited on the stage to dance. It was so funny-I was sitting next to another MST from Colorado and she said, " hey wouldn't it be funny if we went up there and joined them" and minutes later one of the students came over to us grabbed my hand and away we went to join them in their dancing....excepts for my friend. (: After the performance we quickly tried to exit the building and were caught!!! The leaders insisted that we stick around to have a bite to eat to show their appreciation...Dylan, Myleigh, Hannah, and I all were very nervous to see what was being served. But here in Uganda it is very rude to turn down food so we had to eat what they gave us and all of it too. So we encouraged and in fact implied that we wanted a very small amount since we had already eaten at the compound. They set up chairs, brought us water, and told us to get comfortable. The plate had two cups of rice and two cups of cooked cabbage(which has made me sick nice I got here and I really cannot eat) a chunk of fried chicken complete with bones and hair and a small potato. I scarfed down as much of the rice as I could and the potato and realize we were coming to a problem all of girls began to exchange looks and facial expressions as to what we are going to do. We ended up finding a small boy from the area and added all of our cabbages and rice and chicken on a plate and he are it all. (:

Sunday we went to Zirobwe again and ran Sunday school. I got to spend time with these three boys and they told me all about what they want to do with their lives when they grow up and asked all kinds of questions about America and all about my family. Alex is a sweetheart him and his little brother stayed after Sunday school and wanted to just play with my hair. Alex wants to become a lawyer and go to college in America. Next is Eddy- he has a sponsor from America whom he loves so much. Eddy tries to act like a to cool for Sunday school kind of a kid but he is such a kind boy who has so many questions he wants to marry a muzungoo. And lastly is Luke who has a younger sister that holds his hand and follows him wherever he goes. Luke wants to become a Doctor.

Monday was our day off because usually Saturday is our day off but we were obviously busy... The girls and I spent two hours doing laundry and hanging them up all over the backyard we filled up all of the clothes lines and then we lined them up all on the barbed wire...bad bad bad idea!!!!! A huge rain storm rolled in and we were outside pulling everything off of the line hoping everything was not going to get wet again. It was actually kind of fun...even though we were all soaked by the time we were done. We also had two guys who run the UK office come in yesterday Dave and Scott is ther names and they are super funny. It's always nice to have fresh faces in the house. We had a planning meeting at 3:00pm and then later made yummy desserts. Ended the night with some DUTCH BLITZ.

Today we went to New brainstorm and handed out bibles to all of the children. They were so excited. We ran the program and Dylan and I lead the worship songs: I love you Jesus, father Abraham, every move I make, Yesu newangu, and JOY!!!! We came home for 22 minutes to get some food and then off to the next project. We went to another high schools scripture union and met two kiddos Sharon and Winne- they asked me what my thought on America were....lol. On the way home we hit another car and it broke the other guys break light and scraped up our van pretty bad. But all in a days work.

On a side note I totally love sitting next to the window in the van- it never gets old. Everyone smiles or glares or waves or sticks their tongue out it is really amusing. Still loving every minute.