Every girl loves chocolate cake!

I wanted to spend more time with the older girls at Hope Children's Home so I invited them over for the afternoon.

A couple of weeks ago I had asked the girls what they wanted to do when they came to our house and to make a list for me. Chocolate cake was on everyone of there lists. So I thought, why not make a chocolate cake together.

After having the girls over for the day they don't just greet me with a smile anymore when I go out to the children's home. I am now greeted with a great big hug from them. I am so blessed that I get to cherish these young women and be a part of there lives.

Enjoy our fun day!

BEANS!

I took this video so you could enjoy my favorite word in Luganda. Most of the kids at Hope Children's Home laugh every time I say it. It's just a funny word plus I'll do anything to get a laugh out of them. I have also gotten my security guard and house maid to laugh every time I say it (it is more in how I actually say it). It's become a constant word in our household and at Hope Children's Home. We were taking pictures for Show Mercy the other day and Danny would say "Heather I need to get this child to smile"! So instead of cheese, we now say....beans!

Our Ugandan Security Guard Singing for Us!

Below is a short video clip that showcases our extremely entertaining security guard here in Uganda. The two songs he's singing are songs of praise to God, although it may not be obvious all the time. His name is Muhindo. He's been a real blessing to our family and has actually become a real friend to our kids and a real joy to have around! During the day (and occasionally at night), we can hear him singing outside the house.

Enjoy this taste of Uganda!

Let's make Chipati!

This is a fun video we put together to show you how to make a common Ugandan food called "Chipati". Sorry the video quality is not the best. The internet connection is so slow that we have to shrink our files down so small to upload them.

Webale Kufumba Gertrude (which means thank you for cooking in Luganda) Enjoy!

The simple faith of a child.

This week was full of challenges for us all. Some of us were homesick and missing the comforts of our own culture. The boys were missing their dog Maggie. Things breaking, miss-communications, fatigue, children needing to go to the doctor (children at Hope Children’s Home)… life here is much more challenging and things take a lot longer to accomplish. We are so catered to in America.

I was not having one of my best days (Heather typing). We were heading out to Hope Children’s Home for the day. I was tired and not looking forward to the bumpy ride that we have to drive on to get there. I felt weak and didn’t have the best attitude at the time.

We had finally made it to the children’s home and I was praying for God to help me in my weakness. I had been loving on a little boy who is only four years old all week. He had gotten an infected finger and his finger nail was just hanging by a thread. His infected finger was now as big as two or three of his fingers put together. He was holding on to my hand and swinging my arm back and forth and saying something over and over in Luganda, so I asked one of the older girls to translate for me. “What is Kafar saying?”, I asked Teddy. She said he is saying “God is our life!”

My heart melted and began to take a better shape than it was before. My heart was breaking all week for this little man and I shed some tears because he is just so young and without a mother or father to love him and comfort him. But here we are called by God to help fill that place in his life and we were there for him. I am not sure, but maybe, just maybe, his heart was happy somebody was holding his hand and he knew I cared and he knew at that moment that God is our life and that He is good. I want to be like Kafar in the midst of unsettledness I believe with all my heart that God is the life giver and He is good.

What a day looks like for us in Uganda.

Yesterday was such a great day! Nothing really profound, but I am finding that even the small, simple things can be the greatest treasures, so I wanted to share it with you!

Our day starts out by homeschooling Keith, Wesley and Jeremiah. Every day is different. Some times they get finished before lunch and other days it takes longer to complete there work for the day. They are settling into a routine and are doing great in their school work.

After school we get some lunch and then typically head out to Hope Children's Home. Some days we have to head into town to run some errands or get something else accomplished. If we do need to go into Kampala (the city) then it takes us a good hour to get there and an hour to get back, so we try to do this a little as possible.

The road out to the children's home is a killer. The road is not paved (dirt) and has deep ruts (some over a foot deep) all along it. We have to drive very slowly to avoid hitting the bottom of the car on the ruts while at the same time trying to dodge pedestrians and boda bodas (motorcycle taxis).

The children in the village all yell and wave at us when we go by..."Bye Muzungu!" "Bye Muzungu!" every day! "Muzungu" means "white person" in their language. If you came to visit here you would feel somewhat like a celebrity!

When we finally reach Hope Children's Home we are greeted by many children who are very happy to see us!

This was what my (Heather) day was filled with while at the home yesterday. It was started by getting my hair fashioned by one of the boys that lives there (Steven Mulondo) he is such a character. My hair fashioning was all inclusive of flowers (see my fashion below).
This was followed by me saying "let's dance now!" I don't know what possesed me to say that but I did. So we danced to the beat of the drum that Steven played for us (the same Steven that gave me my hair fashion)!

I then took pictures of the cutest little girls. They love having their picture taken! I then learned to play a game in the dirt with them. It was very similar to hop scotch, but I kept forgetting to pick up my "baby" (which was part of the game). The "baby" was just a piece of wood to keep my place in the game.

I saw some of the older girls sorting through beans. So I sat down and sorted with them. This is what I mean by small simple things becoming treasures. I lost track of time in this task because I went from learning to sort beans to learning a lot of different Luganda words including the word "beans" in Luganda which is very challenging to say. I then learned a song in Luganda (ok, tried to learn). We talked about many things, all while sorting beans (like what their favorite foods are, what they like best in school, what they want to eat when they come to Uncle Danny and Auntie Heather's house). Take a look at this short video clip below....



Just sitting and being with the kids yesterday was such a delight to me. I can’t wait to enjoy more of these moments with these amazing children.This blog is very long, but I wanted to give you a slice of what are days are like. I hope you enjoy it!

We finally have water and a car!

Water is a good thing…

What can I say? This is Africa. Things don’t always happen when or how you want them to. For instance, we moved into our new house and 2 days later we ran out of water. Turns out that in this part of the city, they only pump water to the houses a couple days of the week. We have a 1000L water tank to last us for the week. Well, it lasted 2 days. OK, so we’re Americans and we use tons of water without thinking about it! Well, that has changed! We are now carefully using every bit of water we have for drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, and flushing the toilets occasionally!
So now, the landlord has added a second water tank (bringing our capacity to 2000L) and we've been waiting for the water to come and fill them both. In the mean time, we've had 13-20L jugs that we could fill at our Landlord’s house or down at the local car washing station (mudhole off the side of the road) for a small fee (~$2). We've now just discovered a water-delivery service that can come and fill our tanks for ~$50. They were able to come yesterday and after over a week, we finally can take a shower!

We’re very thankful that we have a great water filtration system. We’ve been drinking water from it for over a week now without any problems. It uses 3 carbon-core ceramic filters in parallel to filter 10L at a time.

We have a new car!

Last Thursday we picked up our “new” car! It’s actually a 1994, Toyota “Super Custom” minivan with full time 4WD and a great ground clearance for those horribly rutted back country roads. It’s got a turbo diesel engine with auto transmission and AC, too. Although it’s old, it only has about 10,000 miles on it. Most of the vehicles here (the used ones at least) are imported from Japan. We’ve already had our first flat tire so I got to practice putting on the spare. Thankfully it was in our own front yard!
I’ve been driving quite a bit in the last few days and it seems to feel pretty natural. I even ventured into downtown Kampala on Monday to go to the bank and made it in and out without any problems! For those of you who haven’t been here, Kampala is a real mess, traffic wise. I was very uneasy about driving there, but as with many new things we have to do here, once you actually do it, it’s not so bad.