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.

The house is almost ready!!

Well, we've spent the last 2 days buying beds, mattresses, appliances, rugs, and curtains and today we finally began moving the stuff into our new house!

Here's a photo of the delivery truck bringing everything in one load to our house!

Here’s a view of the front of the house.

The garage is the big set of doors towards the left-hand side. We’re planning to convert it into our home school room (below) by throwing down some carpet and putting a few desks in there. The big doors allow for a very nice breeze through the room, which should make it very pleasant for studying!

For our kitchen, we purchased a fridge/freezer combo and a tintsy-tiny electric stove (they call it a "cooker"). We probably won’t be able to cook a turkey in this bad boy, but we could probably bake a chicken. In any case, we’re thankful to have a stove at all, so we’ll take what we can get!

The boys’ room is really taking shape with two sets of bunk beds. We wanted to make sure that we had a spare bed for friends to spend the night.

Just outside our front gate is a big soccer field where the neighborhood kids play. I think we’ll turn it into a football/baseball field, too!

Tomorrow we get to hang the mosquito (or as they say here, the "masqueeto") nets and maybe try to get some carpet for the living room as well as some couches and dining room table/chairs. Monday we go to try to get a vehicle. I'll be so glad when all this "startup" work is done so our lives can settle into somewhat of a normal routine!

We have arrived in Uganda!

Hello to all of you. I (Heather) just wanted to put out a short, but sweet blog. We are very busy getting everything we need to make our new home "liveable". The house is brand new (praise the Lord), so it is completly unfurnished. So, our days have been filled with alot of shopping.

We have hired a driver for one week to take us everywhere. Driving here could be explained in a seperate blog of it's own. We will have to post a video for you to see what traffic is really here in Uganda. We complety believe God has sent us this particular driver on purpose. He has become our translator/tour guide/price negotiator/friend, that doesn't want us to get cheated when we buy anything. Us "white" folks are charged a higher price because we have more money.

We have spent time will the kids at Hope Children's Home and we can't wait to deepen are relationships with the children. They are so amazing! We so cherish them!



God is so good and he has been with us every step of this adventure.

As soon as we become somewhat settled, we will blog more, and more often.

Stay tooned!

Danny and Heather video blog

Only 9 days until we leave (the 17th)! It's hard to believe that after all this time of waiting it's finally here. All the last minute details are falling into place perfectly.

Below is a video blog that Heather and I put together to tell you a little bit about Show Mercy and to share some of our hearts about what we'll be doing in Uganda.

Our Kids Talking About Moving to Uganda

Greetings from the Stirn family! Only a month and a half until we hit the road! It's been a very busy month. We finally were able to get all of our homeschool materials and some critical items like water filtration systems. Just a few more things to wrap up before we go.

Many of you have asked how our kids feel about the upcoming trip to Uganda, so we thought we'd let them tell you in their own words. Click on the picture below to play the short video.

Blessings!!

God's Faithfulness

Jumping off the cliff...

Many of you have already heard that we finalized the sale of our house last week. When we originally considered what to do with our house (to rent or to sell), we felt that in spite of the struggling housing market, we should put it up for sale. Not only that, but we were praying and believing for it to sell within a month. God is faithful. We accepted an offer (near the asking price) within 26 days! There were many houses up for sale in our neighborhood prior to us putting our house on the market (some for many months) and none have sold. Through this experience, our confidence has grown that not only has He called us to this, but He will provide what we need to make it a reality. In some ways we feel as though we're jumping off a cliff, but He is catching us in mid air.

Moving out...

This past weekend, we finished packing up our things and moved into our rental house. It's starting to feel real now! We moved from a 5 year old, 2300 sq ft house into a ~40 year old, ~1400 sq ft house. Needless to say, we had to do some considerable down-sizing. We were so busy in the process of cleaning and moving out that we forgot to let our land lord know that we were ready to move in. She had said she would get the house ready for us by cleaning up after the last renters (they hadn't clean up at all) and would have the carpets cleaned.

So, we moved from our very clean newer house into a very dirty old house (with a brown shag carpet that has turned a shade of green from fading). The people who lived here before had put some powdery chemical in the carpet (which I think was ant killer) and so right before bedtime I was compelled to vacuum. As I tried to vacuum up the white stuff out of the carpet, puffs of white "dust" arose from the floor and then clogged the vacuum. Our bedroom smelled like insecticide. We were both very tired from moving and cleaning our old house and this was the final thing that pushed me (Heather) over the edge! I was so mad! I promptly told Danny I was not staying here and refused to live in this house! I put myself to bed and as I layed there, I began talking to God. I was ready to hear his reply which could have been something like, "OH Heather, you're a spoiled brat. Just stop this!" Or maybe even, "Heather, just get over it" or... "things could be worse!" No, God's response was, "I love you at this very moment. I love you and that will never change." The next day I made a decision to be thankful for where I was and to do everything for Him. We were able to get the carpets cleaned, scrub down the house, and unpack our things.

In the midst of this transition, it is emotional. It feels like a death. A death to our old life and way of living. My heart (still Heather writing) is being exposed. The adventure has become painful and sometimes it feels like pruning...ouch! I know that new growth is coming!

So here we are, waiting until we leave for Uganda (which is going to be August 17th). I have to say it is hard to wait for my heart's desire, which is to embrace and love with all my heart the children at Hope Children's home. It will truly be a joy to love them and be loved by them. I work at my children's school and had been gone all week because my oldest son Keith was very sick. I went into the school yesterday to pick up my youngest son, Jeremiah, who was now feeling sick. As I made my way through the school many of the kids started calling out to me, "oh hi Mom"and I would respond "oh hi my children!" I felt so loved and blessed even though they where being silly and teasing. It reminded me of being in Africa and made me even more "homesick" for the children of Uganda. I can't wait to hear the words Mama Heather from all the children I pull into my heart and receive as my own! Let the adventure begin!

If you'd like to find out how you can help support us or would like to learn more about Show Mercy, please go to the following link:

http://www.showmercy.org/get_involved/long-term-missions/