INTERNET

Exciting news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We just got internet at the house so we will be able to keep on top of things (our blog, e-mails and more) much better now. I am excited because we will also be more aware of what is going on in the world as well. We have kinda been living in a little Ugandan bubble.

Ice?

Ice, ice baby

I have to start this out with a positive note, the power in Entebbe is impressively dependable. Far more reliable than I thought that it would be however, it is a regular occurrence for the power to be off ALL DAY on Sundays. It isn't such a big deal as long as you get up before it goes off and get a shower and don't have any food that will spoil in the fridge. Last week that wasn't the case, after coming home from rafting we got in around eleven so the power had already been off for a while, we had purchased a great deal of meat on Friday, we had yogurt, milk, cheese, and some left over that I would have hated to go to waste. So around 2:30pm we headed out in search of “ICE”. We approached the first gas station with confidence, I jumped out to run in and grab a bag. I go in search around the store in each of the refrigerators and coolers with no luck. I went up to the lady at the counter and asked “do you have ice” “Ice”? She responded. Yeah, I said you know ice to keep thinks cool. She gave me a confused and said “no”. I ran back outside and relaid what I had learned to Travis. We went to the next gas station, we asked a women working inside if they had ice anywhere? She gave us the same confused look and then said “oh, you mean ice cream” and pointed us to the cooler of ice cream. We said “no like frozen water. So our second attempt was as fruitless as the first. We then preceded to the little grocery, and finally some one knew what ice was. They said “yeah, ice, we don't have that here. Go to Fish ways” We had never heard of it before so after getting an idea of where it is at from the woman we headed on over. It ended up being a HUGE fish packaging factory where they package Nile perch and send them to Europe. We approached the gate and the guard aproached the window he looked at us like “what are you guys doing here?” We asked bluntly, can we buy ice here? He gave us a strange look again and so we went into the whole story of the power and the meat and how no one sells ice and he let us in. We were really feeling funny as we walked into a nice air conditioned office and were brought to “The Boss”. He was an Indian guy sitting at a overly large desk. He gave us the same strange look that by this time we had become accustomed too and asked what can I do for you. We gave him the spill and some puppy dog eyes with hope that we could convince him to sell us some ice so we could save the meat. He laughed and said yes you can have some ice, I will give it to you but I will tell you this, you should just get a generator. Whooooooo. After all that time we finally had a simple bag of ice. We finally got back to the house about two hours later (note: none of the places we went were more than 10 minutes away, things just take a while here). The day was successful the meat and we had a big laugh thinking about the oh, so simple mission that we thought we had started out on but had turned into an our event.

P.S. I think that I spoke to soon when writing about how the power is pretty good besides Sundays, yesterday(Wednesday) the power randomly went off in the afternoon and just came back on around 8am this morning. Thankfully we saved our precious ice in the freezer and so it helped to keep things cool.

P.P.S. I really spoke too soon it was off again. I must of jinxed us LOL.

Rafting the Nile

White Water Rafting

Last weekend (July 12th-13th) Travis and I decided to take a little road trip to Jinja, a few hours drive from Entebbe, where we could raft the Nile. The Nile actually has its source in Uganda from lake Victoria and then flows up though Uganda, Suddan, and then finally to Egypt. Travis had rafted at the same place a few years ago when he was doing relief work in Sudan. I too had been rafting before down the “mighty” Occoee. Wow! Was I in for a surprise/absolute shock/saw my life pass before my eyes.

We had a great group of people in our boat, two Israelis who had been traveling Africa for the last year, two Norwegians here for a few weeks working in local schools, and a very grumpy, yet some how hilarious, Keewie (New Zealander) as a guide.

The trip started out much the same as the rafting I had done back in the states with the helmets and the life jackets etc... then there was a few kilometers of calm water where we practiced all the maneuvers. We even went down a small grade two rapid out of the raft so we could practice what to do “if” we were to fall out at some point. The first thing that should have gotten my attention was that there were as many “rescue Kiyaks” as there were rafts, and in addition there were two rafts whose purpose was also for rescuing. I thought that they were just a little more precautious here than at the Occoee. It wasn't long before I realized that this was not the Occoee, and they weren't overly cautious they had those guys there for a reason. On the first grade four rapid we went in with excitement cause this was our first big one, next thing we know the raft is completely flipped and we are sucked under, when you are in the rapid there is no fighting it so we all just held our breath and hope to be swept up and be able to get a breath soon. I let go of my paddle when we flipped then suddenly there was one next to me so I grabbed it then I was under again when I came up there was Ingred (a Norwegian) I have never seen such FEAR in anyones eyes, it made me even more concerned then I already naturally was. In a second she was gone then there was another paddle then back under for me and I decided forget the paddles and let go when I came back up thankfully there was a rescue raft and they pulled me up. WOW!!!!! All of that while wearing a life jacket. We all finally got back to our raft coming from all different directions having been rescued by, other rafts, or Kiyaks. After such a traumatic experience Travis tells me “yeah I think last time I came we flipped six or seven times” AHHHHHH! This is an all day trip and I am beginning to wonder if we are going to make it out alive.

To make a very long story short throughout the day, truly by the grace of God, we only ended up flipping once more. I was comforted when I found out that although it was an all day trip there were at least three areas where the water was very calm and we simply paddled through those areas providing a little rest from the intensity. The last thing that I have to mention is my favorite rapid which included a ten foot waterfall. Yes we braved the rapid and then plummeted off the edge of the waterfall. It was one of the most amazing things that I have ever experienced. It was almost as neat to watch the others go off the edge as it was to experience it yourself. It was especially interesting watching those go before you one minute they are rafting about thirty feet in front of you and then suddenly they are gone, not to be seen again until you yourself take the plunge.

All in all it was a fabulous experience and we really enjoyed those that we were rafting with. The next week Travis and I were driving from the airport back to our house when out of the blue we see the Israelies (Smadie and Nadav) walking down the street. We swung a uie and headed back to where we say them. We ended up spending the rest of the evening with them eating supper with them then having them over for coffee and dessert. While they were at our house they noticed the guitar and so they asked Travis to play, we ended up singing praise songs an worshiping and it was so neat to see how God had his hand on who we sat with while rafting and then brought them back into our path to be able to hang out with and share our love for Christ with. We also picked them up the next day to take them to the airport as they headed back to Israel. We are praying that the Lord will bring other Christians into their lives as they are back in Israel and that one day we will be able to meet with them again if not on earth than even better in Heaven.

KURMUK!!

In Proverbs 25:25 it says, “Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land” (NIV). Since the year that I spent in Kurmuk, Sudan back in 2003; I have heard no news about the people I worked with there. So it was truly like “cool water to a weary soul,” when I was told that I would be flying some people to Kurmuk and staying there for several days… For years I had been longing to return to Kurmuk and see who was still living in the area, and what there lives were like. So it was a huge blessing for Kelsey and I to go Kurmuk on Sunday and return on Wednesday.
To my great surprise, many things in Kurmuk have changed in the last five years. And it was mostly development due to the peace between the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Southern Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA). The town’s population has visibly tripled because of all the returning refugees. There is cell phone service by three different providers, which totally blows my mind because I thought Kurmuk was as isolated as you could possibly get. There are over 14 different relief and development organizations working in the area on various projects, as apposed to 4 when I was there. The market in Kurmuk has even turned into a massive bazaar with all kinds of produce. The niftiest thing I saw were stands where the salesman had many electrical plugs on a table beside a small generator so that he could charge customer’s cell phones for a small fee.
Although it was great to see and take in all the economic development going on in Kurmuk, the best part about the visit was just getting to see old familiar faces. I got to see many of the old hospital staff, our old compound guard, and Gurshi (who used to be the director of the community center). Gurshi used to go to great lengths to help me go show the Jesus film in various villages in the area. He was a very devout Muslim, and would get permission from all the various Muslim leaders in the area for us to show the movie. On various occasion God has really placed a heavy burden on my heart for this man. So it was really good to see him and get to visit. For some reason God placed it on my heart to give him a really nice pocket size New Testament that I had been carrying around with me for several months. Gurshi has been working with Samaritan’s Purse for the last five years, so he has had access to many free Bibles. But somehow I feel that God could really use this small NT to help Gurshi see the truth. Please be praying that God would speak to him powerfully.

Land Cruiser

Land Cruiser

We were able to pick up our brand new nineteen ninety-two land Cruiser last Tuesday. We are so excited to be able to have purchased this car because it is in great condition and has all that we were looking for including, manual transmission, four wheel drive and an air conditioner that works, more for the dust than for the heat but we will admit it is so much nicer to be cool and not arrive at your destination with a wet back.

It was pretty neat because we had found a car that was being sold my an aid worker who was leaving to go to the states it was the same make and model but was a automatic, the air conditioner wasn't working and the interior and exterior weren't in to great a shape. We thought well you don't always get everything you want and we can settle for this and get the AC fixed. It was a great price and we were pretty desperate for a car since there had been some confusion about us having a temp car provided by Air Serve so we went home that night and were asking for the Lord to lead us and speak to us about the car. We picked up our Bible and were reading from our daily reading which we were in 2 Chronicles reading about King Amaziah. King Amaziah had hired some troops from Israel to help him fight the Edomites but a man of God had come to him and told him that he need to go to battle without them because God was not pleased with Israel and would cause him to fall. Hezekiah responded “But what shall we do about the houndred talents which I have given to the troops of Israel?” And the man of God answered, “The Lord is able to give you much more than this”.

Travis and I both felt the Spirit leading us back to that verse, like Hezikiah we thought that the best thing would be for us to get that car and then have our own transportation we would be better off more able to acconplish the things that we needed to but we felt that the Holy Spirit was telling us that he had something better planned for us, he was able to give us much more. So we continued looking and and few days later found this car at a car ware house (they call bond shop) which have freshly imported cars from Japan. It was in GREAT shape inside and out and had all the things that we were looking for, it even had new tires as well. After looking over it for a good while we jumped in to take a test drive. One of the workers rides with us and guides Travis telling him where to turn suddenly out of the blue Travis says “hey Kelsey, recognize this place, the guy had unknowingly directed us right past the residence of the previous car we looked at. We both started laughing because this is Kampala, it is a pretty big city and the chances that we would end up in the same residential area where we had looked at the other car was insane. We felt like the Lord was saying “see I told you that I had something better for you”.

Our God is SOOOOOOOOOOO Good, praise the Lord for his provision!!!!!!