Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Moments

SO I can't get the picture to work here at the internet cafe. So sad!!! Hopefully I painted a good picture with my words. Kels

Where has time gone??? It has been forever since I have written ANYTHING. Since the last time I wrote Travis and I have celebrated our six month marriage and living in Uganda anniversaries. I am just going to write a bit about a few things that have happened in the last month so it isn’t like it was completely lost. h

Thanksgiving. I thought it would be terrible. Thanksgiving is my fav and it is just not the same without family, fall leaves and cooler weather. It is hot hot hot here and it just didn’t seem like Thanksgiving at all. However, the Lord truly blessed us and surrounded us with great brothers and sisters in Christ that we were able to celebrate with and to my delight it actually did feel like Thanksgiving day. So all in all I was very thankful for so very many things that it would have been silly to dwell on the not so perfect things. I also tried my hand at baking Thanksgiving style. I managed to successfully make, carrot cake, apple pie, a chicken, Pumpkin cream cheese cake (it was a box so it doesn’t really count), and my family’s FAVORITE rolls (they were actually the one disappointment because they didn’t raise). Here is a picture of my works of art. I even made a ridiculous boat for the chicken to float in on and named it the cauliflower after my adorable nephew Canaan.

Christmas cookies. Hip hip hurray for girls my age (well close anyways). One thing that I miss more that anything is of course my sisters and girl friends. There are great ladies whom I love and learn a lot from but most of them are twice my age. Anyways, one of the missionaries daughters came home for the holidays and so I have been able to have girl time which has been sooo refreshing. We made beautiful Christmas sugar cookies together the other day and had way to much fun just being girls and laughing about silly things like girls are suppose to. I loved it because I wasn’t sure if they would think my Binkley way of artistically decorating each cookie as a unique individual was insane or not and miraculously they were just as precise. Here are the masterpieces.

Grasshoppers. We have enjoyed wonderful North American delicacies the last few weeks so it was only natural that we should try some of the Ugandan ones and yes I am talking about crunchy grasshoppers J. I need to you realize that Entebbe is a quite modern town with many wealthy and middle class people. The UN has a large base here and the international airport is right outside of town and so there are constantly people from all over the world filtering through. Sometimes I feel like I am hardly in what I have always thought of as AFRICA. Then there are times when strange and not so normal things happen like when all the workers in the Air Serv office were practically dancing because they are so excited to have found some grasshoppers at the market. Well I tried then and they really weren’t that bad after all, you’ve just got to look them straight in the eye and tell yourself “it’s ok, this is all quite normal”. They were even sautéed in a nice oil and onion mix.

AIM Air. Travis and I are going to be finishing up at Air Serv December 15th and through the Lord opening miraculous doors we will be serving with AIM Air from January through March. AIM (African Inland Mission) is a mission organization that has an aviation programme which we are going to be volunteering with for three months. We will be staying here in Entebbe and stepping into the shoes of a few of their missionaries while they are back in the States. I am going to be doing admin work in the office and Travis will be flying so we have been super busy learning all that we need to know to take over this thing while the permanent guys are gone. We will be moving into one of the missionary’s houses who is going to be in the US.

Steps Of Faith Uganda Christmas Praise Concert. Last Saturday SOF Uganda (the group of girls that that I have been teaching dance to) put on a little (ended up having around 60 people show up) Christmas concert where we went through the story of Christ’s birth through the girls reciting scripture, everyone singing carols and of course DANCING. The girls did a great job for their first time performing! I was really excited to be able to do a dance as well. I hadn’t really planned on it because with the computers and Ipod gone we have no music and it would be really difficult to get any here. But God did His thing and, surprise!!!! provided a Christian bookstore with Christmas music, CD with Breath of Heaven (a song I have danced to in the Nativity SOF before) and the coolest part was that is was actually a recording that had been redone by Sarah Groves who is an AMAZING artist (I sang one of her songs to Travis at our wedding). God is so cool!!!!!!!! It made me cry to see how He just patches up everything. Then He and I got together and shared beautiful moments of Him teaching me a dance in which I could worship Him and share the Joy of Praising Him at the Concert.

These are just a few moments that we have had in the last few weeks. I’m glad I got the drive to sit down and share them with you. Till next time. Kels

7 comments:

Andysbethy said...

Sounds like you have been busy! I wish I could have seen your dance concert. I LOVE how God always works things out.
I am so eager to see what He does next for you two!

EmileeHope said...

Wow, you have been busy! I was so happy to hear about your Christmas dance program. Mom told me about it, and now being able to read how it all came together so perfectly is awesome!! God is sooooo good!! I can't believe you ate grasshopper!! Way to go! I love and miss you sis and hope you are having a wonderful week!!

Unknown said...

I have just enjoyed reading your update so much! I would have loved to have seen the steps of faith Uganda concert! I bet it was just amazing...and I LOVE the Breath of Heaven song and dance.
I am happy that you are happy and that it is happy times for you and your party of two!

Anonymous said...

Kelsey,

Thanks for writing the updates. I have only talked with you a total of maybe 3 minutes several years ago, before you guys got married, so it's great to get to know you through your updates. It's also important to keep the connections open wtih everyone back home.

I understand you completely about lacking quality music. Growing up in Nashville, the music capital of America, then moving to Vietnam, where not even church band or worship music exists - that's a big change.

Travis,

I've been staying with the Geigers in Chattanooga for several days and visiting around town. I go back to Nashville maybe tomorrow, then to Vietnam after the New Year. Needless to say, we in Chattanooga have all been remembering the good ole days. The Geiger's faces light up every we talk about you guys, Ikaika, me... I got to see Michael and Ivey in Knoxville too.

You're deeply loved and I hope we can start Skyping more again in the future. I love you my brother.

Jonathan

Harris Happenings said...

So good to hear about the past month. I especially enjoyed the part about the crickets and the Christmas program. Hope you have a smooth move this weekend.

Anonymous said...

This is Mark Jones Dad writing. This Blog is a blessing. I can't wait to have time to "study" it.

It appears that Travis has a REAL understanding now that God gives us what He wants us to have not what we deserve! Welcome Kelsey! I look forward to meeting you and seeing Travis again. He and his entire family have been a joy to know through Mark and Lindsey.

We will pray for you and expect God's richest blessings for you as you serve Him - so far away!

Daniel & Heidi Hicks said...

i'm going to try you guys on skype tomorrow...maybe i can catch you on! If not Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!! We love you, miss you and are praying for y'all!