JOY

My world is full of joy today as I have discovered Picasa, a photo organizing and editing program. I can make a collage and it only counts as one photo when it is uploading. this means it takes a fraction of the time to upload it to our blog. Hopefully this will mean that our blog will have many, many more pictures. I have waited for up to one and a half hours for five pictures to upload to our blog and that is why we don't have them very often.

I have discovered this beautiful program thanks to my amazing in-laws who are visiting and brought Travis and I a computer to replace the ones that were stolen. So not only do we have a wonderful new computer we also have a great program that will make my life so much easier, at least when it comes to putting pictures on our blog.

Joy Joy Joy!!!!!!!

Christmas Praise concert 2008

Click on the collage to see it larger

Hiking in the Rwenzori

Happy New Year!!!

Hello to all of our dear friends and family,
Well, it's our first year married and we are already off a little on the Christmas card sending ,so maybe we will just start a tradition of New Year’s updates and say that was our plan all along… Happy New Year!!
DUM DUM DUMDUM, May 24th Travis and Kelsey's paths joined together PERMANENTLY, yippee!!! Yep we tied the knot, and the seven months since then have been amazing. After the wedding we enjoyed a honeymoon in Honduras and were back in the states for three days of crazy packing for the year ahead. We headed to Entebbe, Uganda and set up our first little house.
Travis has been working with Air-Serv Limited in Uganda faithfully for the last seven months. However, after a change in the company's management, we felt the Lord calling us to resign from Air Serv. This meant surrendering the security of a paying job, but what can you do when the master calls but follow? We gave a three month notice to Air Serv at the beginning of October and started praying. After a month of seeking direction from the Lord, and through a series of truly divine events; God led us to volunteer for a short term position with AIM Air right here in Entebbe. AIM Air is the aviation branch of Africa Inland Mission. It is composed of pilots and mechanics from various mission organizations such as SIL, SIM, IMB, AIM, and Samaritan's Purse. AIM has asked us to fill in for a pilot who has gone on home assignment, and we will tentatively be serving with them January through the end of March. We are now living in the AIM Air pilot's house who is on furlough. Kelsey will also be working in the AIM Air office doing administrative work. We are still in prayer at this time asking the Lord for further guidance as to where he wants us to be after our time of serving with AIM is up. Please pray with us that God will reveal where he can best use us.
Other than flying, we have enjoyed a variety of opportunities to serve, and to experience Uganda. Kelsey started two dance classes, which have been a thrill for her to teach. Most of her students are daughters of missionaries living in the area. They put on a fabulous Christmas praise concert that helped start the Christmas season thinking of the wonderful gift of Christ. We have also been very involved in a local fellowship called Entebbe International Fellowship, where we have had the opportunity to serve through leading worship. The past seven months in Uganda have been amazing, and we have shared some very unique experiences that we will cherish for a lifetime. We survived rafting the Nile; were able to visit Kurmuk, Sudan where Travis spent a year working with Samaritans Purse in 2003; and we were able to accompany some friends to their mission base on a group of Islands in Lake Victoria (Where Travis caught a 30 lb Nile Perch). We continually marvel at the array of wildlife and plants in this lush fertile country of Uganda, which the British called, "The Pearl of Africa." Recently, we just got back from a week of travelling with some friends in western Uganda. Besides the joy of bouncing along on bad roads, we were able to hike in the highest mountain range in Africa, go trekking for chimps (AWESOME), and take a launch trip along a channel full of crocks, hippos, elephants, buffalo, and more.
Although we have stayed busy and have had so many unforgettable experiences while in Uganda, we still have missed the comfort of friends and family back home. However, God, in his wisdom ,blessed us with a visit from Kelsey's parents back in the middle of September, and tomorrow we will again be blessed with the arrival of Travis's parents. Of course both parents, in their wisdom, have brought many "American Goodies" for us…
In the past year we feel that God has truly blessed us beyond measure. In Proverbs 16:9 it says, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps" (NKJV). Looking back on the last year it is amazing to see how God has directed our steps. We feel so humbled and privileged to follow such an Awesome God. May he bless you all in this coming year!

With Love,
Travis & Kelsey

If you would like to be added to our email list please send your email to kelseybink@gmail.com

Christmas Carol Ugandan style

First I have to note that this was written after 8 hours in the car on Christmas Eve (their traffic is just as bad here and you also have to add the element of BEAT UP roads). It brought us much laughter as we put into the song some of the festive way Ugandans celebrate Christmas that we had been observing.

Notes to try to explain what in the world this song is talking about are red.

Sung to Nat King Coles famous song " Merry Christmas to You"

Tilapia fish roasting on each Corolas grill Taken to relatives in areas with no lakes(litterally strapped to the grill of thier cars most of which are Corolas.
Sunshine burning up yous nose
Christmas hair being worn everywhere I've never seen so many colors or so much poof
and folks dressed up like who knows How about Neon orange and Lime green

Everybody knows Matokee and some gnut sauce Masked bananaish food and peanutish sauce
Help to make the season bright
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow
will find it hard to sleep tonight

They know uncle Godfrees coming ova I think we know a hounred Godfees
he's loaded lot of goats and chickens on his boda Note Chickens still alive, Boda=Motor bike
and every mothers child is going to spy
to see if the chicken will break loose and fly

And so I'm overing this simple phrase
for kids from 1 to 92
although its been said many times many ways
Merry Xmas too you I've never seen it written CHRISTmas here
it is always written Xmas.


Hope everyone had a great Christmas!!!!!!

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

Psalm 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust."
Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare

and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers,

and under his wings you will find refuge;

his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,

nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.
You will only observe with your eyes

and see the punishment of the wicked.
If you make the Most High your dwelling even the LORD,

who is my refuge-then no harm will befall you,

no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you

to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;

you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
"Because he loves me," says the LORD,

"I will rescue him; I will protect him,

for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."

Yesterday Travis and I got a call while we were out that someone had broken into our house. After and insane drive back from Kampala (not only did we want to get home to check on the house but we had just watched the new 007 movie. Travis new that this was his one chance to drive, well, like 007 without me screaming the whole way home. Those who know me know that would NOT BE COOL) We arrived home to find papers shrewn about the yard, the back window to the computer room busted up and our computers, Ipod, hand held GPS, sun glasses baught to protect Travis's eyes while way up in the clouds and Travis's back pack (which had his pilots license and other important paper work including passport in it), gone. The thieves had used bammboo (which had been put up to hold some ivey in the yard), and a hoe to pull things to the window and then take them out through the bars. After gathering up all the paper work that they had thrown out of Travis's back pack we found that miraculously they had thrown out his passport. Our smart little puppy had found it and about torn it to pieces. We also found that they had thrown out a Bandana which Andy had given Travis before leaving which has the scripture from above printed on it.

So rather than spending time fretting over the things that have been taken from us I want to remember the most precious thing that no one can ever take away. That is our relationship with a loving, protecting, caring friend, savior and father, Jesus Christ. In the midst of the stressful and scary situation that we were in yesterday God used a little bandana to tell us that there is nothing to worry about because He is almighty, He is our refuge and our fortress and He will deliver us from all that the attacts of those who try to come agaist us.

Please do keep us in your prayers at this time. We are also in the process of switching jobs. Travis will be done working with Air Serv in December and we will begin a short time position working with AIM AIR which is part of African Inland Missions, in January. We feel that it is no coincidence that many of the things which were taken are important to Travis's flying. AIM AIR is ALL about giving glory to God and serving those who are serving the Lord in Africa.