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.

HOME MADE BREAD!!!!!!!!!

I Kelsey Joy Harris successfully made home made bread today, and not only that but it was whole wheat home made bread. I was seriously beginning to think that Bethy just got all the bread making jeans and here I was in a country where good bread is hard to come by, not fare if you ask me. I was starting to think that God was calling me to become a brick maker cause every time I attempted to make bread, and mind you I did it JUST AS THE BOOK SAID, I ended up pulling out two lovely brinks out of the oven. Good maybe for building a dog house or something but no good for eating. Then it hit me, don't think bad of me cause it took me so long to figure it out, my yeast was DEAD. DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. Halleluja!!! Maybe things weren't as bad as I had imagind, maybe I have the bread making jean in me after all. I began to have hope once more. I found some new yeast and put myself to the test and by golly, I succeeded. The end

Go Macho

Yesterday Macho really proved himself to be worthy of his name. We have been working hard with him and at times I think that I am going to pull my hair out because he drives me nuts, pulling laundry off the line, bringing random dead rodents to the front door to present to us, jumping unrelentlessly on everyone who walks in the gate (poor water meter lady), just for a few examples. But he has always been a great barker letting me know when anyone is passing by the house, and pretty early on he got a nice big dog bark which I figured would scare anyone away who was trying to pay us a visit for the wrong reasons. Yesterday I had taken Travis to work and was just getting ready to go pick him up when I noticed that Macho was really going at it with the barking and growling and he sounded more threatend than usual. I looked out the window closest to where I could hear him barking and I couldn't see him anywhere but to my surprise I did see a man pulling himself up on the back wall through the razor wire and everything. I immediately put on my deepest most scarriest voice I could and yelled "hey, hey, get out of here" his head popped up and when he realized I could see him he pushed himslef back down and ran off. I then went for Travises mag-lite flash light, its one of those big ones, and ran for the door, right before running out I realized that trying to chase the guy down when I was the only one home was probably not the smartest thing to do. So I called Travis instead and he had someone bring him home so I didn't have to leave the house alone. In the midst of it I forgot that we have panik buttons in the house which are suppose to alarm a company that sends out guards to your house, Travis had me pull it so I could have someone come and look around to make sure the guy wasn't hanging around anywhere.

I finally got some butterflies in my stomach after things calmed down and looking back I started laughing at myself wanting to chase after the guy. What was I thinking? I am just thankful for Macho because if it wasn't for him I would have had no idea that this guy was coming over the wall.

Just to give everyone a little assurance, I always lock the doors when I am home alone and I always have my mag lite :).

Oh Uganda!

Once upon a time there were two countries, one names Kenya and the other Uganda. The borders were often closed between these two countries which made it vary difficult to transport goods from one to the other. Thus bodaboda boys were born. The boys would stack up goods on their bikes/motorbikes and haul them across the borders using small trails. You guessed it they got their name because they crossed from border to border. That is where it all began and here are some pictures of how it has blossomed and these courageous (crazy) guys are continuing the legacy not only near the borders but through out Uganda.

Who needs a truck when you've got a bodaboda?

I have not idea whot that is but it looks funny to me

Matoke anyone? (banana like food they cook and smoosh up)
If you look closely you can see that he is holding glass

Two of my favs I have yet to add to my collection of bodaboda photos. One is Chikens on a boda, the other fish. The chickens were tied together by thier legs and drapped over every possible inch of the boda, there must have been about a houndred stacked up on top of eachother and squacking away, yep they were alive.The Nile Perch were plopped on the back of the boda behind the driver and were HUGE. They had to have been over four feet long. Bigger than the one that Travis cought the other day (check out the Catching up blog for photo). Oh and how could I forget the bed on the boda and best of all boda on a boda.

That is a turket on his shoulder (alive)

I've been told that what he is carrying is tea

These two non boda guys made it on the boda boda blog cause I just thought they looked funny :)

Catching up

I thought that I should try to catch up a bit on what we have been up to.

We were able to go out to the Seesee Islands with some friends of ours who work with the Baptist Mission. The islands are in Lake Victoria about a three hour boat ride from Entebbe. The ride out itself was awesome! Combine huge body of water, a little wind and a small boat and it equals fun fun fun, at least I think so. We were tossing here and there and were absolutely drenched by the time we got there. Way better that Six flags if you ask me. Once we were there we visited some of the fishing villages they minister in and I got to play for a few hours with some precious little kids. We took a hike (also the trail that the kids hike everyday to get to school, 45 minutes or so) on the main island that we stayed on and see the view from the top.


We went fishing several times but had absolutely NO bites until finally Travis pulled in a 30 pound Nile Perch. It was HUGE and really yummy when fried. According to Ricky and Brenda ( the missionaries) it was a little guy. They have caught ones upwards of 160 pound.

We also were in Nairobi for a few days. We flew a plane over for some maintenance. It was one of the most beautiful flights I have ever been on. We flew over countless Island in lake Vic that were just amazing and then once we got into Kenya the view was gorgeous. The land is so fertile, and there were parts where the earth just rolls then suddenly it just drops straight down into a huge valley. Our time in Nairobi was great!!! We stayed in a Baptist guest house and it was like being at home it was so comfortable. We even had a kitchen so we could cook for our selves. Some of my favorites about the trip were...
~Bagels and strawberry milkshakes at Java house
~Put put yes put put at Village Market
~Hanging out with AIM Air people, great company, great employees
~Going to the Nairobi National game park, Giraffes are hilarious and I love them


And the best off all was when we were flying out of Nairobi, my face was plastered to the window to catch as much of the view as possible when suddenly there was a cloud under us but it didn't ruin the view because I saw the coolest thing ever. I could see the shadow of our plane on the cloud and encircling the planes shadow was a rainbow. I felt God promising that he is and will always be surrounding us with his protection. This was especially encouraging to me since Travis and I are in Prayer right now asking the Lord to direct us to where he wants us to go next. We will be wrapping up with Air Serv Limited in Uganda in mid December. While we were in Nairobi we were able to Meet up with people from Aim Air ( a Christian mission aviation group) and we are really impressed with the mission but are also considering many other job opportunities and waiting on God to give us the go ahead for which one he can use us at best. A reminder that He is all around us and taking care of us really lifted my Spirits and reminded me once more that all the concerns that we have are best off in His hands.