Leaving so Soon!

Just wanted to post quickly that we will be leaving early tomorrow morning (Saturday the 6th) for Uganda! 

We leave our house at 5am to catch a 6am city bug, which will then take us on the 4(ish) hour drive to the Jo'burg Airport, where we will wait for our 2:30 flight. To help with the waiting, we received the first few episodes of The Office Season 6 from a friend here (yes we know that they're still airing......) and are painfully saving them for the airport! Can't wait to see Jim and Pam get married :D

So anyway, after all the driving and waiting and flying, we will finally arrive in Uganda again! We don't know how much internet we'll have, so I will try to post, but I can't make any promises. If it doesn't work out, I'll make sure to post a recap once we get back :)

PS Ayana is, at this moment, in White River with a friend, getting her hair braided! Can't wait to see what it looks like, its been unbraided for far too long. 

And that’s the last time I ever wear this again!

Today my mom and I went on our first home visit with the young mom’s group. I was really excited to go and see what it would be like, but once we arrived at K2 (one of the centres in Masoyi here- we picked up Linky, the leader of the young mom’s program and Angel, another leader from there) my excitement was slightly dampened. I was wearing a skirt for the first time in months, and my Mzungu shirt, from Uganda. Mzungu means “white person”, or “foreigner” in Luganda, which is what the children yell at you as you drive by, so excited to see you; its kind of a must to get a Mzungu shirt for anyone who visits Uganda!

So anyway, I was wearing it (not for the first time since arriving in South Africa by the way!) and we were sitting in an office, waiting for Linky to be ready to go, when a woman walked in to introduce herself. She stopped, asked me what my shirt meant in Luganda, and then doubled over laughing. It turns out that here in South Africa, “Mzungu” is the name of a horrible chicken disease. What a lovely thing to find out mere seconds before you go out into the community.  Forget ever wearing that again while in South Africa!

Apart from that awful realization however, it was a very.. interesting experience! We were supposed to visit six or seven houses, but ended up only seeing two, as the first visit took over an hour, and included taking the young girl to the clinic. She is mentally handicapped, and was raped, which is how she became pregnant. As awful as that is, it is apparently quite a common occurrence here L Her little girl, Gift, is now two and absolutely adorable. They were worried that the mother might be pregnant again though (she doesn’t know), which is why the trip to the clinic came about.

While we were waiting for her test results, my mom and I were left in the van with Gift, who after about five minutes became hysterical with fear, and just sat there screaming for her mom in a different language no matter what we did. Good times. Poor little thing though, she was so scared L (Her mom is not pregnant by the way, false alarm!)

The second house was another sad story; 19 year old Virginia is the mother of a six year old little girl called Bridget. Virginia's parents have died, and so she is now alone with her siblings, and her little daughter. She was raped as well, which is how she became pregnant in the first place, but horrifyingly enough, we found out that little Bridget has also been raped; once when she was only four, and once more recently. You would never think so to see her- she was smiley and precious- but I just felt sick when I heard that. Its so wrong.

As we were leaving I was given a mango, and since I was hungry, I decided to follow Angel’s example, and just eat it, skin and all. It was surprisingly good! I spat out some of the skin, but after a while that took too long, and I ended up just eating quite a bit of the skin as well. TIA! 

The Big Move! (and other news)

Again, I’m blogging about this a couple of weeks late, but at least I’m getting around to it! As you may remember, we were staying at the Farm here, which is a 15 minute drive away from the ASM/Hands at Work campuses. Now though, we’re staying down at ASM in a little house called Westmont. Full of mould when we first saw it, it has now been re-tiled, painted, and cleaned, and is now a lot better. Our parents, Joshua, Ayana, and Moses live in Westmont, and Megan and I have our own little apartment right across from it. We’re really enjoying having and decorating our own space! Unfortunately Megan isn’t the most organized or tidy person, so its not always the cleanest atmosphere, but we’re working on it!

As well as moving, we’re now getting involved in a lot more stuff. With having almost nothing to do before, I’m now working in the office every morning until noon, as an administration assistant (or “the temp”…. I love The Office, best show ever! :D). Along with that, Megan, my mom, and I are now starting to get involved with the young mom’s group here, which I’m really excited about! There is a group of girls, aged 12-24 (and yes, there are four 12 year olds with babies :S) who meet once a week with their children in a support group, and do workshops at various times throughout the months. Last Friday my mom and I went along for one of their support groups… not many girls were there, and of the ones who showed up, only 4 of them brought their children. But man were they cute!! One little girl, Gift, was 7 months, and one of the smiliest babies ever! And a little boy who I held called Clarence was such a cutie and his mom, 16 year old Katie was such a sweetheart! I’m really looking forward to getting to know these girls, and developing relationships with them and their children. On Monday and Tuesday we’ll be going along on several home visits to some of the girls’ houses, so that’ll be really interesting (and often heartbreaking I’m sure).

On another note, Megan and I are less than a week away from being back in Kibaale! I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but while we were there last time, we were asked by the Dykes (the missionary family living at Kibaale) if we would want to come back in February, and help out with the PA team (our school back in Canada- we send multiple teams out every year to countries all over the world; I visited India during my grade 11 year, and Kibaale in my grade 12 year)… and of course we said yes! So on Saturday the 6^th, we will be heading over to Uganda to spend time with the Dykes, the Davies, and Rachel for a few days, and then helping out with the PA team for the rest of the time. We will be there for 3 weeks, and we are so looking forward to connecting with friends again, both from Uganda and Canada. Kibaale, here we come!! J

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.. 2010!

I know this is a little late, but to be fair, I did write a nice long post about Christmas, complete with pictures and a slideshow which I tried to post on Christmas Eve…. And which was somehow deleted entirely, not only from blogger, but from my computer as well. So I took a break. But now I’m back!

Our Christmas and New Year were very different, but actually very good. Despite the fact that our shipping had not arrived, and so we didn’t have any Christmas decorations or traditions at all, we managed to have a great family time. We bought a tree and a few decorations, and just spent the holiday together, and with our neighbors and some friends, it was really nice.

Seeing as I’m rather lacking in the money department, I couldn’t really afford a ton of presents. Soo I split presents with Megan and Josh, AND Megan and I wrote a Christmas song. I know some readers may already be getting updates from my parents, and so will have already seen the lyrics for this, but I’m going to post them on here as well so that everyone will get the chance to see them. We were planning to sing it on Christmas morning, but on Christmas Eve my mom read something that my Grandma from England had emailed to us, and was exactly what our song was about! So since it seemed to fit so well, we decided to do it right then.

Having a Christmas like that, away from home and friends and stuff, it felt a lot more like what the first Christmas would have been like; Sharing it with family and new friends, and actually focusing on what Christmas is supposed to be about. Which is kind of what our song tried to portray… (by the way, I say we wrote the song, well 99.9% of the credit goes to Megan; she’s so good!)

*** 

Christmas Song

 Can You imagine what He thought?

Can You imagine what He felt?

Can You imagine leaving your home?

To share your love with the world?

 

What did He feel when she held him close?

Rocking Him singing asleep in her arms.

Could she imagine what her child would do?

Share His love with the world?

 

So lets share our love this Christmas.

Share our love.

Lets forget all else, and remember that child

And share his love today

 

What did he feel when they spit in his face

Did he remember the holiest place

Where angels sing in glittering gold

Yet he came down to darkness and cold

 

To share his love that Christmas

Share his love.

So lets forget all else and remember that child.

And share his love today

 

What would He think of us,

If he saw what we had made this day?

What would He say to us,

About this holy day?

 

To Share His love this Christmas.

To share his love

To forget all else and remember him,

To share his love today x2
(To share his love this Christmas)

****

In case you were wondering, our stuff did eventually arrive. We got it last Wednesday, and after living out of one single suitcase since the end of August, it was quite the party when it arrived!! I missed my books (as dorky as that may sound, its true!), and I’m already finished one and on to a second J

Anyway, I hope you all had an amazing holiday with all of your friends and family. I miss everyone so much! <3>

And now.. we’re off to a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon with Act and Adonis!! :P We just finished Curse of the Black Pearl, and are on our way over (after a dinner break) to start Dead Man’s Chest.. I actually love those movies! 

Lions, Giraffes, and Werewolves

I haven’t blogged in quite some time now, sorry! Our shipping is in Johannesburg now, but we’re still waiting for it to clear customs before we can get it up here.. I miss reading! We’re praying that we get it for Christmas, but that probably won’t happen now L 

As to what we’ve been up to in the last couple of weeks, well we’ve done some Christmas shopping, gone to the movies a few times (Megan and I love the Twilight saga-read the books long before the movies!- and were very excited about New Moon.. we’ve seen it three times now! Kind of sad, I know… but in case anyone was wondering, I’m definitely Team Jacob, and always have been :D) and hung out with our neighbours. Since its Christmas break here, theres not a whole lot going on at the moment. It’ll hopefully pick up in the new year which will be good.

On the 7^th  of November though, (the day before Carissa left- I know, it was a long time ago! I just never got around to blogging about it), we got to go on a safari at Kruger National Park. We hired a driver and a sweet open-air truck- you have the option of driving around in your own vehicle, which is obviously cheaper, but has a much lower chance of seeing as many animals- and we had an amazing day.

Our guide, P.G., was incredible! He used to have a high-pressure job as a lawyer, but he loves animals and nature so he decided to study to become a game park guide. He has a photographic memory, so he passed the first time, and now he’s been doing this for 16 years and absolutely loves it.. and you can really tell, he’s so good at what he does! We literally saw every animal you could want to see in the park, minus a cheetah; lions, elephants, giraffes (all three of which were so close to our truck!!), impala and other types of deer, a leopard, hippos, a crocodile, wildebeast, many types of beautiful birds (including one that is nearly extinct; it was one of only 100 left in SA! PG said we were really lucky to see it)… it was such a sweet day!

(pictures will be posted soon J)

 

Special Gifts & Special Friends

I know I said I was finished with my posts about Kibaale, but I just wanted to do a special post about some friends’ sponsor children.

First of all, before I put the pictures up, I just want to say something about sponsor children in general. On the 10^th, us three girls got to help out with putting together gift baskets (which is one of the most celebrated gifts at Kibaale, they are always so excited to receive one!), and giving away special gifts.

It was really exciting to be able to be a part of that, and for the kids who got gifts, it really made their day, and probably their whole week. However, Mugabi (one of the social workers at Kibaale) told us something that put a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth.

“Yes, it is very very good for the children who get gifts, very good. They are so grateful. But they don’t all get gifts.”

When we asked him about it, he told us that while they were very grateful to the sponsors who send gifts to their children, there are also many children who never get gifts. Whether its because their sponsors don’t send them gifts, or if its that they just aren’t sponsored doesn’t really matter to them.

“They are so grateful for the money their sponsors send towards their schooling…. But the ones who do not get gifts come to us and are very sad. They ask why they don’t get special things too like some other children do.”

If you have a sponsor child, and have never sent them a gift for whatever reason, I urge you to do that!! Or if you do send your child gifts, but still want to help, you can send money in to whichever child needs it the most, and it will go towards the children who seldom (or never) get gifts. It really makes a difference to them.

Anyway, that’s my spiel for today, now here are some pictures J

Kirsten:

Cassy:

Erica:

Alyssa:

Cathy:

The Hattons:

The Kotts:

The Savages:

The Petersens:

No Need to Say Goodbye...

Sorry for the lack of posts for a while…frankly there hasn’t been much to blog about at all lately! (I am slowly updating my old posts with pictures though, so keep checking back for those!)

Today, however, is a very sad post. Carissa, who has been with us for the past two months, left  this morning to go back to Canada…

We all miss you so much already Carissa, there were lots of tears from almost everyone in the car on the way back L L

But we’ll always remember the words from The Call;
there’s no need to say Goodbye……

~
It started out as a feeling,
Which then grew into a hope,
Which then turned into a quiet thought,
Which then turned into a quiet word.

And then that word grew louder and louder,
Till it was a battle cry…

I’ll come back when you call me,
No need to say Goodbye.

Just because everything’s changing,
Doesn’t mean its never been this way before.
All you can do is try to know who your friends are
As you head off to the war.

Pick a star on the dark horizon,
And follow the light….

You’ll come back when its over,
No need to say Goodbye.

Now we’re back to the beginning,
And its just a feeling that no one knows yet.
But just because they can’t feel it too
Doesn’t mean that you have to forget.

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger,
Till they’re before your eyes…

You’ll come back when they call you,
No need to say Goodbye.
~

Please pray for Carissa’s health and safety, she has lots of hours of traveling ahead of her!

Love you Ducky <3