Finally....After a year and four months...Starbucks!

I think we went to like 10 starbucks....it was amazing! It's not just the coffee that I love so much it's the atmosphere...the comfy chairs, the 'feel-good' music, and the smell of brewing coffee. There is NO PLACE like this in Uganda where you can just sit for hours and relax! So we definitley took advantage of it while we were in Dubai (well Christy wasn't too excited about it, but she was a great sport).

This Starbacks looks like it's outside doesn't it? Nope...it's in a mall (Ibn Battuta Mall named after the famous Arab explorer) and it's one of the coolest malls I have ever been to. There 6 different sections of the mall and each one has architecture from different countries (China, India, Persia, Egypt, Tunisia (which is where this was), and Spain). There were like 3 Starbucks alone in this one mall! Here I am enjoying my mocha coconut frappuccino....the African continent has no idea what they are missing!

Mombasa, Kenya

I spent the first week of my travels in Mombasa watching some MK's for another cluster's annual meeting. We had 5 boys (baby-4 years old). Aren't they cute? It was a lot of fun and of course it was an added bonus that we were on the beach :) I got to meet some new people serving in this region as well as hang out with my journeyman friends from Tanzania again. It took about 24 hours of driving to get there, but it was worth it...the Indian Ocean is so beautiful.

Traveling...

Just wanted to let you know that I will be traveling the next 2 weeks so I will not be posting. Please pray for saftey as I travel to Mombasa, Kenya (on the coast) to work with the children at some fellow "workers" annual cluster meeting and then to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) for vacation with some friends. Thanks. Sorry for the lack of posting these days, but pictures and stories coming soon.....

This is my new night guard, Fred, being baptized by Aloysious, the pastor of our Runyankore service at church. Fred was already a believer, but had never been baptized. He is an older man and seems to be a good guard which I am thankful for (I've had some not so good guards in the past) and now he has been attending our church. Praise God!

Tex-Mex in Uganda?!

Christy and I and a couple other ladies went out for lunch during our one morning of free time at our meeting last week to this Tex-Mex restaurant. I couldn't believe it...mexican food in Uganda?! I was very surprised...not bad for having to make everything from scratch. I think someone from Texas owns it...not really for sure. Anyways, the chicken fajitas were very nice. Best meal we'd had in a while!

Hawaiian Luau

This past week I was in Jinja, Uganda at our annual meeting for everyone serving with our organization in Uganda. It was a lot of sitting and listening to lectures (except for the night I got pushed in the pool with my clothes on...thanks Ryan and Emily!). But it was nice to get away for a while and see other friends serving around the country. The theme of the meeting was Hawaiian and one night we got dressed up and had a 'luau'. Here's our Mbarara/Banyankore team at the luau in front of the Nile River....sometimes it's crazy when I stop and think about it; we were staying on the Nile!

At our 'luau' everybody had a lot of fun. Anna Wilks found her dancin' partner, Silas (also 3 years old). Aren't they cute!! :) And Sarah Wilks beat Ryan (journeyman in Southern Sudan) in the hula hoop contest. Ryan definitely gave her a run for her money! He wouldn't tell us where he learned to hula hoop so well, maybe it was the grass skirt or all those hula hoops in Sudan. **Correction: first Ryan beat out all the adults to take on Sarah, the winner of the kids. Ryan technically won, but being the nice guy that he is let Sarah 'win' and get the prize. (Is that better Ryan? :) )

Answered Prayers...

Well thanks for your prayers concerning power outages and rain. The power is still off every other day for 24 hours at a time. So we have power about 3 or 4 days a week. But I do have a generator now. Our misson decided to provide them for those that didn't already own them (a.ka. the singles) but petrol is still our expense of course. My generator is not truly a 'Honda', but after some work it looks like it will at least work enough to run my fridge and a few lights for a few hours. Definitely a blessing! And as you can see in this picture I am wearing a rain jacket! That's right, the week after I sent out an update asking people to pray for rain...God brought rain! Looks like rainy season has come early as we are having rain several times a week. I like rainy season as well cause it usually cools things off. But it's still hard to sleep without a fan at night :(

Oh yeah I am storing my generator in the small house on my compound that has a 'pit latrine' in it (a.k.a outhouse for all you Americans) :) Right where my foot is in this picture is the 'hole', so I have to kind of be careful especially at night! I don't actually use this pit latrine...it is for workers or my night guard to use (well they don't anymore). By the way, I took this picture with my self-timer so that's why it's kind of weird.

It never ceases to amaze how much these kids can carry on their heads! They're much stronger than me. These guys posed for me while out in a village a couple weeks ago. I often see little 2 year olds with sticks on their heads...I keep trying to get a picture of them. They're so cute!

Banyankore Team

Here is a recent picture of our team here in Mbarara. (L to R) Spencer, new journey guy here to work with University Students; Dr. Pepper and his wife Sally working with our University church and hospital/AIDS ministry; Emily (Wilks' oldest daughter); Me :) Scarlett and Anna, Jared, Barry and Sarah (in front) Wilks, the Wilks are here doing church planting in town and among surrounding villages. Please pray for our team as we try to share the hope we have in Christ through various ministries with the Banyankore people of Southwestern Uganda.

Where should I live next?

As most of you know I will be returning to the States in about 7 months. Hard to believe...I'm excited, but sad, and nervous all at the same time. Mostly because I don't know what exactly I am supposed to do next!! I found this survery from a friend's blog at www.findyourspot.com No, I'm not so desperate as to look to the internet for advice, but I thought it would be interesting to see where it said I should live. After a series of questions I was given these top 20 cities as good 'matches' for me....

Knoxville, TN (sure never thought about living here)
Nashville, TN (a great city I would like to one day live)
Lousiville, KY (interesting cause I am seriously considering Southern Seminary after this)
Oklahoma City (never had a desire to live in OK, sorry)
Lexington, KY
Augusta, GA
Bowling Green, KY
Johnson City/Kingsport, TN
Tulsa, OK
Memphis, TN
Jacksonville, FL
Fort Worth, TX (I like DFW area)
Chattanooga, TN
Clarksville, TN
El Paso, TX
Houston, TX
Enid, OK
Dulluth, MN (where did this come from?)
Dallas, TX
San Antonio, TX

So there's a reoccurring theme of cities in KY and TN and some TX. (Funny cause those are the three states I have lived in). Where do you guys think I should live? Oh yeah, and I could use your prayers on future direction as well :)

Subway is Everywhere!

Ok not really, but I went to subway.com and searched the restaurant locator to find out that there are Subways in South Africa and Egypt (I should have known) as well as Tanzania and Zambia....in case you all were wondering. Plus I didn't want to give false info on my blog so I had to correct myself!

Eatin' some Subway in Tanzania

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania has a Subway! Isn't that crazy? There's like 3 in this town, but no where else on the African continent. It wasn't exactly the same as Subway in the States, but after not eating it in over a year I was definitely impressed! It's owned by an Arab man...I wanted to find the owner and tell him we could use one in Uganda :) Here I am with Laura Lee who works with university students in Dar (we went to college together). My trip to Tanzania was great, but that place is way too hot! I am not used to humidity in Uganda. I mean it was so hot I would sweat while standing in front of a fan or while taking a cold shower! I enjoyed seeing the beautiful Indian Ocean and Zanzibar, but I have to say I was ready to get back 'home' to Uganda's cooler weather. ** Correction (thanks to Amy a former jman in Lesotho, Africa) there is a Subway in Zambia! Craziness! Maybe one day I can visit Zambia and see if Zambian Subway is better than Tanzanian :)**

Zanzibar Island

While in Tanzania visiting my friends from college, Bethany and Laura Lee, we spent a couple days on Zanzibar island. Zanzibar is about 40km off the coast of Tanzania and has some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. It was so nice to get away and relax for while. While the sun was very intense there, it was much different than being out on the beach in Florida. There was such a nice breeze in the shade and I was able to sleep for like 2 hours under a little banda (pictured with the palm tree). We got up early to see the sunrise and went for a little jog....it was so nice! These fishing boats you see in the sunrise picture are left tied up all day long.

The interesting thing about the Indian Ocean (well at least where we were) was that the tide went out really far every day from about 10-3pm. In fact you can see below the boats that were floating in the water at sunrise were lying on the ocean floor at about noon. We were able to walk out like a mile and still only be to water waist deep...it was crazy! In fact I couldn't even see where the ocean finally began...we could have probably walked out another mile! There are many seaweed farms out in the ocean that local women work each day when the tide goes out. The nice thing about this ocean is that we didn't have to worried about being stung by jelly fish every 2 seconds like in the Gulf of Mexico. There were hammocks around the little place to sit in and enjoy. I definitely reccommend Zanzibar if you ever get to come to East Africa.

Funny story....as we were walking on the beach in Zanzibar one morning collecting seashells we came upon a very interesting situation. I happend to look in front of us to see a young man squatted at the shoreline with his pants down around his ankles of course doing his 'buisness'. As I looked at him he looked straight at me. Did he seem embarrassed or try to run back to the trees that were only a few meters away? No, of course not....he did what any normal person would do... continue minding his 'business'! We couldn't really turn away without being obvious so we just continued walking all the while he never acted like we were even there. Now this was a more deserted part of the beach, but why couldn't he have gone up to the trees or burried it in the sand instead of leaving his poo right there on the shoreline (and believe me we saw it)? Needless to say we stayed away from that area and watched where we were walking from then on out! All I could say was....only in Africa! Nothing like some paradise mixed with 3rd world culture!

Stone Town

We spent one afternoon in Zanzibar town which is known as 'Stone Town'. The town is full of white-washed stone walls, small corridors with little shops, and cobblestone streets.
Zanzibar is such an interesting place...there are the beautiful beaches on the coast, but the town doesn't really feel like Africa because of it's Arab and Indian influence. Islam is the major religion and Arabic is spoken as well as Swahili. Zanzibar has it's own president and I think they want to be their own country, however, they are still apart of Tanzania. Zanzibar is known for their ordiante wood doors all over town that are just beautiful! They are also known for their wooden trunks that have a special 'secret' hiding place made into them.
Here Bethany and I are after our henna tattos (i'm on the right, don't worry they wash off in 2-3 weeks). Henna is a very common in Arabic and Indian cultures. They most often paint designs on their hands though. It's a form of decoration, like jewlry, and they often do it for weddings or other big events. After getting our 'paintings' we asked the lady why women do this in their culture, and she said women get henna in order to please their husbands, or fiance', or boyfriend. I just laughed when I heard that one. I don't really have someone I am trying to 'please', but I thought it looked pretty cool. It's always fun to expereince new cultures.

A day of snorkeling...

While in Tanzania, Bethany and I went snorkeling near a small natural island off the coast of Dar es Salaam in the Indian Ocean. These pictures don't even do it justice...it was absolutely beautiful! While snorkeling we saw tons of beautfiul tropical fish and coral reef. It felt like I was swimming in a huge aquarium....I kept thinking of Finding Nemo and the Discovery Channel. I wished I had had an underwater camera so bad. Can you believe it was my first experience snorkeling as much as I LOVE the water?! The water was just perfect as you can see.... crystal clear water and white sandy beaches. It was like paradise....

Fun Times with volunteers....

A couple weeks ago volunteers from the Wilks' (family on my team) home church in Chattanooga TN came to Mbarara to help our team. It was a great time of fellowship and encouragment for us who live here. They helped in several villages where we have Bible storying/churches established as well as doing home visits and evangelism. We did some medical teaching and distribution of vitamins in one of the villages. Here are some pictures from their time here. We worked hard, played a lot of cards, ate some good food (thanks to Scarlett :), shot some hoops, enjoyed the new power outage schedule of off 24 hours/on 24 hours, and even visited a game park. It was a fun week....it's always sad to see volunteers go. Thanks Jim, Mike, Chuck, Andy, Niki, and Vicki for all your hard work :)

University Student Retreat

Ok I think I am finally going to finish posting pictures from the University student retreat our church had back in January. Here's the whole gang. We had about 35 people come to Lake Navugabo (about 2 hours from here) to learn about what it means to be a true follower of Christ based on Luke 9:23. I taught a session on servanthood and the students modeled Jesus' example of washing the disciples' feet by washing each other's feet. I got to celebrate my 24th birthday camping :) and for those of you who know me you know how much I love camping! :( Sally, Dr. Pepper's wife made me a cake and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me. It was another memorable birthday in Africa. I can't believe I'm 24...I'm getting old! :) Here I am with some of my girl friends (Lillian, Brenda, Cathy, Mildred, and Cynthia). I don't get to spend as much time with these guys as I would like to sometimes cause my ministry focuses on home visits, but I enjoy hanging out with them when I can. Remember these students as they try to to be a light for the Lord on their campus. Pray that they will follow Him no matter the cost!

Here I am with some students doing some 'political sign' that I don't know what it means (it's like an 'ok' sign). I just did whatever they told me to do. Then here I am rolling out dough for kabalagala. It's these flat pancakes we ate make out of cassava flour and kabalagala (small sweet bananas) and they are deep fried. They're ok, but not as good as American pancakes :)