One last game park trip....

Last Saturday I took my last game park trip (since I am leaving Uganda in a little over a week) :( This time we decided to do some chimpanzee trekking since I had never done that before. Queen Elizabeth game park is the second largest park in Uganda and a couple hours from Mbarara. In the middle of the huge 'savanna' is this 16km long gorge...it's pretty amazing. There are only 17 chimps that live in the gorge and we were fortunate to see 4 (including a mother and baby). This guy below was only about 25ft above us! They are funny little creatures...we watched him for a while and he just sat there then decided to lay down and relax with his arm behind his head....they seem to be lazy animals. We saw lots of other monkeys and baboons and some other game while in the park as well. This was a great last game park experience to end on. Just can't find this kind of beauty in America.

We had a close encounter with some elephants. There was a herd of about 7 that crossed the road right in front of us. This picture is after backing up two times. At first our car was where the elephants are standing...good thing we moved. The mother felt we were too close to her baby and 'trumpeted' so we quickly reversed! Thankfully they didn't try to charge, but it was a bit scary. I still can't believe how close we were...these pictures were taken with a little digital camera with barely any zoom. Elephants are huge!

"Little Dumbo" :)

Gotta love 'African Time'....

Last weekend was Evas' wedding. Evas is a nurse working with me in the Words of Hope ministry. It was a very nice wedding at the big anglican cathedral here. She attends our church and is a believer, but her family is anglican. As all things here, the wedding was running late. It was supposed to start at 1pm, but at 2:30pm it still hadn't started. Then the music started a bridesmaids started walking down the aisle, but they weren't Evas' maids and then a bride walked down the aisle, but it wasn't Evas! I was like, 'oh no, is she not getting married'?! But I asked the man who was handing out programs and he said that Evas' wedding was delayed and would be after this one! So Scarlett and I decided to leave and go get some lunch and then came back. The wedding scheduled for 1pm finally began at almost 4pm! Gotta love Africa :)

Scarlett and I went to the wedding dressed in our Indian tradtional punjabis. We were matching in red and black. I love taking these self protrait pictures with Spencer's camera (i get to borrow his since mine got stolen). He has this cool little flip out screen and it's fun :)

Me and my good friend Patience at Evas' give-away cermony. That is the traditional marriage here (notice my traditional dress). Most people here consider a couple to be married after the give-away, but most saved believers or 'christian' people will have church marriages here where they get their marriage license and are 'officially' married. Patience is also a nurse, who teaches at the University here. She has been such a blessing to me during my time here and a great friend...I will miss her when I leave Uganda!

In Christ Alone

Can we really say that our hope, our strength, our everything is found in Christ alone? Just wanted to share these lyrics that really challenged me.... 

In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song 

This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm 

What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease 

My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand 

In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless babe 

This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save 

'Till on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied

 For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live 

There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain 

Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again 

And as He stands in victory Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me 

For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ 

No guilt in life, no fear in death This is the power of Christ in me

 From life's first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny 

No power of hell, no scheme of man Can ever pluck me from His hand '

Till He returns or calls me home Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

Mosquito Nets and Road Kill

A big thanks to the Union University volunteer nursing team that came out in May. With the money they donated we were able to provide 300 mosquito nets to Nakivale Refugee Camp! Here I am with the pastor of the 'head' Baptist Church in the camp...John Peter. The people here suffer from malaria and treatment is not available. They could not afford mosquito nets and many of their young children die of malaria. Now at least 300 people will have treated mosquito nets to sleep under to help prevent malaria...what a blessing!

Here is Jared and Roland (our translator) along with national pastors helping to unload the nets. I bet you've always been wondering what types of road kill we have in Uganda. Well, we don't have to worry about hitting (or 'knocking' as we say here) opossums, skunks, squirrels, deer, or armadillo.....instead we have monkeys! As I was driving to the refugee camp this little guy ran out in front of me.....sorry, sorry (as Ugandans say when something bad happens) :)

Murchison Falls

Sorry I am just now getting around to posting the pictures from our trip to Murchison Falls game park. Murchison is the largest game park in Uganda (over 5,000sq km) and is located up north alongside the Nile River. 

The falls were pretty amazing even though the water level was lower cause it is dry season. Something like 6,000 liters of water/second go through this opening....it was crazy how close we were able to get as we walked around the top of the waterfall. I kept saying...'you definitely couldn't get this close in America'! 

I finally got to see giraffes after living in Africa for almost 2 years!! They are so beautiful and really interesting animals. God has such creativity :) 

This is an old giraffe. The older they get the darker their spots become. 

This is a jackson hartebeest. They are really interesting looking to me....this one was missing part of one of the antlers.

There were crocodiles everywhere...and some were huge! They looked fake cause they would keep their mouths open for long periods of time. I don't exactly know why...maybe that's how they breathe. 

 

It's official....I'm coming home....

On October 8th at 12:55pm I will arrive in Evansville. It's hard to believe it's time to start thinking about returning to the states. I will be in Henderson until the middle of January -  traveling to several friends' weddings, a debriefing conference in Virginia, and getting prepared to start seminary. Hope to get to see many of you all. A lot has happened in the last two years!! :)

God's protection....

Last weekend I took some vacation days to go up north to Murchison Falls, the biggest game park in Uganda, with my friend Patience (who is also a nurse). We left on Thursday and headed to Kampala, the capital, where we would meet up with our tour company and leave the next day. We arrived to Kampala a little before 7pm and decided to go into one of the 2 grocery stores we have in Kampala that make you actually feel like you are kind of in America to buy some mineral water to take on our trip. We were in the store around 30 minutes, if that, and came out to find my car had been broken into! Both our bags for the trip were stolen as well as my digital camera and some money! I couldn't believe it....we had left the car locked (i'm almost positive) and there were like 5 security guards around 'guarding' the parking lot. The security guards were of course no help though...said they didn't see anything which I don't see how is possible since the shopping center was closing and there were only like 3 cars in the parking lot. It was a frustrating ordeal cause you can't just call the police to come (you have to actually go to the police station) and no one was really helping me. So we had nothing but the clothes on our backs and we were supposed to be leaving for a 3 day trip the next day! I felt like it was like The Amazing Race t.v. show and they had just taken away all our belongings :) But Patience, who is also a believer just reminded me to be grateful for God's protection. We were ok, we didn't lose our major money for the trip and our passports that were thankfully in our purses, and even more amazingly Spencer had let me borrow his really nice camera and it wasn't stolen! It was the most expensive thing in the car and it was still there, by God's grace.

I was pretty shaken up after this incident and didn't see how there was any way we could go on our trip now especially since we didn't have any clothes or even a toothbrush! But Christy, my friend in Kampala said we should come borrow stuff from her and still go. So thankfully we did. A volunteer who was there visiting even left me some of her makeup which was a blessing since you can't get stuff like that here. So even in the small things God provided. God just really showed me through this expereince how temporal our material posessions are and how all we need is Him. Frustrating things happen, but God is always in control and I have peace knowing that He ordained this for His glory. Our two Bibles were stolen so who knows, maybe the theives will come to know the Lord :)

Here I am with Patience in front of the falls....this is the Nile River by the way. I'm so glad we ended up going...I got to finally see giraffes! It was amazing...I hope to put up some more pictures sometime this week.

Pineapples....

The Union nursing team left a couple of these 'canned' pineapple cups from America. Even though we have tons of fresh pineapple here, I didn't have any one day and I wanted some fruit so I opened up one of these. I took one bite and almost had to spit it out it was so disgusting! I forgot how bad canned or what I like to call 'fake' pineapple is. How will I ever go back to America where I can't just go down to the street and buy a pineapple for 30 cents yearround?! We may not have McDonalds, but you can't beat these pineapple filled bicycles that line the street around the hospital/university, and all I have to do is pull over in my car and buy one.

I will definitely miss the pineapples here, but then again I am quickly reminded of all the fruits we have in America that I can't get here: grapes, oranges (well we have some that are green and extremely sour, more like a lemon), strawberries, canelopes, peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, kiwi, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries.... But we do have mangos, small sweet bananas, papaya, passion fruit, watermelon (but not as good as America), guavas, jack fruit (very strange large fruit that I don't particularly like) that aren't as easy to get in America so it's a toss up. But i'd sure like to have some fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream right now :)

This is how pineapples grow. This one is growing in my backyard and has been for like 8 months, so they take forever. But it'll be well worth the wait!

Does your favorite restaurant feed like a mother? Mine does....

There is a pretty good size South Asian influence here in Uganda. They own a lot of the pharmacies, grocery stores, and businesses. I have come to really like Indian food...in fact I'm just fascinated with Indian culture and burdened for the lostness of those people as well. This is a picture of the sign for my favorite restaurant in Mbarara....called 'City Top'. It is owned by a couple of Indian men and I go there at least once a week to get the vegetable curry 'hot' (you have to tell them hot or it will be so mild cause most Ugandans do not like spicy things). I don't particularly know what "Feeds like a mother" means, but I guess I'm supposed to compare it to my mother's cooking. My mother is a great cook and I thoroughly enjoy City Top so I guess it works. That's one thing I am going to miss about living here....ethnic foods and being around different cultures. I hope there's some Indian food in Evansville or Louisville.....or I guess I can learn how to make my own :)

The other day I went to visit my night guard, Fred, at his home and met his wife and 2 little girls (he has other children as well that live in the village with other family, which is very common here cause they can't afford for all of them to stay in town). Fred lives with his family in a mud room about 10ft x 12ft (which is very typical of how people live here in town). He pays 20,000 shillings a month (approximately $12) in rent but only makes 50,000 shillings working as a night guard. So as you can tell he is always concerned about having money to take care of his family. He has been thinking of trying to get a job working as a guard in Iraq, Iran, or Sudan he said. (Security companies there offer guards from here large amounts of money to go and work. The sad thing is people here don't understand about the fighting and danger that is taking place in those countries). We tried to encourage him not to leave his family, but money is everything to people here. Even though Fred is what I would consider a strong believer, providing for the needs of his family are very real and something that worries him greatly. Please pray he will trust God to provide for his needs and not desert his family in order to make money that will in all reality probably never get to him. And also that he and other Ugandans will not see money as the answer to all their problems, but look to the giver of life and rest in Him alone.

Here are Fred's two little girls. They screamed and cried when they saw white people coming to their house in a car! Children here are often very afraid of white people (they have heard that white people will eat them). Then we gave them a couple of little toys brought out by the Union nursing team and they seemed to like us then :)

Fondue Night at the Wilks

So, what do we do for fun around here? Well most Thursday nights we get together at the Wilks' house for pizza, basketball/football, and games. A couple Thursdays ago Dr. Christy (who was here visiting) fixed a chocolate fondue with bananas and pineapple for dessert. Then she told us that if we dropped our fruit off our skewers into the pan we had to kiss the person next to us. Something practiced somewhere...I forgot. Needless to say that brought great fun to the kids. Emily got several kisses from me...I couldn't keep my fruit on for some reason! So as you can see we've got pretty exciting lives here :)

Future plans....

I just found out that I have been accepted to Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY for the Spring 2007! I plan to get a MA in missiology. Thanks to those of you who have been praying about this. Please continue to pray that financial means (job, housing, insurance, etc) will work out. I'm nervous about transitioning back to American life in a few months, but also excited about what the Lord is going to teach me.