Christmas two

As mentioned in the last blog, the dutch celebrate TWO days of Christmas so the 26th was just as busy as the 25th. But first, two more photos from Christmas day. Firstly the children playing games after lunch.



Richard with one of his gifts, a Spiderman watch which lasted about one day. He has a calico bag around his neck with his name on it to put his presents in. All children got those which was helpful (remember to say that helepful) to keep track of the loot.
Saturday dawned as grey and overcast as Christmas day. We had breakfast at home, here, and the boys did their usual chores for a Saturday. we had decided that we wanted to give the boys ( and especially me) a treat with a roast dinner. So most of the boys heleped out in some way in preparing it. We had roast chicken, roast potatoes, kumera and pumpkin, some cauliflower, peas and beans. Just like at home, and it was great!!!




We decided to sit around the small table together, the photo shows us ready to start with christmas crackers and sodas (of course), and party hats. The boys enjoyed it all and so did we. I hope I don't have to wait until next Christmas for another roast dinner!!
After lunch we again had some games organised, we were again unable to go outside so went to the new church building which was at least under cover.
Then after afternoon tea, we took a group of nursery school children for some music using some of the songs Marilyn used in Marty's Music at home. Boy, what an eyeopener that was. We thought the bigger children had poor listening skills, these children had NONE. However, we struggled on and got by.
After supper the boys had a disco to round off the celebrations and they stumbled into bed about 9pm. I had been asked to give the message in church on Sunday (today) at the end of the disco, so I still had some work to do and finally made it into bed about 12.30am.
We did manage to get Raghma down for about an hour on Christmas day and no blog would be complete without the obligatory photo of her. This is Santa Raghma.
Please continue to pray for her as she has had an awful chesty cough for about two weeks now and is finding it difficult to suck and breathe at the same time. Please pray that she will get over it quickly.
Well, that's all for now, we are hoping for a somewhat quieter week, we have Alex and Simon visiting tomorrow and hope to get to Kampala on Wednesday but we know that things will never be too quiet with the boys around.
Our best wishes for a happy New Year, if you are driving, be careful.
God Bless

Merry Christmas one

A very very merry Christmas to all who read this. Christmas has come and gone, we hope yours was as busy and happy as ours was. We had a very busy lead up and I see that it has been two weeks since I last wrote.
To bring you up to date; we bought a new oven, almost twice the price of the previous one but it is worth it as it cooks much better. On Saturday before Christmas we went with the young missionaries to KPC (not KFC, but Kampala Pentecostal Church) now known as Watoto Church to see their Christmas cantata. What a spectacular show! Fantastic music and dancing with a choir of over 100 decked out in black and white, it was absolutely stunning. Afterwards we went to Spectrum, a restaurant for a pre-Christmas dinner, buffet style which I thoroughly enjoyed (especially the pork chops and we were told we could get food as many times as we liked). The first photo shows the group before we ate.
In the week leading up to Friday we spent each morning with the Sunday school children preparing our pageant for the Christmas service. It was good seeing it develop from chaos, to a shambles, to Ok but..., to a great performance on the day. Marilyn's sunday school class also made a manger scene which you can see in the second photo.


Marilyn also helped with some small groups to make some special biscuits for Christmas Day. We also farewelled, sadly, the three volunteers, Rebekah, Ester and Margret. They have been absolutely great and we have enjoyed getting to know them.









Christmas Day finally arrived, I had to get up at 4am to tell the bigger boys that it was NOT time to wake up yet, and eventually we got up around 7am. We had wrapped the boys' Christmas clothing up and another parcel with a couple of small gifts in so they enjoyed opening those. It was delightful watching Richard as this was the first time he had ever had presents. We also gave each of the boys a Bible or a book of Bible stories. We had bought these with some money that people had sent us during the year.
The third picture is of the boys in their Christmas clothing ready to go up to the home for breakfast.
After breakfast it was time for the church service which Marilyn and I led. As mentioned earlier the pagaent went off very well with a cast of 30 children and some great costumes (especially the masks) as you can see in the fourth photo.


Then it was time for morning 'coffee' and some dances by the children up until lunchtime. After lunch Marilyn & I along with Reny and some other aunties took the children for some games (at least we tried to, they don't listen very well at times). We were kept on the go all the time.
Then it was time for presents. Unfortunately the weather was overcast with showers (my Dad would have said "it's a grey day Madge") and the children couldn't get outside so presents were given out inside. What a noise!!! Each child was given five gifts, not all at once but spread out, so it took over an hour to distribute them. It was lovely to see the delight on their faces, especially the little ones.
Christmas dinner was then a barbeque with chicken, meat patty, sausage, bun, coleslaw, chapati and a soda.
We arrived home about 7.30 having had a really good day. Ezra gave us a Christmas present of a dry bed, and best of all we heard from Jen that she and Scotty had a good Christmas too, with about six others who Jen cooked for.
The Dutch have a tradition whereby they celebrate two days of Christmas, so more about 2nd Christmas on the next blog.

But wait there's more

Just after finishing the blog last night we realised that we had overlooked two significant events of the last week. Firstly, on Thursday the boys had a sleepover at the new church. Two Dutch volunteers (Ester and Margret) and Rebecca from Canada have organised a series of activities for groups of children, one of which was a sleepover in the containers by the church. It was fabulous, the boys had a good night and so did we. I think we were in bed by 9pm rather than the usual 11pm, so that we can water the boys before retiring, and we slept until 8am. We have tried to suggest that this should happen every Thursday but the girls were not keen. These three have really been good value and helped out in lots of ways. We have sort of been surrogate parents at times but we have enjoyed getting to know them. They return home next week just before Christmas and their activities this week will help us to retain our peace (rather than pieces).
The other item we should mention is that our stove caught fire again yesterday for the second time. Brad took it to Kampala today to the shop we bought it from and they have refunded the money so Marilyn & I will try to buy another one tomorrow when we have our day out in Kampala. It will be my first excursion driving to Kampala so any prayers for safe travel would be appreciated.
Today we had another morning of sorting through shoeboxes for another organisation which was fun. We had to find 200 in about 2hrs so it was flat-tack but with 6 of us working it got done.
Of course this afternoon we got Raghma down for her afternoon feed, can't have a blog without mentioning her now can we!!
This morning we prayed that we might hear from Chris especially as we hadn't heard from him for a long time, and that we might hear again from Pete. We have been reminded that we should be careful with what we pray for as we got a skype from Chris this morning and this evening an email from Pete. Thank you Lord.
Well, that's enough of a ramble for now
God Bless

One week down....

Greetings, my name is Raghma and Aunty Marilyn & Uncle Warwick think I'm beautiful, what do you think?

Sorry, we must be a bit like a stuck record but this darling wee girl is the highlight of our days and gives us such joy. She has diarrhoea at the moment so please pray for her so that she doesn't lose weight.
Well one week of the holidays is over and we have survived, only 9 more to go... We find that we get little time out during the holidays as there always seems to be at least one of the boys hanging around home and at times there are up to twelve!! However, we do have our moments of joy, especially watching Richard try to ride a bike, and getting a lovely bunch of flowers from the threee volunteers here at the moment.
On Thursday we went with Alex to his school to appeal a decision they had made for him to repeat the year. We filled in a request for special consideration which will be decided on Jan 4th. It was interesting being on the 'other side' of the 'begging' process, in the past people have been asking me for special consideration. I bought all the skills I had picked up listening to others, so who knows.... We went out with Alex & Simon for a nice lunch afterwards, their Christmas dinner from us.
Alex and Simon came here on Saturday to skype Sherrilyn & Deane, they were here by 9am (which is 7pm NZ time) but the best laid plans are set aside when the network is down and you can't connect. The network came back at 2pm (midnight NZ time) so they missed. It was nice having a day together though. They stayed and looked after the boys on Sat. night as we had the staff 'Christmas do' that evening. An interesting evening with over 100 people there with an exchange of gifts where we were each given one other person to buy for as a 'secret'. I got a lovely short sleeved striped shirt and Marilyn a wonderful African outfit which will be fine once she has taken in the seams.

Sunday evening was interesting as we went to a meeting with the other missionaries to sort out the programme for Christmas. Guess what..... we celebrate TWO days of Christmas with activities. Our contribution on Christmas day will be a drama with the children (a Pagaent) in the morning, and in the afternoon to organise activities for the children after lunch from 2pm -3.30pm. On 2nd Christmas we will have some time with just the boys in the morning and organising more games and activities in the afternoon. No laxing out after a roast dinner lunch for us this year (Marilyn, what's a roast dinner taste like?) and no blobbing on Boxing day either. The 27th could be different though!!!!

The blog is later than usual this week as we have had variable power and we thought we'd show you the decorating of our Christmas tree which took place tonight. You can see Richard, Owen and Ezra decorating the tree, and the boys singing carols afterwards.


Papa and Mama returned from their trip, very happy to be home and also very tired. Peit had driven 12000kms in course of 6 weeks and had put on considerable weight. He has spent his time since his return chasing up the workers to get tasks finished before Christmas, but I fear he is running out of days. Please pray for the workers here, as many take time off for holidays prior to Christmas so that they will be here on Christmas day and this places a strain on the work now.
Also pray for Ischa as she is struggling with her breathing and is on oxygen fulltime now, and there are a number of other children unwell, Manessah,Jeremy, little Joshua, to name some.
Please also continue to pray for good health for and an extra portion of patience and wisdom for us as we deal with the day to day issues with the boys. If you know of anyone who might consider coming over to take on the girls family unit please let us know, we can tell them how much fun it is. Please pray for this role as the house is nearing completion and the girls are looking forward to shifting in.
Well, that's all for now, we hope to write our Christmas letter to send soon, until next time
Our love to you all

What a shocker (part two)

A few more pictures from the breakup. The first is of the baby class of the Nursery school (3 yr olds) with their party hats and candles ready to sing 'This little light of mine....' Just delightful.


The second photo is of P1 performing involving Mark & Paul whom you can see and Ezra who is obscured.

We have found that you never have an empty knee at these occasions. The third picture shows Reny and Marilyn at the start of the day with two little ones on their knees. Annabel ( on Reny) later climbed onto my knee and promptly went to sleep until Aunty Eunice took her up to the home. I later had another climb on board to do the same thing. I must have a comfortable lap.
Finally, our blogs wouldn't be complete without a photo of Raghma.

You are probably wondering what has been shocking in all of this.....
Well, on Friday morning before we went to the breakup Marilyn got a huge electric shock from the washing machine. It threw her across the room and she has several bruises in places I cannot show you. Needless to say she needed time to recover before going to the school. We just thank God that it was her to get the shock because Ezra was about to put something in the machine too and he may not have survived. The electrician was summoned now-now and he assured us that he had fixed the problem. We had been losing our power for several days so we knew all was not well.
However..... today Marilyn and I both got shocks off the deep freeze (just tingles) and she got another larger shock from the washing machine again. The boys said that they too had been getting shocks from the washing machine so we think something is wrong with the earth wire. The electrician is coming first thing tomorrow to 'fix it', watch this space....

Mama & Papa return tomorrow night much to Mariska's relief. The children are looking forward to their arrival. Mariska has done an absolutely magnificent job in their absence, there has been a good feeling about the place.
Please continue to pray for us and our good health, and pray for safe electricity. Pray also for the children as they are on holiday, that they will find positive ways to fill their time and for an extra portion of tolerance and patience for the Aunties.
Thank you to those who have sent Christmas goodies, especially Doris and Stella from St. Peter's for their decorations. I don't know if I've mentioned it before but we LOOOOVE getting mail!!
Until next time
God Bless

What a shocker (part one)

Where has the last week gone? Our last week of 'freedom' had us making further progress on the school storeroom on Monday and Tuesday, things are looking much better there now. Wednesday we travelled into Kampala to pick up Joshua's glasses at last. They have made a big difference to him already. We also got some much needed supplies before the holidays. Thursday was spent helping to set up for the school breakup on Friday. We also managed to get our wee darling down from the home for a while each day too. The main event though was the school breakup. It started at 10am and went until 3.30pm when the children ( and adults)were fed (all 500 people).
It was a celebration however with each class doing three items of song and/or dance with the odd drama thrown in. There are 8 classes so you can imagine the preparation needed. The parents also performed (without us thankfully) and all in all it was a great day. The boys then got their 'Christmas' boxes of goodies and their reports.
The photos show Richard( on the left) singing with actions with his class - it looks a classic on video.

The second photo shows Marilyn and Joshua accompanying P3 class for one of their songs. Joshua has really taken to the keyboard and is just lapping up anything that Marilyn can throw at him to play. What's more, he practises without being told.

The next photo shows the P5 class doing one of their songs with Owen in the second row,second one in with Timothy beside him and Matthew in the green jersey and red tie at the side. Matthew was responsible for opening and closing the curtain all day.



Finally a dance by some students in Richard's class which was quite delightful, especially the boy.
More to follow.......

Botanical gardens part two

This is known as a travellers palm as water traps in the leaves of the palm and if you were travelling and needed water you could just cut into the leaves and drink the water with a straw.




A boda boda, the commonest way of getting around. you need to negotiate the price however before you get on to make sure you are paying the proper fare and not the 'muzungu' one.




The last two photos are of the bird on the beach (I was tempted to write that caption on the photo of Marilyn in the last blog but I value my peace too much). This is a huge bird, which we were told the name of but have forgotten, which stood nicely on the beach and posed for the photos. They are quite impressive especially with their wings open.

Botanical Gardens (Part one)

Just some of the plants and flower from the gardens.
The first photo shows a goose plant flower open on the left and closed on the right. There were four of these in the casket of baby Peace which was lovely.

The second photo is of a yesterday,today and tomorrow tree with a close up of the three coloured flowers on it. We have those in NZ .
This final photo was a wonderful flower with the male and female parts together in the one flower. I can't remember the name ,however the colours were just gorgeous.

Our holiday

We had a wonderful three nights in Entebbe this last week. We left home Monday morning and arrived at the Airport Guest House around lunchtime , had lunch then read and slept in the afternoon. We didn't realise how tired we really were until we stopped. Dinner each night was served outside our unit on the lawn, by candlelight and lantern which was lovely.
On Tuesday in the morning we visited the market, bought some jandals and some material and fruit, returned for lunch at the guesthouse and then went to one of the hotels nearby for a swim. We had a choice of three hotels to visit and chose the wrong one this time. The pool was a covered pool, quite expensive and we weren't able to lounge in the sun as we had hoped. however we enjoyed it then returned 'home' for dinner.
The highlight for us was on Wednesday when we visited the Botanical Gardens. If we had just been on our own it would have been quite boring, just an expanse of trees with paths between them. However there was a botany student who showed us around and he made it so fascinating and interesting. We were surprised with the number of plants and trees we have in NZ which have come from Africa. We will include some photos separately.
In the afternoon we went to another hotel for lunch and a swim, this time an outdoor pool. Lunch was a bit of a disaster, many things listed in the menu were 'off' and the service was the worst we have experienced here. We are used to waiting for things but this was just slack. The hotel had a nice sandy beach in front of it so we sat on one of the benches and wrote a number of postcards to catch up on our correspondence. As you can see from this first photo it was another glorious day and we got a bit of a tan.


The second photo shows the unit we stayed in and the lovely chairs we could just relax in. It was a lovely setting for us. Just right!!



One of the 'toys' we had on our table each night were battery powered candles. You just shook them to make them come on or turn off. Needless to say Warwick enjoyed fiddling with them as the other two photos show.
They were bought in Holland so were not able to purchase any, what a pity as the boys would love them.


We left on Thursday morning and returned home to welcome home pictures on the door drawn by the boys which was great. They had been very well looked after and so far there hasn't been any regression in behaviour that we experienced last time.
The boys have one more week of school though most schools have finished already. They have their breakup and Christmas gifts on Friday so most of the week will be spent preparing for this. Marilyn is going to be helping with the music (surprise) and Warwick will be helping (pronounced heleping in Uganda) with staging (surprise, surprise), so this is likely to be a full-on week (are there any others?).
We have had Raghma down here each day since we came back, she is such a joy and gives us great pleasure. Her features are changing and she is starting to smile in recognition now, it just melts our hearts.
Baby Peace's mother, Jessica, is settling in to work here in the baby unit so that is nice for her, there is a lot of support here.
That's all for now.
God Bless

Sad news

Greetings. We arrived home last night from three wonderful nights away. We had a marvellous time in Entebbe which we will write about in another blog. However this morning we received the sad news that baby Peace had passed away at 4am. She had been in hospital since Wednesday and was simply unable to fight any longer and she slipped away. The good news was that her mother had been released by the court and has come to work at NACMU so she was with her when she died. Peace was laid to rest this afternoon at 2pm in a moving ceremony at the compound. There is a grave site here for the babies who die, it is nice that they are together.
Please pray for her mother, Jessica, that she may settle to work here, her son Godfrey was so overjoyed to see his mother when she arrived here and we feel that God's hand is on the whole situation, Peace had been struggling with feeding from an early stage so we know that now she is at peace. Please also pray for Mariska and especially for Renske who both did their utmost to help her, they are feeling the loss.
It has been a sad day.

The rest of our week

Since our very full and satisfying day on Tuesday we are pleased to report that baby Peace is making progress. Renske, our lab technician, has been looking after her and she is now almost 3.7kg. This is still lighter than our Raghma (who is 6 weeks old now and fatter in the face as the photo shows). Peace is 7 months old and is still very thin. Please continue to pray for her and her brother Godfrey, who has settled in well.
We also had another baby arrive on Friday from the same police station that Raghma came from, a 2 month old baby abandoned in good condition, healthy and happy, a gorgeous wee girl. Her name is Tessa. This means that we have had six new arrivals in the last three weeks, which takes the number of children to 115 or 116.
For us Wednesday was spent clearing out more junk from the school storeroom and writing a few letters, Thursday was spent sorting out the Christmas boxes for the children at the school and at home. For the home we have to take out the soaps, shampoos, toothpaste, pens and pencils, writing books, marbles, and chalk as these are used by the home or the school. We then replace what has been taken out with other gifts from other boxes. It was another full-on day but we were pleased to finish the task (over 200 boxes altogether).
We celebrated on Friday, by going to Kampala to replenish supplies before we go on holiday. Rebekah came with us also which was good for her to have a day out.

Saturday was a good day with our usual clean-up. We got our dear wee Raghma down mid morning for the day. She is changing in the face but has started to give some lovely smiles. We love her to bits and can appreciate how grandparents feel.




Today, Sunday, was a good session at Sunday school on Paul and Silas in prison and a good teaching at church by Pastor John. In between these we again had Raghma down here and while she was sleeping the boys decided to do a bit of hairdressing, firstly on Marilyn then on Warwick. We thought it was the revenge for their haircuts last week.










This is a lovely photo of Rebekah who is going to come and help Reny look after the boys while we go on our 'holiday'. We are really looking forward to our three nights off in Entebbe and are really grateful to Reny for staying with the boys to enable us to do this.
















Pleases pray for Reny, Rebekah and the boys in our absence, and for all the children in the home, especially the new arrivals. Please give a special prayer to the Aunties who are nursing the babies, we have a fresh appreciation for the wonderful work they do.
Also pray for Piet and Pita in Holland. They are extending their trip by a week as they have so much to do, please pray for good health also, as they are struggling with some very cold weather. Prayers for Mariska would be appreciated too, as she carries on magnificently.
Finally, once again thank you to all who keep in touch through email, text, and snail mail. I might have said it before, but we really do enjoy getting mail.
God Bless

Our day and saint Mariska

Thought we would share some of what we did today and a little about Mariska. Christmas is coming and the celebrations start on Dec 4th with the school breakup. At this each family gets a set of clothes for the family, along with a Christmas shoebox for the children. Last week we spent some time sorting suitable clothes, from the bales of clothes here. That task we completed today (there was a need for approx 180 sets). The workers here have a Christmas gathering on the 5th Dec where they all get some gifts. This year they are getting bedding along with other things, so we sorted out 120 nice blankets or quilts for that today as well as sorting out some clothes for Gulu ( the part of NACMU which operates there) and some nice clothes for gifts for the children in the home for Christmas. We managed to complete that task today too. So, all in all, it has been a busy but very satisfying day. All of these things are coordinated by Mariska, on top of her other responsibilities at the home. Mariska is a wonderful organiser, always unflappable when situations arise. She is 'in charge' while Piet and Pita are away. We finished the task about 5pm, Marilyn went to feed Raghma (we try to do that when we can) and as I was about to return home Mariska got a call from the police in Mukono. There were two children needing somewhere to go. She called on Marilyn and they both went to get the children-a 7 month old girl named Peace, and a 2 year old boy called Godfrey. Their mother had been arrested for child neglect as she had been locking the children in a home while she tried to find work so she could buy food. When we arrived, we had to take the children out of the mother's arms. It broke us all up to do this. The boy had a distended stomach and was so thirsty that he wanted to drink his bath water. We also suspect malaria as he was burning up. The little girl weighed about 3 kg and was severely dehydrated, so on arriving home Mariska and Renske decided that she needed immediate hospital attention, as feeding her anything could kill her if she got too much protein at once. So at half past seven Mariska and Renske and Auntie Eunice left to go to Mulago Hospital where there are 2 wards for babies with severe malnutrition. In Uganda, you need to stay and act as nurse to anyone admitted-there are no nursing staff like at home. Auntie Eunice a delightful 25 year old Ugandan woman with an amazing faith, will do this as she has for many other children. Dinner for Mariska would be at 10.30pm at the earliest!! We really love this amazing young woman, who has such a heart for the work she does. Do pray for her, she carries this place while Piet and Pita are away. As can be seen from the photo she always has a ready smile no matter how she is feeling. She is truly one of God's special saints!

Another week flies by

Indeed another week has flown by, we have enjoyed having baby Raghma in our home, she has really captured our hearts. We have spent a lot of time with her this week. On Tuesday I went with Joshua to Mengo Hospital to have his eyes checked further. We now know that he needs glasses. So we chose frames and will probably get them this week. We think it will make a big difference to his classwork.
Friday, having decided to relinquish Raghma, we went to Kampala for a day at the beach. By the time we got to Kampala it was thundering and lightning and pelting with rain so we just went shopping instead, had a nice lunch, and filled in the emptiness of not having our baby.
Saturday was a wet day for most of the day. The boys spent the afternoon painting. They are getting very good at drawing now, this picture shows Mark, Richard, Timothy, Paul and Ezra making some pictures for our wall.










It cleared up for a while So Richard and Ezra went outside for a bounce while Joshua looked on.












Meanwhile, Owen was busy in the kitchen with Marilyn cooking sweet and sour chicken for dinnner.











It is good to know that there are some Kiwi Icons around the world. One such item is shoe polish shown here. So Ugandans know about Kiwi.



That's all for this week
God Bless you all