Pics for blog update #1

Sorry, it appears the photos for the first blog update didn't load so here they are.
Just had 40 chidren here for an end of holiday DVD with ice cream and popcorn. Watched Pocahontas and all had a good time. Ready for bed now though
Goodnight!!

Blog update #3

One final update to bring you up-to-date. Jackie had to have one final swing before she left (the big kid) but she couldn't swing higher than Timothy.

No blog update is ever really complete without another photo of Raghma. This was taken about a week ago. She still gives us much pleasure each day, though she hasn't shaken off her cough and has a stuffed up nose. She also has a temperature at present so please pray for her wellbeing. The boys love having her down here and want us to keep her overnight but we are resisting that at present.

The third photo shows Richard proudly doing an alphabet floor jigsaw puzzle. He loves it when the pieces fit together, we're sure there is a sermon here waiting to be written. It was just too good to miss.




The final picture is of Owen using a magnifying glass to burn the name of one of the cows onto a plaque. This cow is called Jane. This has been a project for the boys this week. A new cow has been bought and the sponsor wanted it named Alice so they did such a good job on Alice that now all the cows want one- should keep them busy for a while.
We have been helping to prepare for school starting again, sorting out shoes, though not very successfully for school shoes. Will do more once school is back.
Also we have been helping to sort out shoeboxes as some will go to other organisations and we have needed to look for books for the school to use, so our days have been busy.
We did manage a day out in Kampala yesterday which included a rather large shopping order. Anyway, enough of our news.....
There is a bit of malaria around at present with 5 cases in the home, Caleb has gone to hospital as his immune system is very low, and he has pneumonia, so he needs our prayers, and toddler Comfort has a serious burn to her arm so she needs our prayers also.
Please also pray for us that we may remain healthy and well. We both get tired easily and would appreciate all the help we can get from the Big Fella.
So that's all for now........
God Bless

Blog update #2

Hello again. On Thursday Reny, who had been looking after the boys while we were in Jinja, brought them all up in the bus for a swim and day out. It was a great day, the boys absolutely looooved the pool and we simply have too many pictures to be able to show them all (whew, I hear you say!!) However, the first photo is of us all in the pool towards the end of the afternoon, again the weather was glorious. They had sausage and chips for lunch, and a soda, so had a really good day out.
The second photo shows Jackie and Bevan getting up close and personal as they deflated, well I mean they deflated one of the big balls the boys had brought over.
We finished by stopping on the way home for Chicken on a stick, and another soda, and arrived home about 7pm, tired but happy.



On Saturday it was time to farewell our friends. We had a wonderful 9 days together and it was hard saying goodbye. The obligatory photos in front of our house were taken, firstly the four of us, then J & B with the boys. The boys enjoyed having them stay also, even if they were more teachers, but they especially enjoyed having the stories read to them from some of the books they brought.
More to come.......

Blog update #1

We're back!! It has been a while since I wrote, I was hoping to do so on Sunday but our hard drive crashed on our computer. We were very worried about the photos we hadn't backed up but fortunately a computer guru called Alfred was able to retrieve it all so we are very thankful that we haven't lost anything. Last time we were about to go to Jinja so these photos are from there. We had a wonderful time, the weather was great, food good, and company exceptional.
The first photo is Bevan showing us how his mosquito net hat worked as he swatted an insect away.

The second is of Marilyn and Jackie deciding what they wanted for dinner. We had to order at least an hour before we wanted to eat which took a bit of getting used to.
On the Tuesday Jackie & Bevan visited their sponsored 'child' Benard ( he is now 18yrs) in his village, a journey of about two and a half hours drive from Jinja. It was an amazing experience for them to meet the boy they have sponsored for 10 yrs. Marilyn & I stayed by the pool to swim and sleep.

On Wednesday we went on a boat ride to the source of the Nile, the next photo is of Jackie and Bevan on Rippon Falls island which signifies the source
The fourth photo shows them in our boat with the driver/commentator in the background. He was appropriately named..... you guessed it.....Moses!
There was some amazing wildlife to see, especially the birds.
More to come.........

Friends

While thinking back over the past week I wondered what I would write this week as it has only been a few days since the last blog . Well it's all about friends. The first picture is the one which fell off the blog last time. It shows the boys reading their letters from Mahora School.
We welcomed Jackie and Bevan on Thursday evening. Jimmy took us to Entebbe to meet them. We took Richard with us too and it was quite a delight to see his excitement.
It was great to catch up with them and show them around the compound, we have hardly stopped talking. It is good to catch up with news from home.
We are going to Jinja tomorrow morning with them for three nights as a bit of a holiday which we are REALLY looking forward to as we know we are ready for a break. The boys are calling me 'Uncle Grumpy' too quickly these days.

We tried to involve Jackie and Bevan in as much of our normal routine as we could so the second photo shows Jackie on Saturday morning helping with the mopping out, while the third photo shows Bevan directing (yeah right!).

The influx of babies continues, another abandoned baby was accepted here yesterday and dedicated in church today. Another girl named Tirza, about three weeks old, left on the side of the road. She is another wee beauty almost as beautiful as Raghma.
We are still getting Raghma down each day as our moments of delight and we are going to miss her over the next four days. I'm sure she said her first word yesterday, it was Uncle, at least that's what it sounded like to me. No one else heard it and they are trying to teach her other things, but they have no show of beating Uncle!!
Please pray for Reny as she comes to look after the boys on top of her other duties, and that the boys, especially Paul, will behave and be helpful.
Till next time
God Bless

Another week, and a bit, bites the dust.

Greetings to you all, I wanted to write this on Sunday evening but the power has been quite variable and it has taken up until tonight, Wednesday, to have the time and stable power to do it. Don't seem to get time during the day while the boys are home to write. It has been a busy but relatively uneventful week. On Sunday Brad, a missionary from USA, who was a hairdresser for a while before he came here, offered to cut the boys hair here (here, here!). He cut them in the style of his own as you can see by the first photo of him with Paul, Timothy,Richard, Owen and Ezra. The others had scarpered before the photo but they too were bald.
On Monday Alex ans Simon came to Internet Cafe Dingle to catch up with Sherrilyn & Deanne which was nice for us to do also.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we were involved in some of the activities organised for the children, helping to run craft activities for different groups after lunch and as can be seen in the second photo, Marilyn was preparing for her birthday by having her toenails done. Why pay for it to be done or do it yourself if you have boys wanting to have a go?

As we were busy on Wed. we did our shopping on Thursday and managed to pick up a parcel for Alex & Simon from the post office and also got some more books for the boys, they LOOOVE reading. We had been invited to go with the Dutch missionaries to a New Year party at the Dutch embassy for that afternoon/evening. Free food, free drinks, why not? We were picked up in Kampala by them and had a nice time. There are a lot of folk from the Netherlands here in Uganda and as they mostly spoke in Dutch, we were happy to sit and watch, it's one of our favourite pastimes watching people.
Friday was catch-up day, cooking for the weekend. Simon collected their parcel and was really happy with the contents.

The third picture shows the boys reading their letters from pupils at Mahora school . This is the second lot of letters they had received and really enjoy getting letters. They LOOOOOVE getting letters!! The boys had replied to the first ones so this was a nice follow-up. Our friend Jackie, whose class it was, is arriving here tomorrow with Bevan so she will see first hand how much the boys appreciate their letters.
OOPS - in editing this I seem to have lost the third picture, sorry.



Finally to Marilyn's birthday on Sunday. It is impossible to avoid birthdays here though we were able to limit the fuss a little. The boys had all wrapped something for her, she now has about 8 new pens, and she can be seen in her new outfit opening some of them in the morning. We had Sunday School as usual in the morning and Church in the afternoon (a great service with some really good singing and worship, along with a good message from Pastor John). Managed to get Raghma down for a couple of hours after that and prepared for a party with the missionaries at 8pm. Timothy and I baked a cake (chocolate microwave), Matthew and Owen made pikelets so we had coffee and cake. They all have adopted children so we had a good number of 2-3yr olds here too but the boys are very good at playing with them. All-in-all it was a nice time.
Just to update you on the children. The family of three are still in hospital but it seems that the family (grandparents) are on the scene so they may not even return to us here which is good news.
Also good news is another baby, Tabitha 2 weeks old, abandoned and taken to the same police station as Raghma, has joined us here at NACMU. We were unable to prise her away from Pita to bring her down here, but she is almost as gorgeous as our wee girl, almost! This takes us up to 117 or 118 chidren so the numbers continue to grow.
We are really looking forward to the arrival tomorrow of Jackie and Bevan, we are taking Richard with us to the airport to pick them up as Uncle Bevan has been writing and praying for him, he is soooo excited.
Please continue to pray for Noah's Ark here, there are many organisational changes taking place as the numbers grow, there is a need for more missionaries here so please pray for the right people to come.
God Bless

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all, those in NZ we hope you are enjoying the summer though it sounds like some of the weather is variable in some places. The weather is still unsettled here though we are getting more dry weather so are able to get washing dry. Our New Year was again a busy time, along with helping with some activities and extra baking, we had the boys around most of the time. New Year's Eve day was spent helping to cook oliebollen, a Dutch delicacy which is something of a tradition here. It is like a donut dough or batter mixture with yeast and when cooked with pineapple or banana or apple, is really delicious. Marilyn didn't think so as it is deepfried as you can see in the first photo. Mariska and Pita can be seen spooning them into the cooking vat of oil.

The second photo is Richard enjoying the oliebollen with icing sugar on the side. The children could eat as much as they could and we still had enough left-overs for lunch on Saturday.

During the week the children had all made a lantern with a tealight candle in it, and after dinner we lit them and they paraded around the lawn carrying the lanterns on a stick. It looked really fabulous. We couldn't capture it fully on camera. Of course they sang as they paraded around so it was quite a sight. Following this the younger children went to bed and the older ones went to the verandah outside Piet & Pita's for some games and activities (Indian chief, scissors, black magic, and others). There were about 35 children gathered- they had all had a sleep in the afternoon. It was a really good time. About 10.30 they went in to watch a DVD until midnight (with sodas (of course) and chippies and peanuts).
With 5 mins to go, we went outside and filled our glasses with champagne (shaken up Sprite) and toasted the new year in. Fireworks followed (popping balloons by jumping on them) and some visitors had brought a small hot air balloon which was sent into the sky. It had all of the festivities one could wish for, as well as joining for Auld Lang Syne. The children enjoyed it immensely and they tumbled into bed, dirty, at 1am. We had some very tired children the next day.

On New Year's Day we had a church service in the morning where a couple of our puppets had an airing and the rest of the day was spent recovering and resting, at least we did. The boys watched as a truck with a new container on it arrived and was off-loaded by a crane and an empty container was removed to a new site. It was a good way for them to enjoy the afternoon while we treasured our wee girl (please tell us if you are sick of hearing about Raghma but we think she is really gorgeous). Her cough has improved and she is feeding much better so thank you for your prayers. She is starting to try to talk now so is really cute. Don't you think she is lovely?

Today, Sunday, Piet & Pita went to the Mukono police station to collect three children who were all severely undernourished. One was 8 months old and weighed only 2.5 kg, another was a year and a half, with the third being 3 yrs. They have all been taken to the hospital, along with their mother, as there are grave concerns especially for the baby. We haven't seen them or even know their names but please pray for these little ones. The father faces charges of neglect, though there is hope that he will be able to work here and be with his family. Please also pray for us and the boys, 4 more weeks of holidays to go. We are looking forward to the visit of our friends Jackie & Bevan from the 14th and will get a small break away with them in Jinja.
We look forward to what God has in store for us in 2010, may He bless you richly in whatever you do.
Our love until next time.