A very busy time

Greetings, these blogs are getting further apart. My apologies, I will try to get them back to weekly updates but we have had a very busy time recently and continue to have internet difficulties.
to bring you up to date..... our daughter Jen arrived on the 4th March, and so did the rain that week. It was nice to catch up and just talk and we have been spoilt by having a new laptop courtesy of generous contributions from the crew of the boat Scott skippers and Jen works on (the name is Seven Sins). Thanks to the crew, keep on making 'stuff-ups' to add to the jar.... Jen & Scott also presented us with a video camera so now we can catch all the action on film. As the operator I still need somewhat more practice, but so far have three birthdays and Rhode crawling on film.
Maesu, our 'daughter' from Japan arrived on the 13th for a week, she hasn't changed a bit, though she said we had (I've "lost weight" which is probably a polite way of saying I look old). Again we had a good catch up and she also very generously left us her old laptop, with most instructions in Japanese, along with some good maths games for the boys to play which they are loving. Unfortunately we had a lot of rain that week and although we needed it, it affected what we could do somewhat.
Scott arrived on the 18th and Maesu left on the 19th so we had a very full house for one
(I lost the internet last night while writing this so will continue now.....)
night. The boys enjoyed having the visitors especially the goodies they brought and the photos of 'The Seven Sins". It is a very different lifestyle.
We took the opportunity to go with Jen & Scott to Jinja for three nights away, while they rafted the rapids we blobbed. We came back on the Wednesday for Alvin's birthday, had Josh's birthday on Thursday, Uncle Ronald's on Friday and Matthew's on Saturday so we are almost all birthdayed out.... but there are still more to come, Hope's tomorrow and Rhode has her 1st birthday on Saturday. Marilyn is well practiced at making birthday cakes.
As well as all this NACMU had its first wedding on Sunday Letita and Biira, two of the workers here were married. We were asked to organise the service, so Marilyn chose and played the music, with help from some of the boys, and once it got underway things went well. For anyone who has been in Africa, you will know that African time is quite different from Muzungu time. the wedding was due to start at 2pm and finally got underway at 3.30pm. The pastor who was officiating was in a hurry so the vows were said in double quick time so the service was all over about 4pm.there were then photos and the reception. The bride's father turned up at 6pm, in time to give a speech and have some food and things wound up about 7pm.
Needless to say, Monday was a catch-up day to just recover somewhat.
Yesterday we went shopping in Kampala to replenish the store though Marilyn was not feeling the best.
This morning Marilyn was diagnosed with Malaria so she is now on a course of tablets and is resting.
That is all the news for now, we will try to post some photos but we have been having difficulty getting stable internet but we will keep on trying.
Until next time
God Bless

some pics

Jen & Marilyn after Sunday church Rhode in a happy mood Joshua and Peace (brother & sister) at Peace's birthday Peace and her cake, another from Marilyn

The highs and lows of a day

Greetings to you all who are still following our exploits. We have been without stable internet access for over a week and it has been incredibly frustrating. Today I invested in a new modem and it seems to have fixed the problem for now. We have posted a photo of Jethro aged two weeks and you can see he is making good progress. On Monday 28th Feb. a call was received from the police with another baby to care for. He is named Ethan and he was about two months old and severely malnourished weighing only 1.2 kg. Pita took incredible care of him, feeding him 5mls every hour for the first day, then increasing it slowly through a tube as he did not know how to suck. On Thursday he went with Pita to the Drs as he was struggling and certain complications were discovered.
However I want to tell you about Friday.
It started out as normal with an assembly at 8am with the primary school, home for breakfast, then back at 11am for assembly with the nursery school. After this I went down to the containers to do some sorting while Marilyn made some preparations for our daughter Jen who was arriving on Saturday, so we thought. It happened that Marilyn was near the computer and noticed that Scott (Jen's fiance) was on skype, so she sent him a message only to get a reply that he had just dropped Jen off at the airport and she was arriving TODAY. So she came and got me from the containers about 2pm, Richard had come home sick so we needed to take him to the Drs, and we needed to leave by about 4pm to be sure of getting there in time (you never know what the traffic is like in Kampala). We took Owen and Hope with us and managed to make it in good time.
It was sooooo nice to see her and we have enjoyed many late nights talking and catching up. Of course the boys were still up when we arrived home but finally they were all in bed by about 10.30pm.
At 11pm Piet called us to say that Ethan was not doing well, so we went up to give support and to pray. Boy did he battle, his poor little body was struggling to breath and he would not give in. Eventually, however, at 1.05am Ethan stopped breathing, the battle was over. For us it brought back memories of our dear wee Raghma, but this wee boy had too much to deal with. The only comfort we could get from this situation was that he knew love in the last few days of his life, real love. Pita had devoted so much to this wee boy, at some cost to herself, it is taking a long time for the batteries to be recharged. Renske also gave a lot of time and energy to this boy. On top of that, another girl arrived on Friday, Bonisa, who is well nourished and is doing well, but was unwanted by her family, so once again the police called NACMU.
So for us Friday 4th March was a day of tremendous highs and lows, but we feel privileged to be here and to be part of God's work in this place.
Better be off to bed now, till next time
God Bless

some recent pics

Jethro at 2 weeks, doing well
Marjorine's birthday crown and cake with the magic candles
In full flight at assembly
View from the back of assembly