HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Happy New Year!  We are finally starting to get settled again after the holiday's. Celebrating in Uganda this year was different, but good.  It was weird not being with family, but yet we feel our team is also becoming part of our family. We all celebrated together on Christmas and also on New Year's Day. We exchanged gifts, sang Christmas carols and even ate ham!  Our kids had their ups and downs. They missed their cousins so much, but they also had fun with our celebrations here. As you can tell by my previous sentences, there were lots of mixed emotions. 

Yesterday, we had a wonderful day.  We picked our friends up from their village. We left our place around 8 am and arrived in the village around 9:30 am. It was so fun to be reunited with these friends. Drew and Troy were thrilled to be with their friend Paul all day. We ate tons of oranges, visited and just explored their place. They have so many different fruit trees and vegetables. We also took a drive to Lake Kyoga and explored that area.  The people here mainly fish and then bring it to bigger cities.  Omina ( a dried minnow) is everywhere lying in the sun! Our friend, Kristine, even bought some fresh fish, which we tied to our roof rack to take home. She was so excited to get fresh fish at a good price!!  After visiting the area, we bumped our way back to the village. Once back at the village they prepared us lunch/dinner.  We were served pork muchomo (grilled pork).  We also tried their local bread atapa. It is a starchy ball of dough that you break off pieces and then dip in the pork soup! Even Ashley tried it! I was so proud of her. After dinner, we left for home with 15 passengers in our 8 passenger van.  We also had all their luggage on top of the van and 2 chickens in the van. I sure we were quite a sight to see.  We got a lot of stares! 

Lydia mingling atapa

I also wanted to write to ask you to pray for us!  Tomorrow we are going to Entebbe and covet your prayers for safe travels. We are having our team strategy retreat. The president of International Teams will be joining us and leading us in most of our sessions.  It will be a time of worship, work and fun. The main agenda is to focus in on our strategy.  Along with us we have other new team members and we all need to be focused on where we are going and what God has called each of us to do. Please pray that we have open communication and get lots of work accomplished while we are there. Please pray for the kids too!  Pray that they all get along and also feel like it is a time of refreshment. We are staying in a place with a pool and that is a treat here. We don't have a pool in Soroti, and it is really hot right now!

We were trying to get back into the routine of school this week.  I now feel so bad for teachers when kids have had a long break!  You have to reestablish the classroom again!! It is awful! I feel like I finally get into a routine with my kids and more things come up. After the team retreat, I think things will settle down and we can have more focused days of school. Right now I am just trying to maintain the core subjects, but those aren't always the fun ones. I really love homeschooling and look forward to a more focused full day!

I wish I could type as fast as my brain thinks. There are so many more things I would love to share with you, but unfortunately I need to keep packing! Tomorrow morning is going to come way too fast. 

Martin

Many have asked about Drew's friend Martin!  He seems to be doing fine. He has not been around as much through the holiday's, but has been here. He is looking forward to the return of his father on January 14. Keep praying for his safe return. He is a soldier in Somalia and it is not a great place to be right now!! I keep encouraging him to read his Bible, but he has not been at church the last couple of weeks so I hope to have a chance to visit with him again soon. When we return from Soroti, I will make a visit to his home. He really wants us to come visit.