Today was a great day! Our teammate, Rachel came and taught our kids today.  She was a 4th grade teacher before becoming a missionary.  This morning we did a prayer walk through Pamba and afterward she asked if I wanted her to substitute teach today!! It was a huge blessing to me and the kids. I had so much fun watching her 2 1/2  year old and 8 month old baby and I think she loved teaching for the day. Tonight Ashley had so much to tell me and she was so excited. They assured me they still love me teaching them, but Aunt Rachel gave them so many good ideas of what to do in class.

After our strategy retreat in January. Team Beyond has formed to smaller teams within the whole team. Each team is focus on a certain area of Teso area.  Our team consists of Bobby and Rachel Kolb, Karen(Aunt Karebear) Lubbers and Becky Carlson.  Steve is our Community Development Leader (CDC) or in other words our team leader. Our area of focus is Soroti Town and Pamba area.  Every month we are doing a prayer walk through each area to open our eyes to the assets of the community and keep our eyes open to some who seem invisible. In Soroti town, Bobby is involved in the street kids ministry.  It is amazing what these kids live like. As we were doing our walk through Soroti town, we greeted some of the kids that Bobby ministers to.  They are so young and just living on the streets. I pray that God will become real to them even in there uncertain circumstances. God is a God of All!
Karen is new to the team and is still trying to discern her main ministry focus.  She is involved in evangelism explosion trainings, children's ministries, and sidewalk relational ministry.  We were at training with her at IT and she is very loved by my kids.
Becky mainly works with the former child soldiers out in a village. She will be living out in the village two weeks out of the month.  When she is in Soroti, she is involved in relating to the Muslim women.
We call ourselves the SoPaTea team.  We meet with this smaller team for meetings and worship times. It has kept Steve very busy with structuring the meetings, checking in with everyone and keeping up with his own ministry focus. He loves it!


Another excited event in our household is our new kitten!! ( our Tabby cat went outside our gate and is no more) Our watchman, Moses called us one morning and said that he had kitty's by his place. I ran over there to check them out. The mom was still with them, but I told him that we would love one. He watched all day until the mom finally moved and Steve and him caught the baby.They took it to our house and it is so cute. The bad thing was that it had about  100 fleas on it and about 20 ticks.  My friend Hellen was over and she helped me give it a bath and pick the fleas off with a teezers. Some fell off just from the hot water. It was so gross, but so worth it!  He is so cute and sweet. Drew has been carrying it around non stop. He even takes it out with him wherever he goes. He puts it in his pocket and the cat just sleeps. It has kept me awake at night and Drew wanted to wake up with it in the night so he could give me a break.  He tried and then he took him to me at midnight and said "I just can't do it mom"  He was so tired, but so cute for trying.

For homeschooling, we are studying Aquatic Ecosystems and the other day our focus was on Coral Reefs.  The kids made their own coral reef out of clay.  Here are some pictures of their projects.  I have such talented kids or I am just a really good teacher! LOL!

This week I had a new experience. Many Ugandan women get their hair braided and I decided that I needed to at least experience it.  On Wednesday, I sat for 8 hours and got my hair braided.  It is so crazy, I have never had so much hair in my life! Every time I see myself in a mirror, I wonder who I am looking at.  I feel like I have a wig on my head, but after sitting for 8 hours, it is staying in whether I like it or not. By the way, it only cost about $10 to have it done. I don't think I would work that hard if I knew I was only making that much money. I even paid her more than a normal Ugandan would pay her.  It was a great experience and a way to get to know more people. So many people came up and talked to me, since we were in the middle of the Pamba market.  I will try to take pictures of my new Ugandan do, but please don't be shocked!

Many of you have asked about Ashley, and I want to report that things are going good!  We have really hard days, but God is faithful! He is stretching her, molding and shaping her.  She is still not loving it here, but she does love some things about here. I also am reassured that God is in control of all things and Ashley is here for a special purpose for her life. Even though it is hard on us as parents and it is hard on her as a young lady, we know that God had this time of suffering planned for her before she was even a thought in our minds. We have had great conversations and she has been seeking God's word.  Please pray that she continues to talk to me and tell me how she is feeling and pray that she continues to seek God's plan for her life! 

Sending LOVE to you all from Uganda!!!

Today we finally went to church with our friends Robert and Joy.  They have two children, Godwin (3) and Emmanuel (4 months).   We met them pretty quickly after we moved here and have wanted to worship with them, but the time was not right till now.  Robert has been working on our boy's quarters (guest house) since we moved here.  Steve has formed a great relationship with him and they talk a lot about how we need to use Biblical principles in our work.  He is a wonderful Christian man and we have become quite close to him. We are praying that God will continue the relationship so we can work alongside him to encourage other local business men in practicing Biblical principles in the work place.
Anyway, we went to church with them and it was a good service. It still amazes me how different worship is here. It is good, but so different. We did sing the song, This is the day, but it was sung in a completely different way.
After church we went to their house for lunch. He was so excited to serve us Ugandan food. We have had him eat with us many times and now it was his turn to serve us. The smile on his face was priceless. There was so much food on the table though that we could not finish it all. I think Joy made every Ugandan dish because he wanted us to taste it all. He kept saying, "Keep eating!! This is all for you! I know how much was in these dishes, so I know how much you have eaten!"  It was so funny!  I really did get very satisfied, but I could not eat anymore.
They then wanted to show us their plot of land.  They have purchased land and are trying to save up so they can build a house. It is a beautiful plot of land and we hope to visit it often and share many times of fellowship there. They are very interested in having a class on Biblical family planning. What does God say about the number of children we should have and how do we plan our families according to godly principles.  They really want to do the class at their land because they think there will be many people interested.  It is so fun for me to imagine being on their land and serving our friends in this way. Our team mate Jennifer is a nurse and is willing to teach the class!  We are so grateful and look forward to that time. Please pray that we can get it organized and that many will come so we can share the love of Jesus.
We then brought them back to where they stay and we headed home. It was a great day!

This is our friend Robert eating a bran muffin for the first time.

When we arrived home one of our neighborhood friends, Joshua, was at the gate and wanted to talk to me. He sent the boys away and shared with me that his father got chased from his job. His mother sent him to ask for help. So many questions go through my mind. How do we help?  What is the most effective way to help? Why is there so much sadness here, but yet so much joy?  O Lord, you are the provider!  Please give us wisdom in times of trouble!
I prayed with Joshua and I will talk to  him again this week.  It is so hard to see this sweet boy struggling. He had tears running down his cheeks and I just told him that God loves him even in the hard times. We pray that his father will get a job!  His parents drink alcohol to forget their troubles.  So much pain in this young boys life. I think how hard it is to ask people for things and I think of so many children here struggling every day for food and having to ask others for things all the time. Please join me in prayer for this young boy and pray for us as we pray about the best way to minister to him. We trust God for His guidance and direction.

Drew's Aim is getting really good!

I don't know if you can see how big this grasshopper is, but it is huge!  Drew shot it with his slingshot!  The best part of this insect is the color! It is just another picture of our God's amazing creativity!  

It is almost as big as Troy's hand!

Exciting Night!

This is our food that awaited us!!

I think the pictures say it all!  Ken has a broken arm and the dr that put it on must have been in a hurry and he put the cast on way too tight and Ken started getting an infection in his hand from the plaster cutting into it.  Steve and our team mate Jennifer removed it with a sawzaw!  Ken did great and Steve was very nervous with all the little fingers around, but after about an hour the cast was finally removed.  To make things even more exciting,  the power went off about 1/2 way through.  After it was removed Jennifer recast it and we all sat down around the fire for pork and potatoes!  It was a very interesting night!  My kids are very tired today after a long night.  We didn't eat until around 8:45pm.
Only in Africa do you have an opportunity like this!