Not much going on!

I don't have much to report, but things are going really well. We have gotten into a nice routine with schooling. We usually do Bible, Math, Spelling and Writing in the morning, then break for lunch and after lunch we finish the day with five minute Math Drills, reading, Science and sometimes Geography.  I try to make every day a little different, but stick to basically the same schedule. We are usually finished with class between 1:30 and 2. Sometimes, they have a little bit of work they have to finish after class. This is usually Ashley since a little more is required of her.

Steve continues to be very busy, and will be getting busier. Next week he will be starting to make weekly or bi-weekly visits out to the village to follow-up with the pastors who are doing the TLT program. Right now he has been going out with Josh for the actually training so this will be an exciting change for him. He is great at relationship building and encouraging and we are excited to see what it will lead to.  He is also starting a study on Theophostic Prayer.  This will be one time a week for about 1/2 of a day. He is looking forward to having a regular routine. Besides all the village visits, on Monday he is starting language learning( he was supposed to start this week, but Pastor Francis got Malaria) about every other day or as much as possible.  I have to continually tell him that he needs to be finished with work around 5:30 so we can have some family time.

Life takes so much time here. We seem to always be fixing a tire being called to this persons home or called to help transport to school or a village.  We love it and it is helping us build great relationships. Our kids have been troopers. Days that we go out to the village are really long days. We usually have an overpacked van and the roads are incredibly rough. When we arrive in the village, we do a lot of sitting and we are served food that my kids are not familiar with. They are complaining less and less in the vehicle. That is a blessing!!

Another thing that I am learning to enjoy here is cooking!  I love to cook and here I am forced to, because believe me there are not very many good restaurants here.  There are two places we can eat at that are restaurants, but you selection is chicken or fish or chicken or fish. It gets pretty boring. At home I enjoy trying new recipes and baking lots of bread. My kids do not complain about food near as much as they used to.  They know that we are limited and I think they know that I am trying.

Well, I wish I had more pictures to post, but we have not taken many lately!  Who wants to take a picture of me teaching?!

We continue to miss you all and look forward to any emails and skype chats. We covet your prayers for continued open doors for ministry.  We feel so blessed to be serving God in this way and want to be faithful to what he has called us to.

Our team at our Team Beyond Strategy Retreat! The president of International Teams and his wife were at the retreat along with Anthony Jones, another IT VP.   It was a great retreat and love the direction our team is going in! God has given us wonderful people to work with! All different and unique in their own way!

Ashley was so excited to get Auntie Rachael's Chocolate cookies for her birthday! I love that Ashley has wonderful young women in her life to help her grow and mature. She had it back and the states and God is still honoring that desire  here too!

This is our watchman Moses and his wife Sarah!  They are a wonderful young couple and we pray that God will use them  and that their marriage will be God centered. They have a daughter Rebecca and they have just taken in Moses youngest sister , Sharon, into their home. She is an orphan and we are so pleased that he has taken the responsibility for her!

We are starting to really build relationships and we are starting to feel more at home here! We have plugged into a church and feel this is where God is calling us to minister!  The pastor is a godly man and is an exception to most Ugandan pastors.  He is incredible humble and really cares for his flock. We just found he takes no salary from his church, because he does not want people to think he is a pastor because it brings privileges. You see, so many pastors here, become pastors for status and in hopes of someone sending them to America to be trained. They really just want to get to America. (Not All)

Our team has also been working in a community called Obule and we have been very encouraged by the change in the community! Their marriages have been transformed and other parts of their lives too. People in neighboring communities have even noticed a difference.  It is so exciting to see God working in the hearts and lives of these wonderful people. 

In our family, we are adjusting to homeschooling. In the beginning there is always a learning curve. We have adjusted our curriculum to fit how we learn together. I now feel my kids are learning so much more than when we started. It is a blessing to be the one teaching and encouraging my children.  Some days are a struggle, but most of the time I love being their teacher!

Steve has been going out to Obule village with a teammate Josh to be mentored. Steve went through Timothy Leadership training(TLT), but doing it in the village is always different than sitting in a class learning.  On Monday, he will start intense study of the language with Pastor Francis. The people here love when you speak their native language, even if we mess up.  We are praying that God will give people right here in Pamba a desire to have TLT. Our Pastor here has been very encouraging and he thinks it would be a great place to have the classes. It is so great to live in a community that we can work in! 

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.