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. 

Jesus is Born today!

It was different this year celebrating in the heat, but I think it was probably hot where Jesus was born. I don't know. We tried to get the kids gifts from Africa since they are all excited about things here! The boys each got a drum and slingshot.  Ashley got a Ugandan purse and a ebony elephant!  We had a fun day with the kids eating popcorn and watching Polar Express!

On Wednesday we had the privilege of taking Pastor Francis and his family out to their village. Their village is about one and a half hours away on crazy bumpy roads.  We packed up all their luggage around 9:30 in the morning, which included bikes and mattresses on top and a chicken by our feet. We packed eleven of us into our eight passenger van.  Thankfully we have air conditioning in our van! We started out from their home with Benjamin(a church member) praying for to safe travels.
We drove to Lake Kyoga first, and saw many cool things. In the one picture, Drew is holding and looking at a hippo tooth that was along the shore. We saw a funny looking duck and her cute little ducklings fighting over a minnow that one had caught. We were then told that we could take a boat ride across the lake to see many monkeys. The boat ride over was so nice with the breeze blowing on our faces and surrounded by our friends. When we arrived on the other shore we did not see monkeys immediately so we trekked back into the land in search for monkeys.  Along the way, we saw exotic birds, colorful butterflies, cows, and many unique plants and trees. We did finally see some monkeys after trekking a ways. We then got back on our boat and started back. We then saw monkeys in the trees right by the shore.  They were giving us a show.  After we observed them for a little bit we took off and then returned back to the other side.
We then drove to Janet's(Pastor's wife) village. We visited her mother and some of her siblings.  It was a beautiful village and we relaxed for a little while and got rehydrated. (We were all a little dehydrated from the boat ride since we forgot to take water. ) Steve found out later that she has only seen her mother twice this year and even now their wasn't much conversation.
Pastor Francis's village was our next stop. It was beautiful with orange, lemon, avocado, papaya trees and other vegetable plants. We visited while they prepared us a meal. The chicken we brought along was slaughtered and then the boys chased another chicken and that was also on the menu. We watched them prepare them so carefully for us. It was done with such love and care. They know we are more picky with our meat and they prepared it beautifully. It was really humbling! When the meat was complete they served us first and smiled broadly as we enjoyed the meal they had just prepared. They all had to be hungry, but in their custom they serve the guests first.
It was a wonderful day full of many lessons on culture. We are so thankful for their friendship and the blessing they are to us. We will miss them for the two weeks they are in the village.

Timothy Leadership Training

I (Steve) have been working along side with Joshua Shaarda teaching Timothy Leadership Training (TLT).  This training here in Pingere (pictures below), which is about an hour ride on motorcycle from Soroti, is the first of TLT Training in this area.  I was able to go at the beginning and see the initial planning stages up to the actual start of training.  We consistently had around 25 pastors/church leaders attend both days of the training on Pastoral Care.  I am privileged to be immersed in the culture because I am learning a lot from the Ateso people.  I will be starting more intense language training after the first of the year with a Pastor Francis who is a neighbor of ours.  I've also been in a village called Orungo where TLT is being taught.  I am also excited to possibly do follow ups with the Pastor's Action Plans and Results for Kingdom Change which is a vital part of TLT Training.  This will bring opportunities to meet at homes and work in gardens and build trust and relationships with the Ugandan people.  Our ministry here in Uganda is all relational.  Working along side the Ugandan people is our ministry teaching them the Biblical Worldview.  I  am excited to share more in the future about TLT and the work God has given me to do here in Soroti and Beyond.  2 Timothy 2:2 "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others."

Pastor Peter following the Scripture

Instruments used for praise & worship, and for a table.

Everything is translated from English to Ateso

This pastor's son sat in on the training session.

This is the church in Pingere,  brick/mud walls,  stick/thatch roof,  dung floor.

Pastor Martin playing the drum during praise & worship

This pastor following along our track 1session on Pastoral Care (Caring For God's People).

Joel,  he lives right on the main road of Pamba and when we drive by or walk by he yells Muzungu!  He goes to our church and his siblings play at our home, so I keep telling him "You call me Auntie, not muzungu."  One day he will learn.  He is soo cute and runs up to me and grabs my hand now that he is used to me!

Ashley holding one of Paul's baby chicks.  

Winnie is Joel's older sister.  She has the most beautiful eyes and a sweet personality to go with them!

Celestine, trying to be sassy!! 

Avalien is Paul's sister and is just weeks younger than Ashley! Peace!!

Timothy is the older brother to Joel and Winnie.  He also had baby chicks, but no food for them so we gave him food for the chicks and when the chicks get big he will give us a cock and 2 hens.  He was so excited to feed his chicks!

Ashley and Jennifer- Timothy, Winnie and Joel's parents took in their niece when her mom died.  She is so sweet and also yells muzungu at me all the time.  Pray for this little darling as she adjusts to life with a new family. She kept asking for her mom and wanted to be held all the time which made Joel a little mad. She seems to be adjusting now though!

This is my good friend Janet. Her husband is the pastor of the church we attend most of the time. We have been making the bead necklaces together.  She is the mother to Paul and Avalien along with 3 older children.