Merry Christmas!!!

No Christmas cards from this continent this year, I'm afraid! Just wanted to send out Christmas and New Years greetings to all who may grace this page with their friendly eyes. Know that if I know you, you are dearly missed and if I don't know you I hope our paths may cross in the coming year!

May your Christmas holiday be full of joy and peace - that Christ's love entering the world and the hope of that Love still to come will bring to you the full life that is promised.

Two of my favorite Christmas songs:

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.


O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O holy night, O night divine!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Blessings to you all!

My neighborhood

This evening after work I took a walk & much to my surprise, it was a peaceful and serene event. The neighbors are getting used to me now. The ladies across the road from Medair seem more cordial, especially after I gave one of them a ride to the hospital a few weeks ago when she was too ill to walk. They wave & greet me, I smile & greet back. The children come running to shake my hand or just yell at the top of their lungs from wherever they are, “Mzungu!” and “Byebye”. Again, I smile & wave. I met one man along the way that does some work with Medair and found out he lives just around the corner from us. He asked where I was headed & my answer is typical to the culture here, “just to that rock there, on that side” as I point to my destination in the distance. Then I head on, with a few little ones probably no older than 2 years in tow as they can’t seem to unglue themselves from my hands. A bit further & they are called back home by someone. So I continue on my own, marveling at the beauty of Kaabong – boulders and rocks sprouting out of the earth randomly, huge cactus-trees, and an amazing sunset towards the west against the silhouette of many more mountains and rocks. I greet a friend, Christine, who helps us with some washing and cleaning a few days a week at our base – its good to see some familiar faces while I’m out and about. Another few minutes and I hear this distant shouting, “sister, how are you?” and two teenagers emerge from some gardens about 100meters away. “Where are you going?” they ask in really good English. I tell them I am walking to the rocks there & point that direction as I continue to walk – they say they will come too. So I tell them I will walk a bit slower, but they will need to walk a bit faster to catch up with me! They quicken their pace & in a few minutes we walk on together. Greeting them I find out they are sisters, Margaret & Joyce – 14 & 15 years respectively. They are in P6 class at the Pajar primary school just down the road from Medair. They have just come from their garden & were headed home. I ask them a bit more about themselves, but they seem content to just walk & not talk much – so we walk on in silence for about 20 minutes. Its nice to not be alone. Even nicer – when we turned around & came back to where they joined me to begin with, they said goodnight and headed home. That was it. Why is that so nice? Because almost every single person I meet here asks me for something. They want 100shillings or food or my shirt or my bag or my shoes…and they usually don’t just ask, they beg and demand. A normal phrase here is “You give me ….” Fill in the blank! Even the little ones who know just a bit of English can spit out “HowareyouI’mfinegivemeonehundred”. It’s exhausting…and I feel like a resource not a person. Yeah, so I was really grateful to take a quiet walk with some kind girls who wanted nothing from me – they walked away without a word other than goodnight. On my way back at the house of the man I mentioned earlier a crowd was gathering & some girls had some long vine-like branches tied together to make a jumprope. They had stopped for the moment, but when I showed interest they got very excited and wanted to show off their skills, so I stayed for a bit & then jumped in for a few rounds. The ladies thought it was the greatest thing – and still, no requests of me. I just got to be me and enjoy the company of the people here.

That was my evening walk, wish you could have been there too!

Holiday with friends

Sorry my posts have been delayed lately. I had some friends in the country over the past month & have enjoyed spending time with them. Here are some highlights:

The hippest new (read: only) coffee shop in Gulu, Uganda – the Kope Café. Opened by folks working with Invisible Children to raise money for a program to provide fun activities like dance and music to children in need. The place is beautiful, all the walls are muraled as you can see here. They took the verses from Ecclesiastes (some may quote instead from the famous Beatles tune as well) a time for … and a time for … and made banners along the whole wall. The kids chose pictures to depict each season mentioned – it is a powerful display! Plus the coffee is great and the people are really kind. Tif & I spent a few afternoons here sipping lattes and wondering if we were really still in Africa…

Ah, my good friend Brandi – only had a few precious days with her, but it was so wonderful! Glad we got to share a room & catch up from under our tents!

We spent Thanksgiving with some American & Ugandan friends while in Kampala. Here is Patrick, Tif, me, Julie, Alyssa, & Emma. Patrick, Julie & Emma all work with Come, Let’s Dance. It was so fun to celebrate Thanksgiving and enjoy a fabulous spread of American-ish dishes! Julie & Shane did an amazing job of making us feel like we were truly in the states and with family. This picture was taken a few days later off of Lake Victoria in Jinja. This is the source of the Nile River.

Some of Ghandi’s ashes were spread at the source of the Nile here, so there is a shrine. I don’t really think it fits with who Ghandi was or what he stood for – think it looks more like a shrine to the marble-tile god. If I were in charge, there would be many flowers, maybe a fountain, and a place to sit & ponder or meditate on peace and non-violence. But alas, they didn’t ask me my opinion before throwing a ton of money into this piece of work…

Another view of the source

Jared & I were thrilled to find a great coffee place in Jinja – yay for foam!!!



Tif, Alyssa, & I spent a few days hanging out in Jinja after the others left. What a relaxing few days we had. Here we are at Bujagali falls just about 6 km down from the source of the Nile. We could have rafted the Nile, but decided to not risk life & limb on that adventure. We settled for a very peaceful sunset canoe ride at the source instead – we were quite content with that option! These ladies brought me so much joy! I miss them so much already!

Day trip to the Equator

Last Saturday morning I was making coffee at the Medair teamhouse in Kampala when Jo – another Medair staff member who lives there – bounded in with a great idea of getting out of the city & going to the Equator! What an exciting adventure, I know that’s what you’re thinking… so by midday Jo & myself and two other Medair ladies, Mags and Moira, who work at another of our Medair programs in Abim, Uganda, headed for the Equator. It’s about an hour drive once you get out of the traffic-crazed city and its actually an amazing tar road all the way down – we did hit some pretty deep pot holes at points, but the fact that most of the road was asphalt was just unbelievable to me! Plus, it was through a beautiful area of the country. Down south it is amazingly green, rolling hills all around. I forgot how much I love road trips. Plus it was great to get to know some new people, these ladies are all quite fun. Mags & Moira are both from the UK, Jo is from New Zealand. Someone decided to capitalize on the adventure of visiting the actual Equator & now there is a bit of a tourist-trap strip mall, African style, surrounding the Equator. A couple coffee shops/cafes as well as a number of craft stores line the road for about 200 meters or so. We did in fact enjoy the café which boasted chai smoothies and guacamole with chipati chips. Yummy!

The craft strip

Notice the "Did U Know?" stands? You can pay a few dollars to watch water swirl one way on the North side of the Equator and another way on the South side - we didn't pay...

Emergency Water Kit

I wanted to share some things that have gone on over the past few weeks - sorry for my lack of communication recently!

About two weeks ago our team spent a few days testing out an Emergency Water Kit that is a vital piece of our project here in Kaabong. This kit is designed to be set up within 24 hours to respond to an outbreak of a water-bourne disease such as typhoid or cholera which can devestate a community within days. The kit allows us to set up a water pumping and filtering system to provide clean water to a community and therefore stop the spread of a disease due to lack of clean water supply. The process goes like this:


1. Jetting water (using the force of water through a pipe to 'drill' a hole into the earth to reach a new, clean source of water)

2. Pumping water from the jetted source

3. Filling a tank full of the pumped water

4. Pumping the water through a chlorination tank to cleanse it

5. Pumping the clean water into a bladder tank

6. Water flows out via tap stands for people to access it


It was fascinating for me to watch this process, as I'm not technical when it comes to this stuff. :) I tried to help as I could, but my role in these emergencies would really be to hold down the fort and keep the team in communication with our offices and be a support along the way. So I became the photographer for these days and tried to keep the kids who gathered entertained as well! What I love about this part of our project is that 1)we have not had an outbreak yet that needed such a massive response (yeah!) and 2)that it really would make a HUGE difference in a very short period of time. Let's pray this is never needed, but if it is we are much better prepared for it now & will continue to tweak our ability to respond quickly and as a cohesive team.

Dola & Trace are testing the chlorination treatments

the raging Kaabong river...

Charles, Jacob (Coco), Simon, Dola & Trace - our dynamic Watsan team!

My first RnR

Last Friday I packed a bag & said goodbye to Kaabong, anxiously awaiting the next morning when I would pick up my good friend Tif from the airport in Entebbe here, welcoming her to a month of Uganda research (and first a week of fun with me!). The airstrip in Kaabong District is about a 25 minute drive from town down a very curvy, bumpy dirt road. We fly with MAF mostly (Mission Aviation Fellowship) as they have become more popular for reaching destinations around the country. The morning a MAF flight is coming in we have to call their office in Kampala and ask for the estimated arrival time, then we venture out to the airstrip to meet the plane. Most often it is a 12-seater plane that dives in & I've learned to tell who the pilot is by the length of the landing. One guy stops the plane within 100 meters of hitting the strip, smooth as a bird! And really, it feels more like SkyRide than Air Uganda. They shove your luggage in a compartment under the plane, you climb in & find a seat, then you are off to who knows how many destinations to drop someone or pick someone else up and finally end up at their strip just outside of Kampala! On Friday after I got on we stopped in Kologo, Patongo, Kotido, Lira, & then on to the final destination. It took about 3 1/2 hours, but I got to see a lot of Uganda that I would never see otherwise.

Tif arrived safely on Saturday morning & we spent the day resting and talking. I can't even tell you what a blessing it is to see a familiar face, let alone someone who knows & loves me dearly. And to make the day even better, Jared Mackey called me up to see if he & the Theisens could swing by & exchange some luggage Tif had brought to Kampala for them. What a joy it was to see Jared, Jeff & Michelle. Jared is one of my pastors from TNL, but more than that a good friend that I came to Uganda with last year. Jeff & Michelle are friends from Portland who live in northern Uganda.

On Sunday we visited an orphanage called Jordan House here in the city. The children are beautiful, of course, and they have a church service every Sunday. We sang and danced with them – about 50 from age 2 to age 16. They love to get hugs and to welcome you. There’s something about being surrounded by these children that never ceases to stir my heart. I have to wonder what I may be able to contribute to an orphan’s life – maybe one day God will reveal that to me. For now, I’ll keep on with where I’m at and see where this road leads.

Tiffani also brought me lots of fun treats from friends in the US. Thanks to each of you who were thinking of me - it was like Christmas in November! We even had a Tim Tam Slam, thanks to Brian & Kelley Gray!

Monday was another refreshing day of spending time with Jared & Tiffani exploring downtown Kampala complete with pizza for lunch and amazing Indian food for dinner! My taste buds are so happy this week!

Today I got a haircut at the local mall – a bit of a risk, I know, but it ended up ok I think. Good enough, at least. We found this great New York Kitchen diner that made amazing pizza, bagel sandwiches and (drumroll please…) pumpkin cheesecake! Wow, I couldn’t pass it up as fall and pumpkin are very missed right now in my non-seasoned life of rainy vs. wet season! I miss autumn!

Hiking Kepak

Twice now I've had the opportunity to hike a nearby rock they call Kepak here in Kaabong. The first time I went with Trace, Jacob & Georgia. The second was with Jakob, Trace & Emmanuel who was in town for the weekend visiting from our Kampala office. The views of the area are beautiful. Here are just some glimpses -