GOOD NEWS FOR KIDS IN UGANDA!

This is about 1 month overdue!! I meant to update sooner but our life has been too busy!! ugh..
BUT... I WANT TO SHARE THIS COOL STORY,...SO PLEASE READ ON!

THANK YOU for voting for our friends entry in a competition to win a huge breakfast for the kids at Rapha School in Jinja, Uganda,through Bethesda International. They ended up in the top 10 finalists which is amazing. They didn't "win" the competition, but God did something even better! Below are emails sent to me from Susanne, the lady in Germany that supports Bethesda International in Jinja, Uganda. I have never met her but we know one another because of our shared love for Uganda and Bethesda International kiddos!! She started an NGO in Germany that supports Bethesda International through child sponsorship and various other projects. Dear Katie,

here come the good news about the "breakfast of your life"-competition. We came in as one of the 10 finalists in the competition. We did not win one of the three breakfasts worth 5.000 Euru. Instead, they decided to donate 3.000 Euro to our NGO Bulungi e. V. , completely independently from the competition.

On the day when the competition ended we had already received a 3.000 Euro donation from a donor that was completely unknown to us so far.

All in all we received 6.000 Euro, can you believe it? This equals about 7,900 Dollars.!!!

Before I enrolled us to participate in the competition I asked Jesus whether he would be with us and help us. He didn't say anything, but after I had asked the question I knew 100% that he would be with us and that we would one way or another get the money we needed for the children. If not by winning, then in other ways, as God' s ways are sometimes different from what we think or imagine.

It was a miracle that we finally ranked among the top ten. We had made it only in the very last hour of the competition, at a time when most other participants obviously thought the competition was already over, because it was past midnight already and the competition was to end at midnight. However, because of the time difference of European summer and winter time, the competition ended one our after midnight, of which many participants were not aware. This one hour helped us to get from rank 13 to rank 7.

Anyway, on Wednesday the company announced their three winners and we were not among them. I was disappointed but I didn't doubt for a second that Jesus would not let us down but keep his "promise". So I wrote an e-mail to the company telling them about our project and the children in Uganda and also about the disappointment not to have been chosen as winners of the competition.

Yesterday (Thursday) I received the e-mail in which they were telling me they had decided to donate 3.000 Euro. We will use part of it for a really big feast at Rapha this very August and part of it will be used to begin with realizing the Bethesda vision of a children's village at Rapha Farm.

I know that it was our heavenly friend who helped us convince the company that they should donate us money. Praise and Thanks and Glory to Jesus! Altogether the money we were donated in other ways was even more than what we would have won for the breakfast.

I can only say again that God is great!

Lots of Love and all the best from Germany,
Susanne

WE NEED YOU...to help feed kids in Uganda!!

Okay friends!!! We need your help to bless these children! This is an easy one, well kind of...

Bethesda International / Rapha School in Jinja, Uganda has the opportunity to win a "breakfast of your life", worth 5000 Euro, which is $626 dollars. Of course "the breakfast of my life" will take place in Uganda, at Rapha School to be exact, with about 300 children from the school and surrounding homes and ...guess what... it will be better than the usual thin porridge!!

The only issue is that the contest is in Germany, and the website is in German. Friends of ours in Germany that are partnered with Bethesda International and Rapha School, have entered the contest to win this for the kids. So,...all we have to do is go to the German website and click to vote for them to win! It's a bit complicated because the whole site is in German so I had Susanne, the woman who entered the contest, write me instructions on how us English speaking Americans can vote. Below is her explanation and so please take the time to vote!!!

If you go to this link: German website called latta

You will see (in the blue area on the right side) the line: "Diesen Beitrag bewerten und zusätzlich gewinnen" and below you see 5 blue stars. You have to click on the fifth blue star (the one on the very right side), which means it is a five-star-rating. The more 5-star-clicks we get, the higher the voting.

For multiple clicks you need to use this link: German website

You will see our entry, Susanne Bulungi, if you scroll down. It's about the 5th page of entries, it has a picture of Rapha kids eating in their orange uniforms. Then you have to click on that entry and the rest works like before (clicking on the 5th star). After giving your vote, you can close the window again by clicking the X in the top right corner. After that you can vote again.

Heartbreak in Uganda

Jeff and I have been saddened to hear of the bombings in Uganda. It hits very deep in our hearts since Uganda has become our second home filled with many friends and people we consider family. We are praying for all the family members and friends that are grieving the loss of their loved ones. Click here for more info on the BBC Africa page.

We also learned that one of the people who died was a man who worked for Invisible Children. Jeff, myself and our friend Stacie were able to visit IC and see some of the schools they have rebuilt in Gulu. They have an incredible group of folks working and volunteering in Uganda.
Go here to read more about Nate and his service with IC in Uganda.

Please keep Uganda in your prayers!

Home from Uganda!!

We are home! Well, we've been home for 4 weeks now, but it took us a good 2 weeks to catch up on sleep and switch back into the "American lifestyle" of go, go, go!! I honestly think this is the hardest part of our reverse culture shock. The pace of life here is so incredibly fast and so full all the time, every day and every week that it definitely takes some adjusting to get used to it. On the other hand, the "fullness" of friendship and family mixed with life is so what we love, cherish and missed!!

I had grandiose plans to finish up a few stories from our last 2 months in Uganda for this blog post but unfortunately I haven't put them together. So,..instead I thought I'd take the easy way out and just post some fun photos from our last trip to Arua, Uganda. I do have so many stories to share and will get to them as soon as I can. For now, enjoy some pics from the pearl of Africa!! (Uganda)

This is a common practice in Uganda called "smearing". They use a mixture of mud and cow dung and they plaster their homes. It gives the huts a really beautiful look.

Hanging with Jeff's co-workers for a International Conference on Rodent Biology and Management...in South Africa!!

Fatu and O looking for seashells on the shores of Lake Victoria in Entebbe, Uganda.

One of the few Muslim mosques in the city we live in, Arua.

Our favorite Indian restaurant in Arua. They make a mean chicken masala and chicken tikka masala!! Our "usual" table was the one on the far left on the outside patio.

Our really tall friend Robert and the kids. Robert works at the plague lab and he's an amazing guy. We've known him for 5 years now since we met him on our first trip to Arua in 2005.

This was a gift from Jame's mom, Grace. He is the boy that had severe double club feet and is currently walking around on his new feet!! Our church community, Bridestone and our fam' helped to pay for his surgery and needs. His mom arrived at our house in Arua with a bag full of food to say thank you!

A man taking his load of coal to sell at the market or bringing it home for his own use.

Had to take this shot because it's so common to see random signage in Africa or lots of misspelled signs! This is actually our friends funny mistake and the sign was taken down in a day.
Our friend carrying timber very gracefully on her head. The women are incredibly strong, it amazes me!!

A cutey pie on Palm Sunday playing with her palms.

Palm Sunday. This was one of my favorite days. The dirt roads were packed with people waving their palm leaves and singing worship songs. The roads were dotted with palms everywhere you walked, it was beautiful.

My girlfriends found the very first coffee shop in Arua! This was like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow! There was a real espresso machine and yes, a steamer!! Still can't believe I had latte in Arua...wow!!

Soccer in the capital of Uganda, Kampala

THIS IS OSUUBI! Yup, this is the dried beans of the Osuubi plant. Jeff made a killer good Osuubi soup for the whole family! We decided as a family to try all of the local foods, although we didn't succeed. We missed the grasshoppers and well, we passed up the opportunity to try the fried ants, but maybe next time!!

Fatu and friends at Ombachi church.

Another day at the water well in Ombachi village.

This is Katrin, our friend in Arua, and Osobie during some of the filming for the 2 minute documentary film that was submitted to a BBC competition. Katrin did an amazing job and Osobie was real trooper while we filmed for many days.

I had to take this photo so I could show our families and friends what some of the latrines will be like when they all come to visit us in Uganda!! :) hint, hint

The beloved fabric market!! I LOVE this place and the beautiful designs on the wax material and kantenge's! I could spend hours here if it wasn't for running out of spending money and the intense heat of the market.

Main roads of ARUA

Crusade posters are a common site in Arua.

Friends!!

Traffic jam of Ankoli cows on a road near where we lived. Their horns are used to make bracelets, earrings, coasters and a ton of other things.

From tree to bean!

Just wanted to share with you our favorite home school extra curricular activity here in Arua! I remember praying quite a bit about coming back to Arua for our second time around. Since our time line doesn't correspond with the Ugandan school system, it's almost a requirement that I home school the kids. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like to teach from home, I do, most days! It's just sometimes I get that worried mom thing in me that questions whether or not Osobie and Fatu are getting to experience enough or will be able to be involved in fun kid things like sports, music, art, karate,..etc.. You get what I mean. So, as we were making the decision to come back again for 6 months I started asking God what I should do about home school this time around. What I felt like He told me was not to compare what kids in the states have versus what we will have in Arua. I also felt like he told me to teach them what they can learn from Africa. So... I have been doing just that. We have been learning about the animals, birds and insects of Uganda. We have been experimenting with cooking some local foods that we haven't tried before, as well as picking up on a little bit of Lugbarra. The one activity that's been the most fun has been....COFFEE!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, anyone who knows me will know that obviously there is some "mama bias" in learning this one! Heck, even O and F are clued into my pretty serious coffee drinking habit! But, sincerely this has been so stinking fun!! I wish I had photos from our first excursion but I forgot the ole' camera.

We picked the ripe coffee beans from the trees at our friend Alice's house. Alice's grandma (De-de) Shalom is the lady in charge! She's probably 65 or 70? Anyway, she has coffee trees planted and she does all the work of harvesting, crushing, and roasting before she sells them in the market. So, for one afternoon we picked and picked and picked! It's no easy task I tell you! There are ants that hide in the bunches and they bite and crawl all over your arms and fingers as you pick. I'm sure most Ugandans don't think harvesting is that bad or hard to do, but for novices like us, it was an exciting and tiring afternoon! We picked loads of coffee beans until the tops of the trees were bare.

Next we put the beans out to dry at our house. De de Shalom gave us our very own batch to work on so we carried it home and laid them on the cement near the house. We dried them for many weeks.

Then came time to crush the shell and discover the precious coffee bean inside! This was the part I was most excited about...holding the mighty coffee bean! The kids were stoked too! So, we made another date with Alice and de-de Shalom and we all headed out to her house. We had so much fun! Alice and Shalom showed us the two different traditional ways of shucking the shell of the bean as well as the sifting.

As you can see, this is the first method. The wooden cylinder and heavy wooden smasher. Of course I forgot to get the Lugbarra name for both of these tools. They use these grinders for millet and various other grains, seeds, pods and such that all need crushing. The wooden pole is heavy! No wonder most African woman have intensely strong arms. Oh, and talking about strong...this photo and these coffee activities all took place at Alice's house on Saturday. The very next day, Sunday, around 3:30 pm Alice gave birth to a healthy baby girl! Talk about strong women, Alice wasn't only grinding and sifting coffee with us that day, she was also re- thatching her grass roof with her husband and a hired worker. Wow!!

Next came the second method of shucking the shell of the coffee bean, rock on rock. You use a large flat stone and place the dried coffee in a pile in the center. Then you position a sifter at the end of the rock. The rock should be slightly pointing downward so the beans and shells will slide down into the sifter. You then use another small hand held rock with a flat bottom and you pull back over the coffee shells and push down then rock forward again. It's got a little rhythm to it if you watch the professionals at work (Alice and grandma)! I started to get the hang of it and even Alice said, "Katie, she knows how to grind coffee!"

I have a new appreciation for coffee farmers and for coffee! It is a LOAD of work for such a small little nugget of love and caffeine! Jeff, myself and the kids all took turns with the grinding techniques and tried out our sifting skills! A handful of shells and coffee beans after being crushed in the wooden bowl.
Then the last part was the sifting. Here you can see Grandma Shalom working it! She sifted that whole bunch of coffee beans faster than the 4 of us did on our one batch. I practically threw half of the beans on the ground from my poor sifting and slow reflexes to pull back in time. I spent most of my time digging in the dirt picking up the tiny green coffee beans that I spilled !

Seriously though, once grandma or de-de Shalom took over she put us all to shame! That woman is strong and you can see the years of experience she has had grinding, shucking, and sifting! I was so impressed and so grateful for the opportunity for us to learn about coffee.

Walking home from Alice's house enjoying the green lush African landscape...and praying the makeshift bridge made of timber holds together for us!!

We have one last part of this whole coffee process, the roasting. We have some Dutch friends who drink Ugandan coffee that is roasted by their friend and house helper, Grace. So, our next and last field trip will be to their house next week to learn how to roast the bean! We'll let you know how it goes once we sip our very own Ugandan home brew!