one last shot at pics

final pictures from bill:

- Dance night with the children (and yes, i said "with"...i took another stab at dancing. turns out i haven't received the gift of rhythm since my first try a few days ago!)

- a close up of the dance outfits

- me, Mike and Janelle- the wonderful missionary couple I love dearly!

- we love our bald-headed men!

- a shot of my morning jog

pics

Here are some more pictures that Bill picked out to post!

- Nic and Rose taking their turn at dancing during the children's dance-a-thon last night

- Molly helping the children make bracelets

- Johanna helping the kids with crafts

- Me spending some quiet time talking and singing to Jesus in one of the "windows" of the all-purpose building( sorry there are two pictures, not sure what happened and I can't delete the extra for some reason!)

Leftovers...and the best birthday ever

Yesterday we had the chance to hear Cindy's (the founder of the Village of Hope) story of how she came to start it all.

Part of her story has really stuck with me. She shared how she was in Gulu, Uganda several years ago when things were still very unstable in Uganda. She shared of how she was having breakfast outside the hotel one morning and a boy crawled up to her table and said "I just escaped from a rebel camp. Can I have your leftovers?" Leftovers. No child should have to beg for leftovers. Ever. That was one of the pivotal experiences that prompted Cindy to establish the Village of Hope. I'm so grateful that she did. These children are the most beautiful and loving children, despite their horrendous pasts. It is a testimony to Rose's counseling and love for the children for many years now in addition to Cindy's continual love and devotion to them.

Today is my birthday. I could tell you how wonderful it's been, but I don't think I could really capture it in words. I could tell you that I had a wonderful and refreshing 5 1/2 mile run this morning along the road (i.e. trail) out to the main road, with the sun rise over the African horizon creating a beautiful backdrop. I could tell you that I attended the best church I've ever attended- with the wonderful simplicity of gathering in the "all purpose" open building, sitting on mats on the floor when we were not singing and dancing praises to the King with the children, combined with a straightforward, cut to the heart message on Grace and the Gospel. I could tell you that when the children sang "Lord I want to honor (praise, love, serve) you for the rest of my life" tears flowed down my face at the pure beauty of it. I could tell you that I ate yet another DELICIOUS meal of rice and beans, cabbage, chapot bread (for real...it's so scrumptious) followed by a wonderful time of sitting under the shade sharing with the rest of our team, the group of college students, and Cindy. I could tell you that I was able to hold and pray over and softly sing to a frantic and very much in pain little boy until he fell asleep after I bandaged his finger that was just smashed while he was pumping water at the well.

I could tell you all of those things and it really still doesn't begin to capture the essence of today. The one thing that I can tell you is that I really, REALLY don't want to leave tomorrow. These children have left an even deeper impression on my heart now that I've spent days with them and have seen their individual personalities come to life. Leftovers?? Hardly. They are talented, unique, precious children of God and deserve meals fit for kings!!! I pray that God's plan is the same as my desire right now- to return again...and hopefully within a short period of time. For now, I am excited to share with you all the details of this trip upon my return...but be forewarned. I likely won't be able to share without tears, so get the tissues ready!

Tomorrow the team heads out to the safari where we'll enjoy a boat ride on the Nile to what we're told are some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. Not sure what the accomodations will be like, but there are rumors of actual showers!!! What?! The following day we'll do a drive through the safari game park (where I'm sure photographer Bill will be in his glory!) before we head to the airport to take an evening flight to start our 24 hour plus trip back home.

So for now, enjoy the rest of Bill's photos and we'll see you on the flip side!

Photos extraordinaire

these photos were obviously taken by a professional--good thing we have one along on our team!

- Johanna in her glory helping the children with their homework

-local barborshop

-molly standing on the back of a dumptruck on the way to the sand pit

- "mountain man" mike.... a pretty apt depiction!

Finally photos!!!

Yeah, some of the uploads finally worked!

Here are:

- the guys outside their bedroom relaxing after a hard morning's work

- me with Grace- a beautiful young girl who's foot wound I've been cleaning and bandaging daily

- the girl's bedroom

Today is saturday and we are about to have "field day" with the children, so this is a short blog for now! Off for lots of funness!!

A tribute to the men

So it seems as though there is the appearance of me being biased to the women on our team in my blogging, so this blog is a tribute to our two men, Bill and Ronny!
(I told them if they would have been measured for and bought dresses, maybe they too would have been mentioned earlier :) )
Bill and Ron have been FABULOUS team members and both are thoroughly enjoying just about every aspect of this trip. Bill volunteered his muscles for about 2 hours yesterday mid-morning to help with concrete mixing and stirring...and suffered for it later in the day! I do believe it was a combination of slight heat exhaustion and well, being more "mature" than he perhaps remembered he is! :) After relaxing in the shade and drinking water, by the evening he said he was much better. He's taken outstanding photos and I'm excited to have them at my disposal when I get back home!
Ronny has also been a delight and is our constant source of encouragement and flexibility. He's taken to the accomodations with apparent ease and continually reminds us that we needn't worry about our material possessions as that's God's job! Ron has been sharing stories back and forth with Mike, the very animated construction foreman here at the Village and the both of them together are quite a pair!
Both men have blessed our team abundantly and I definitely feel a sense of protection and "fathering" from both of them and I'm very grateful for them!


In other news, this morning at the clinic went much better. Solomon, one of our translators, and Nicki came with Susie and I and just their presence was reassuring. I was able to care for and pray over several wonderful children. One of the girls started to get teary-eyed after I prayed for her- I think the combination of the individual attention and the reminder that she is so dearly loved by God was healing for her. I was so blessed to be able to love on her even if it was just a few minutes.

Today, we are awaiting the arrival of Cindy, the director and founder of the Village of Hope whom I'm very excited to finally meet! Then later tonight, I'm teaching a class to the kids about the importance of coming to get any cuts or scrapes cared for and cleaned when they FIRST occur instead of waiting a week or so after the cuts are infected. Foot cuts and infections are very commmon here as many of the children do not have shoes. I'm really looking forward to this chance to interact and teach the children.

I promise to try to upload pictures soon. The computer onto which I uploaded and resized some photos to put on here didn't allow me to get on the internet, so hopefully later it will work and you can see some photos of the Village.

Thanks again for following along on this journey with us! Blessings to you all!

Overwhelmed and inadequate

Those are the two feelings that are in the forefront of my brain right now.
Maureen, the nurse, left suddenly and won't be back for three days, so suddenly I'm thrust into the role of the nurse...a job I would normally do with joy and ease back home, but here, it's a whole different world. I'm not familiar with where anything is or even all of the medications that are available and I certainly don't have the availability of the diagnostic testing that I have in the US! Thankfully, Susie is a nursing student who's been here for over a week already and she has some familiarity with where things are but the brunt of the diagnosis and treatment weight is on my shoulders.
Would you join me in praying that our Mighty God would work through this humble and inadequate, yet willing servant? There are precious children who are hurting and in need of medical help and I long to be used to care for them well.
Thank you and blessings to you all!

Greetings from the Land!!!

Greetings from the Land...the 100 acres on which the Village of Hope is being built! And what a beautiful piece of land it is!
We arrived yesterday about 5PM after a much delayed start from Gulu due to van trouble. We were originally going to be at the Land by noon, and they still had "lunch" served to us when we arrived...around 6PM. (And dinner still followed about 1 1/2 hrs later!). We were greeted by another team of 6- all college-aged folk here for four months for a variety of reasons including social work, making a documentary, helping with administrative stuff, and working in the medical clinic. What a fun and motivated group of young people!
We were also greeted by Mike and Janelle, the missionary couple who is essentially running the construction and administrative aspects on the Land.. It was wonderful to see them again as I had grown so fond of them during my short stay here last year. And of course, we got to interact with the children for a bit as they did chores and such. I took the opportunity to walk around the 4 homes in which the children are currently living and saw some of the precious faces of the children I met last year. They were quite taken aback when I called some of them by name, and they just smiled their wonderful smiles! It is overwhelming to see the children living at this place that was just in progress of being constructed last year. Since last year, there are three finished homes, 2 more pit latrines, another school building, a medical clinic, an "all purpose" building, plus more that I'm probably forgetting to name! Can hardly express the emotions that are swirling in my brain right now!
After a lovely fire-side conversation time post-dinner, we headed to bed in our mud huts- girls in one, boys in the other. Molly, Nic and Johanna have been troopers with the rugged conditions which include pit latrines and "bucket" baths or showers with solar bags hung on a hook in a cement "shower stall". I'm a bit more used to such conditions but this is all a bit of a stretch for them, especially Molly and Jo and they've been so flexible and accomodating! Bill and Ronny seem to be really enjoying themselves and are learning a lot from the local workers and from conversations with Mike.

Today has been a bit of a lot of different things. We organized and sorted the many supplies our team brought- much of them thanks to all of your donations. It was awesome to see everything set out and to know all of the children who will be blessed by the supplies! Then while the rest of the team got a walking tour of the Land, I spent some time at the medical clinic with Susie (one of the college students who is starting nursing school) and Maureen, the hired Ugandan nurse. I helped to explain some of the multiple medications our team brought along and actually did some hands on care for the children who stopped by. Maureen left a few times and it was up to Susie and I to take care of the children who stopped by for various medical needs. It was definitely having to make a good educated guess on most of the diagnoses and treatments due to the simplicity of clinic, but I felt we did a pretty good job nonetheless. It was neat to be able to interact with the children one on one and to learn the names of those who stopped at the clinic. I look forward tomorrow to helping to organize and streamline more of the medication and medication paperwork.
Oops, looks like I have to go. Apparently the nurse left early today and Susie just came to tell me that there is a girl at the clinic with an abcess on her leg that Susie doesn't know what to do with!
Hopefully i'll update more tomorrow and add some pictures!

Only in Uganda....

o
Here's a little lighthearted post before we head out to the Village. It's a compilation of things that we've found unique to Uganda....some probably occur in other parts of Africa also, or even other parts of the world, but since Uganda is the only place we've been, we're saying they only occur in Uganda

Only in Uganda
- do the hotel maids ask for your room key as you are heading out for the day so they can clean the room...and leave the keys in the door for you when you come back
- does one word mean both "hello", "thank you", and "rabbit"
- is the only stop sign in the town of Gulu located in the middle of the sidewalk nowhere even close to an intersection (see picture for proof)
- do hot showers mean 120 volts flowing through you and not 120 degrees flowing over you (ask Bill about this experience later...don't worry, he only stutters a little bit now :) )
- can you confuse the name "charles" for the name "josh" ( just say it really softly and quickly, with a short "ah" sound, and all one syllable...go ahead and try it..you'll see)
- do young children set up chairs for your pending arrival to their camp without any prodding or instruction by adults (ahh, the servant's hearts of the kids is so beautiful!)
- can you find shoes made in the USA advertised in the newspaper (guess we need to come to Uganda to buy American made attire)


So yes, Ugandan life differs a bit from American life. We love it and have found it to be a lot of fun as well! Hope this made you smile a bit as it did for us as we compiled the list.


Hoping to update you with pictures of the Village later on....it's solar powered internet there so one never knows.

Blessings!

pictures again

(apparently you can only upload five pictures per post, so here you go again. All of these pictures are courtesy of the fabulous photography skills of our beloved Bill)

pictures, pictures, pictures!!

A new song

Hello again!

I have a little more time tonight, so here I am again to add a new post. I had just turned on the computer and was about to upload the pictures to the blog and start typing when the power went out. No worries, it's a daily occurance here so we are used to it by now. It's a bummer, though, when it happens in the middle of the night cuz then the fans go off. Yes, we have fans this year! What an unexpected blessing which makes a HUGE difference in the ability to sleep, not only for the cooling effect but for the "white noise" which this ultra-light sleeper appreciates immensely! Oh, the small but mighty blessings!

So today was another unique and wonderful day. We started off in the mid-morning with our translators and friends, Nighty and Asunta (see the first picture above with myself and the two of them) to the market. We browsed the shops and bought a few things- check out the second picture of Nic and Nighty in front of one of the shops (I'm getting so good at bargaining..so much better than last year!), and in general just checked out the center of town. We had a lot of fun. Asunta and Nighty are wonderful and Asunta is really funny! Two of our team members, Nicki and Johanna, got measured for dressed which will be tailored made and ready to be picked up tomorrow. Nice.
After that, we were dropped off at out hotel but our team decided that we were tired of stew (either goat or chicken...yes, we've all had goat at one point) and rice, that we've had each day for lunch and dinner so we decided to venture off again on our own into town to a cafe my friend Lindsey (who was in Uganda this past summer too) told me about. Thanks Lindsey! After asking a few people and getting one set of wrong directions, we finally asked some mazungas (the Acholi name for "white people") we saw in the american style cafe we had breakfast in this morning, and they gave us directions we could actually understand.
We arrived at the cute little restaurant (see the third picture above), all excited for pizza as Lindsey had told me that had pizza there. But to our dismay, the supply truck from Kampala had not yet arrived and they didn't have any cheese, hence no pizza. I tried to see if I could have pizza just without the cheese, but apparently that is an entirely unheard of thing that in no way could be done....even though I really gave it the ol' college try. It turns out there was also no fish... and no bean stew. But they did have chicken stew! :) I ended up just getting "chips" which we know as french fries and they filled me up just fine.

After getting back to the hotel, Charles (our fabulous driver) and Nighty and Rose came to pick us up and we headed to another IDP camp. This time, we met the children inside one of their school classrooms (check out the fourth picture of Molly and one of the children who had come to sit with her) and the young children sang many songs for us, most of them in English and all of them praise songs for God! It was so wonderful to watch and listen to them! Then many of them stepped forward individually and shared some memory verses (bible verses they had memorized) with us. I was completely humbled by these young children whose primary language is not English and who knew multiple bible verses by heart, including chapter and verse numbers! It was hard to hold back the tears tonight! The picture of all the kids singing is one of my favorite. You would never know that that little girl in the blue shirt with her hands held high, just praising Jesus with all she had, was a soft spoken little girl who we could barely hear when she shared her memory verses!
I had taken my guitar along with the hopes of playing songs for the children (our team had practiced this afternoon--I'm sure we were quite a sight in the hotel lobby practicing "Father Abraham!") but alas, we ran out of time and they had to close the school building. But I wouldn't have changed a thing about this evening. What a blessing those courageous and beautiful children are! They are definitely "singing a new song" these days! Praises to the King who has rescued them from the horrors they have endured. May we all continue to partner with them so that they may indeed continue to sing a new song!

Tomorrow, we head out in the morning to the Village! Can't wait to see the children I had met last year and spend time playing and singing and just being with them and loving on them! Bring on the mud huts!

Hope you all are well! Thank you SOOO much for all your prayer support. It is definitely felt and definitely very much needed. God is healing so much here- Nic's eyes are almost completely healed, some of our team members are experiencing healing from some things they experienced chronically at home (which I won't write in detail yet as I haven't asked their permission!), and just in general our hearts are being healed of our selfishness, our pride, our attachment to material things, our worry about things that are really so unimportant. We are so grateful for what God is doing and so glad you are able to join us along this journey! Blessings to all of you!

A request from Dennis....

Greetings on this beautiful Gulu morning! We just took a nice walk to a local coffee shop as a team. It was lots of fun. The coffee shop was definitely geared toward Americans- Heinz ketchup and all!

But what I really want to tell you this morning is the request that Dennis has. Who is Dennis you ask? He is a 17 year old boy. Not only does he not have any parental guidance or direction himself, but he is the "leader" of the children at the IDP camp we visited last night. The camp last night was very different than the one last night. This time, most of the children were very young- ages 1- 5 or 6 ish on average- as opposed to primarily teenagers at the last camp. Apparently the older children at the camp last night were still in school and hadn't gotten back yet. It gave an increased sense of the need for protection and care for the children as they were so young. Dennis led the children very patiently in performing a few songs for us and then he directed them in some "dramas" that they had obviously practiced and rehearsed in the past. As we then interacted with the children and spent some time talking with Dennis, it became apparent just how heavy is the weight of his responsibility in leading and taking care of this whole group of young ones. When our translator asked if any of the children had any questions for us, Dennis said that while he didn't have a question, he did have a request. In his broken English he said "Would you take pictures back to family in America and show them us. Maybe they can help us with things we need." We asked him what their greatest need was and he didn't say toys, or clothing, or even food (although the lack of all those things was incredibly apparent), he said their greatest need was for "school fees". He said they have trouble getting enough money to stay in school and he very much wants to finish his education and become a policeman. School fees range from about $150-300 per year for each student, depending on what school they attend.
His request was so honest and heartfelt. My heart wrenched at his request. I responded that indeed we were already planning on showing pictures of them to our friends and family back home with the specific purpose of gathering up support and prayers for the children. I told him that I would request of him that he pray for us and the people who hear the stories we share, that God would direct our actions and what to do with the resources God has given us. In that way, we would all be working together and partnering together to provide for one another. He seemed to like that idea and I encouraged him and told him what a great job he was already doing and how he was a man of great strength and determination and courage.
And so there is Dennis' request. May we all work together and put love in action as we partner with these beautiful and courageous children!
Feel free to check out the Village of Hope website at www.villageofhopeuganda.com to see the specifics of how you can help!

Off to the market now with the rest of the team. Blessings to you all!

Overflow......

"For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks..". If you all could "hear" my heart right now, you would hear two main things: joy and love!!!

Not sure how to capture the last two days in a single blog- so many wonderful things have occured since i've blogged last (sorry I couldn't blog yesterday. The internet was down. I asked yesterday morning when they thought it would be back up and they said "maybe tonight". Well not so much, so I asked last night if they had any further ideas of when it would be fixed. They said "maybe morning". But alas, this morning, no internet. So I just stopped asking. And now, here we are again, Monday afternoon here and it's working!).

Yesterday started with a very lively worship service at one of the local churches. It was PACKED and it was loud and it was awesome! We worshipped together for about 2 hrs and it sure didn't feel that long! I could barely hear myself singing and the whole congregation was singing and clapping with such uninhibited joy! My kind of worship for sure!
After church we had some lunch together and then had about an 1 hour and a half "siesta" before heading out to one of the IDP (refugee camps). During the siesta, I had a hard time relaxing due to excitement. I was going to get to meet "my" little girl Sarah, who I sponsor through the Village of Hope!
Arriving at the camp, we were greeted by many of the children and Rose pointed out Sarah to me. She seemed a bit shy, so I waited until she approached us. It took a while but in the meantime, our group was treated to a lively session of singing and dancing by the children at the camp. It was just as wonderful as I had remembered it from last year and the whole team LOVED it as well! During that time, my beautiful Sarah came and talked with Rose and Rose told her who I was. She was again pretty shy, but I was able to share with her the letter I wrote for her and the pictures I brought for her of me and my family. It was great. She then went to sit back down somewhere else, but ended up coming back and sat beside me for quite a while. We were able to communicate a bit with her broken english and we definitely developed a connection. She told me she wanted me to come and see her "home" where she currently lives (which is quite a ways from the camp) and my heart broke as I had to tell her no. I prayed for her and the cough she was currently experiencing and again, there was just an unspoken connection that was created as she promised to be praying for me too. |I don't know what God has in store, but it would warm my heart like nothing else if I were to get to see her again on this side of eternity!

Before we left the camp, I asked Rose and Asunta (our translator) if they danced too, and Rose said yes, she was waiting for a particular song. She said "and you too." Me? Yes, me. Well, I wasn't going to do this on my own, so Nic and I joined the circle of dancers. Man, I don't think I've ever felt so white in my life...cuz this white girl can't dance (God forgot to give my rhythm when He created me!), but rest assured, the children thought Nic and I were hilarious and they loved it! Bill captured the dancing on film and even videoed some of it. I'll leave you in suspense as to what that actually looked like!

We were so full of emotion on the way home as we had gotten to pray for and encourage the children via our translator. I kept reminded them of how precious they are to Jesus and how much He loves them! I pray they remember just how amazing they really are!

After a good night's sleep, we awoke to a gentle breeze and light rain. Our team plus Ashley, a missionary from the group Alarm whom we met two days ago, shared a wonderful worship time together. I finally was able to play my guitar and we sang and worshipped, and shared and reflected and prayed. It was really a very neat time! It is a new experience for me this year to be a part of a whole team and I really enjoy the closeness and sharing immensely!

This afternoon, we went to a place where women are making crafts- fabrics, bead jewelry, woven material, etc- as a way to earn a living. Some of them are child mothers, some are crippled or otherwise in need. They are AMAZINGLY talented! We were able to purchase some of their things (some of you may be the recipients of such things!!!) and loved being able to support them.

Oh, I never did explain the pictures above- but I guess they are pretty self explanatory. Top left to right and down:
- The two "Molly's" (we learned close to our departure from the camp last night that this beautiful lady is also named Molly!)
- Bill showing off what he does best! ( man, are we going to have some amazing photos this time! I'm almost embarrassed by mine!)
- Johanna trying to fit in with the locals---she lasted about a half a second but she gets many points for trying
- Me with my beautful Sarah! Love it!

Tonight we are heading to another camp and we are very excited!
God has shown up in so many cool ways already and I can't wait to see how He continues to lead!
A couple of cool things so far (in addition to the rest of what I've already written):
Nic has been suffering from dry eyes for over a year since eye surgery and as of right now after praying for her eyes a few times, they are a bit better. Her left eye is still the worst, but she's had improvement! yay Jesus~
I was able to pray for a lady I saw hobbling down the street today. Felt compelled to go to her, so I did and asked her what was wrong. She said her left knee hurt and it was indeed swollen. Through broken english, i learned she was a Christian. She told me her knee had been hit with a gun- I don't know the details. I asked if I could pray for her knee and she said yes. Afterword, she smiled and said "it is bit better". I wanted to pray for her more, but she said no. If you would, join me in praying that her knee is completely healed!!!

Ok, I think that's all for now. This only briefly touches the surface of all we've seen, experienced, learned, felt......but I hope it encourages you!
Thank you so much for your continued prayers on our behalf~

Hope to catch up again soon as the internet access allows!

Blessings,
Tanya and team

We've arrived...luggage, supplies and a bit of jet lag and all

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greetings from Uganda!

We all arrived quite safely..and easily. The flights were uneventful (I actually slept through breakfast on the first flight!!! Unheard of for me! Course, I was strectched out across four seats, had a blanket, about three pillows, my ear plugs and a dose of a muscle relaxant on board, but still, I would classify this as a minor miracle!).
I had a sweet encounter with an older lady on the plane. Both Nicki and I at separate times had felt compelled to talk with her and it wasn't until she said something to me that we realized it. So I went over expecting to bless her in some way, but it turns out she blessed me!!! She's a retired sister (nun) who was traveling back to Tanzania to care for orphans in an orphanage in which she'd spent several years. She was such a sweet blessing. We prayed together and then exchanged email addresses. So if anyone is going to Tanzania, I've got connections! :)

Last night, we stayed at a cute little hotel. When we arrived around 8:30PM we expected to go to bed, but they apparently were waiting for us to cook dinner, so they took our order and we waited.....waited....waited....and then we waited a little bit more. During the wait, I think Nic and I got the tired giggles, but eventually the food came, we ate and went to bed.

This morning we had a lovely van trip from southern Uganda to Gulu in Northern Uganda. We picked up Rose (director of Villlage of Hope) and it was SOOOOOOO great to see her again. We almost cried when we saw each other! During the drive, the rest of the team was enthralled with the landscape, people, buildings and huts that we passed. I had a hard time connecting to their awe as it was all so familiar to me this time. But the good news for this road trip?? No more speed bumps!!!! Yahoooo! They were all gone! (Refer to last year's blog entitled "speed bumps, provision, and joy" and this will make a lot more sense).

Just outside of Gulu, we stopped at a "camp" which was the main place all the beautiful beaded jewerly is made by the children. They were all working on the beads and we were able to spend time with them and see all the steps of how they were made. One young lady, Franca, allowed me to "help" her make a bracelet. I think "help" here would carry the same concept as it would if I were to say my little 2 y.o. nephew Noah "helped" me make dinner. But she was fun and patient with me.

Before we left, I felt a strong desire to pray over the children and just as I was about to ask if I could pray for them, Rose said "Tanya, would you mind praying for the children?". Ahhh, love that!

So yes, we are all doing well, Nic's a bit weary so she's in bed as the rest of us hang at this "internet cafe". And because I only have a few minutes left (it's a pay as you go kind of thing), I guess I should probably explain the photos:
They uploaded in reverse order, (but they actually uploaded!!!)....so in reverse order:

- Welcome to our team! left to right - johanna, me, nic, bill, molly, ronny
- Ronny showing the children his Village of Hope necklace he was wearing! The kids were so excited to see their work being worn !!!
- Nic with a precious little baby - She's a natural and I featured her today as I know her kids and hubby are missing her, so here's a shout out to them and to her extended family who are all going overboard to help care for her kids in Nic's absence. Blessings to you!!!

Hoping you are all doing well! Will keep you posted as able!\
Love you all!
Tanya

"All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.."

Well, almost at least. But I wanted to let you all see what a lot of you have contributed to....two full suitcases of medications and supplies for the children!!! Thank you for partnering with me to care for the children in such a practical way! (Now if I could just get a luggage boy to carry these heavy suckers through the airport for me...)

T-minus three days!!!!

Wow, three days until departure back to Uganda!!! Really?!!! Almost seems a bit surreal that almost a whole year has passed since my feet walked on the red dirt of Africa (although I do think that they may finally be clean and free from Ugandan dirt!). So much has happened in my life since then- stuff I never could have scripted even in the most creative and imaginative places of this little brain of mine. Through it all is this theme: God is faithful and His love for us is so beyond our human comprehension.
And so, in His faithfulness, He has allowed me the chance to do what I dreamed about even before I left Africa last year, and that is to go back and spend time with the beautiful children at the Village of Hope. What will we do there? We think we have a vague idea. We've prayed, bought supplies, prepared for what we think we might encounter. But the agenda is not ours to make- that job belongs to Someone much greater... and wiser...than us!
And so I invite you to sit back and enjoy this ride with us. I can't promise it will always be pretty (as I recall the effects of days of "pseudo showers". Although I did make our teammate Bill, the photographer, promise to take only flattering pictures of me- He's gonna do the best he can with the subject material :) ) but it will be an honest reflection....and if I were to wager, I bet it'll be a heck of a lot of fun too! That is how I prefer to roll, you know!
Grace and peace to all of you! And may you be blessed and encouraged when you see what God is doing for the precious orphaned children in Uganda!