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!