Thanksgiving, Friendship, Mission family

Karis, me, Aunt Brenda--at her house for Thanksgiving day lunch. Wow.












Lindsay K, Karis, Joanna W, Sophia, me Timothy K. All ready to walk to dinner on the grounds, adjacent to Lake Victoria!



Clockwise:
Lindsay K, Kiira D, Karis, Joanna W, Caleb S, Anna Marie S, Sophia, Samuel S

Our mission kids ages 4 - 8




These few chances for the entire mission family to be together are truly essential and filling for everyone--young and old. These pictures were taken at the annual Prayer Retreat which is usually held the weekend after Thanksgiving.










Evert, lovingly known to us as Bambo (he went to 40-40 at the same time as we did, and Bambo was the local language name for sir.)
During the white elephant exchange for adults, he was the proud recipient of an apron.




Karis and Lindsay are 2 days apart. Both mommies were together when we found out we were each pregnant, and we haven't seen each other since that weekend. The girls were instant friends. Lindsay lives in South Asia now, we hope it won't be another 6 years before we see her family again!
The kids had 'drawn names' for their exchange among mission family. Sophia is sooo excited to open her present!

Wanna play Chicken on the road?

These are all varying stages of 'alive'. I guess it's efficient?

Merry Christmas

Well, our day is over, though it's mid-stream for many of you still.
I'm tired and sore, my tummy is full from lunch feast left-overs, the kids are soundly sleeping after an exciting day.

We've all been gearing up, preparing, reminding ourselves and our children the two ways we celebrate (Santa Clause traditions around us and the birth of our Savior), and about the first gifts brought to Jesus. Decorating to various degrees, wrapping packages, baking Christmas cookies and delightfully decorating them...

All these preparations for the BIG DAY.

Yesterday was busy at the Shelton home, preparing to host about 35 people--outside of course as the weather is beautiful (if not too hot). The yard had to be just right, tables and chairs outside, a tent put up to shade from the sun...
And to marinate and fit in the fridge: 4 chickens, 3 pork roasts, 4 beef fillets (here, a fillet at the butcher is the long strip all the way down the cow which is cut into small slices in the States--and cheaper than chicken breasts here) and a bunch of sausages.

Near the end of the sunlight, we discovered an 'issue'. But before telling you about that, I have to explain our water system here. We have a 'main' water pipe that brings water from the city. It is not on all the time. So every house has a plastic big water tank that sits atop a stilted platform above the roof line...the higher the better for water pressure in the house. We actually have even a reserve tank that is also filled by the 'main' when that is flowing. So if the top tank empties, we have to go out and turn on the pump to pump from the tank sitting on the ground up into the top one.
Upon peeking into the bottom tank, as we do out of curiosity from time to time, we discovered that the kids had apparently been 'playing'...if you could call it that. It was full of palm tree nuts (hundreds) and leaves and grim and grit...and as it turned out a couple of long earth worms, a couple of slugs, and likely other things we're glad we couldn't see. It was brown, and clearly not what we wanted feeding into our home. So, to make a long story short, we undertook the not-so-easy job of cleaning it out--racing the sun going down.

Oddly enough, part of our decision was because there was no water coming in from the main. That's not so unusual for brief times...usually. After the girls' bath and Anthony's shower, I found out that the top water tank was empty. And of course now there was no reserve in the bottom tank--it was wiped clean and bone dry. And this is late evening before we are hosting Christmas lunch the next day!

It was a bit of a stressful morning, but friends 2 houses away let us fill up large jugs of water at their home and another friend brought over more. (these large jugs are what thousands of Ugandans walk with from their homes to the water tap somewhere and then walk to carry back to their homes--it's usually the children's chore.)

It's amazing what one can do here.
I used to abhor cleaning out the gunk in the sink drain after washing dishes (along with a dear friend--I think of you Jessica every time I do it here and say a prayer for your family!) And now I just reach in and scoop it out. Having no dish washer forces me to not waste time worrying about that gunk.
Another example: No cooking gas for my gas stove and oven for 2 weeks (and over Thanksgiving). I laughed as I sent a message to my parents: "Me Jane. Me cook outside over fire. Anthony Tarzan. Anthony gather food." I just used a little 'sigiri' which is a car wheel rim, turned on it's side with legs wielded on and small feet that precariously hold pots over the fire--fill it with local charcoal and voila.
And today, for Christmas, no running water.

I know many, many people throw up their hands and say or at least think: "COME HOME!"

But, today we hosted families from Holland, Britain, Canada, the U.S. & a family from the Philippines came last minute as they had no where to celebrate. All but us and one other family have adopted Ugandan/African children. All of us are far from our native homes and blood families. But all of us called here to join God in what He is doing here. And it's all part of life. We all pitched in together, nobody flinched to see a big jug of water next to the toilet. None of the women minded boiling tea kettles of water to help wash silverware for dessert, and then helping wash up after everyone was full to bursting.

How far removed I feel from the modern conveniences I once never knew were out of the ordinary for millions of people around the world.

So, after a fabulous meal put together by each family bringing a contribution, we gathered back and crowded all in our living room for Anthony to read the story of the birth of Christ. We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, and the kids blew out the candle.

Mmmmm, a new favorite: pecan pie cake. It was the favorite of everyone at our house today!

What a wonderful, wondrous fellowship we had today. Phone calls from family which started yesterday and will continue through tomorrow are sweet times to feel connected with our families in Texas and Arkansas.
Yet God has provided us with many families here--widely varried ourselves, but sharing a common strand nonetheless.
We are third culture.
We are no longer exclusively 'yellow' from our home country.
We are not 'blue' from our current host country's culture.
We are 'green'.

Forever a shade of green.

Coach Misti

Heritage International School Swim Team
Ready for our first swim meet with several other international schools here in Kampala. These kids here are 2nd through 6th grades.










I swam in high school, till I injured my shoulder and eventually ended up with surgery on it. I life- guarded for my high school coach during the summers, and taught swim lessons. But I never coached kids to swim competitively--before now!










But, there's a first time for everything. And I was pretty much the best/only option for these kids. I was so proud of them at the meet! There are 3 very large int'l schools with pools on their campuses. They each had an A and a B team.
Then there is one other school about our size that I was using as my comparison for how our small school would fare.

We planned for our kids to swim up to 6 or 8 events, so that we wouldn't have an empty lane for events. So most of ours were swimming in every relay, just so we could make the relay and therefore at least get a point for entering.
The other schools had fresh swimmers for most of the relays.
In spite of our kids being tired, and swimming their hearts out, we came in 4th place out of 8, behind the Big Three--and beating by a long shot--the other school about our size.

Way to go!!!

Swim practice.

This is where we practice. It's a huge pool, and with year round sun it's great (other than rain days).

Mass Wedding pictures

Three first couples to arrive at Kampala Baptist Church. Karis and Sophia are giving the brides some beautiful bracelets left from a volunteer who was here a few months ago.













Some of the cakes that our Kampala Urban Team helped bake. Should we go into professional wedding cake business?













Here you see from left to right:
Florence, Pastor Andrew, a pastor translating into the Luo language for Florence (who doesn't speak English or the most common Luganda of this city), Then Pastor Thomas, and Simon on the far right who was his best man.










Each couple had a pastor pray for them specifically. Here is Anthony praying before the kneeling couples.















A great team helping coordinate the ceremony. Here is Grace, Medinah and me.

Processing

No, not computer processing. Though that can be frustrating itself. Just human, brain, emotional, grasping: processing. We've had several neighbors and friends who have had their homes broken into this past year. We've taken some extra measures to add to our routine, without adding to a loss of sense security or adding fear.

Last Friday we drove 2 hours away to our mission's annual prayer retreat. During dinner Saturday evening, I got a call from my house helper that she had discovered that we had been broken into by thieves.
Our front door broken to pieces, a large pick-axe through the window to break the chained padlock inside around security bars, and the contents of every drawer in the house turned out.

We are reminding ourselves often of the things to be thankful for. They are many. I could likely start typing and keep going and going. But, specifically in this situation: our German Shepard dog recovered from whatever they drugged her with. Our house worker, Grace, who likely came home when the thieves were still in the house, did not discover them in person. Only a small percentage of what could have been stolen, actually was. They certainly must have rushed out, as many things were left that one would have thought would be no-brainers to be gone.

What in the world do they think they are going to do with the Wii console? No power cord, no game controllers, just the unit itself--in UGANDA?? The MP3 players, digital video recorder and other small items can be replaced. At least they have some good Christian music to listen to once they get some earphones.

It's mostly the realization that they stood in my rooms emptying the contents of every drawer and shelf, looking at every picture of family and friends.

And, realizing that we must make some changes in our habits and how we run things around here. Another friend was broken into Sunday morning while her family was at church.

The economy is bad here just like other places, and the season of giving is upon us.

So, we must make a few changes and go on knowing where our Peace must be sought for and found. I can type that out so easily...