Water

When you're thirsty where do you go for a nice cold drink of H2O? The tap--either naked or filtered? A bottle of water from the grocery store? An outlet on your refrigerator filter? So many choices . . . permit me an opportunity to offer a little perspective here. We have many choices as well, but which would you choose????? The cistern (home to oh so much more than just water--i.e. frogs, spiders, cockroaches and their poop); the faucet (oh, piped in from the cistern and we've just layed that one out nicely); from a jerry can straight from the bore hole (not a bad option, but if you get to the bore hole and there is a line, it can be pretty murky); from our New Hope community water tower (treated and then collected in jerry cans and delivered to our door for a nominal fee) or from our own water filter which is where we pour the water from the water tower and filter it a final time.

The beloved jerry can pictured here.

We have not had much govt power lately and that is the power we need (generator is not strong enough) to pump water from our underground well to our community water tower where we collect it into jerry cans. In addition, because we have not had water tower water, but bore hole water, our home filter has become clogged with the murky sediment of the bore hole. Thus, our water is filtering VERY slowly and we found ourselves EXTREMELY thirsty tonight as the water was only trickling out of the tap.

I guess we could always just go to the kitchen faucet . . . never mind, we'd rather sleep thirsty.

This is a reminder to our friends in the West to count your blessings, water being just one of many!

Envisioning

We are in the midst of our 5-day annual Envisioning time at New Hope Kasana Children's Center. We have spent our days focusing on the centrality and authority of God's word, His reasons for why we do what we do, why we are who we are and how we love and minister His ways to our children and fellow workers. We have also spent time together laughing while playing games and dancing, telling stories and enjoying an afternoon highlighting the culture of the tribes near western Uganda.

This morning we are readying ourselves for our last day of Envisioning. We will take a group picture - - - something we do annually to chronicle our time together and visually record our growth as a group of God's people in this place.

During my devotional time this morning I decided to read Spurgeon's daily entry and found it paralleling our heart here at Kasana. Our desire is that we as staff demonstrate the Father's love to the children here. We desire that the children come to know the One True God as Father. This entry brings home the power of God's place as Father to us all.

"Your heavenly Father."Matthew 6:26

God's people are doubly His children, they are His offspring by creation, and they are His sons by adoption in Christ. Hence they are privileged to call Him, "Our Father which art in heaven." Father! Oh, what precious word is that. Here is authority: "If I be a Father, where is mine honour?" If ye be sons, where is your obedience? Here is affection mingled with authority; an authority which does not provoke rebellion; an obedience demanded which is most cheerfully rendered--which would not be withheld even if it might. The obedience which God's children yield to Him must be loving obedience. Do not go about the service of God as slaves to their taskmaster's toil, but run in the way of His commands because it is your Father's way. Yield your bodies as instruments of righteousness, because righteousness is your Father's will, and His will should be the will of His child. Father!--Here is a kingly attribute so sweetly veiled in love, that the King's crown is forgotten in the King's face, and His sceptre becomes, not a rod of iron, but a silver sceptre of mercy--the sceptre indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of Him who wields it. Father!--Here is honour and love. How great is a Father's love to his children! That which friendship cannot do, and mere benevolence will not attempt, a father's heart and hand must do for his sons. They are his offspring, he must bless them; they are his children, he must show himself strong in their defence. If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father? Abba, Father! He who can say this, hath uttered better music than cherubim or seraphim can reach. There is heaven in the depth of that word--Father! There is all I can ask; all my necessities can demand; all my wishes can desire. I have all in all to all eternity when I can say, "Father."

FUN with fish

On Friday our Enterprise Farm harvested our catfish and tilapia. We bought 2 kg and while Geoff cleaned and Amon was happy to just watch, Toby and Kevin practiced their "fish kisses."

And something fishy is up at school . . .

Lookin at these shots it's a wonder we get anything serious done during school time!!!!

The kids' assignment was to write a nonsense poem. I think they were each personally trying to BE a nonsense poem.

Eclipse

On Friday, in about a 185 mile band across Asia and Africa that included us (!) a solar eclipse was visible during the 8 a.m. hour. It was the longest one since 1992 and there won't be another one of that length for 1000 years!!! Seeing God's active creation is the best way to start out the day! Geoff took two papers-one with a pinhole to capture the image and the other to reveal the image of the sun while eclipsed by the moon. After that we found some great glasses and were able to safely look at the eclipse. The Ugandans say "the moon and the sun were fighting". The David family kids (and ours, too) enjoyed our impromptu science class.

Water Fight!!!!!!

The kids wanted a water fight last week and with all the rain we've had (when will the dry season start??????) I thought it was a great idea!!! It started small with just Acacia, Kevin and their newest friend Kaitlyn, whose parents will be ministering at the Musana Camp site starting in May (at present they are attending our Institute of Childcare and Family).

Once the fun began others heard the laughter and shrieks and joined in.


Medie--our wonderful compound worker--loading them up with more water from the cistern.

Spidey

Our resident Spider Man.

Kevin (and all our kids actually) are very good at climbing the poles on our porch. Once he was up,
he hung there for 9 1/2 minutes!!!!!

Load 'em up with sugar and send 'em home

After loading all the kids up with a boatload of SUGAR (!!!!) at Acacia's birthday party last month, we took some group pictures. Yeah . . . I have great memories of saying "YES!!!!" and being the heroine to a group of kids for 2 hours . . . "Auntie Mary, can I have more marshmallows?" "YES!! And have a soda to go with!" "Auntie Mary, may I have another cupcake?" "YES!!! And would you also like some more candy?" "Auntie Mary, may I have a BIG piece of cake?" "YES!! of course!" "Auntie Mary, how about a piece of banana bread? "YES!!"

I'm making fun, but it pretty much happened that way. They ate and ate til they could hold no more. We made picture frames and jewelry and played games. The kids had a fun-filled blast of a time. One of the littlest ones said, "Wow, this is the best birthday party I've ever been to and I'm gonna remember it and when I'm at another party I'm sure I'm gonna think this one is still the best." As parents and adults, of course it should not be our focus to be the most fun or be the biggest kid amongst other kids, but I have to admit that for 2 short hours it was glorious. . . and then I sent them home to their parents to have a sugar crash . . . :)

Bubbly gets a bath!












Geoff and Timmy (the son of Amon, one of our sons that grew up at New Hope and now teaches the weaving program at the vocational institute.)



















Papa, Grandma, Nabukeera, Acacia and Sarah saying goodbye last Sunday.

The children treated Papa, Grandma, Sarah and the church to "Away in a Manger" with a bell choir on Christmas morning. Auntie Grace Nasaka wonderfully taught and guided them.

We started school!! Looking at the calendar year we realized we would have precious little time before we leave in May for the states. January and early February are typically very busy around here and seem to push school out from the agenda. This year we are taking a proactive approach and getting an early start. In addition to teaching our three, I am tutoring one of the David family kids in handwriting. So, the kids have been enjoying having someone else around. Most of you reading this already have your kids back in school, but the school year here is February to early December with a 2 1/2 month break over the holidays. As we will be taking 4 months off this summer to travel, speak and visit people "over there" we can't afford to sit around now!!!

Geoff is currently interviewing potential new staff for both the maize mill and vocational institute. Filling the positions of maize mill manager and headmaster for the vocational school will aid him in more efficiently managing the overall operations of both entities and, of course, will greatly reduce the amount of stress he might feel at being away from both organizations from May - September when we're in the states.