"Ready In Season and Out of Season"

God's timing is perfect. In the recent blog post I shared about our weekend away. We were pretty tired going into the weekend and yet, we immediately felt relaxation come over us when we reached our destination. The whole weekend was a great time of family and rest. God knew we would need it for this week . . .

On Monday afternoon a dear staff member, whom I mentor, approached our house with a bent determination and serious concern on her face. "WHAT is the matter?!" I asked before she even reached the doorstep. She barely got into the house when she burst into tears, "I just took a child to the hospital and she died!" And thus began our most recent journey into the grief of losing a child of New Hope Uganda. There has been both numbness and heaviness in the air since the death. Her mother and father were also children of New Hope many years ago. Her father passed away in 2005 and her mother lives nearby and works in one of our staff members' homes. On Tuesday many traveled almost two hours to the burial site. With a passion to equip our children to experience their grief with hope and strength, our manager, Tal Anderson, called an all-staff, all-children assembly yesterday. It was a time in which we were able to address the various beliefs about death: scientifically, spiritually, animistically (sp?) and God-centered. Geoff approached me just before we started and said, "In season and out of season, right?" I smiled thinking that he had been asked at the last minute to share something. He held his smile and fixed his gaze on me . . . "YOU mean I need to be ready in season and out of season--RIGHT NOW?" Smiling he replied, "Yep, it's you this time." I explained from a medical perspective the reason for the death. The doctors had proclaimed the death as a result of a cranial hemorrhage, so I explained in SIMPLE terms the anatomy of the brain tissues and skull and physiological aspects of such an occurrence.

Though it has been very difficult this week, I am thankful for the opporutnity to talk candidly with our kids, both our own and the David Family, and with other staff members. As one of our fellow staff said to me yesterday, "Death is just very raw here. It all happens so fast and is very in your face." There is no prettying up the body, no waiting for a convenient time to bury, no preparation of any kind. Most burials take place within 24 hours of the death. There is no coroner who transports the body to the burial site--it is all up to the family to get the body from the place of death to the grave.

And so, as always, we are thankful to God for the strength He has placed in us that we are ready in season and out of season to give His love, truth and grace to those around us. . . especially in times like this.

In less somber news, we visited with one of our "old boys" (former New Hope children) this week. We went to his current school and met his administrators. We talked openly and challenged him to continue pushing forward to accomplish his goals WITH God.

And lastly a picture of me digging a jigger out of Geoff's foot, YUCK!!!

photos finally!

We went to the Kingfisher in Jinja last weekend for a little rest and relaxation. We heard about and decided to try a different route through the bush. Nothing like chartering unknown territory!!! We didn't get lost and we shaved off about 30km from the mileage, but didn't make much better time--still about 3 hours! It was great fun knowing that we succeeded in finding our way though there are NO road signs other than "this bush" and "that bush"! Once we arrived we jumped into the pool. Sadly, our beloved shark didn't survive the weekend, c'est la vie! But, we swam, ate wonderful food, took a short boat ride to the source of the Nile, and rested. Beautiful.

We went to the Jinja market one afternoon and found baseball hats for the kids. Toby was SOOOOOOOOOO excited about his dominos pizza hat. Not sure why :)

Goggle girl, Acacia

The Kingfisher has a new mini-golf area which the kids enjoyed. Not fancy, by any means, but great fun.

Acacia and Kevin enjoyed floating and laughing.

Toby makes friends everywhere he goes. Not sure what they were talking about, but they were all having a great time.

Kevin and Me at the miniature golf area.

There was an absolutely impossible hole at the hippo. We figure the hippo wasn't too excited about a golf ball passing through him and kept every attempt from succeeding!

another toothless grin from Kevy

Daddy and the kids enjoying a walk together

Great News!!!!

We just received news from the Dr. James that "there was no cancer seen" in Annet's biopsy!!!!! THANK YOU so much to those of you who prayed for her. We are away from New Hope this weekend which means we will have to wait to give Annet BIG hugs!!!!! But, again, THANKS for your prayers! We are very thankful and happy with the results!

Too Long

It’s been too long since I (Mary) last posted. It has been a crazy busy month! With multiple visits to the hospital, surprise visitors landing on our door for three days, a convalescing teenager who’s spending a week with us at present, sleepovers, baptism services, preaching, midterms, our school banda finally getting finished, helping out with special reading times in the primary school, and Kevin’s 7th birthday (tomorrow) we have been a bit occupied.

Yep, Kevin turns 7 tomorrow, but he doesn’t want a party. Instead, he had a friend over last Friday to spend the night and that was just enough for him. They ran around like wild monkeys, watched cartoons, iced cupcakes and stayed up late. Tomorrow morning I’ll make dutch pancakes for him for breakfast, yum yum. Oh, he also lost both of his front teeth this past month.

I’ve been to the hospital many times lately as one of our dear girls in David Family, who has an abnormal bone growth, needed a biopsy. We won’t find out results for another week at least, and for this week she is staying with us so that I can change her dressings and keep on top of her pain and antibiotic medicine schedule.

Two weeks ago a young man arrived at our door unannounced. He was interested in studying at the vocational school and had traveled from Sudan! He stayed with us while he spent a few days getting acquainted with what is available to him here. It was a very pleasant time, though “not on the schedule.” Often life-the way it plays out, is not according to “our” ideal schedule anyway, so it’s best to grin, ENJOY it, and praise God for His timing!

Since early this year a number of our children and church members attended classes on baptism. The class culminated with them getting baptized a few weeks ago--it was an exciting Sunday, especially because four of our girls were part of the celebration!! Geoff and three other church leaders performed the baptisms in our local dam.

And finally we are in our school banda!!!! We put our finishing touches on the paint two weekends ago and moved in!!! It is so helpful to be out of the dining room and out of the highly trafficked area of the house!!!! Our house sits on a main path and we frequently had people stopping by to greet while we were trying to “do school”. Now that we are at the rear part of the compound, out of sight, we are getting so much more accomplished in a day!!!!! The kids love it, too, because we have room for each of them to have their books on their own shelves.

Because we moved out to the banda, I left all the reading books we’ve finished in the house library. The David Family kids have been voracious readers lately and they love all the new selections! As they come and choose books, often their siblings come to play the piano or guitar.


I love that they feel welcomed into our home!!!

I wanted to include more pictures here . . . of the baptism Sunday, Kevin's little "one-friend" birthday party, and some miscellaneous photos, but my patience ran out! I truthfully spent more than four hours trying to upload pictures and finally gave up!!!!!

As I end for now, I want to ask that you would please pray for our girl who is awaiting the news from the biopsy. Please pray that whatever is there is benign. Pray for her strength and our wisdom as we guide her through her healing. Thanks so much!

Just words

What can be said about life the past few months? Well a lot! I have really seen the joy of ministering in Africa, but also have felt some struggle and disappointments. At times the work never seems to let up and that is where the joy comes from it also leads to weariness and disappointments. There have been many times that I have rejoiced at the opportunities God has given us as a family here in Uganda and I still stand on the fact that we have seen and been involved in more day to day ministering of God’s love than I could ever imagine. But that very joy also at times leaves us with a degree of tension over the continual demand that is put on us.

The past three weeks we sent our manager and Ugandan founder off the U.S. for a fundraising tour, which left me (Geoff) as the acting manager. Add that to my usual schedule and preaching a couple of times in the month of February, I feel I needed a bit of a break. So Sunday morning we stayed home from church, prayed together as a family then set down and played “The Farming Game”. Oh to enjoy the simple life as a farmer, cows, wheat, hey and such… I think somewhere I was born in the wrong time as I love the idea of farming. Actually here in Uganda I have begun developing more land for our personal support. I have majored in Matooke which is the banana here in Uganda that you steam and eat like mashed potatoes. But additionally we are planting sweet potatoes, beans, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, carrots, greens and some other miscellaneous vegetables. The rains have finally arrived, actually about two weeks late but we are rejoicing as water is life here in Africa. I find peace and solitude in the garden as it seems to provide relief from the daily stress of ministry. Additionally it helps provide some spending money…