11.07.09
On October 25th my mom and little sister came to visit me for two weeks. It was incredible to see them. I meet them in Entebbe at the airport. Standing at the gate I was extremely excited to see them. Each and every time a person would come out, my heart would skip a beat thinking it was them. A cute older couple next to me noticed my excitement and struck up a conversation. They turned out to be from Littleton, Colorado and the husband had graduated from Littleton. He was now running the international university in Kampala. It is such a small world we live in. Not long after they left the amount of people waiting was dwindling down until it was just me. All I wanted was to see my mom but I could only see her back and blonde hair. They were sitting in the lost baggage office. Out of the six bags they lost one. Unfortunately the bag that was lost was full of goodies for us. But we got the back about a week later when Pat Pauline, President of Musana’s board and Andrea’s mom, came back to Musana. The next day my mom, sister and I meet Morris and Andrea in Kampala. I left them and went to the immigration office to sort out visa issues. We meet back up and grabbed lunch with Jared Mackey, a TNL pastor. It was great to see him and hear about the wonderful work he is doing with Come Let’s Dance and TNL( The Next Level church in Denver). We then embarked on the journey back to Iganga. Before taking them to our house we stopped at Musana. The kids sang welcome songs and were very excited to meet Auntie Kay and Auntie Liza. After leaving Musana we took them back to our house. For most of the time they were here we spent it in the art room making beads. My mom was extremely helpful. From the morning to the evening she was by my side trying to help me in anyway I needed it. It was very encouraging. She also brought a lot of bead supplies. A close family friend, Brooke Dalton, donated seed bead supplies and the best containers for the beads. Everyone was concerned for how excited I got about my new bead supplies! Thanks Brooke for your continued support of Musana and what I am doing! I wish I had more to say about them being here but we spent most of our time in bead land, which has become my entire life. I think everyone I live with was getting concerned when they noticed how even after I leave work I continue beading at home.
On Monday we all decided to go white water raft on the Nile. I am still not sure how we convinced my mom but she came with us. The rapids are class 4 and 5. In Colorado the only rapids they let you do are 3 and 4. The stretch of the Nile we rafted has been said to have the best white water in the world. The world’s best kayakers live in Jinja and kayak it for a living. If you ever get the chance to do it, do not turn down the opportunity! It was a day I will never forget! And thankfully no one got too seriously injured. There was a group of four guys from Japan. They were literally cartoons. We were watching the get in there raft and they began trying to push each other out. Somehow they all ended up in the water. They flipped on almost every rapid. On one of the rapids we went down before them and were watching them come down. Their raft flipped and one of them ended up near out raft. Climbing back into the raft after you fall out is extremely hard. You almost always need someone to pull you back in. He struggled to get in before my sister came over and used her super human strength to yank him in the raft. He was lying wet and scared in the bottom of our raft, and then he looked up at my sister and said “shank you!” He looked at her like she had just saved his life. On the last rapid it happened again. I think that time he might have thought she was an angel.
We hired a man named Joseph for me to train to do my job. He is a university student studying to be a social worker. Joseph has continually impressed me with his drive to learn and his work ethic. With him at Musana helping me it will lighten my work load to a more manageable level. Before I come home we are hoping to make around 5,000 necklaces. If you want a necklace, let me know!
I am in shock at how close I am to going home for Christmas. I have a little over a month and a half. Our Ugandan co director is coming back with us to Colorado for a month to fundraise for Musana. He will be speaking at schools and churches around Denver. I am extremely excited to see how God uses him to bless Musana!
