our journey to Uganda-Ibanda

Only 6 weeks after we got back...The blog you've all been waiting for! 

PCM has 4 schools at this time. I'm going to highlight the few that we visited while we were in Uganda. The main school is in Mbarara (the M is silent, so it's pronounced Barara). The hotel that we stayed at is about 10 minutes from the Mbarara school. 

The school I'm talking about today is in Ibanda, which is about a 45 minute drive from Mbarara.

This school has about 6 teachers, 50 students and about 23 of them board there. The rest are day-schoolers. 

Here is Ellen with her sponsored child, Patricia

The younger classroom

the younger children singing

This is Patience, my parents' sponsored child

The ones that do board at the school, this is where they live. There are 2 separate 12'x10' rooms, one for girls and one for boys. They sleep 2 to a mattress. There is a sunday school class in Tyler that is currently trying to raise the funds to buy bunk beds for these children.

This is Hope, the Headmaster. She is Patience's older sister.

Becky and Scott (sister-in-law and brother-in-law) asked me to pick out a child for them to sponsor and this is precious Judith, their newly sponsored child!

Love this sweet smile!

Our newly sponsored children, Justus and Juliet

Chris didn't get to go with us to Ibanda because he was helping with construction in Mbarara, so I made him this video of Justus and Juliet. Just want you to be able to see their sweet faces in video!

Patience, Justus, Juliet

Patience opening her gift from my parents

the kids got bookmarks and snacks!

Patience showed me where she sleeps. This is her trunk, all of her possessions are either in this trunk or she is wearing them.

Here are their bathroom facilities. 

I love these precious children. I love looking at this picture and being able to have names to go with most of their faces.

You can read PCM's blog post from this day. (Chris also pipes in on this day about his part in helping with construction.) This was the 3rd school we went to but it was cool because each school was unique in its own way. When we arrived at the school, EACH child hugged every one of us. So that's 50+ hugs. It was incredible. We got to teach our bible stories and then just hang out and play with the children. They have very little, but hearing them sing about Jesus and smiling and laughing, we were reminded that these are God's children. He loves them. He provides for them. He protects them. They have a much different trust in God because they depend on him. They NEED him. Which I do too, but it's much easier for me to think that I can fix my problems with my resources, rather than trusting the Lord.

Someone before said it perfectly. "The more time I spend in Africa, the more I understand why these people are so joyful and they don’t get upset at things out of their control.  Everyday they  face a reality that they are not in control and Jesus is.  They know and we don’t.  They look up.  We look in the mirror."

New York City

This summer's vacation was to New York City! We both loved the Big Apple. It was warmer than I was expecting, in the mid 90's most of the time we were there...but much better than 105 degrees!

Since almost all airlines charge for checked luggage, we were able to pack in only carry-ons. I have to brag on myself for just a moment. I am known to over pack. You never know what shoes/shirt/pants you'll be in the mood for on the particular days you'll be gone. Not that my closet has an over-abundance of clothes selection, but I digress. We were able to pack in these 2 bags!

Of course, I packed in the bigger, roller one, but it's still a carry on size! 

Flying in to JFK

On the Circle Line Cruise around Manhattan

Lady Liberty! She's a little smaller than imagined her. But we didn't get any closer than this, so maybe she would seem bigger up close.

Times Square

We were waiting in this line to get Mary Poppins tickets. This ticket office opens at 3pm for same day, half(ish) off tickets. We got there at 1:30pm and there was already about 100 people in line!

Mary Poppins was AMAZING!!!! Magical. Awesome. I would absolutely recommend seeing it if you have the chance. Chris loved it too!

New Amsterdam Theatre, Mary Poppins has been here for 5 years.

Times Square at night. When you are inside a building and look out the windows, it looks like it is daytime because it is so bright!!

One World Trade Center going back up! They originally called it the Freedom Tower, but have since changed that to One World Trade Center.

Firefighter memorial outside the fire station closest to ground zero.

9-11 Tribute Museum. There is one picture for every person that was killed that day.

The plans for the plaza are so cool. The memorial will open to the public on 9/12, 10 years and 1 day to the attacks. The footprints of the world trade centers will be memorial fountains.

Empire State Building. It is sad that the first thing I thought of when I saw this was..ELF!!?

Gorgeous views of the NYC skyline from 80 stories up!

You can see the statue of liberty out there! You can also see the One World Trade Center going up on the very left of the picture. 

The Today Show studio

The city from the Top of the Rock!

Church at Hillsong NYC. It was in a club! Church was AWESOME. There was standing room only and when we left there was a line of at least 300 people out the door waiting on the next service.

After church we got a few dogs from Gray's Papaya.

Then walked down to Central Park to eat them.

This is SPRAY PAINTED! We were blown away with how this guy made his posters. We stood and watched him on the street in Times Square for about 30 minutes. Amazing.

Monday night we went and saw Voca People. It was AMAZING! It was described to us as a mix between Glee and Blue Man Group. It's all acapella and the sounds they can make with their voices is incredible! You can check out a video of them here.

We had a late flight back, so we had time to meet my cousin, Lindsay for lunch. She's lived in NYC for almost 2 years, and it had probably been about 5 years since I'd seen her!

 

After lunch, we still had a little time to kill, so we went and watched Zookeeper. It was cute. Not as dumb as I was expecting, but still had some dumb parts. I liked it a lot better than Mall Cop, if that's saying much! 

And now we are home. It's always bittersweet coming home from vacation. It's nice to sleep in our own bed and not live out of a suitcase. But the time away from everyday life is always a nice break. But...energy and money runs out...so, vacation must come to an end! 

happy birthday to me

I turned 24 while we were in NY. It was a fantastic birthday! 


I chose dinner based on TripAdvisor.com's reccomendations for a good steak. If you remember from last year, my dinner choice turned out NOT to be a good one! But this year it was much better! We had a nice, quiet expensive, candlelit meal!

We also went to the 9/11 Tribute Museum, Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, got dessert at TGI Friday's. You can see most of that on my NYC trip post.

I feel so blessed to have another birthday and to have shared it with my sweet husband. :)

our journey to Uganda

Well... in the last month, Chris and I have traveled to Uganda and back...as most of you know. I've sat down many times to blog about it, but just felt like I didn't have to right words. So many emotions were involved in this trip, so many hugs, so many faces will forever be etched in my heart. How in the world do I portray my feelings into this little blog?? My husband is the one who is great with words and writing, not ME! But here I am. We've been back 3 weeks and now I will attempt to show you our journey to Uganda.


Chris did most of the blog while we were gone, so you can hear his thoughts and his heart at PCM's blog. So as I spend the next 2 weeks recapping our trip, I'll link to the specific PCM blog posts.


So here we go...
Stay tuned!

This will be the first of several videos. The way these children worship is incredible. This is them singing for us right before we had to leave to come home. 


/////update//////
Here are my posts from our time in Uganda
Ibanda
Rwemikoma
Mbarara
more!
saying goodbye

eat your own food!

As I was reading The Blessed Life by Robert Morris a few days ago and came to a part I thought I should share. Please tell me someone else can relate to this!


The book is about being obedient to God with your money. This particular chapter was about our selfish hearts; how selfishness is deeply rooted in each of us. He takes a lighthearted look at it and says that this explains why a woman assumes her man will be more than happy to share his food.


This dynamic plays out thousands of times each day in fast-food drive-throughs across this great land of ours.


A husband and wife drive up to the menu speaker and hear, "Welcome to Burger Circus. May I take your order?" The husband leans out the window and, talking quite a bit louder than necessary, says, "Yeah, I'd like a double cheeseburger and some french fries and a coke."


He then turns to his wife and asks, "What would you like dear?" And what does she say? "Oh, I don't want anything. I'll just have some of yours." Some of mine, the man thinks. Doesn't she understand that "mine is...well...mine? I ordered the amount of food that I wanted to eat!


Of course, the man doesn't actually say any of this. Instead he says sweetly, "Honey, if you want something, I'll order it for you. If you want some fries, I'll get you some fries." "No, no," she says, "I'm not really hungry." Of course, the husband knows that at least half of his fries are as good as gone.


That is US. Chris and I have totally had THIS conversation! But usually, when I think I'm not hungry and say I'm going to eat some of Chris', after we get our food my stomach gets very hungry for whatever it is he ordered! Sometimes Chris will order things he knows I don't like just so he knows he'll actually get to eat. Smart man. :)