January 2019 Prayer Letter

Thank you so much for your prayers for our ministries. Here you can read our most recent prayer letter.

Photos from Life and Ministry

By Anthony:

Here are some photos and videos that you might find interesting from some of the events we have gone to, travels we have made, and churches we have visited. First are some videos from a church visit in the village. I've been here for so many years but I still have trouble joining in the dancing! But I love being with them and worshiping together.

A missionary friend built us a ping pong table from scratch. It's wonderful. Sara and I play together. But I've also been teaching some Ugandan friends to play. God also provided us with some neighbors from the UK, Ben and Joanne and their children, who are only in Uganda for 6 months. But we've really enjoyed getting to know their family, and I've had fun playing ping pong with Ben once a week.

Here is our World Renew Uganda team who we love. We go to Kampala quarterly for team meetings.

Here is part of a UN convoy. They were on the way from Mombasa, Kenya to Juba, South Sudan. Unfortunately they went really slow and no one could pass them on the road so they delayed our journey home by an hour or two that day.

Here is a truck that must be paying a lot of money in bribes to the police for over-packing their vehicle!

We really appreciate our landlord for planting a lot of fruit trees in our compound many years ago. Almost all year long there is some kind of fruit in season. In November we were enjoying more avocados than we could possibly eat. We've been having a lot of Mexican food and guacamole. Having so much fruit is really fun because every week we can give so much away to friends and neighbors.

In case you were wondering, we don't drink water straight from the tap. We could boil it, but instead we use a really awesome filter called a Sawyer filter. We just lower the filter part so that it fills the pitcher below. However, at least once a month, one of us forgets that the water was filling, and we have to clean up a puddle on the floor.

For our wedding anniversary back in August, we went to a fancy restaurant. Here is the ostrich meat I ordered.

As a white person you are always a celebrity in Uganda. It's really uncomfortable, especially since you don't want others to think that white people are superior in any way. But it's one of the parts of life here that cannot be avoided. You just have to learn patience and learn to tolerate being the center of attention whenever you aren't at home. These photos are from after preaching one day. The children all wanted to sit quietly with me.

If you ever come to visit us, this will be the first thing you see when you step out of the main door of the airport - these are all drivers waiting to give people rides from the airport to their home or hotel.

Nutrition in Kalaki

By Sara:

I have been meeting regularly with a group of women in Kalaki to teach about nutrition.  We have talked about the important foods our bodies need to be healthy, local nutritious vegetables, and moringa.  Before each lesson, we do a Bible study together as well.

Planning a balanced diet for a week:

When we talked about local vegetables, everyone took time to draw a plan for how they would (realistically) use their land to grow the kinds of crops, fruits, and vegetables they want for their families to have good nutrition at home. 

Another time, we went outside and demonstrated how to make a simple vegetable garden which can go next to your kitchen.  Since this kind of garden is small and easy to water, you can then have vegetables even during the dry season.

Fun (not really) in Kampala Traffic

By Sara:

One of the exciting things about driving in Kampala is traffic jams.  And people doing crazy things either in the traffic jam or speeding around when traffic is actually moving.  Here are some guys riding in a couch in the back of a truck:

A taxi driving reading the newspaper while driving (we were moving at a crawl, but still):

People wandering through traffic selling stuff (they guy with the red shirt and hat had a tray of various kinds of chili sauce - just what you need when stuck in traffic):

And then, once we started moving, this taxi wouldn't start and someone had to hop out and push it...thanks a lot, taxi:

How about a couple videos of the craziness too?  First, motorcycles driving on the sidewalk because of the traffic jam:

Then, even more motorcycles getting really impatient and weaving around the stopped cars. This is when we were stopped in traffic, but this many motorcycles pass us constantly while we are driving also, and it's really stressful.

Then, much later, here are a couple pictures of the continued busyness of Kampala at night: