Photos and Stories from the Last Six Months

By Anthony:

In this post, I'll share some photos from our daily life here at home, from church events, animals we see, funny things on the road, and other miscellaneous activities.

First, look at the creative way that Sara sometimes teaches farmer groups:

Back around Christmas time, Sara and I went on a prayer retreat just by ourselves on the Nile River. Here is a picture from that great time:

Over Christmas break was when Sara started painting murals all over our house and on our compound walls. She has a huge to-do list of more to paint when she gets more time. She really enjoys it and might teach some Ugandan friends how to paint as well.

This one is in my office. Why a frog? It was one of my nicknames growing up and I use it for multiplayer gaming too.

Around Sara's office:

Don't mind the ant poison on the floor.

Our gate straight from Minas Tirith.

Also next to our gate. The door to Moria, with a Swahili twist (Karibu means welcome).

This is the outdoor latrine. It just makes it much more enjoyable to use the latrine.

On our verandah:

 

The inside of our gate:

From "The Hobbit", in our dining room:

Sara made cakes for three of our neighbors for Christmas:

Here is when we celebrated my birthday in January at a Japanese restaurant in Kampala. Our first time having sushi in Uganda:

At the beginning of January, we had an intern, Kang Heo, come from Calvin Seminary to stay with us for a few weeks. We had a great time with him. He got to visit the village, go to church events, visit farmers with Sara, attend TLT events with Stephen, and more.

We fed him pigeon with carrots, cassava and sweet potato.

He came to my pastor's book club that I lead:

We were able to play an international game of ping pong. It was South Korea and Argentina versus USA and Uganda.

Soon after this we had a retirement party for one of our night guards, Raymond. His age was making it harder to do this work, so he will now get involved in business instead. Sara made him and his wife matching clothing.

In March, I started paying some guys to dig a fish pond for me. It turned into a big project because at only a foot deep or less it was just like rock. I'll post more pictures of that later when I get the pond started.

Here is the nearest trading center in proximity to our home. You can tell we now live almost in the village, on the outskirts of town. At this trading center there are two bars, a shop, a restaurant, a hairdresser, and a couple other small things. The two bars are what we appreciate the most, especially when they play loud music while we are trying to sleep....

I started an initiative that kind of died out, and I'm not sure why yet. I started rounding up idle youth from the center who were sitting around at the bars with nothing to do. I taught them how to play ping pong. We played several times. They were having fun. Then the next three times I invited people no one showed up. I heard there were burials and weddings each time that they had to go to. Maybe I will keep trying.

One of our long time friends in Uganda since 2009, Robert Odukatum, has just become the new bishop of North Teso PAG Pastorate. We had him come over so we could pray for him and give him some advice. There is something very gratifying seeing the people you have taught for so many years attain such positions.

Here is Sara with her friend Jane. They get together usually once a week for fellowship and planning trainings together.

Here is what happens when you go to burials. This is one tiny percentage of parking at someone's home in the village for a burial.

Here are a couple beautiful flower pictures from Sara's garden and some countryside photos.

Here is the kind of Ugandan food we eat a lot. Fish, atapa (sticky "bread" made from millet flour and cassava flour), matoke (like plantains), beans, rice, and some beef.

But at home we make things like this:

A post like this isn't complete without some animal photos, our animals and some wild ones. This is a video of baby rabbits we let wander around our living room for a bit:

The baby rabbits have since grown a lot:

We also had ducklings which are now all grown up:

A few our of pigeons (even eating them regularly, we are up to around 30 I think).

They spend most of their time on the roof.

Some wild animals:

Marabou storks are all over in Uganda. They mostly eat out of trash piles, so that's gross, but they are a big bird, cool to see flying.

Last here are some funny things we saw on the road. We have Costco in Uganda, did you know? (no, not the same one).

Seeing a college named Johnass always cracks us up.

Cute little puppy:

This guy was doing some kind of mobile advertising very loudly:

 

And me buying meat on a stick while traveling. I haven't had it since 2009 when it got me super sick. But this time no issues!