By Anthony:
As usual, I like to make periodic blog posts featuring different aspects of our lives here in Uganda, and some of the pictures I've saved up.
Here is a view of Jinja, Uganda, when I was there for leading a HWHIA training. I walked up a hill behind where we were staying. Uganda can be so beautiful.
Here is how I saw people drying clothes in Ghana. When you don't have enough clotheslines, you improvise.
Here is a view overlooking a part of Kampala, when I was there for a training.
Driving in Uganda is interesting for a whole host of reasons. You have to watch out for animals, but not deer.
The roads are bad, like really bad in many areas. But to make things worse, when people are doing construction, so many nails end up in the roads. In one month I think we patched the same tire three times for different nails. Unfortunately one time got us out in the village in the morning in the dark. We were very ready to change the completely flat tire ourselves. But we couldn't get the old tire off even with our jack and all the tools. It needed our mechanic to come with a crowbar to finally wrench it off.
In September 2024, we had a visitor, Pat Smith, come from Midland Reformed Church in Michigan and stay with us. As one of our supporters and from our supporting church, he just wanted to come and experience our ministry and encourage us. He definitely encouraged us and made us feel loved and affirmed! While he was here he got to meet many of our friends, preach on the radio, help with Sara's painting classes for children, and preach in a rural church. He also met with local Ugandan Gideons (from Gideons International) as Pat is involved with the Gideons in the USA. This was a delight for him.
Pat also spent a day teaching my Soroti pastors' book group with me. Pat did most of the teaching with a little input from me here and there. He first taught about trust, confessing sin, accountability, and deep friendship between pastors. Then he taught about leadership.
My pastors' book club in Soroti continues to go well. It has grown to nearly 40 pastors. Here is a photo from when we went to a hotel pool, and I did my best to teach a few of them how to swim.
More recently, we had the pastors' group come to our new home for lunch. We gave them a tour of Sara's garden and our fish pond. Sara was able to share cuttings and seeds and do a bit of teaching on a few plants.
Here are some interesting pictures from our neighborhood from Sara's jogging. The flying insects in the photos are termite "kings and queens" who emerge seasonally to mate and people call them "white ants." People catch them and then fry them up to eat. Sara also fries them up sometimes.
Look at how magical this video is. It's so beautiful.
Our dog Beorn has psychological issues that make him lick his legs until they bleed, so sometimes we put this plastic bottle on him until he heals up. It can be pretty funny the situations he gets himself in such as getting his bowl stuck on his head!
We occasionally get snakes in our yard, but we have not yet gotten any harmful snake species.
We have a friend in Kampala, Jilanne, who is a partner missionary with Resonate Global Mission and works at Kampala Evangelical School of Theology, one of Resonate's partners. She enjoyed spending a week with Sara at our home while I was traveling for Helping Without Hurting in Africa. It sounds like one of the highlights was catching one of our ducks!
Sara continues to try to find time here and there to paint on our walls. It's relaxing for her, and we both love the results.
Here are some animals we see in our yard. The first is a skink. It was running around our kitchen. When I caught him, he bit me. It didn't draw blood, but it was surprising!
A lizard I caught on our outside wall.
Fun with chameleons:
We enjoy our home and where we live. Look at how beautiful Sara's garden is.
Unfortunately, we didn't consider when we chose to move to where we are that there are so many bars nearby. (We live in a center which means there are shops right across the street from us). Sometimes the music at the bars really disrupts our sleep because they play music even to the late hours of the night. LOUD music, that goes way beyond the noise pollution laws. But in Uganda most laws of any kind are not enforced well. Many people in the community are unhappy about the noise. I thought of calling the police myself but never have. After people complained to the local government leaders, this is what happened:
The local leaders warned the bar boys repeatedly, but the boys laughed and didn't listen. So one night the leaders got soldiers from the army to come and those soldiers caught as many of the boys as they could before some ran away. Then they laid them down on the ground and caned them. This is more like a spanking, there were no injuries. Hearing about this we really thought maybe a change was coming!
Unfortunately the problem remains and the music only gets louder and louder as the months go by. We will continue to talk to our local leaders to see what can be done. I'm summarizing and condensing what is a long saga about this noise with many players and discussions. Please be in prayer for us about this!
