The Donated Books Made it to Uganda!

By Anthony:

Back in 2019, I started fundraising from churches and individuals in order to pay for the shipping to send a container of donated books from the USA over to Uganda to help the church leaders here. I am so grateful that the books finally arrived at the PAG National Office in Kampala! I praise the Lord for that, and I once again thank all of you who contributed to make this project a success! 

Some of the books were donated by several of our supporting churches. The rest of the books were donated by Christian Resources International based in Michigan, which is also the organization which managed the entire shipping project. CRI not only donated thousands upon thousands of books, but they also helped us with some of the additional costs which came up. PAG Uganda also paid a considerable contribution for the taxes and other import fees when the container finally arrived. I consider all the different people involved in this project and find it amazing how it all came together.

In the boxes, the most important items are the commentaries and other theological resources which will go to pastors and church leaders all over the country. Those kinds of books are very hard to obtain within Uganda, even for those with financial resources. Also included in the shipment are Bibles - there are actually some church leaders who don't own a Bible, so they will be greatly helped. There are also many Christian books of all kinds - books on leadership, worship, counseling, youth ministry, and so much more. There are some random books, like non-fiction or novels, and PAG will probably end up giving many of those books to PAG owned primary and secondary schools around the country. Some books will also go to their theological schools. But the majority of the books will be given out directly to church leaders in each of the PAG pastorates. PAG has over 6000 churches throughout the country.

The books just arrived and so they are packed in the office for now where they will be carefully sorted and then transported to the church leaders.

This was not a small project for anyone involved. It takes a great deal of paperwork and logistics to send a container across the world. The CRI staff and PAG staff really worked hard to make it happen. To celebrate the occasion, we took some pictures of me and the top leaders of PAG who are very grateful for the books. There will be more pictures and testimonies coming later that I will put on the blog as the books are given out.

 

Garden Progress

 By Sara:

Although the dry season is upon us, there are still things surviving in my garden.  Here is a lot of cassava and sweet potatoes:

There are green peppers:

My strawberry plants are very small but still hanging on:

 

I've been able to enjoy about 4 tiny strawberries (tiny but very tasty):

Ginger and parsley:

Papayas:

Avocado - we only got 3 of them last year, but this year, there's a bumper crop!

Matooke (cooking bananas, similar to plantains):

Pictures - December and January

By Sara:

Christmas is usually the last time we see rain until March or April of the next year, but this year, both on Christmas and New Year's, we had some seriously heavy rain, including a full rainbow on Christmas:

  

Our traditional Christmas decorations and Advent candle lighting:

 

  

 

 

 

A little bit of Christmas baking/art:

 

 

 

The Millennium Falcon and a TIE fighter, in case you don't know.

 

 

 

Christmas tree breadsticks:

 

 

 

My traditional Christmas sweet roll which is supposed to be a wreath, but won't fit in my small oven in one piece, so it becomes two Cs:

 

 

I had a Christmas "end of the year" party with the youth from the Bible study group.  They did some creative cookie decorating, baked a cake, and drank lots of passionfruit juice.  It was their first experience decorating Christmas cookies (and eating them) and fun was had by all.  There was lots of sugar involved so they might have had trouble sleeping that night!

 

 

Some of the beautiful scenery around Soroti:

A bit of silliness with our dogs.  First, weighing Beorn with a luggage hand scale:

 

 

And the dogs sneaking inside when the front door wasn't latched:

Good information to know (100,000 shillings = about $30):

Ummmm...

Ugandans are much more realistic than Americans with their mannequins:

 A bus park in Mbale:

In December, we had the opportunity to go to Jinja for a retreat.  It was a restful time of prayer, reflection, and meditation on our work and lives.

Among other things, we enjoyed the hammock and the bathroom:

Prison Baking

 By Sara:

I have had the fun opportunity to teach baking lessons to some women whose husbands work at the prison just down the road from our home.  The families of the prison staff work on the prison compound and many of the ladies don't have any work outside the home.  I met one of them during the trash pick up day and she shared with me about her passion for helping her neighbors there gain new skills.  She has been working with me to organize training events, including cake baking, scone/biscuit baking, fireless cooker, and kitchen gardening.  

We started out with baking cakes without an oven.

All the kids who were around came to check out the instructions:

Enjoying cake when a sudden rainstorm forced us inside:

On another day, I went back for the lesson on baking scones and biscuits without an oven and one of the ladies had baked a cake so they could also practice decorating it.  They told me about all the cakes they have been making for their families and some of their husbands who were around also told me how much they're appreciating the new skills their wives have!

In case you're wondering, SPWG stands for "Soroti Prison Women's Group".