You can't eat calendars

This has nothing to do with the post, but is a fun article on going to school in another country and the video is priceless.  We watched it 4 or 5 times and the kids were so encouraged!!!

Article on school in Russia 

Article on church impact on poverty 


So, on to the topic.  Last year, we went to Kenya with our teammates for a Global Teams Missionary Care Retreat.  FYI, we serve with the organization Global Teams.

Our African director, Bryson, who is Kenyan,  gathered the North Americans serving in Uganda volunteers for a meeting.  We were chatting about different things and he was encouraging us.  At one point, he commented about what a bad idea it is for a westerner to bring an African a calendar as a gift when you visit a home.  He and his wife, Elizabeth laughed and laughed at how ridiculous that thought is and then he said "you can't eat calendars, bring some food."

Well, I squirmed in my seat and remained silent.  I LOVE giving and receiving calendars!! Our family loves calendars... I was dying!!!!

That turned out to be a missing puzzle piece in living in Uganda.  How do we do friendships?  There is no mall, no movie theatre, no bringing meals when people are sick (you could, but I can barely get a meal on the table for my own family...)  In Uganda, we visit.  We share work.  We talk about gardens and weather.  We are agricultural.  Well, I grew up in suburbia, so these are not skills I have, but we are getting them.

Leslie and I both have commented about how we are always  learning new layers to live and share here.  We have friends and neighbors bring us things from their garden all the time.  When we have been sick or in crisis, people bring us bags of food from their garden or from the market.  So, slowly, we have gotten into that rhythm.  We welcomed our DRC friends coming in for the beginning of term with some brownies--I brought them 3 on a plate...  A couple of days later, Leslie commented that the wife wasn't looking so well.  They are students on scholarship and their sponsors were out of the country and it turns out they had to use up their money at the border.  We were like, "oh, shoot, they need bags of food, not 3 brownies..."  Don't laugh about only 3 brownies--they had peppermint from the U.S. in them and I was not sure if they were going to be too sweet, so I didn't want to bring a whole pan of foreign food..... Anyway, we went to the supermarket and picked up essentials--you have to understand too, that they don't have a garden yet, b/c they had just come into the country and it was the dry season, so that is a challenge, too, until the rains come and the things grow.  We felt so proud and like we are FINALLY catching on. Now, when I visit a friend for a chat or a sick neighbor, I always pick up vegetables.  We grow some things in our gardens, but not like a field of cabbages or irish potatoes or matoke (green bananas), so one week I just prayed and picked up some things at the market and waited to see who they would be for and God showed me--it was a sweet week.

Also, visiting with people is a great honor here.  One friend told us that a home is not a home without visitors.  So, here are some pictures of us with our visitors and the bottom is Julia and I going to tea with our friend Sharon.  It was fun.