A wedding, a birthday and an obstacle course

Jeremiah 32:27- this week's memory verse

This week has been another fun but busy week with lots of rehearsals for our worship event at church with the youth band, celebrating Bennie's birthday and going to Robinah's wedding. I am making the most of every day- the weeks are zooming by.


On Monday we ran catch up class, using the tracing sheets for letter D.I stayed behind with Gabit to talk with the father of one of the families we visit on community outreach about his story of seeking refuge in Uganda after war came to his home in the Congo. This was an amazing time- we were there for three hours talking and it went by so fast. He is truly a godly man and his testimony of how God has watched over his family and been faithful to them is so inspiring and encouraging. His story was also tough to listen to but his message was through the struggles he has faced, he has learnt to put his trust in God despite circumstance and he hopes that his testimony points others to look to God.

After, we went straight to church for voice class and then youth band practice for our worship event. I really enjoyed voice class as we did a fun exercise to improve our facial expressions when singing where we split into two groups and had to act out an emotion to the other group. It was hilarious.

On Tuesday, I went to talk to Teacher Ruth at school about some of the children's stories whilst Lois and Kate continued with our poster making at the house.

Lois' poster

Kate's poster

On Wednesday, we revised the letter E with the children. I miraculously stayed at home instead of going to church in the evening, which consisted of washing clothes, playing with Alisa and watching Poldark with a big bag of popcorn.

On community outreach on Thursday, we had a long chat with a couple of families and prayed about the possibility of one of the ladies we visit joining a sewing centre empowerment project. We noticed that lots of the children are ill with colds and flu, so prayers for restoration and protection of health over the Nabulagala area would be appreciated.

After outreach, we had a worship practice at church with the Hoima Road Cell group we belong to. Whilst we waited for our friends to finish their practice for Robinha's wedding, Kate and I went out for pizza, which was a lovely treat.

On Friday, I helped run kid's club in Nabulagala, .We were joined by Ken and Keith from the Ideas Workshop, training young men in practical skills. The theme of the teaching was on trusting God through the memory verse Jermiah 32:27. Gabit and I even created a song for the memory verse. To demonstrate learning to trust God in a visual way, we set up an obstacle course on the church stage and got a few pairs of children to complete it with one of them blindfolded. We had to be creative, making it out of benches, chairs and a skipping room. The children loved it and also found it hilarious to see me crawling under benches in the demonstration. After the obstacle course, the children filled in the blanks from the memory verse on a sheet we created and wrote the things that they would trust God for, such as school fees and friends, below.

Ken and Keith introducing themselves

Memory verse song

Memory verse

Obstacle course

Trusting God worksheet

Worksheet time

Kate giving out biscuits

Posing for the camera

Play time

Afterwards, we went to a Korean/Chinese restaurant for Bennie's surprise birthday meal. She thought she was going out for a birthday meal with only Alex. The meal was held in a private room so before she came, we turned off the lights and shouted 'surprise' when she entered. It was a fun time with delicious food and I think Bennie enjoyed her evening. One of the funniest/cutest parts was when Alisa was spun around on the revolving part of the table, which I am told by Kate is called a Lazy Suzanne.

Birthday table

Alisa

On Saturday, we attended Robina's wedding. Robina works with us at Smile and it was so lovely to be a part of her special day. The ceremony was beautiful and filled with lots of happiness. The reception was held in some gardens, under brightly coloured canopies and was very joyful with dancing and singing.

Wedding singers

Ceremony

The married couple

Us gappers at the wedding

Celebrating 30 years of God's faithfulness at Kampala Baptist Church

KBC

The highlight of this week has been celebrating 30 years of ministry in Nankulabye for Kampala Baptist Church, my church here in Uganda. The theme of the week was 'God's faithfulness' and it has been wonderful to celebrate how God has been faithful to the church since it moved to its current location through its various ministries. It was fantastic to hear testimonies of God's work over the years and see the way KBC has helped impact many lives by showing people God's love and pointing them to Him.

KBC has been a tremendous blessing to me over the past months and my time in Kampala would be very different without it. I am so thankful for the friendly way in which they welcomed me into their church family, for the way they have helped me grow in faith and for the friends I have made there.

Writing letters

Monday 9th May- We ran catch up class with the help of our friends Emma and Olivia from church. It made such a difference to have their help because we were able to give more one to one attention to the children. We have started printing out handwriting tracing sheets to help the children continue to practice their writing and worked on 'B' for this day.

After, I went to church for a youth band rehearsal but it didn't happen because of the events for the day of prayer and fasting at KBC and practices for events later in the week, it got cancelled. Instead I had a nice time chatting with friends and listening to other worship rehearsals going on.

Tuesday 10th May- We ran catch up class again, practising writing the letter 'C'. It was a bit of an adventure to get there this morning as it had poured with rain again. I woke up in the early hours of the morning to a spectacular thunderstorm- there is really nothing like an African storm. The lightening isn't just a fork but really does light up the whole sky- sometimes it's even a pink flash! Being the lightest sleeper of us three, I was watching at the window for some time before Kate woke up to ask who on earth was standing in our room. As we walked down the hill on our way to catch up, we found that one of the streams which usually passes under the pathway had flooded again so we had to take off our shoes and wade through. That definitely made for a more interesting journey!

Catch up

Wednesday 11th May- Wednesday was a much quieter day as we got to stay in the house to continue to create educational posters for Ruth Mother Care. Kate made one on types of transport, I made one on types of weather and Lois made one on Jack and the Beanstalk, one of the children's favourite stories. It was lovely to have the chance to get creative and I found it relaxing! I even had the chance to introduce Kate to the wonder that is Pride and Prejudice by watching the 2005 movie version. What is better than craft and Mr. Darcy?!!

In the evening, Lois and I got a lift with Alex and Benigne to the KBC worship evening. Gabit led worship amazingly and it was a great time praising God. I always love watching friends at church praising God through dance- I only wish I could dance like them! People have tried to teach me the Ugandan style many times but they now realise I have two left feet. After the worship ended, I enjoyed eating cassava, a banana and gnuts. I have only just discovered that the nuts I ate were the same ones that are used to make gnut sauce.

Worship evening

Worship with Isaiah and Reagan

Thursday 12th May- Thursday was a public holiday because of the swearing in of President Museveni so we had the day off from Smile work. After lunch, we went to join the Youth Expo at church, where there was a time of worship before an inter-school Bible trivia competition on the book of 1 John. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well so went to lie down in the youth office. Earlier in the day, I had picked up a copy of Corrie Ten Boom's book 'A Tramp for the Lord' as they were giving out free books at the expo so I loved reading that. There are some amazing testimonies that Corrie shared which really encouraged and inspired me.

Friday 13th May- On Friday I went to run FBC kid's club with Kate, Lois and Gabit. Kate came with us to FBC because the Blessed Word club was called off because of building work going on. I ran the session for the 'babies' by singing some songs and reading 'Jack and the Beanstalk' to them. Since there is only one of us available to run this session and it is hard to keep the children settled and entertained for the duration of the teaching session for the older children, we have decided it is best to read a story with them or let them colour and then send them home with their biscuits.

Reading 'Jack and the Beanstalk'

After the 'babies' had gone home, I went to help Gabit and Kate with their lesson. The theme was 'God looks at the heart.' In the morning, we made small cards with glitter hearts on them and so the children had to write 'God looks at my' above the heart. They love the creative activities like this we have been doing with them recently!

God looks at the heart song

Craft

Sabiti and Irene making the cards

Hearts

Teaching

Friday evening- KBC Celebration Dinner

The highlight of the week's celebrations for me was the dinner at Hotel Africa on Friday night. I had the BEST time. The venue room looked absolutely beautiful- it looked like a wedding or prom event and was very posh. It was so much fun to dress up and enjoy a delicious dinner with friends whilst celebrating God's faithfulness to KBC. I couldn't stop smiling afterwards! God knew exactly what I needed- although I wouldn't change being here for the world, I did feel like a little like I was missing out on the end of year formal events that my friends at uni are attending so this took away that feeling entirely. I couldn't stop smiling afterwards!

Anna and I

My meal

Reagan and I 

Friends

Anita and I

Selfie time

Emma

Saturday 14th May- Saturday was a restful day in the midst of a busy week of events as we all had lots of jobs to do at the house. In the evening, we went to a youth band rehearsal. We are looking forward to our worship event on the 28th.

Sunday 15th May- Sunday was the finale of the KBC celebrations. Usually there is a Luganda service at 10AM and an English service at 11AM but this week there was a joint service at 10AM. The church was packed and there were lots of testimonies shared during the service that point to our faithful God. It was so nice to see that some former members from KBC had travelled back to visit for this week.

Celebratory Sunday service

After the service, there was an amazing free lunch for everyone there with tents put up around the back of church especially for the occasion. In the afternoon, there was a concert with different musical groups that had been involved in KBC over the years and even a comedian. I was supposed to be singing with the youth band but they ran out of time. It was a great of joy and celebrations for the church and I'm so glad that I've had the opportunity to be there for this week because it's not something that comes around often!

Lines for the meal

Lunch around the back of church

Emma and Gabit singing in the service

Please pray for:

- The final rehearsals for the youth worship event I am involved in on the 28th of May to go well.
-For the general health of the families living in Nabulagala slums as many of the children we work with are ill with flu etc.
-That school fees will be provided for the next term for the children at Ruth Mother Care.
- We will be able to use the extra catch up class time during the holidays productively to help the children progress.

Vaccinations, thankfulness and celebrations

The beautiful hill where I live

This week of transition between April and May has been a hard week because I was ill with flu for several days but I thank God that I am much better now and am excited to get out of the house again. Despite that, I've had great fun on the days where I was able to be up and about have been. It's the small things that really make my day, for example a child telling you they are thankful for the doll they have wanted for ages or a farmer thinking you want to steal their cows because they happen to be within shot of a photo you are taking. Thank you to everyone who prays for my team and I- you are awesome!


Monday 25th April- After devotion I was surprised with a birthday cake by the Smile team. It turns out that Kate had been trying to invent excuses keep me busy in our bedroom all morning but I kept wanting to go out to do things like fill up my water bottle. It was a genuine surprise for me as I hadn't clocked on at all so when I was called out of the bedroom with balloons popped in my face, I was pretty shocked as I hadn't been expecting any more birthday celebrations! Thank you so much to the Smile team :)

Smile's surprise birthday cake for me

My surprised face

Cake

In catch up class , I read a book designed to help children learn to pronounce and read phonics. It is part of a set that I brought with me from the UK so we are going to be reading one each week to help the children progress beyond the alphabet and teach them English. This week I read 'Singing Dad', which has simple phrases like 'Dad is singing', which we used to teach them sounds like 'ng.

After the class, the children received polio vaccinations as part of a national health programme and were all very brave. The fight against polio is a cause close to me because my Grandad is now in a wheelchair because of polio he contracted whilst serving in the navy during the Korean war. I am so thankful that the children in Nabulagala have now had the opportunity to be vaccinated against it.

Reading the phonics book

The children having their polio vaccinations

I stayed in in the evening as I wasn't feeling well, cooked potato wedges with mince for dinner and called the Gold Hill girls group. It was so lovely to speak to friends from my home church and be able to see them over video connection. It can't be said enough that Skype and Facetime are miracle inventions when you are living on another continent. Chatting and praying with them was such an encouragement to me and really made me smile. Thanks girls!

Beth with virtual me

Tuesday 26th - I woke up and it poured with rain from 5. This was rather blissful as the rain holds up public transport etc. so it is hard for people to arrive on time so we had a nice rest in the morning before devotion, Innocent came and took us in the Smile van. It was a rather uneventful day as Ruth said we could sit in the office in the morning and teach after but because the roads were so bad, we went back with Innocent in the Smile van.

Wednesday 27th-Thursday 28th- I was unwell these days so my day largely consisted of me watching Downton series 6 in bed. When you're feeling under the weather, there's nothing better than watching new Downton episodes!

Friday 29th- In kid's club with Gabit and Lois, Gabit and I led the older children's teaching session. We decided to teach on thankfulness to God by getting the children to think about everything they want to thank God for. To make this creative, each of them drew round their hands and wrote something they were thankful for on each finger. It was so much fun to do a craft activity with them.

 This was a really humbling session because by the world's standards, these children have very little materially, they had so much to write down that they were thankful for- parents, siblings, school fees and food for example. It is amazing to see this gratefulness and happiness with what they have and a challenge to us.

They are a great example of embodying Philippians 4:11-13:

Philippians

'I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.'

The children with their hand craft

Cutting out the 'hands' for the children

Drawing around the hands

Juliana

Sunday 1st- Robhina's wedding shower- Robhina, who works in Smile's finance department is getting married on the 23rd May so we held a surprise bridal shower for her at the Smile house. She was told that there was a Smile meeting being held and Alex even played his part by taking her to his office when she arrived. It was a lovely time of sharing food together, listening to Benigne encouraging Robhina about marriage and exchanging presents.

Robhina's wedding shower

Presents at wedding shower

Lois with Alizaa at the shower

Please pray:

-That I would be able to make the most of the last two months I am here.
-For the health of the children in the slums as there is a lot of cold and flu going around at the moment due to it being the rainy season.
-For youth band practices for our upcoming worship event.
- For the building projects going on at Blessed Word Church of Life to prepare for the summer medical mission and the new classroom at Ruth Mother Care