Hello readers, friends, and strangers! I’ve been muy ocupado this summer and I thought I’d just give ya’ll an update on all that’s been going on. Let’s start from now, and move backwards, shall we?

My daughter is in Uganda. That’s on the other side of the world. All the way on the other side. Sigh. She has been thinking of making this trip for two years now. She is there with three other people from our church and 21 other people from around the U.S. They are there serving Imani Milele, an organization that is devoted to locating and rescuing orphans and vulnerable children from the villages and areas out in the bush. Lindsay and her team are there to work in a medical clinic, have Vacation Bible School camps for sooooo many children and to help construct brick classrooms for their schooling.

There’s a lot of people at the airport at 4 am.

In Uganda, there is no free education. If a child is rich, they can go to school. Otherwise, you must be sponsored in order to go. Education is absolutely PARAMOUNT in the lives of these Ugandan children because it is the only way to break the cycle of poverty. If a girl reaches the age of 13 or so, and is not in school, she will be married off and will perpetuate the cycle. But if she is in school, if someone pays for her school, then she is able to continue through college. The children that we have hosted in our home for the past few summers have described what it is like to go to school. They rise at about three or four a.m. They walk between 1 1/2 and 2 hours to school. School begins at  6 am and ends at 6 pm. Then they walk back home. They do this 6 days a week and they love it. They appreciate it so much because they know what the alternative is. Most of their classrooms are mud huts that get destroyed in the rain. That’s why Lindsay’s team is there to contribute to the construction of brick classrooms.

All of the children that come here to the US for their choir tour have been sponsored. They take a year off from school so they can make the tour. They come completely devoted to their work of raising awareness of the plight of children in their homeland and they ask us to come. It’s interesting that they would so much rather have you come to Uganda to help them than they would have you write them a check. They are the most loving and hospitable people I have ever encountered in my entire life.

The week before Lindsay left, we hosted two boys. Julius and Geofrey. Each child in the organization has a Ugandan name and a “Christian” name. (Which I think just means an “English” name.) We had a wonderful time with them, even with the distractions of getting Lindsay ready to go.

Geofrey loves to cook and he was often in the kitchen helping me with meal preparation. I started to slice an avocado one day and he took it right out of my hand, preparing it the way that he had been taught. He had great skills with a knife and I showed him how to use a vegetable peeler. He also made us Ugandan eggs. We call this an omelet. When he was not cooking, he was goofing off, laughing or playing Mario Kart.

Julius loves Jazz music and wanted it to be playing at all times. I showed him how to find music and artists on youtube. In the last few years, my world has become very quiet. I can be in the house for hours and hours and never have the TV or radio on. I won’t even notice it. So when I was cooking or cleaning or whatever, he would come in the room and turn on Jonathan Butler or George Benson or Kirk Whalum or Peter White. And he liked it loud. We would all be washing dishes, (because my dishwasher messed up the week before they came), and we’d be talking and I would turn the music down a little so I could hear people and not have to shout and as soon as I did, Julius would apologize for it being too loud. It’s so funny that there are some people like me where music is in the back ground of their day and others where music is in the forefront at all times.
( He also likes Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. And I promise I didn’t even bring it up. He did when he saw my bookshelf.)

Julius also bonded with my cat. Even though cats are considered a nuisance where he’s from.

So, it’s been a little busy as you can see. I don’t know why I always look forward to some down time in the summer because really, most days are just as busy as the other seasons of the year. I guess the one thing that is a huge sense of rest to me in the summer is that I don’t have to worry about if my boys are getting all their school work done. You have no idea the amount of space that takes up in my brain on a daily basis during the school year. I know people think I’m going to be sad when that comes to an end in 2017, but I won’t. Not about that anyway.

Since I have taken up enough internet space thus far, in my next post I’m going to tell you all about my pie adventures this summer. You don’t want to miss it! Yum!! See ya later!