Into the Weekend!

Well Friday had come fast,
we the normal wake up, devo'd then started work at 8am, lunch at 1pm then after lunch Danyne bring her friends up to see the tile and upstairs, then Charlie come up later to see as well to. but then stops and says instead of $15 a night were gonna drop it to $10,
she said something about the accommodations weren't all that so they decided to bump it down.. OH MAN what ever they excuse that doesn't matter to me..Its all about Thank YOU PAPA!!! that's a huge blessing for me!

Friday night was chill after work I had gone over to Danyne and Sergio's for dinner there we had Pasta and All I can say is it was in the top 3 meals best meals of thee entire trip.I'm thankful for everything that we got, yes i know its more then most people ever get..but I'm just sayin Hands down yup! pasta at Danyne's.

that night the Colorado team was over at the house to and all us guys were talking about different things as Sergio was going in and out. and I am not totally sure how this convo started but Serg jumps in and says what are you going to do? or when? next question was If you came(back to Uganda) you could pull up side jobs to pay for living here but still have time for ministry...Dave says "like Tent making"...... OK so we started talking about fundraising and how i hated asking people to fund the mission trips.then it lead into coming back to Uganda and then tent making. the room goes quiet as people get up to get food and just then I think OK wait a minute God what are you saying here?

- Tent making last/first time i heard that came from my friend Kisa, Kisa is from papa New Guinea and is here in the states as a missionary, I remember asking him what he was doing looking for work and he said "do you know what Tent making is?" i replied with making tents? he said its what Paul did and if i didn't to then to look it up. yea Kisa is like that, if you don't know he want tell you. its cool though. anyways i pushed that off it didn't apply to me at the time but now it makes sense.

- so its a great idea, specially for staying over there long term...
- wait wait wait I can't even believe I'm seriously considering "Long Term"
honestly I've had a lot of time to think about it since that conversation. and have decided not to jump into a long year commitment. for many reason and one being to stay in Uganda I believe you need a work permit to be in the country its a 2yr deal. and when i had talk to Uncle Dusty, because that's what He and his wife have to be in country he said.work permits are hard to get,because even though you are working for free. the Ugandan government is like why are we giving you the green light to live in our country and do this work when our own people should be doing it?
God would have to make away.
if anything I'll go for 3 months next year but not any longer then that just yet, not really gonna go into it much further then that. I mean yes there dreams and desires, and vision but the timing is not here yet


- Saturday June 15th,2013
Proverbs 15:15  - All the days of the afflicted are evil,But  he who is of a merry heart has a Continual feast.

(I think that applies to the day to day walk,finding the good in every day and finding it in every situation)

about 7:30 i ran up to install more tile. 8-8:30 Bob and John the morning gate guard and a new guy came up stairs to look at what I've been working on all week.They always say "well done Sam"
to them it looks good but to me i see the flaws... flaws in the tile the way it was made a little off causing the grout lines to either come down to nothing or be big in some area..but i cant control or change that so just gonna have to deal with it...Although you couldn't really tell unless you inspected ever inch of the whole room..unless your an artist to...

bout 8:30-9am Uncle dusty comes to pick me up and run me into town for a money exchange.just as we were leaving A guy by the name of John Honeycutt came by. John works at Water Mission International, He came by to see Uncle Dusty and check on the water filtering system Amani has.
one of the ones at the cottage is an old style. Basically its a concrete tube with sand in it to act as a filter and clean water....Sounds a bit sketchy to me.I bought bottled water by the case.(however if I were to stay longer I'd do it the way he is about to suggest)

John and Dusty talked for a bit and then John took us by his place right down the road. as we walked in the building he introduced us to his volunteer who has been and will be there for a total of 3months for now. She helps with all the paper work and what ever else. next john takes us to the kitchen area where there are many jugs of water and a water cooler the kind u would find in U.S office buildings and spaces..."The Water Hole" you know where you and your buddies gather to drink a bit and converses about non work related issue before returning back to the slave driving task you hold..(lol J/K J/K)(or it could be true........)
anyways John leads on to explain about how they used to do it then on to how its being done today. well not everyone is doing it but he learned this from how the Baptist do there clean water in different areas they are in with Horrible water conditions. tabs yup 1 tab for your 5 gallon jug and 30minutes later presto change -O. clean water!also they use PH testers if its doesn't get a certain level they hit it again.

Behind us were these machines that I have been dying to ask him about. I saw one in a fishing village last year and thought that was Amazing!
when I asked John said that these are installed in villages all over they have been doing this recently with a few years or so.I had mentioned that when i had first seen one I thought it was neat and cool that it only charge about 100 shillings per jug. He said they cost 500 shillings and the only reason there's a cost is if and when the machine breaks down that money goes to fixing it.
but really in my opinion its a little more then that. Its letting the people have some dignity with the feeling that they can pay for some water and provide something clean and good for their household.
+ (a pastor i look up to once said that when you are out Helping the poor and homeless you need to be careful because what you think might be helping could indeed be destroying them further. Meaning giving free food to people constantly they begin to rely on it and feel they don't have to work to feed themselves or their families but just wait for some "richer" person to come along and feed them.)

So there different sides to the issue or poor people buying water...but think whatever you are going to..HA HA if you don't like it then Next time Your in Africa or a 3rd world bring a bag full of coins so that you can buy their water to put in their jugs. while your at it it would be nice to carry their water home for them to.
( this year before i ever left for Uganda I had a bag full of coins to do just that if we were to come across one of those tanks.I had no idea the LORD God was going to direct me to the source of the water ministry.)
As far as getting a crew or having a crew at the ministry they do but its not what you think as John says me and my helper are the only White people or Muzungu's here in this facility. all that is done in the field is done by Ugandans, They survey for water,dig wells, install piping then hook up the machines and do the maintenance when and if it breaks.
That is really cool  to of taught the locals how to run the ministry and giving them work experience  and learning a trade that they can use else where.
reminds me of something that happen in GUA last year. more like something said.

the women on the right is Maria is works their in the office a native to Uganda. John is on the Left.

Maria had told me when I asked that there are 15 different Dialects of Ugandan mixed in with Swahili all over.

so Uncle Dusty and I got some tabs from him to start out with and headed on out to Jinja town.run a few errands then back to the cottage. When exchanging money for Uganda it is best to do it with 50's or 100's and in Uganda if your currency is below 2006 it is worthless. funny right? well that's just the way it is.
so back at the cottage I didn't get to work for too much longer. after lunch I hoped in a van with Charlie,Emily,Cory,Lindsey,and Leah along with Arron,picking up Johnson and john on the way.
We set out to go to Badondo. its an area not to far from Amani where Charlie had started a program out there with the kids a lot of kids! she and Arron go out there every Saturday.its kinda like a VBS.
most of the Amani Volunteers will go somewhere on Saturdays to serve in the communities. Some go to a feeding program done in Masese others got to Badondo.
OK so its more like 20-25mins away. when we got there it is just like every other place you go where kids are expecting you to show up or wondering if you every will come back. they kids charge down the hill from every direction as they see 2 vans pull up into their slice of paradise. many are playing in the very large green grass filled  field,as they get closer to stopping there is now a mobbed of children around both vans. most of them laughing and giggling some calling out Muzungu (which means White person)
others eagerly assisting us with our things pulling out many tarps used to sit on. They spread each one out and continue to sit on them one side is all the girls and the other side is all the boys.
Arron and the boys are getting ready to to run the show this week. Charlie has expressed to Arron that it is going to be all on them that she will be there but is not leading it. they need to learn!

so the Men begin by singing some song to Jesus then enter into a story of our beloved King. after the message is delivered they split the kids up by age group. all the really small ones sit in 1 circle and they get an activity to do like coloring, another group is for kids about 1-6grade i suppose and they play a game that involves getting a sweetie. the last 2 groups is for the older kids 1 boys and 1 girls, there they are allowed to ask any questions they may have about the message or ask about anything else they may be going through.

 This young boy was watching his younger brother and trying to get him to stop crying during the message.

Arron leading worship

They have Moo Cows!

you can't see the hoop but this is Basket ball rim

form a circle to play a game

getting ready to here the message

here's some more picture coming your way,man i miss being in the place with these kids!

little ones waiting for the activity

Coloring with Jesus!

that boy's face is priceless

so they played this game that had to do with how many large marshmallow's they could stick in their mouth.

the winners got to choose a prize

Next came the fun part as if all of what already happened wasn't fun already! we had filled up and brought with us water balloons and was going to let the kids have a water balloon fight but many balloons had popped in transit and Charlie realized that we were all about to be very very wet.
So she and Arron decided to do something a bit different.

I wonder what Charlie is Planing here

Arron get the kids to form a group and be ready

when all the balloons are gone its time to empty the water on the kids to.

as the water balloons flew across to the kids some caught them and flew them right back, every one had a blast and all the popped balloons got picked up so that no little kids choked!

a few days after taking this pic i sent it to a friend who 2weeks before we were all joking around saying the exact same hand signal of this boy was the Discipleworks gang sign!

after they water balloons we only had about 15mins left with the kids when Charlie remember she had told the kids last week that we'd bring soccer ball this week so they could play. so we dropped the balls and they were off. i stayed upside for a bit to take a few more photos and that's when i saw it.

there was one little boy with a paper airplane who was actually sharing that plane with 6 other kids. i ran over and began to fly the plane with them.it was cool to see them all taking turns throwing it up and all watching as the plane glides around before falling to the ground... man insta memories filled my mind as my friends and I would make planes and fly em. ah to be a kid again. i am reminded to be a kid when I am in Africa the real child come unleashed. next off to play soccer then back to the planes. then finally we here TIME TO GO. we all sigh as all kids do and say just 5 more mins Pleaaaassssseeeee!!! or as my nephew would say pease pease pease
but that 5mins is us playing as we run up towards the vans.

I love being a kid!  being a kid with other kids.mostly being a Kid in Africa!

we got hugs and gave hugs for me it will be a while before i can come back but for the team they'll return every Saturday!