Day Trip--Bethany.

Today, G and I went on a little adventure. There is a mission team from Alabama who arrived a couple of days ago (they brought me some formula and baby food--so thankful). As part of their trip, they were taking a trip to Bethany Children's Village, a ministry of Africa Renewal Ministry (the parent org of Loving Hearts Babies Home). They invited us to tag along. To get there, you can take a 2-hr taxi ride by land OR you can take a 30 min boat ride. Guess which choice we opted for? It was exciting to get out on Lake Victoria (second largest freshwater lake in the world, i found out today). Here's a fishing village on the shore that we passed on our journey. This is the only rural village I've seen so far since I've only really been in the city.
Bethany Children's Village is a pretty amazing ministry. They minister to orphaned and homeless children. There are 185 children living at the village in 11 different houses (the children are mostly between the ages of 10 and 19). Each house has a name given to it by the children who live there. This is Praise House. The man in the picture is Jimmy. He runs the day-to-day operations of the children's homes. He lives in one of the houses with his wife and 3 children, as well as 19 other children! I pray God's blessings on this man!!

This is Dennis. He runs the entire children's village and gave us our tour. First, he explained the overall vision of the village--very, very cool. They are trying to raise up next generation Christian leaders who will make an impact on Africa. Bethany has a church, a school, the children's homes, a clinic, and a farm (their goal is to be self-sustaining financially).

Not enough room to tell about all the things we saw. Was glad to visit! Here's the view from our boat coming back into the dock at Gaba.

Here's me looking crusty, sweaty, and dirty--I was all three of these things!

God is Faithful.

Our guest house sits near the bottom of a hill, Bunga Hill to be exact. The Babies Home is at the top of the hill. We have made the walk from the bottom of the hill to the top SEVERAL times. I actually enjoy the path the walk takes us on. You wind behond our house and then you encounter this hill right before the pavement turns to a dirt road:

It's hard to capture in the picture but this is a hard hill to climb BUT it's very scenic. It's actually a nice walk. There are all kinds of trees and flowers along the road that we don't have back home. This tree is my favorite: Again, hard to capture how BIG this tree is but it's huge! No matter how many times I walk this hill, I always stop to look at this tree and the banana grove around it. (I finally remembered to bring my camera).

Just wanted to post this because I walked up to Loving Hearts today. I'm trying to remind myself that the adoption journey that we are on is tough. Trying to remember to keep trudging forward and enjoy the journey (no matter how long it is).

Also trying to avoid all the goats along the path--seriously, various kinds of livestock are everywhere here!
Well, new court date...May 17. New flight scheduled....May 27. Today marks 5 weeks in Uganda! Help us, God, to keep climbing forward!

Every Family has a Story!

One of the blessing of this trip has been to meet other adoptive families. We have met several of these families who have been drawn to Uganda like we have. You would think that we would all have pretty similar stories BUT I have learned that every story, every case, every adoption is so very unique--I guess because the kids we are adopting are each so unique.

The first week we were in Uganda, we actually lived in the Babies Home where Gideon had been staying. And since then, for the past 4 weeks, we have been fortunate to share a house with 2 other couples. Before we came here we thought we would be doing a lot of things on our own BUT we were pleasantly surprised to find that we were surrounded by new friends going through the same things we have been.

So, pray for us, but also pray for the Caldwells and the Ribbens and many other families who are navigating the same process that we are! OH, you can read the Ribbens' story here.

As an update, we are still waiting for the judge to reschedule our (fourth) court date. He is also asking for some additional paperwork that we have already pulled together. Today, I rebooked my flight for 5/27! Yeah, I know, the 27th seems ridiculously far away BUT...well, I thought May 6th seemed far away when we left Shreveport on March 31! I'll keep you all posted.

This is a picture of our commune...I mean, house that we live in. Pretty nice, eh?

Prayer.

Today is one of those days that I really want to write something profound and meaningful here to really express my thoughts....instead, I will post a picture of monkeys.
Pray that our judge reschedules our court date soon and that the lawyer strike would have no further effect. Pray that the details of rescheduling my flight would work out. Pray for opportunites to take advantage of the time I have here. Pray for my endurance. Pray especially for Mary as she holds down the fort and for the kids while I'm away.

The day after...

Yesterday was so extremely busy....today was not! I didn't do much at all. The highlight of my day was walking 10 minutes down the road to a new grocery store to pick up a few things that I needed. Funny thing, the name of it is Cindrella Grocery--not CindErella, mind you...just Cindrella. I've been able to spend some good time reading my Bible and praying. Tonight, I took a stab at making a version of red beans and rice. I found some kind of pork sausage at the store. It was pretty good..no picture though. Speaking of pictures...I went back through some of my zoo pix because I knew I had taken a picture of one of the FREAKISHLY huge spiders--not part of an exhibit but just hanging in the trees. They were everywhere! Check it out.