Sanyu Babies Home

This morning (Thursday morning) the team set off to one of their weekly projects, Sanyu's Babies Home.  Babies are dropped off here by parents or family members who can't afford to keep them.  Or people will drop off babies they have found left in the road or in the trash.  Sanyu takes babies anywhere from new born infants up to about age 5.  They do their best to have the babies adopted, but if they reach the age limit the child will be sent to an orphanage.

Pictures are challenging to take at Sanyu.  You first have to ask for permission, so for now there are no pictures (sorry).  I will do my best to describe what we did there today though...

When we arrived the women workers (or "teachers") were a little behind schedule and just getting the babies bathed.  When they finished bathing them they brought them into another room where we would dry, lotion, put diapers and clothing on them.  It was a bit chaotic, but we did our best to jump right in. The babies were easy going and didn't fuss or cry.  Once they all were dressed the teachers brought out baby bottles full of formula.  I was shocked when I picked the first bottle up.  It was boiling hot.  I asked if it needed to cool down, but they said no.  The babies ate it up.  I am learning that Ugandans like their drinks very VERY hot!

When every baby was fed and taken to their "class" Brett and the boys went off to chop up wood.  Brett has a lot of blisters on his hands, but it doesn't seem to bother him too much. :)  The boys also helped the staff sort beans for lunch.  Beans need to be sorted through to pick out bad beans or even small stones.  So while the boys were cutting wood and sorting the beans, the girls and I changed bed sheets (they do this every day) and hung laundry out to dry.  After "working" we got to hang out with the babies in their class and love on them.  These babies are so desperate for love and attention.  As soon as you walk into the classroom the babies come crawling.  They all want held and played with.  Needless to say, we came home covered in snot and pee.  But it was worth it.

While I have enjoyed the other projects we've been on, this has been my favorite.

Made It

After a very long day we finally made it to Uganda.  We arrived in the middle of the night (1am Uganda, but about 6pm PA).  We didn't sleep at all on the plane and didn't get a lot of sleep again our first night here, so we are pretty exhausted.  Pray that tonight will be different and we will get some good rest.  Going on missions will be a lot better with some energy!

While we missed the morning mission of our first day here we did make it to two missions in the afternoon.  The first was to a high school and the second to more of an elementary school.  We sang, danced and shared a bible story at each school. 

Thank you all for your prayers as we traveled.  :)  Sorry this is so short and with no pictures.  Hopefully later posts will be more entertaining!

Packing Up!

The packing process has started people! 

We are doing A LOT of this...

Laundry, laundry, laundry.  And that's just one load!  I have plenty more.  Hopefully we can somehow figure out how to get it all to fit into our suitcases :)  I'm looking forward to that challenge tomorrow.

We also have a lot of piles going on...

(Guys, this is what the VT hat really looks like.  NOT the nasty looking one Brett wears!)

These are just a few of the piles that have started to collect upstairs. We can't believe time has gone by so fast.  We are so excited to get over to Uganda and get our hands dirty in whatever God has planned.

Thank you, everyone, for all your sweet prayers and support this past week.  We feel extremely blessed.

Prayer

Brett and I are currently working on writing a second letter to send out to update everyone on how our trip has been progressing.  We have been pretty busy these past few weeks and thus have done a bad job actually getting them out.  One of the key topics in this letter is to again ask everyone for prayer.  A few things we listed in our letter are:

Safety.  As I mentioned before we will be traveling an entire day to get to Uganda.  Please pray for a safe flight there and back.  Also, for safety while we travel around to the different, daily projects EAC is apart of.

Open and willing hearts.  Please pray that Brett and I will have willing and serving hearts to do whatever it is that we are asked of.  Please pray that we would have open hearts to hear God speak to use before, during and after our trip.  Also, please pray for open hearts of the people of Uganda so that they may hear the Word of Christ and feel and know the love of Jesus.

Zirobwe.  Zirobwe is located just outside of Kampala.  EAC is currently in the process of building a training center in this community.  We could be spending a good bit of time here helping to build relationships with the people and providing any physical/spiritual needs.  Please pray for this community.

We strongly believe in the power of prayer.

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God:  that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us- whatever we ask- we know that we have what we asked of him."

                             1 John 5:14-15

Thank you for praying.

Traveling Activities

With our trip just around the corner we have started collecting and making piles of things to take.  I have made a list of everything I think we will need and I love checking things off.  I’ve always enjoyed packing.  I like to figure out how to get everything into a suitcase and how to make it all fit into the car.  I’m pretty sure I get this from my dad.  He’s a really good packer!  Anyways…back to the list!  So I’ve been checking things off our list and we’re getting pretty close to having everything we need.    It’s pretty exciting!  But there is one thing on the list I’m not sure what to do about...  (Maybe you can help us??)

Airplane/Airport Activities

Our flight + our layover = almost an entire days worth of travel.  That is a lot of time to kill people!!  We plan on packing books and cards, but how long will cards entertain us???  I’m thinking not very long.  Especially since the only card game I know how to play is I Declare War.

Does anyone have any other flight/airport activities to help us keep busy?  We would greatly appreciate your suggestions!