Hope Family

Another reason August was so busy was because Catriona and I were working at Hope Family for 4 weeks. They were short on staff after the assistant manager left to get married and three other staff members left as well. This left them with only two full time staff members. Since Catriona and I already knew the kids well, Uncle Stu, the manager, asked us to help them out. Another girl, who did an IY placement at Hope Family last year came for a couple weeks as well. As you can see from the pictures there's a lot of personality in the abaana (Luganda for children). We learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Catriona and I were also able to build relationships with the staff members. Hope Family has some wonderful staff members who love the children so much. After spending so much time there, I'm missing those kids. They are special gifts from God and I am so blessed to know them. 
 
 
 

 

This little guy arrived in June weighing 1.2 kg.
Thankfully, he is getting much bigger now.

A "New" House

August was a busy month for the Mortons. One of the reasons for that was our move to a "new" house. I say "new" because although it is new to us, it is actually one of the oldest buildings at New Hope. No one has lived in this house since last December and it hadn't had any fix-ups for even longer. This made it a little more difficult. To help you understand our trouble I'll give you a few examples of the problems. When we flushed the toilet, the water literally poured out on to the floor. And when you turned on the sink, the water just poured right out the drain into the cupboard underneath. And the bathroom sink cabinet was extremely mouldy (it had been leaking too). And there was a bad jackfruit (meaning the fruit was bad) tree outside that allowed no sunlight in the house, and dropped giant, rotting jackfruit on the roof (and potentially on people's heads as they walked by). And there was no furniture, no stove, and no fridge. Don't get me wrong. We are very thankful that we could have this house in a great location. We just needed to get a lot of work done on it which took a lot of effort on the part of my parents and Uncle Brian. Anyway, we (the famous "we"--I really didn't do much of anything) fixed the toilet, fixed the sink, replaced the other sink, cut down the jackfruit tree, bought furniture and a stove, and repainted. When we were finished, we (I was very involved in this part) lugged our tubs up the hill from the Vogts house. John and I were very thankful for our friends, Sam, Toby, Acacia, and Kevin who helped us out. Finally, we moved in, and fell asleep on our very hard mattresses. (Most mattresses you can buy in Uganda start out as hard as rock, but they are softening.) We love the house a lot now. It's nice to have our own place without having to worry about breaking things. We are very close to David Family and church, and much closer to Hope Family, Secondary, the office, and Treasures Class. We also have very close neighbours now. The house is a duplex so the Mwanjes live in the other half of the building. It was an adventure but I definitely think it was worth it.

Our half of the house goes to where you see the wall come out a bit.
My room (and Catriona's) is the one on the far right. John's is in the middle and the living room is on the far left.

Our door and porch

In Entebbe

I'm sitting in the Airport Guest House in Entebbe. At 1:00 in the morning our flight for London will leave and at 8:00 at night we'll arrive in Calgary. We are going to be there for 5 weeks before coming back here. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything since July 29. I have been super busy recently but I hope to catch up while we're back in Canada. In short, moving, working, home alone, washing clothes, packing, and saying good-bye. Hopefully, I'll be able to elaborate on all these things in the next few weeks. Pray for us as we travel and as we deal with minor culture shock and MAJOR weather shock. (Calgary got 10 inches of snow in the past two days and we're coming from 30 degree temperatures.)

Football

Recently John and I have been enjoying a lot of football (soccer) matches in the field behind our house. We've been playing with some of the other missionary kids. On Sunday, we played with some of the other MKs, almost all of Jonathan Family (the family group nearest to us that has about 20 kids), some of Pacific Family, and some of Ebenezer Family. Let's just say it was crazy because there were about 35 people all trying to get one ball and shoot it in one of the two nets. Then to complicate matters some of the people are Ugandan 18-year-old boys and some are 14-year-old Canadian girls (okay that's me) but there are very different skill levels and that makes it sort of confusing. But it was fun anyway. I enjoyed spending some time with my friends in Jonathan Family.

P.1

"You are welcome, Auntie Christina."
This is what I hear every morning for the past few weeks as I have been helping at the primary school. It has been very interesting to see how things compare to a Canadian school. When we were visiting here in 2010 and 2011 I was able to go to some of the classes as a student which was fun.

In P.5

Now I get to see what things are like in the lower primary. Both of the teachers of the Primary 1 class (about Grade 1) are very good teachers. But it is very different from a school in Canada. No carpet time, no colourful workbooks, no whiteboards, no computer class. But there are blackboards and little exercise books, and lots of posters hung up around the room.

The class has 25 children of different ages. They are anywhere between 6 and 9 years old. And I have remarkably managed to remember all their names. They are all lots of fun. I have enjoyed helping in this part of New Hope.

Thanksgiving

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!"
~Revelation 7:9-10~

Webale, Eyalama, Asante, Thank you Lord!
This is "Thank you" in 4 different languages spoken in East Africa. All were sung on Thanksgiving Day here at Kasana last Sunday. It was wonderful to be able to thank God with hundreds of people. People from Uganda, Congo, Rwanda, America, England, and Canada. We were from many nations and tribes. Many languages were spoken and peoples were represented. We waved branches, as we worshiped God.

Piano Recital

On Monday, there was a recital for Auntie Hannah's students. She is going back to the States for 6 months. Catriona and I both take piano lessons from her. She also does voice and guitar lessons! I played "Children of the Heavenly Father" and "Cha-Cha". Yes, I know it's a bit of a strange mix. Catriona played "Spanish Rhapsody". There were about 10 of us. After the recital we had some snacks and photos.



The students. Unfortunately, not everyone is looking at the
camera because there were about 6 snapping away.

Me, A. Hannah, and Catriona

Same as above except with Kara