It's Raining, It's Pouring...

It's been raining for a couple of hours now. It's one of those soaking rains that is great for our garden and everyone's crops. For the first hour or so, Dara, Dade, and William were all playing in the goat shed (we still call it that even though there's no goats anymore). Then I notice Dara with a water spray bottle washing the outside of the shed - which they are trying to make into a clubhouse. I thought, "How cute! It's raining and she's using a water bottle to wash what will soon be very wet."

Anyway...the puppies are still doing well. I will confess that they were moved into our room on the second night. We had them in the hall bathroom again (the first night they didn't make a peep). The next night, however, reminded me of the Disney movie, Lady and the Tramp. Do you remember how Lady wimpered and whined until she was on John Dear's bed? That's about how it was. We put up with the whining until about 12:30 then we moved the two rascals to the floor in our room. It worked out much better, but still in need of improvements. So...last night we made a square blockade in our room. When they whimpered during the night we let them use the restroom on some newspapers in the bathroom (going outside in the middle of the night is just not a safe option here - so they'll need to learn to hold it all night very soon). If they didn't need to go the bathroom but whined anyway, Joel squirted them with a water bottle. It worked great! I don't know if it's an approved method of puppy training, but everything is different in Africa so why not this too? :)

On a different subject, here is a picture of Travis and Dara this past Friday night. We were playing Monopoly Deal (it really is a great game) with a few of the guys.

Dara wanted to have curly hair in the morning so we braided it before bed. I didn't get a picture of it in the morning, but it worked nicely. She was quite happy.

Finally, here is Dara and her Daddy. I know you know who they are, it just fun to say - like, "Mrs. Skinner". Sometimes I wish I were a teacher so kids would call me Mrs. Skinner (that's really the only time I have a desire to teach kids other than my own). I just love this man so much!!!

Additions

I've heard it said that single missionaries can be a huge blessing to families. (I think I may have already said this but it is worth repeating) This has been so true for us. We have two young men who are "off" on different days - one Tuesday, the other Thursday. They usually come and play with the kids and do science experiments with Dara. It's great.

Travis has Tuesdays. He is from Canada and I'll need to get a picture of him. Seb has Thursdays and is from England. Today, he waited patiently while I hosted the mom's group for a hair cut.

Before...

After...

(If you're wondering why I am putting pictures of Seb, and not my kids...the pictures are for his mom. Hi, Seb's mom!!!)

Two other additions to our family came today. Joel found them at a local discipleship center. They were stray puppies (there's one more that couldn't be found) and now they have a home!

This is Amaani - which means "power, force, strength" in Runyankore. Hopefully she'll live up to her name since she will need to be a guard dog.

This is Rhea - which means "companion" in some language (at least that's what I thought it meant - I just looked it up and it really means "flowing" - but since she's our dog and we like the name, we will stick with it because to us she will be a companion). They are now asleep with full tummies - something they've probably never had. Mikey is comfortable around them and keeps jumping over the baricade to see them sleeping in the hall bathroom.

It is over!

We just arrived home from our day at the conference. I didn't pass out or anything - I'd call that a success. Joel gave both of his talks and they were received very well. They only had time for my talk on personal hygiene. That means I didn't have to give the reproductive health and menopause talk I had prepared! I am so relieved as I was not looking forward to actually saying what I had planned. Thus ends our day...thanks for your prayres

Wasting time

Wasting time is what I'm doing right now. I'm supposed to be finishing two different talks that I'll be giving tomorrow. Joel and I have been asked to speak at some sort of conference. We've been given our topics...Joel gets to speak about business and raising adolescents. Thankfully he has experience in one of the two. For the raising adolescents part, he is going to give his testimony - makes sense.

I have been asked to speak about personal hygiene/cleanliness and reproductive health & menopause. The personal hygiene will be fine, but since my experience in the village is limited, I pray I will address the issues needed. Regarding menopause, I have no personal experience. I just know what I've read. I feel as if my role in the second talk is to begin a conversation. Sex is not something freely spoken about among Christians here. Hopefully, I will break the ice for spouses to be allowed to talk to each other about this part of their marriage.

Please pray it goes well. I will have a translator and that will help me slow down enough to be understood (and stretch the time - each talk is supposed to be 1 hour). I am a bit worried that if he isn't comfortable saying everything that I say, he could just start preaching about whatever he wants. I would never know. Thankfully I know him and his wife is the one who wanted these sensitive subjects discussed. I just don't like being in front of that many people (they are expecting around 100). I'll let you know how it goes.

Ankita

This is my new friend Ankita. She is married to a local supermarket manager. She is from India and belongs to a religion that is not very common here, yet they do have their own temple.

We have become good friends with her husband and had them over for lunch one Sunday in February. Since then we have met 3 times to practice English. We meet on Mondays for about 1 1/2 hours. Can you imagine ME teaching English?! Yesterday she said that she shared with her husband how she could understand my friend (Susan, from Mississippi) better than she could understand me! Please pray I'll be able to slow down enough so she will be able to learn. I'd hate for her to go home more confused than she came. :)

There is a decent size Indian population here, but they don't feel very welcomed by Ugandans. I think there is a lack of trust that is mutual from both sides. It's sad how even many Ugandan Christians will avoid them. I had one lovely person tell me, "You had them in your house! You know they're not Christians, don't you?!"

We are kind of on the same page since we are both different from Ugandans. We'll never blend in - it's just life and it's okay. I am so happy to be her friend in a place where she has so few.

Toe Problems

Okay......so I did it the right way......big toe fractured in three different places! Kind of amazing that the end of the toe is still there right now. As one of the doctors said, "that's a pretty impressive break. You did it the right way." Is there a right way to break a toe? I guess by "right," it simply means that the fact the toe has not fallen off and is not just flopping around is kind of hard to believe when you see the x-rays.

So, I've been on some type of pain medicine. Fortunately (I think Jill might have mentioned this already), Jill found some pain meds that we had packed from back home and that took the edge off Sat night. Since then, I have been taking a high does of something or other that reduces inflammation - pretty sure it's just a very high dose of something similar to Ibuprofen. It's not supposed to make you drowsy, but it's been hard for me to stay awake during the day this week. They say the pain might get better in 4 weeks, I might be able to put my full body weight on it by 6 weeks and it should be completely healed in about 8-10 weeks! I know God is in control, but this is really not the best timing in my mind for something like this to happen. We are still trying to get all the maize ground up from harvest for Farming God's Way. There are things to get done in preparation of the Hollenbeck's return in April. Besides, I kind of had a pretty full schedule anyway and this puts a damper on a lot of activities that require moving around - that's pretty much everything!

On Monday I was trying to help Jill close the curtains for the night and kicked the couch with my newly broken toe. On Tuesday morning, I went in to the kitchen around 5:45 to make coffee and kicked a stool that had been left sitting out, with my newly broken toe. Yesterday it started raining on our maize that we had just spent three days trying to dry out, so all four of us ran out to try to get it covered before we lost several more days. Needless to say, scooping maize in buckets and getting your feet buried under kilos of maize is not he best way to heal a newly broken toe! I'm trying to convince myself that none of this set me back in the healing process and that by Sat, I'm still one week down in the recovery. We'll see.

Keep praying....many exciting things happening and we should have some news to share in the coming weeks.

Little Rascals

How many of you grew up with the Little Rascals? I remember watching them when I was a kid (guess that ages me just a bit). Anyhow, some missionaries here in Mbarara are moving back to the US and were trying to sell all their DVD's, so Jill picked up many of the ones available. She ended up getting "The Little Rascals" box set. It's two DVD's full of the old black and white shows. The kids put them in this afternoon while Jill was busy with Ankita (the Indian lady in town that she is teaching English to) and I don't think the laughter has stopped!!!!! I just limped back into the living room (since my toe is broken, nothing is fast anymore) and saw all of them literally doubled over in laughter. As I've now sat here for the last 20 minutes, it just keeps them rolling. I'm so happy that something that made me laugh as a kid is making them laugh now!

I will say that I'm not entirely happy with the examples being set. I can only imagine that a day will come where Dade is hitting someone with a board and laughing or better yet, they decide to throw rotten vegetables at the dog catcher. But the joy of seeing something transcend generations is worth it!

Remedies

It has been very interesting to hear the remedies people have come to offer Joel for his broken toe.

Here are just a few...have someone pull on it...use hot water and massage it...massage it (without water)...use hot water and butter (I'm not sure if you rub the butter on the toe or what). I showed the exray to the last person whe came and suggested we massage it. I tried to explain that rubbing a broken bone would cause a lot of pain and not help it heal . I'm not sure if the message was understood. Can you imagine someone coming and pulling on your broken bone!!! Sometimes there are obvious reminders we are in a different culture.

What a day!

Some days have moments that are just a blur...today was such a day. It started this morning when Joel was running back into the house. He kicked his right big toe into the cement steps and came in limping. The pain grew worse throughout the day, and low and behold...he broke his toe in 2 places (possibly 3 - the radiologist wasn't sure). The positive aspect is that the price of xrays is so cheap here. It cost $8.50 to have the xray done and read!

He has said several times today that he will never again laugh at someone who complains of pain because of a broken toe. Maybe it's God's way of helping him slow down a bit. Please pray it heals nicely/quickly.

The second thing that made the day interesting was the visit from a vet. We spoke with him on Thursday and asked him if he had ever "fixed" a cat. He assured us that he had and he would put Mikey to sleep for the procedure. Well, he arrived around noon while I was away returning the girls who had slept over for Dara's birthday party. Joel called me to say the vet had arrived and did I really want the procedure done. He said Mikey was scratching and fighting and the vet was trying to find a vein. What I didn't understand was that Joel was waiting for me to return home in order to assist the vet. So I was still in town 20 minutes later when Joel called me back. (Mind you - his toe was killing him, Mikey is all upset, and it had started to rain so he had gotten the clothes off the line which made his toe hurt even worse! This was before we knew it was broken.)

Finally, I arrived home and assisted the vet with the procedure. I cannot even begin to explain to you the ordeal! I now know why vets have you drop off your cat in the morning and pick them up later in the day. It is not something the owner, who loves the cat, needs to see.

(If you want to skip this part you can - I won't be offended) As he tried to inject the anesthetic, the vein blew (3 times!). So Mikey was somehow relaxed but still very awake during the procedure. He fell asleep after it was all over. My role was to hold onto Mikey's front legs and stay away from his teeth. We had him on a little table on the front porch. His head and legs were tied to the railing and I held the front legs. Even with all of that he was flopping around. It was awful. In the end the procedure is done and he is able to walk - just very wobbly still.

The vet was very complimentary of me. He kept saying that I was a "tough" because "most people would be wounded by now". I tried to explain that my death grip on his legs was as much for my protection as Mikey's well being. I don't think he understood, but it's always nice to impress someone. I just kept praying it would be over soon....What a crazy experience!

Well, I think that's it for my day. Sorry no pictures. I've slowed down in taking pictures as life has just settled into somewhat of a routine. I'll try to get better. Have a nice weekend!

Double Digits!

Today, 10 years ago, God blessed us with the most wonderful daughter. She is the apple of her Daddy's eye and the delight of her mother. What a privilege to watch her grow...

There was a bit of worry this morning when she woke up announcing that she was 10 years old and Joel reminded her that she really wouldn't be 10 until 1235 a.m. in Texas! There was a bit of relief when it was 9:35 a.m. here and she was official.