A Christmas Wish

I just got home from town, and as I was unloading my purse and photocopying, a man called from the printing shop... I had forgotten my groceries. I had left them in the store while my papers were being photocopied. Oops, silly me. I will bike back to town and get them. :) Earlier today I was biking around town, handing out a few Christmas cards. I brought one over to MY Supermarket and was glad to see my two new Indian friends working there. Inside the home-made card I had also placed two bookmarks that describe who we are in Christ. I was so excited to see one of the guys studying the bookmarks and reading them diligently. I explained to him that Christ is the reason we have Christmas. He seemed very open to listening, and he shook my hand, and whole-heartedly wished me a very Merry Christmas. It is my Christmas wish that he will come to know Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour.

A Lovely Luncheon

Over the past couple of months I have met a lot of people during my stay in Uganda. Some quickly became best friends and others were always cheerful aquaintances. Well, this week I ran into a man I have met only a few times. He is a former child soldier escapee, and he wanted to invite me over for lunch. He actually said, "Please come at 1 pm sharp." Wow, that is never heard of here, but I made sure to honour his request as his wife was coming home from the village especially to cook for me. It turned in to a lovely afternoon. We sat in what little shade we could find beside their simple hut, at the edge of the IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp. The wife, little girl, and I all shelled peanuts / gnuts, while the guys sat around and talked. Two pastors ended up joining us for a lunch of atap, rice, and yummy chicken. I didn't eat any of the atap because the sorgum millet mush just isn't my idea of delicious.
After lunch the conversation flowed to all that I have been a part of this year and the pastors said, "Karen, you need to come back. And we want you to come to Abim with us to preach the gospel and plant a church." They had no idea that I had even been considering Abim. It is a very small town about two and a half hours north of Soroti, on the edge of Karamoja region. Their suggestion definitely got my heart racing. I continue to pray about what my future looks like. But in the meantime, I enjoyed a luncheon with my casual friends. The wife even added a bag of mangos to the basket of my bike before I left at 3:40pm.

And then tonight, I was surprised to hear that another friend took the bus from a neighbouring city just so that she could come and say good-bye. She just left with her husband, as they came by for a short evening visit. I should not have been surprised to see the tears in her eyes as they left on a motorcycle, but I was. I rarely see this dear friend and she didn't want me to leave Uganda yet. This week could prove to be interesting as I say good-bye to many people. One week from today I board a bus to Kenya.

Little Brothers

Yesturday morning I biked around Soroti with Moses, one of my Sunday school helpers. We are trying to put together a fun presentation for the kids on Sunday, and so we went out to take photos around Soroti. I enjoyed biking through some parts of town I have never been in, following sandy paths and using the huge Soroti Rock as reminder as to what part of town I was in. First stop: the Pamba market. Here is a man making gnut paste. Ground nut = peanut butter.

Tables of dried fish.
Sweet potatoes.

There is a fairly large second hand clothing market here. I can often find clothing with Value Village or Salvation Army tags on them. And they sometimes cost more to purchase here then at the second hand stores back home. Crazy.

Then over to a hardware store where Benjamin works. Can you find him in the woodpile? He is Moses' brother, and also one of my wonderful Sunday school helpers and translaters.

Then over to the bicycle repair street. Not only do they fix bikes there, but you can also buy tire shoes and tire rope.

In the afternoon I went over to visit at my Ugandan parents. There is a couple here who have the same names as my parents, so they adopted me as their daughter. They had harvested a field of simsim last week (simsim = sesame seeds) and this week the ladies shook out all the seeds and then were winnowing the extra plants, dust, bugs, etc away.

I had decided two days ago to take my little brothers out for a special treat. So on Tuesday I spent a few hours with Solomon. He is three. We went out for sodas and he rode on the back of my bike to town to run a few errands. I don't think Solomon gets to town very often (and it's only a 10 minute bike ride away) because he was super afraid of going in to the shops. :)

Then on Wednesday Gordie went with me to town and out for sodas. Mama was so glad that I took my brothers out. It's a very rare treat for them.

Auntie Karen video

These two girls are in my Sunday school class. Today was my second last day of teaching. They wrote a song for me:

"We love Karen... she is a good auntie. (2x)

She taught us about Daniel.

She taught us about King David."

Short but sweet!

Billboard

Does anyone else find this billboard humourous?

Pamba Drama

This afternoon I biked out to Pamba to begin capturing the "Hard Life in Africa" with my Sunday school class. I'm not sure how it's a hard life, because it turned out to be a two hour blast!

The girls played a version of dodgeball / monkey in the middle.

Everyone played a variety of song games.

The kids led me down a path to the bore hole, aka, water source. Buckets are carried on the head... I can't believe how strong the necks are around here... especially on the ladies.

Everyone hoisted their bucket, or pretended to. :)

Then we hiked back to the house.

More games and songs and dramatic ideas.

The boys even brought their rags to change into... to show the difficult life.

And they played in these extra clothes the whole time. I'm not sure if they actually wear them at home, or if they are just rags they brought, but it sure was an added comedy. (Although, I must admit I have seen some very sad outfits during my time here.)

The boys played with balls made out of plastic bags or old stuffed socks.

And an old-fashioned game of marbles.

What little kid doesn't try on shoes that are too big for him?

And to finish off the afternoon, we all went out for a bottle of soda.

In Soroti Town

Occasionally I hang out with some friends who work above the market street in Soroti.
I get a bird's view of all the bargain shopping that goes on down below.

The market is very near to Soroti rock, the geographical feature that allows Soroti to be seen from 20 miles away.

Can you find a speedy piki-piki driver?

And just for fun I thought I would add this shot. This is dear Teddy. A young girl who loves to be standing up front with me the whole time I teach Sunday school.