DON’T GET STUCK IN A TREE IF THE RAIN IS COMING

Hello everyone thanks for taking the time to read our updates even though they are rare. Hopefully through them you are able to experience some of these adventures with us and getting your own taste of Uganda. I wanted to write about a quick story about one of our friends here who took us to his village.

In Uganda everyone has a village, even if they have lived in the city their entire life they still belong to the village of their parents or relatives. Pastor Ben, one of the Ugandan staff members at CLD, is from a village called Kaliro about 3 hours north-east of Kampala. Ben has an interesting story about how he ended up re-connecting with Kaliro. Similar too many other cultures around the world there is a major emphasis put on having a son to pass on the family name. Ben’s father had many wives, all of which gave him daughters, eventually after having 6 children Ben’s father met a woman that would finally give him a son (Ben). As he was growing up they lived in the village farming the land that his family owned, waking up at 4:30am to “dig” for 3 hours before they went to school. The village has one dirt road that runs through the middle, some of the families have mud huts with grass roofs, some of the families have upgraded to brick homes with tin roofs. Each home has a plot of land that the family uses to grow maze, potatoes, beans, kasava, and my personal favorite mangos. When you are there you begin to realize that there are many children and many people over 40, however there is a large gap between generations because so many have either moved to the city to try and find work or there is a large portion that has died of HIV/Aids. The people live a simple life focusing on providing for their families and making sure there is enough food to eat. There is no electricity but some of them have cell phones that are either charged the sun or they take them into town to be charged (the batteries last for a week or so).

Anyway back to Ben’s story, when Ben was a boy his father died, many people in the village desired the family’s property. There was a group of men that began to make a plot to kill Ben so there would be no legitimate heir for the property and they could take it over. At the time Ben was staying in Ginja with his mom attending a primary school. Fearing for his life Ben’s mother took him to a local Pastors house to stay until they could figure something out. Fortunately he stayed safe and was able to continue school in Ginja until he was P7 and finished Primary School (Elementary School). In Uganda the government does not provide free education, so everyone has to pay school fees to attend school each year. As a result many children have to take time off of school until they can find a way to pay their way; it is not uncommon to find people who are 20 years old and in High School. Due to the expense of school fees Ben moved to the Kampala area to try and find a sponsor to help pay his way through school.

In secondary school he met 4 guys that would play a huge role in his life. Away from home and his family Ben was challenged to question if Jesus was this guy who everyone said he was, as he made his way through school he grew closer and closer to these 4 guys. Eventually Ben submitted and gave his life to God and with these 4 four began to do some amazing things. They began to reach out to their classmates explaining their personal stories and how God had proved true to be a provider and a hope in all times. I laughed so hard when Ben told me that he was actually expelled from a school for sneaking out a group of students to take them to pray. Ben transferred schools but stayed very close with his 4 friends. Finally in S4 (the equivalent of our junior year) at the age of 17 Ben and his friends planted Light the World Church (LTW). Eventually he graduated Secondary school and moved onto study business at Makere University, the whole time he was working as a Pastor at LTW. During this time LTW began working with Shane to develop what would eventually become Come Let’s Dance (CLD). When Ben graduated University he continued pastoring at LTW and he began to work as the Ugandan head for CLD, managing the employees and the business/financial side of the ministry.
2 years ago Ben decided he wanted to go back to his village and begin to reinvest in the place he was from. His first project was to set up a church in the village; they began to clean up the property his father passed on to him. They built a large hut with mud walls and a grass roof so they would have a church for the community. He worked hard bringing the gospel to his home, working with local leaders to teach them and encourage them in the work they were doing. Recently they were able to donate 10 bibles to the church, all of which are printed in the native language, Luganda. Ben returns to his village a couple times every month to visit the people and work on his current project “Pigs for Hope”. They have built a small pig shelter where they currently house 2 pigs, hopefully soon the pigs will fall in love and make babies. When the pigs start to reproduce Ben and the other leaders will begin working with the other people in the village. All of the families will get on a list to receive piglets from each litter. As the pigs grow each family will be required to apply the same model with their pigs, gifting them to other families – it is kind of like network marketing with pigs in Uganda. Last week we had the opportunity to go with Ben to his village, picture a bunch of white people showing up to a small African village in a mini-van. The kids crowded around us as we pulled in, some were excited while others were so scared they would run away if we got within 50 feet of them. The people were so welcoming to us – two families opened up their homes for us to sleep in, and Jacob (the pastor of the church) immediately invited us to a prayer meeting with his church.
On the second day we visited the primary and secondary school in Kaliro. The primary school children had prepared for us a choir performance, about 30 kids singing traditional African songs. We spent some time in smaller groups encouraging them, learning about what they were studying, and praying for the older ones that were about to take their exams to get into secondary school. Just before we left we were able to present a soccer ball as a small gift to the headmaster, the kids went crazy because they had been played with a ball made up of rolled up plastic bags.

After the primary school we headed to “Bright Futures Secondary School”. We were set to have a program to speak to all the students and have a Q&A session, unfortunately it rained for 3 hours. We split up and went with different groups around to see their classrooms, they were so excited to pick our brains. Some kids were fascinated with America, most of the older kids had questions that stopped me in my tracks, asking about the history of Uganda and Africa. Asking questions about the UN’s involvement in Uganda, curious about the American perspective of Africa’s future. It is amazing to see how mature and passionate these students are about life, I was thinking back to the things I cared about when I was 16 and how shallow and selfish I was. After some intense time with the students they challenged us to a football match, of course we accepted. It was still raining so the field was covered in mud, the entire student body gathered around the field to watch and laugh because we all kept slipping. As you can probably imagine they dominated us, the final score was 4-2. We headed home soaking wet and muddy, but full of joy at the experience we had to do life with these kids.

The rain finally stopped so we able to do the movie night that we had planned on. We brought a generator, speakers, and a projector from the church, we strung a white sheet in between to sticks and planted it in the front of Ben’s home next to the church. Close to 200 people came to watch, Ben had picked out some movies that showed bible stories – one was in Luganda and the others had to be translated. It was a fantastic experience for all of us and fortunately for most of the night the rained stayed away.

The next morning we had to leave so we packed up the taxi. We ate porridge with our host family and Pastor Jacob. During breakfast we talked with Jacob about his ideas for the future of the church. We prayed together and they sent us off. We were there for such a short time but Ben said that he was so thankful that he was able to share his home with us.
During the 3 hour drive home all you can do is think. Think about the strength these people have, think about the joy living inside of them. Think about how even 3000 miles away from home in a small village people are pursuing Christ with their lives, learning what it means to be a disciple of him. I am amazed by the perseverance that exists in these people, to see how persistent their prayers are to God – begging for rain to come down and grow their crops. I can also see so many similarities between myself and them: the pain they experience from the loss of loved ones remains the same, the fear of not being able to provide for their families, the happiness that comes from small victories, and the joy that comes from building relationships.

Ben’s story is encouraging to me, but more importantly it is encouraging to the people here. He understands what it means to be blessed by God and to use that blessing to help others. I pray that as he continues he will stay solid in his commitment to these people, to his people.
The more time I spend here the more I realize that Uganda doesn’t need more money, they don’t need a superhero to swoop in and save them, they need stories like Ben’s. Stories of commitment and love, stories that teach people that living for others is more fulfilling than silver and gold. My encouragement comes knowing that God has placed people here to rise up and fight corruption, to refuse to let Uganda go down.
AMEN (let it be)

Rainy Season In Uganda

Good morning from South Central Uganda, so many apologies again for being such slackers in the blog updating department. From what we hear life is more bizarre at home than it is here, if I am not mistaken the Broncos are now 6-0 and Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. I didn’t think the day would ever come when I would know more about World Cup soccer than the NFL, I also never expected to see blue jeans for sale with the Presidents face on them – how weird life is.

I want to somehow convey how wonderful it has been to come face to face with God here, I know everyone reading this is not Christian so I am going to try my best to not write in Christanese, but I have to be honest and give credit where credit is due.

Uganda is an incredible place, filled with incredible people and incredible stories. We tried to come here with few expectations of what we would be doing and who we would meet, attempting to be open to whatever might be thrown our way. As mentioned before we are here working with an organization named “Come Let’s Dance” or CLD for short. I think the best way I can sum up CLD is: a group of people faithfully stumbling through life in a foreign place with the goal of making long-term lasting impact. They have taken a unique approach to reaching out to a community here, attempting to connect with people and humbly teaming up with them to create positive impact. In the midst of all of this understanding that they don’t have all the answers and that solid impact takes a long time to see manifested. We are so blessed to be invited into their world of relationships, hard work, perseverance, and prayers. Currently there are about 4 main projects we are working on:

* Mercy Childcare Ministries – A few years ago a group of Ugandan men (none of which were over the age of 21) had recognized a need for so many of the children in this community. They began to work with the local authorities and other groups to start what we would call an orphanage. However, these men did not want to create another orphanage. As a result of the poverty situation in Uganda so many parents that cannot afford to raise their children find ways to get them into an orphanage in hopes that long term it will be better for their child. As a result the family structure in Uganda has taken a huge hit. Wilfred (one of the founders of Mercy Childcare) has a strict philosophy of family empowerment; he is dedicated to finding the families of every child who is currently under their care and working with them to eventually re-establish these children into the family they came from. As you can imagine the system is not perfect, some of the children have lost their parents to AIDS or some other kind of tragedy, but Wilfred still tries to locate grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Currently out of the 70 children under the care of Mercy Childcare they have contacted and are working with the families of 60????? of the children. The children that they cannot find families for are usually the youngest ones because they are not old enough to know what their parent’s names were or where they used to live. For these children adoption is the best option. Wilfred works with many people both local and abroad to find solid families them. CLD has partnered with Mercy Childcare to help them with all sorts of projects, in SPRING 2008???? A compound was purchased -- the word compound sounds odd but it basically means a house with a wall of protection around it and also some extra rooms on the property that are not connected to the main house. We are working now on establishing an after school program 2 days a week, futbol on Wednesdays, and a big activity day on Saturdays (yesterday we did the Slip’n’slide). The children are amazing: life for them is much different than the childhood that I knew but they are still full of joy and a ton of fun to be around. The majority of them are at school 5 days a week from 8-4pm studying all the basics. The school system doesn’t have the greatest teaching structure but the kids are learning. One of the biggest needs is school fees because all of the schools here are private. However, through tons of provision most of them have sponsors (local or abroad) that help pay their way through high school.

* The Farm – We are still working on a name for it, but as you probably figured out it is a farm. About 2 years ago?????? CLD purchased 20 acres of land about 2 hours away from Kampala with dreams of turning it into a farm that could do three things: 1. Provide work for locals – i.e. hiring a farm manager to run the farm, someone who understands the local agriculture and have him hire men as needed for various projects. (Quick Fact: A high day wage here for a laborer on a farm is 8000 schillings, approximately $4 USD) 2. Provide the food needed at Mercy Childcare Ministries. 3. When the farm has grown and become sustainable, it will be used as a vocational training center to teach people the skills they need to farm in their villages. The farm is a huge project that takes a lot of resources and a lot of time, but it is progressing quickly. Currently 5 acres of the land is in the process of being cultivated and planted, and we are working on planting 1.5 kilometers of live fencing around the property line (We have about 1500 out of 5000 trees planted). The American in me wants to hire out some big machinery and get this done quick but that is not how they do it here -- we have a shed full of machetes and hoes and every day there are people out in the fields working hard.

* Thread of Life (TOL) – A man named Solomon runs a shop where they employ women in need with jobs making beaded necklaces and purses. The women go through a 6 week training course where they learn about how to make the necklaces and how to sew. They also learn the basic business skills they will need to run their own outfit. After the course the women have the opportunity to work for TOL and perfect their skills, and then they either go and start their own shop or stay on as teachers for the training course. The startup cost is very low because the beads are made from tightly rolled shreds of magazine paper, and all the fabric is purchased at local markets. Solomon is working on getting a website going where they can sell the beads worldwide.

* Enkoko Kulwe Suubi (Chickens for Hope) – A woman here named Shakira had a vision of owning a chicken business, and that this business could sustain her family and also provide enough money to fund the slum ministry. Shakira has had a long journey, she was working as a prostitute in Kampala and through a variety of connections and people she was ministered to and got involved in a program at a church that tried to help women get away from that life. Through that she became a Christian and she met a man named Joseph who she is now married to. They have 2 children of their own and an adopted child. Until 1 month ago they were living in the Katanga slums working with CLD to continue to develop the chicken business. A small plot of land was purchased and with the help of volunteers they recently completed a small house for them to live in and the chicken coop is currently finished and they are on a waiting list to get the chickens to fill it.

That is the short version of everything that is going on here. If you are interested in learning more about a specific project just let me know and I can give you more information, they are always looking for people that can being praying or helping in any way.

On a day to day basis we are working with people on all the different projects, each day brings a new set of surprises and problems, but with them comes a new set of victories and joy. We have seen some amazing things here that have opened up our eyes to understand how God is working around the world and not just in Denver, Colorado. It is also cool to see the different ways that God connects people across cultures, to see the ways that we can exchange love back and forth. We are learning a lot about who we are, about what defines us, and about what is important to us. We are missing everyone at home, and we are so thankful to Al Gore for inventing the internet so we can stay connected (did he win a Nobel Prize for that?) We love you all, please keep us posted with stories of home and our big requests are these:

1. Please pray for the people here, that God would continue to work in amazing ways.
2. Please eat a big Chipotle burrito (with an Arnold Palmer), and also if you could eat some Spicy Garlic wings dipped in ranch dressing for us that would be greatly appreciated.

BYE MZUNGUS!

fish 'n' chips, crepes, & gelato

Hello everyone out there in digital world! First we must say many apologies for taking so long to update the blog, we have no good reason so we will just use the classic excuse and blame it on the dog. To give this post a bit more flavor we each wrote about a different city we visited, giving you some different perspectives.

Tiffney in London:

We arrived in London late at night but somehow managed to find our way by subway and in the dark to 4 Cranfield Row, home to a very bubbly and extremely hospitable, world changer, named Bremley (Founder of Worldview Impact). After learning a very expensive lesson (£73/$130) on not locking yourselves out of your own room at 12:30am when there is no spare key, we got some much needed rest and got back on track. We also learned quickly that even though things were technically written/spoken in English, nothing was pronounced quite how it looked. We received many strange looks with our o-ver-ley pro-nounced syll-a-bles. For instance Southwark: American = south-wark, British= suth-uck.
In a huge city like London it is very easy to feel welcome and lost at the same time. You wander around and find things like The British Museum, London Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben easily in a day or two but never really on purpose. We discovered just how young our nation is when reading that one of London's greatest museums is 23years older then the U.S.A.'s Independence. Crazy! After an exciting dose of UK city life we headed to Yeovil, a smaller country town where our friends Jon and Gemma live. They took us for fish and chips and the traditional English pub dinner. We saw a 400 year old castle and a glorious "petting farm" where we were shocked to find exotic animals such as the rare lop-eared bunny, billy goat, wild turkey, and the occasional grazing sheep. We finally managed to tear Josh away from his fascination with farm animals to have a light lunch on the beach and a walk along the harbor in Weymouth. They had a very charming flat where they introduced us to "The Cube" (a reality TV show much like Fox's "Hole in the Wall" but with a glass box) and wonderful British words such as pikey, wanker, and rubbish. So far the trip has been very successful! And now we take an 8 hr. bus ride to Paris.

Nate in Paris:

We were in Paris for 3 days and 2 nights. We went to the Louvre museum, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumphe, ate crepes, french bistro, cheese, sausage, and drank wine. Also we experienced our first real language barrier, and at first it was very scary. God directed our words and comforted our hearts. During our time we had the pleasure of staying with a guy named Dule, who was from Serbia, and his good friend Dave from Switzerland. Our first night there we hung out at Dule's apartment, which was small but very cozy. He made us feel at home as we sat and drank a few Belgium beers and he made us crepes for over 3 hours and they were delicious! We talked about everything under the sun from french culture to politics. Both Dule and Dave we very interesting guys who love to talk and listen. The crepes started with prosciutto and cheese and finished with banana and Nutella, which is very popular here. This whole experience has been very surreal. For example, hanging out in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower in the late evening watching all the people and playing a game very similar to bocche ball. It feels like something out of a movie. Paris has stunning architecture and the people are very proud of there history. Even though our stay in Paris was short, our hosts showed the best the city had to offer.

Josh in Milan(o)/Pavia:

After a stellar 12 hour bus ride through the night we arrived in Milan 2 hours early, apparently our bus driver had seen the movie “Speed” one to many times. So we arrive at this bus station at 5:30am and it seems that we are on the “other side of the tracks”. There is graffiti everywhere, a few run down buildings, and the Bus/Metro station. We figured we would hop on the Metro and take it to the city square but the trains did not start running until 6:30am. Needless to say it was a bit intimidating. Luckily for us there was a group of Phillipino students on our bus who were traveling through Europe on a choir tour, we hung out with them for a bit outside the station, when all else fails go for power in numbers (honestly who would mess with a bunch of choir kids and 3 American tourists <@:)).

Eventually we made it to Duomo (Italian term for Cathedral) in the city center, and hung out for a while enjoying the sun and all of the people bustling about. We really had no plan in Milan so we just walked around for most of the morning looking at all the shops and bars(Italian Café) until our shoulders were burning because of our backpacks. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a Couch Surfing host so we stayed at La Cordata hostel, where Tiff cooked up some pasta and bread with Brie.

The next day we hopped a train to Pavia which is a small town outside of Milan, we stayed with a CS host named Marco. He was an ex accountant that was laid off and decided to open a little fruit and veggie stand on the corner near his home. He showed us a great time, introducing us to apperitivo and gelato. Pavia was having a festival at the time so we saw an Italian pop star perform and then finished the night off with the most amazing fireworks display I have ever seen (except of course the fireworks in Edgewater on the 3rd of July). Our time hear was short but great, now we are heading to Marseille for 4 days and then we head back to Rome for a week.

A MESSAGE FROM ALL OF US:

Before we left we all asked God if he would make this time challenging for us, that it would be a chance to break out of our comfort zone and shatter our “little bubbles”. We asked that this would be an adventure. We all agree that He has clearly answered this prayer, while it has been some of the best times in our lives it has also been some of the hardest (we expect it to get much harder). There are so many luxuries that we live with on a daily basis, so many things that we inadvertently put our trust in that now are not there anymore…it is great to learn that as a group our happiness is not determined by the floor we sleep on or the food we eat, but on the relationships we build, the adventures we have, and the God we serve.

Anyways that was a long post but if you are still here, please know that we love hearing random comments and questions, and we love updates on how things are going “back home”.

Hugs and Kisses - Josh, Tiffney, & Nate

Adios America

Well it almost 3:00am and we are sitting in Newark airport waiting to check in to our flight. Of course the actual flight isn’t until 8:00am, but being the thrifty overachievers we are we opted out of staying anywhere tonight so we could save some money and be here early for our flight. To help paint the mental picture: Tiff and Nate are laying here on a concrete floor with a thin layer of carpet trying to get some sleep, unfortunately for them Newark has been testing their fire alarms every 10 minutes for the last half hour. I find it fairly comical because what do you expect when you are sleeping in an airport at 3 in the morning, this is when all the work gets done (I say this of course as the man rides by on his seated floor buffing machine).

While Nate was still keeping it real in Colorado, Tiff and I were spending our time in Illinois with her family doing everything from mowing the grass to babysitting, but mostly eating delicious meals with great company. For the last 3 weeks we have been in Alabama and Illinois visiting family, there is something about being with loved ones that just feels right. I think many times life can get so busy that we forget to spend enough time with family, so if its been a while since your last family dinner I highly recommend it, its good for the soul. Another thing we picked up in IL is bean bag tossing ( I don’t know the official name), I would put it in the same category as washers, horseshoes, or tossticles. You basically throw a bean bag into a box with a hole in it. Simple - yes - but it provides hours of solid entertainment.

Our best discovery thus far is actually a website, www.couchsurfing.org. The basic premise is you create a profile (like face book with friends and references), then you contact people from any city you happen to be traveling in, and see if they have an open couch or room to sleep on/in. It is much more than just a free place to stay, it is a way to meet people, to connect to the “local” resources, and a great way to step out of your comfort zone. Now the first thing everyone asks is, “Is that safe, it seems kind of sketchy?” I would say go on the website and check it out for yourself, so far we have had a great experience with it in New York, hopefully we will have more good experiences in the weeks to come. Our first couch surf was with a guy named Matt, he had an extra room at his place in Upper West Side (5 blocks from Central Park). Matt was so kind and a great host, he even made us some spinach and carrot soup (it wasn’t poisoned) at 1 am so we had something to eat while we sat around listening to classic rock (Bob Dylan/Rolling Stones). The picture above is from the amazing patio on the roof of his building. Our time with Matt was made even better by his Chinese Jewish guitar playing friend named Abraham, unfortunately he is not performing anywhere yet but I told him to keep me posted. For the rest of the time in New York we hung out with our buddy Michelle Woodruff, she was an amazing hostess and treated us to some tapas and Cuban sandwiches.

As I said before we are headed off to London, our first international stop on the journey. We ask that you could keep us in your prayers and that you would let us know if you have any thoughts, ideas or comments (please let us know if there is anything you need some prayer about).

- good night from Newark Liberty International Airport

Josh, Tiff and Nate

War Eagle from Auburn AL

As promised we have finally set up the blog for our trip. I have no idea how to blog and I don't know if anyone will actually read this.

We will try to be good about posting pictures and answering questions, we would love to hear your feedback, comments, criticisms and encouragements.

Right now we are visiting my cousin in Auburn AL, people here are crazy. Yesterday we were driving and we passed a orange and blue car with a tiger's tail (stuffed) hanging out the trunk, as we passed her I noticed dozens of tiger stuffed animals on her dash and she was wearing an orange shirt with an Auburn visor. I have seen some intense Broncos fans before, but these people rock there Auburn gear 24/7 365. This lady looked like she was heading to a game or something, but football doesn't start for a few weeks (did I mention she was probably 80 years old).

Alabama is hard to explain, just know that it is awesome and at some point in your life you need to come here, if anything just for a shrimp poboy and some fried green tomatoes. If you are adventurous try the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, head south for an Auburn game, then finish it off with a few days in Fort Morgan at the beach hanging out with the wild dolphins(yes Alabama has white sandy beaches). For the record people here do wear shoes and have most of their teeth.

A lot of people have asked about our itinerary and what groups we are working with, here is a brief overview of the journey. We are still trying to make contacts everywhere we go, so if you have any suggestions for ministries or even just some people we should have dinner with, please send them our way.

September 1st - We fly out of NYC into London, we are going to cruise around Europe for 3 weeks trying to see historical sites and volunteer at whatever random church/organizations we can.

September 28th - We fly to Cairo Egypt. We will be visiting the pyramids and the Sphinx. After that we are not sure what we will do here but we have a few days to kill until we go to Uganda.

October 3rd - We catch a plane on Ethiopian Airlines to Uganda. In Uganda we will be working with Come Lets Dance (www.comeletsdance.org) for 2 months. They have an orphanage and various other projects going on, as we learn more in detail what we will be doing we will keep you updated. Please check out their website when you get a chance.

November 26th - We fly back to Egypt, where we will stay for a few days (If we can swing it we might try to go to Israel for a few days).

December 1st - We fly to Bangkok Thailand. We are still working on the details but we should be working with an organization called "SHE" in Phuket (www.shethailand.org). In a nut shell they help rescue sex trade victims/prostitutes, they provide housing, counseling, job opportunities, and hope for these women. Check out their website for more details.

February 1st - We fly into Singapore. We have no idea what we will be doing here yet, we hope to find a way to serve people and we will see where God takes it form there. If you have any connections let us know!

March 24th - We fly to Hong Kong for 1 week. Again absolutely no idea what we will do hear, probably the tourist thing.

April 1st - Head back to the states, we fly into San Fransisco. We are going to hang out with the Cherrys for a few days, then back home to Denver.

As far as communication goes we will hopefully be fairly reachable via email for most of the trip.

I also need to introduce Nate Vogel to some of you. One night we were climbing and I started telling him about the trip, he got super excited and I told him if God opened the doors he was welcome to join us. Sure enough details fell into place and now there are 3 of us. We met Nate 3 years ago from a friend of a friend, he became our 5th roommate at the condo in Golden and we have all been friends ever since. He has an amazing passion to serve others and he approaches his faith with the same commitment and clumsiness that Tiff and I do. We are excited to grow and learn with him.

That is all for now, keep us posted with everything that is going on at home.