Merry Christmas !!

MERRY AFRICAN CHRISTMAS MUZUNGU'S

Hello everyone!!

so this blog is close to the last one i must say i am pretty proud of myself for not forgetting to update you all on my life !! Now i'm going to try to focus as hard as i can to write this as my roomie is having a funny noise off with a friend on skype so im super trying to focus ahhaha.

so! what is new in my african life since i last wrote you all.. I had to leave my beloved GULU! ahhh.. let me tell you right now no offense to my beautiful canadians this ripped my heart out ten times more than any goodbye! I think what was so hard was that i can't guarantee that i will see them all again.. I can try but a lot will go to there mothers or leave town or anything can happen so the only hopes i can hold onto is one day seeing them in heaven! But it was so hard Gulu is my home. I was there my whole trip so every problem or hardship or anything i have had in Africa i have experienced in Gulu.. So saying goodbye was so hard and i hope to never have to do it again! So i am happy with the work i have done there and i know the difference i made there and i felt in my heart leaving that God was pleased with my work and he was telling me it was okay to go.. but it still hurt me so bad... 

BUT.. i am here now in Suubi! so let me tell you about this place.. this is Suubi so this is a children's village so all the cute little choir kids you see singing '' I AM NOT FORGOTTEN' i am living with.. yeah... im pretty pumped about it! so they are moved here after babies home and they get a house with a mother and there is bout 6 kids per house, and they go to school there is a clinic and church and everything.. It is segregated off its not a town its just watoto houses here gated in, its on the top of a big mountain/hill its beautiful. So there is 4 children's villages and this is the only with a babies home so i am working in the babies home and living above it. So i will soon find out what its like to wake up by screaming babies daily! So the beautiful thing bout my new location is that this village and babies home is the same that is on the watoto sites all the photos and videos is all from this village.. So when i came to africa in my mind this is the places i was headed.. and after 3 months i am finally where i thought i was coming! So not that i didn't love the rest of my trip but it is just such a beautiful way to end the trip you know. Arriving here the sun was setting and we were driving up the hill and the palm trees and kids playing and the beautiful homes and the gardens i started to cry. God just said to me as i arrived '' it's ok, i want you here, and your here for a reason'' and that was the confirmation i needed because when i left Gulu i thought my trip is over .. This month is going to drag cause i am done in Uganda. But driving up here i had such a peace and a happiness and i just can't even wait to see what insane things God pulls out here! :) Also we live on a second floor so we have a beautiful patio over looking rolling hills/mountians covered in grass and trees and such beauty. And if your wondering why i call them mountian hills is because there bigger then a hill cause you can't drive over them, and smaller then a mountian cause theres no snow on top. SO therefor there mountain/hills hahaha! So it is truly amazing i have heard the sunrises are wonderful! I can't wait till my morning shift tomorrow to sit on my patio like the old lady im not and drink coffee and watch the sunrise and thank god that he is so awesome! 

So on the note of wonderful things some of you may know i connected so much with a baby my first week here in kampala and she was wonderful i fell in love and when she was moved here to the village i am at i cried and cried and begged god that one day i would get to see her again, i don't know what it was about her but she comforted me when i needed her most when i arrived here and i was scared and i just needed a baby cuddle she was my girl, so i have felt so attached to her always. SO on the most fantabulous note i arrived today and i went to the babies room and THERE SHE WAS!!! my girl standing smiling at me as if she was waiting for me to come!! I picked her up and held her so tight i felt like i was being re-united with my long lost daughter the way i held her! I think she recognized me because she was smiling and laughing and wrapped her arms around my neck while i hugged her and allowed me to endlessly hug her and kiss her so i think she still knows me! If not its ok because she let me love her so were good! So its safe to say im a happy little muzungu over here! happier than ever to know i see her daily! its nice as well because all the babies from when i first got here other than just her there all here as well! so i am ending my trip with the same babies i started with, its kind of beautiful! So i will be spending a lot of time with them im happy that im living with them so i can get as much black baby cuddles as possible before i leave here and am surrounded by white people :P So life is so wonderful!!

so now i need to go onto my happy little cindy lou hoo self! i most likely spelt that wrong.. sorry. SO! i am so happy because i finally got my christmas! FINALLY RIGHT i was waiting because i have not been in the christmas spirit and i wondered if i ever would! So we had a volunteer christmas party but also attending was all the people who work with watoto internationally but live there now, so basically a lot of mazungus and so everyone dressed nice it was in a wonderful location nice room with nice christmas decorations and christmas trees and christmas carols! and A SANTA!! yay yay yay!!! but for the record anyone seen a black santa? cause i did after this.. HAHAH. but he came and we went up one by one and sat on his lap to get a gift, it was so much fun the little girl inside me was freaking out! also we got to have a nice big dinner, not typical canadian style but it was a feast of canadian style foods it was so awesome and desert!! yumm! and then later that day we went to the christmas cantata !! It was so awesome !!!! It was a play type thing of the christmas story but it was also dancing and singing and a big choir it was so awesome the dancing was wicked they did all different styles some lyrical and some crazy hip hop break dancing stuff and some african style it was seriously wonderful! TO TOP IT OFF they had a light that went around the whole stadium and it made white dots all over us so it looked like it was snowing in the room ! and on all of the walls was a video playing of a snowy street so it was seriously wonderful i was so emotional the whole time i was so happy I GOT MY WHITE CHRISTMAS !! So im happy because my one thing was having my first christmas alone was scary for me, but it seems like god has it in his hands because that day made my whole christmas. So as for my Christmas day ill be skyping my parents to open some gifts! and than me and my roomies will take our favorite babies to church ! and then the babies home is having a nice lunch than for dinner we are cooking ...MEXICAN!!!? i know that is the same face i made! so since we dont have the right resources here to make a typical meal the girls are cooking up a big mexican feast. I mean hey as long as your feasting on christmas its all cool beans right !! So i am happy with the way things are going and im doing ok im trying to soak up every moment im here cause i come home in 5 weeks! ahh so insane ! i am so looking forward to seeing all of you who have been supporting me daily! i can't wait ! It will be nice so please keep me in your prayers! and thank you for everything !! 

so i am going to add a song this is some lyrics in the cantata that Marry and Joseph sang in the play when marry found out she would be bearing jesus , they sang this and it was beautiful and it really encouraged me in my life to keep doing what im doing and coming to suubi i question god like are you sure you want me there cause i love gulu and i could do so much more, but coming here i saw i am to be here. So although its so hard to trust in God cause we have so many questions but in the end who are we to question cause he knows the plan he knows what is best for us he knows what we need so we just have to let go and let him decide. 

be unto me according to your word I give myself to thee just a servant in your land, though i don't understand 

your purpose or your plan still i say be unto me..

thank you guys for reading and your prayers! xxoo!

have a merry christmas all of you ! be blessed spend lots of time with your famlies they truly are a gift from god! enjoy the food and the presents and don't forget God on christmas! LOVE YAs

Consider me a Local!

HELLO MAZUNGU'S 

so im here with my coffee on my day off and very ready to blog to all of you and fill you in on everything thats been happening!!

SO as you all know i went to the IDP camp, so let me just jump right into it and go ahead talking about what it was like !! Let me tell you it was the absolute high light of my whole AFRICA trip, maybe even a large highlight of my life.. other than my birthday cause thats a wicked day! :)

but to start off when we arrived at the camp we were informed that this camp was taken over about 10 years ago and was used by the LRA ( child soldiers) joseph coney and his soldiers pushed out everyone in the village or killed and used it as there base land to stay and to sleep.. So that was of course the most comforting news to hear that the mud hut im about to sleep in could have been slept in by a LRA soldier. But hey i just kept positive and had faith that God was on my side. So of course this whole week was a lot to deal with! I experienced things i have never experienced in my life. Like going to the washroom in a nice HOLE? that was an experience. You see im spoiled with some things and for me i would like a nice bathroom. So it was for sure a stretching experience to be in a out house with no door and just a hole in the ground.. But i managed to find it normal by the end of the week.. Also we showered with buckets, no running water.. Not only that but we showered in a grass hut type thing accept it was just grass walls no roof. Oh and of course no door.. So it was facing a bush. That would be ok in Canada, but in Africa its normal to be walking through the bush always.. So we had a few watchers who watched us shower so we were just sure to bathe in baithing suits. The whole experience of it was a once in a ilfe time experience so i always remember that when i get bitter about showering with a bucket and having random black children watch you do it!! 

But while there we got to sleep in a mud hut!! SO AMAZING! i am seriously thinking of building myself one back home ! they are so warm and cozy its like sleeping in a bullet proof tent! it was wonderful!! I think the most beautiful part was waking up every morning to have children screaming your name outside of the hut waiting for you to come out!

 Speaking of children. This trip would not have been the same without them! The kids in that village were perfect. I could not have pictured my time going any better with them! It was so nice to live were they are living because i really got to get involved and see there everyday life and see how they live and what they do daily. It was beautiful to see how hard working and happy everyone is. The love that they have for eachother and other people is compelling! The village is like one big happy family, it is wonderful makes me wish that we had villages like that home, Every child hangs out together they all play together its like a daily school play ground just at there home, its awesome ! So every day the children would come and hang out with us, we couldn't talk much because of the language barior but for anyone who ever has traveled to a place like this you know photos are what makes you bond with them the most! So everyday we just took millions of photos with them, and of course they loved it and would giggle and smile they were happiest when we took there photos! Also even when we were just reading our bible or going anywere we always had an audience. It was hard to ignore at first but you learn to, cause they just want to watch you. They don't want to talk they just find you so interesting. Especially since this village has not seen white people since the british were here years ago! So they found us facinating! Also at night time every night all the kids came to our hut and our little land and would play with us, we played tag, Occtopus, jump rope lots of things it was so much fun to play and bond with the kids and love on them and help them to take time out of there day to feel like real children again. It was wonderful.. 

While being there we did a class everyday. The point of us going in there is to work with the people and teach them trust, how to love, how to talk about the bad things that has happened to them, how to let go, how to move on. So many things because the people in the village have experienced some seriously un thinkable things so for them to forget and to move on after years is a challenge. So thats were the team steps in the work with them and try to help them, At the end of the first week they begin to incorperate God into it. They look back on all the things they talked about with them and show them were god comes in that and what he can do to help us and what not, and the second week is all about god and at the end they give the people in the village a chance to give there hearts to the lord ! So unfortunately i wasnt there to witness people giving there hearts to the lord but i was there for all the tust building and the stress releiving and some testimonys. So it was a really amazing experience

So also while being there we had a class about trust, and about trusting people around you and being able to share your experiences with other people. So i was asked to share my story with the teen group ages 13-25 so unfortunately my group was 80 percent men, so i asked if i could tell my story to only the women after class. So after the session all the women stayed behind and i got to tell them my story. After my testimony they all got the chance to ask me any questions they wanted. It was so nice to sit down with them and talk to them personally and i think they really enjoyed the chance to have one on one time with me. 

Now, one thing that i find comical now but at the time i didnt think was funny. We were asked by a man in the camp if we wanted to go see some monkeys. Well as mazungu tourist we thought AWESOME YES! well turns out it was a horrible walk through the jungle ( unknowing we wore sandals and skirts) no trail just bush high grasses vines bugs spiders and snakes! The good thing is we did see the monkeys! thank goodness so the trip was worth it! so longest blog short this trip to the IDP camp changed my whole life, it was the highlight of my trip and im so blessed that i got the chance to tag along and experience it all!!

on a side note of things that have happened since , the home sickness is hitting me now im so happy here but im missing my family a lot so please everyone pray for me for peace and patients to end my trip the way god intended

Also this looks like it's going to be my last week in Gulu! This is where my whole trip has been so it will be a very hard goodbye since Gulu is now home, but i'm really looking forward to spending my last month here experiencing so many new things at a new village! I will also get to see all my favorite babies i started working with when i first came to Uganda !! 

I also want to wish everyone a most merry christmas this year and i pray you all have a white christmas! Although the christmas spirit around Uganda is dimmed i am counting on a christmas re-make with my family when i am home! but i am throwing a christmas party at my house tomorrow with some teens and the pastor from the village i have done so much work with ! Me and my roomie will be cooking them up a nice big Canadian/American meal! Everyone is super excited to try our food and im looking forward to having a bit of canada for a night!! 

and my goodness i almost forgot to fill you guys in , pastor from the village i have worked with so much randomly called me and my roommate up and asked us if we would like to be his guest speakers at a youth conference he is holding half hour out of town! WOW right! so we accepted and had only 24 hours to come up with something! so we came up with a whole sermon and when we got there and began we didn't say anything we had planned! it was pretty cool! it went super well the people took it well and seemed to react awesome to it, so i am so happy we got the opportunity to do that, im so happy with all the things i have been able to experience in this country and i have all of you to thank for keeping me in your prayers and supporting me financially without that i wouldn't have been able to do half the things i have! I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH !! im so lucky to have such a good support behind me!! Thank you everyone..

but as for me and what i have been learning is how much God really answers prayer.. He answers even the smallest prayers that we pray just to pray , we don't think he will really grant them but since being here i have really seen the power in prayer and have seen some wonderful things come from it!! I have a small praise report as well ACTUALLY HUGE, one of the times we decided to go around in the village to pray for people in there homes we came across a lady in her home who was very old about 90 and she was so small she looked like a skeleton and she was very ill and had a leg problem that prevented her from being able to walk, we went in and all laid hands on her and prayed. And we got the call about a week later that she is now walking and attending church and bible study regularly now!!!! HOW AWESOME RIGHT.. God seriously heres us every time we call out to him with a genuine heart and God really does miracles.. Its a miracle everyday you wake up and are still breathing and we can't ever forget to thank god for another day. I read an interesting tweet that said '' dont forget to pray to god before you go to bed at night because he didn't forget to wake you up this morning' and of course we should pray for more than that reason but it is just funny because he really has never forgotten about us for one second, so who are we to live amazing moments even like waking up in the morning or seeing healing or a beautiful day or even having 3 meals a day and not thank him for not forgetting about us and not ever stopping lovin ! g us no matter what insane things we do he never stops. THIS GUY ROCKS!!! so that is some things that you learn your whole life but since being here i have really taken the time to re think over them and really appreciate god and just be in shock of his love!! 

Thank you guys for reading hope you enjoyed!

xxxoooo much Ugandan love

Bugs are Food not Friends

HELLO EVERYONE so i realise this blog again is way past due and i am so sorry for that i am extremely busy lately were in a large transition so i am bad with trying to strap myself to this lap top and tell you everything i know you all have been waiting to hear!!!

so you are most likely all wondering what is with the title of this, but ill get to that later :)

SO WHERE CAN I BEGIN? this blog like many others will be very scatter brained. hope i don't confuse you all

So since i have last blogged we have done some pretty wonderful things. Me and my roommates have met up with a pastor in a local community and he has been getting us involved with stuff he is doing for people in need, we just really feel god calling us to do more than just work with the babies. instead of sitting in the house on our days off this pastor has helped us have something to do to get involved and use our skills usefully. So this is the same pastor we got to go through to distribute clothes and food to the village close by. So since we have paired up with him and got to witness 2 baptism services. One in a pool and one in a village about an hour away in the river! in that day we saw a total of 79 people be baptised!! it was one of the most emotional days here in Africa. It is always an emotional day when you get to see God truly move in other places other than home. The people who were baptised would walk to the side of the river and worship out loud with no instruments. they worshipped through the whole baptism, it was so amazing to watch people so passionate about God even through there struggles in life they still look up.

Also in that day we got to experience Africa to the fullest!! We were at a village and the team we were with were building a school for children because the closest school is 5 miles away so children would have to walk all that way to attend school. So they built a school there for them! So amazing. So while there we got to work with all the kids in the village we did songs and bible stories there was around 200 kids. We also got to work with ladies of the village . They took us on there every day work tasks, hand washing laundry, walking to the well, pumping water from the well, and yes carrying large yellow Gerry cans on our heads... my face was the same as yours I'm sure. These things felt like they were 400 pounds and when they put it on my head.. instant migraine... hahah that was if i could even balance it. But i couldn't very long till i had to give it back to them to carry. They would carry it like it was feathers and dance and walk with out holding it. African women are tough let me tell you. So many random things that happened in that day that just shaped my whole trip, like walking to the baptism with a pack of 200 people and having races with the little boys, and walking holding hands with the little girls, and taking photos with old ladies. It was a wonderful day and i will upload lots of photos as soon as i can so you can all see as if you were there with me !

So on  a new note me and the girls were bored and the power was out so we decided to clean out our closets of all the clothes that collect dust and the shoes we never wear and take them to the village to meet the same pastor. He met with us and introduced us to 6 youth girls who took us around the village to the most in need people in the village who could us the small amount of clothes the most. Also we got to go inside the mud huts and pray for the people living in there. We prayed for a women who was paralysed in the legs. We prayed for a old lady laying in bed so sick that she couldn't move. Even in that moment the whole time we prayed she thanked god for everything he does in her life, and thanking him for blessing her. It was so amazing because she was on her death bed with nothing and she still thanks god everything she has! So we prayed for some amazing people and prayed a lot of healing over people who asked for it . it was a really wonderful day!!  Also while being there we have plans to help clean out the village well with a team because it was ruined and now the water is brown and the village people still drink from it because they have nothing else, so we will be going next week with a team to help clean it out and get it working properly again. We also will be helping him with a youth conference he is hosting at the church we will help doing games and songs and sitting in and getting to know the girls and the teens. It will be so nice I'm looking forward to all the plans god has for me in Africa!!! 

So back on a watoto note! We were in Kampala and we actually got to see the children quire practising to sing at a hotel for the first lady! it was super cool that is what i have been waiting for is to see the kids singing in Africa! it was heart melting i was the happiest in that moment. Also i got to go along with a couple of watoto people and take a little girl who is about 2 to the children's village! it was so much fun because she is very shy and takes time to warm up to people and she was very comfortable with me and liked me a lot so they asked me to take her for comfort, and when we got to her new mother her mother cried receiving her. she was so happy !! it melted my heart knowing that she was going to be so loved by this mother. For all who don't understand ill explain. We have a babies home and the kids come in there first depending on there age we take them to about two or three depending on there development and maturity. and then we take babies, and when they are older to about 2-5 we take them in groups to the children's village which is all the kids you see in the choir, they have school a house and a mother and brothers and sisters there and a clinic its beautiful there is 3 in total, so we take them there when there old enough. So we took her and leaving her was very hard she was crying and screaming so my heart was ripping. But the upside of being there i got to see all my toddlers we had previously brought there, and they all remembered me they all ran up to me and hugged me! it was so nice to see them because i miss them everyday, but of course leaving them all for a second time ripped my heart out. 

So onto the title of my blog here. me and my roommate are on a very important mission and that is to eat a cricket! i know gross right. But Africans eat these like popcorn you can buy them off the street by the cup and people walk around munching them. So you know what they say.. when in Africa do as the Africans do right! so we are searching for ones to get. we have been told not to get them just anywhere because if there not cleaned they will taste like dirt, but if cleaned they taste good. so we are waiting for the person who looks the most educated on cooking these, so i will be sure to let you know exactly how that goes. I am not nervous all I'm scared of is getting a leg or an eye stuck in my tooth. then we have issues. 

So on a last random note i feel its needed to tell you all what we ate last night. We had a BBQ at the house, and we had burgers. Sounds normal, but they were hand made with oatmeal in them, and then when cooked and ready to eat for toppings you put a BBQ pineapple and a fried egg, fried onions and BBQ sauce on it.................................................................... i hate to admit it was SO GOOD i highly recommend to all of you. only in Africa once right.

but before i rap this up its safe to say that I'm seriously in the Christmas spirit although its hard with no snow out side. but we have decorated our house with a tree and tinsel and stockings and lights all over the house and Christmas candles and so much more, so i am excited its feeling like Christmas around here.. i still wish i was building a snow man and drinking hot chocolate by the fire but hey I'm drinking ice coca cola in front of a palm tree ! its a nice change i suppose :P 

So this blog doesn't come with any life lessons i have learnt lately cause every day has its own challenges and i learn something new every single day about my self and about god, and it makes me so excited and remembering all of you supporting me back at home is really what keeps me going knowing the love and prayers i get so thank you all so much!

so i hate to say it will be a week until another blog but i have a good reason ! me and my roommate are going with the watoto rescue team to a IDP CAMP which is '' internally displaced people'' so this is  village built especially for people effected by the war and who fled or lost everything during. So the rescue team goes out two weeks in every month to a different idp camp and work personally with everyone in the village teaching them trust, and teaching them to talk about the things they have been through and accept guidance , so they do games and stories and testimonies and have someone on the team who does private council sessions with anyone who needs them. So they don't incorporate god into it until the second or third day of classes in hopes to gain trust from people because a lot of people in this situation are quick to ignore when they hear god, so they teach them trust and love and how to deal and later introduce that you can't get any of it without god. So needless so say we are going for five days and yes.. we will be living in a mud hut!! I'm pretty excited that's one thing you need to do in Africa is live in a mud hut. so we will be living in the mud hut cooking over a fire peeing in a hole showering with a bucket behind a tree, truly puts camping to shame! so that means no lap top no cell phone none of the good stuff, so you will all need to pray for me. The men are loving telling us horror stories about wild lions and pythons that have been an issue in this place so I'm nervous but i have been wanting to do this since my first month in gulu. two months ago. so i am seriously excited! so i will be telling a lot of people my story and teaching a lot of people how to deal with there issues and i will be listening and working one on one with people who have seen truly horrible things in this war or have done horrible things, so please pray for mine and my roommates hearts that we would truly be prepared and we would handle this completely with gods love and really change lives out there. 

So sorry for talking your .. eyes off.. lol i had a lot that i haven't been able to tell you all about !! i hope you enjoyed the blog!! thanks everyone for your prayers !! 

MUCH AFRICAN LOVE!!