Some more news...

On Friday we moved Solomon into the new Thread of Life sew and craft shop!!!!!!!! It was such sweet relief when we drove away from that wretched building with the last of our things, breathing huge thanks to God for the landlord not showing up and the fact that we NEVER have to go to that place again! It felt a bit miraculous & indeed it is.

Morgan wrote these updates, so I thought I would mooch from him and share (sorry no pics!):

First of all is the story of Jordan and Jackson. Jordan and Jackson are brothers and they are two babies that have lived at the kids' house for a little over a year now. They were completely abandoned and we didn't have any idea who their parents were. But over the summer, there was a woman who became interested in adopting them. So Wilfred, the director of the kids' home, started asking around again seeing if he could figure anything out. By some coincidence, he happened to come across their uncle. The uncle said that he had no idea what happened to the mother but thought that the father was working in some distant village somewhere. But then, about a week later, the father got in touch with Wilfred through the uncle. As it turns out, he had gone to Sudan to try to find some work. When he went North, he lost his phone with all his contacts in it and couldn't call his wife. There ended up not being any work in Sudan and he couldn't scrape enough money to get back home. So do to some rather unfortunate circumstances, he ended up being stuck in SUdan for almost two years. When he finally came back, he immediately started asking friends and relatives where his family was. That's how the uncle got him in contact with Wilfred and he found Jordan and Jackson, but he was still trying to find what happened to his wife.
A week or so after the father got in touch with Wilfred, he found his wife. It turns out she had gotten sick and was in the hospital for a little bit and had left Jordan and Jackson with a family friend that was living near them. The friend though, for some reason or another, took Jordan and Jackson and gave them to the police saying that they were abandoned and thats how they came to Wilfred. The mother new that they were with Wilfred and were staying in the kids' home all along, but she was scared that if she went and tried to get them back then she would get into trouble for abandoning them in the first place and so she just left them there.
But now Jordan and Jackson are both living with their parents again. Mercy Ministries and CLD are still keeping tabs on them and helping the father and mother support them, but it's really great that they are bak home with their parents now.
It's so cool to see stuff like this, especially when we can look back and see how this might not have happened if our friend hadn't been interested in adopting them this summer. If they hadn't started looking into the family again, they might not have found the uncle, and, in turn, the father. It's so cool to see how God knows the things that need to be done and can use us to make those things happen.

Love this story - miss the boys, but so thankful they are with their family!!!

Great news for Thread of Life sew shop

On Monday we had a small victory for Good - Solomon was able to secure a new location for the Thread of Life sew shop! We'll be moving out in the next week or so to a new building with access to power, water, that is secure & provides us with a safe place to be for the next few months as we seek a permanent place to purchase!!! I'll post pics once we move in!

Goodbye Mr. Evil Landlord!!!!!!!

Loving Hard...

Loving regardless

Never giving up

Never losing faith

Always hopeful

Enduring through every circumstance

Loving people that are too hard to love…the unloveable

A conscious choice

Mourning with those who mourn

Rejoicing with those who rejoice

Being with, not doing – enjoying presence, not accomplishment or success

‘We were meant to be Lovers, bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we are called home.’

How it looks for me to ‘love hard’ daily…

Serving our volunteers in patience

Awaiting the day in expectation of what may come, not of what I have planned

Greeting my Ugandan friends and co-workers with a smile and a genuine desire to know how they are and how their family is

Patience as I travel on public transport – in heat, humidity, traffic, delays, stares, lack of personal space…

Getting one thing accomplished when ten were on the list to be done

Hugging and playing with children who have seen and experienced more suffering in their 8 years than I’ll ever see in my lifetime

Trying to find a tension of loving these children with all of me, yet not so much that they feel abandoned yet again when I leave

Choosing to not give money or resources sometimes because it will aid dependency rather than promote sustainability

Choosing to give some shillings to the beggar on the street

Praying for a friend that is hiding because she feels ashamed of something she’s done – not turning away from her, writing her off, because she made a bad choice

Holding the tension of protecting myself and caring for the strangers I meet along my way

Remembering that everyone has a deeper story than I know, not judging by appearance or first, second, or even hundredth impression

Clinging to glimpses of joy instead of dark clouds of despair

Hoping

Loving Good

Seeking Peace

Comforting those who are broken

Being open to their comfort expressed to me as well

Wish I could say this is how I look every day – but its most definitely not! Only what I aspire & hope to…aim high, right? Love Hard.

TNL visit to Uganda

the guys teaching yoga to the kids!




Jared & Julie working hard on the Farm!!


the girls planting our live fence!!


Tiffney & I


baby Julio, our new goat!


sunset over the Nile River


Jared & I on the Nile


impending storm...


in Ben's village of Kaliro - we spent 3 days here with his family & community

Pictures - lots of em - Kidz House

new tire swings!

slip n slide fun - Wilson

beautiful Soki

Emma

Twister fun!!

funny faces: Wilson, Bashil, Marvin & me

trying to get baby Jonathon's legs strong!

brothers Marvin & Kevin at the pool

Cassie with Jonathon - promise that's formula in the bottle!!

all play!!!

The battle of good & evil

Here's a post my friend Julie wrote - I'll update later with some of my reflections, but wanted to share these thoughts as they've been heavy on our hearts this week!

(referring to a phone call received late one evening…) In all my 3 years of knowing Solomon, I’ve never heard that tone before. He used all the credit on his phone to call me to come right away. ‘I even don’t know what to do… I’m feeling so bad… the landlord refuses to listen… he is here and taking Mama Cissy’s things…’ I had no idea what was going on but I’ve never know Solomon to be upset, so I turned around and headed in the opposite direction than home, to Thread of Life sew shop.

I arrived to find Solomon with his arms crossed inside shop, while 2 men were relaying things from inside out into the street. The landlord (whom I’ve never met because he’s never actually been around to care about his tenants) was standing beside his car in the street. Both of them too furious to talk to each other anymore. So calmly I listened to Mr. landlord, nodding to his ludicrous reasons for kicking this women, Cissy, from Solomon’s shop. Then I went to Solomon, he was so furious about what was happening he couldn’t even think straight.

[If I were to write a manual for living & working in Uganda] I will talk about how there is ‘Good’ and there is ‘Evil’ in Uganda. Evil seeks to oppress, corrupt, destroy and frustrate the progress of Good. Good is weary but she endures because her sole purpose is to bring Life and Love to the broken, the reward is so great that it cannot be measured or found in this world. It’s incredibly black and white, and unlike America you don’t find much grey area to float along in.

Solomon is the manager of Thread of Life sew shop. He has been a part of dozens of slum women lives who have come through the TOL program. Whatever ‘it’ is… he gets it. He knows his job is more than teaching destitute to sew and make beaded necklaces – he is the church to all these women. When their kid is dying of malaria, when they ran out of food the week before, when they have no where else to go, they know where to find him – he doesn’t take that lightly. He represents the Good in this place with dignity and gentleness; he is honestly the most gentle man I know.

Mr. Landlord is an aggressive and greedy man. To me he represents the corruption and oppression that people of poverty are imprisoned by. He over charges on every single bill, he never responds when the water hasn’t been working for months and the ceiling is caving in (because he built rooms on the roof) and hassles Solomon every chance he gets – yet Solomon remains humble and compliant because being kicked out of the 3-room shop would be unthinkable…

Tonight when the Mr. Landlord came threatening to kick him out and ordered men to take Mama Cissy things into the street, Solomon stood up to him and fought back. It wasn’t fair that he flex his muscles of authority whenever he felt like, it wasn’t fair that this mother and her child had no where else to go for a few days, it wasn’t fair that her daughter Recheal was killed one year ago and it isn’t fair that she’s dying of AIDS … the list continues.

Her youngest daughter, Cathy, is 4 now and stays with her. She is the only one of her 4 (now 3) children that hasn’t gone to live in the Children’s Home. I can’t help but wonder if the situation now would even be happening if Rech hadn’t died last year – she was her mother’s greatest advocate. Now, little Cathy just stands in the corner watching, as we brought back all of her mothers things from off the street without saying a word. It amazes me how much she looks like Recheal, same strong stature, same exact face … what a reminder to me to keep fighting for Mama Cissy on Recheal behalf.

I was proud of Solomon that night for standing his ground. I really didn’t care about the landlord and all his accusations … There was no negotiating this time. We simply carried all the things back inside while he watched us and he didn’t argue because I think he recognized injustice in himself. He just drove away and I haven’t seen him since.

In my manual I would say that “to look after orphans and widows in there distress” are just words that are spoken. Security and stability are only things you hear. Community, Love, Relationships are only terms we use in ‘CLD orientation’. They all mean nothing until inaction becomes action, and that is a choice we have to make on our own. For me it’s a conscious decision not to keep walking, but for Solomon it’s a lifestyle – like how could you do anything but love. After laying out the mat on the floor between the sewing machines and saying good night to Cathy and Mama Cissy I wondered if this was the purest form of ‘religion’ … standing there in a true church.

“It’s just not fair.” I hear that often during our morning devotions at the volunteer-house. I’ve wondered why Solomon never says that. Before leaving that night I was trying to encourage him, at that point I was more concerned with Solomon being so disheartened than if Mr. Landlord was feeling disrespected or undermined. Stability is something he has to be to these women. I assured him no matter what happens he will never be alone, that there is an entire community that loves him and this ministry. I reminded him of our last TOL meeting – we talked about buying place, no more renting. To just keep working hard and maybe, depending on how Christmas sales go, we can move to a new shop sooner than we think.

The funny thing about a manual is that if it could be written, if someone figured out ‘how to help’ that would mean Africa didn’t need us to be here. I don’t think anyone has figured it out otherwise things would be better by now.

In this manual (that I won’t be writing) there will be a small clause on the very last page, because honestly … it’s only in those moments where nothing else matters, no guidelines or expectations, when you begin experience who you are and what you believe in. Only when you can’t consider anything else but love does Good have a fighting chance.

So I’m left with little advise to give because what I conclude for today may not hold true tomorrow, this is an unpredictable land where sometime Evil distorts the plan. Yesterday I wrote down the program for today, but it didn’t go at all as planned because yesterday I didn’t know that Nakato would die in the night … the 3 year old daughter to Sula, one of our staff at the volunteers house. Yesterday I didn’t know we’d be helping to plan a funeral rather than the original program to take her and Sula to the hospital to get some new tests done today.

I just hope I can continue to see all of this as an opportunity to give Good a fighting chance, to never put following Jesus in manual because the path is unpredictable, there are no rules, there is no right way… yet the reward can’t even be measured

Love,
Julie

Random pics from this week

the pigpen on our farm!

Our pig: Boris, aka James the pig

rainy season - the road to our farm...

our taxi...stuck on the road to the farm. I'm cheering the guys on!

plaiting!

Beads made by our ladies at the Thread of Life sewing shop

Baby Jonathan with Tiffney - Jonathan just arrived last week. We think he's about 14-18 months old. He was abandoned at the local medical clinic and the police brought him to us. We're hopeful that we can find his family & try to help restore this precious boy to his true family. Until then, he's being loved back to health & smiles!

Our Kids House - Mercy Childcare Ministries

At home cell meeting from Light the World Church



We all thought this logo was fascinating...global warming anyone?