A Driving Success

I recently made email contact with a midwife from the UK working at a hospital here. She invited me last week to a ladies' Bible Study. She called this morning with directions to the home where it was being held. The location was close to downtown, an area I have not yet driven in, and Shauen had a meeting at church so I couldn't have him drive me. Immediate panic!! I could drop Shauen off at his meeting and continue on, but this would mean I would have to drive all the way downtown and then find an unknown address! I really didn't want to do this, but there was no other logical option. Up to this point, I had only driven twice, neither of those trips were very long, and I knew where I was going. This trip would be different. I was nervous and in prayer the whole way and boy, did God answer my prayers! Traffic was light, I didn't exactly get lost (I was simply turned around once, I knew where I was the whole time...kinda), and I only drove on the wrong side of the road once! I had a wonderful time at the Bible Study, was able to meet some other expats living in Kampala and was given some good advice about getting registered here and volunteering at a hospital. I even made it home safely! I now feel a little more confident about driving and I know that if this hadn't forced me to drive downtown, I probably would have put it off for a long time. Now it's not so scary! On a bit of a side note, the turn signal is on the right side of the steering wheel and the windshield wipers are on the left, and unless I consciously think about it, my habit is to reach to the left when I want to signal to turn. I actually had to pull over once because I got my wipers going so vigorously, I couldn't figure out how to turn them off! There was someone walking along the road who gave me a curious look, I can only imagine what he was thinking - here's this white girl, driving this huge SUV down a narrow residential lane, with her windshield wipers going full force, and the sun shining brightly with not a cloud in the sky! Oh well! Praise God for a wonderful day and safety on the road!  -Krista

Valentine's Day: Caraway Anyone?!

Shauen made a half-hearted attempt to get out of Valentine's Day this year, guessing that they probably don't celebrate it here in Uganda. He was wrong! While certainly not as extreme as back home (no Hallmark cards here!) there are small Valentine's Day displays set up in most of the groceries stores. In one such display that we saw yesterday, they advertised purchasing "exotic" fruits for your loved one: apples and grapes! Shauen snuck a Valentine's Day cake in among the groceries, we tried it for lunch today. We haven't had many sweet things here in Uganda, it seems there isn't that appreciation for sugar like there is in the States! Now some of you may be aware, but I am not a fan of caraway, it is one of the few things I am picky about, and what flavor did our Valentine's Day cake end up being? Caraway! Simply not expected by either of us! Oh well, we're going to to dinner tonight at a place that has ice cream on their dessert menu, that'll work to satisfy my sweet tooth!  -Krista

Our Driving Adventure Begins

Well, the day we have been waiting for finally arrived this week, we now have a car! Our "new" car is a 1992 Toyota Landcruiser VX 4X4, recently arrived from Japan and has only 115,000 km (about 70,000 miles). Of course Shauen is excited, I am somewhat more petrified as this now means we have to drive...on the left side of the road! Shauen has picked up quickly and has always been a good driver, I think he finds the whole thing exciting! I, on the other hand, was more than just a little nervous and scared, but did manage to do just fine. It doesn't help that it feels like you're driving a boat (don't let the picture confuse you, the car is HUGE!) on narrow roads with no lines, traffic that makes lanes wherever they feel like driving, bicyles carrying loads that stick feet into the road, boda-boda drivers (motorcycles) that zip around you on either direction, no stop signs, no traffic lights, and of course you need to watch out for any cattle, goats or dogs that may be in the way! Definitely an adventure, please keep us in your prayers for safety on the roads.  -Krista

Theological Education by Extension

Missionary Jacob Gillard teaching the TEE classLast weekend was the first of our Theological Education by Extension (TEE) classes here in Kampala. These classes provide the next step in theological education for lay leaders in the Lutheran Church Mission Uganda (LCMU) who have already completed a training program at their local Mission Training Center. Twenty-four students from across Uganda have been selected by their congregations to send men to the class which is currently scheduled to run twice a month for two years as an extended weekend intensive training session. Many of the men who successfully complete this class will be approved by the LCMU to continue on to Seminary. We start class at 9am on Friday and run a full day's session on Friday and Saturday and the students also stay for Sunday morning worship at Kampala Lutheran Church where we hope to have a chance to model some of the things we're teaching as well as to involve them in the worship service in the LCMU's largest congregation. Leadership training is one of the key reasons fellow missionary Reverend Jacob Gillard and I have come to Uganda so it has been exciting to get into the training already barely a month after arriving. Class is held in the tent where Kampala Lutheran Congregation worships and the men stay at a nearby hotel from Thursday through Saturday nights. Some of them travel more than 12 hours to come to training. This very first weekend our primary focus was on introductions, logistics, testing out a couple of teaching techniques, handing out a questionnaire, learning names, and giving an opportunity for both Jacob and me to share a bit about ourselves with the class. We used a few texts as focus points this weekend including 1 Timothy 3, 2 Timothy 2, and Titus. Jacob also taught us all a technique for retaining and explaining the Great Commission which he called the Gospel Hand. Both Jacob and I shared "Why I like being a Lutheran" and I shared a devotion on Psalm 121 as well as an inside look into how I write a sermon and how I prepare for reading as a lector. While it is a little intimidating to be up in front teaching I am reassured because all of these men want to be there - they are leaders of their congregations seeking a deeper understanding to bring back to their congregants. I have so much respect for these men and I ask you to pray with me that God would use Jacob and me to strengthen and encourage His leaders and the congregations they serve.  -Shauen

Unexpected Shopping Surprises

It is always interesting to see what we will find whenever we go out shopping. There are things you want to find for baking, like chocolate chips and cream cheese, but can't. Which is okay, although nice to have on hand, they are not necessary. Then there are the unexpected pleasant surprises, for example, finding in the back of the refrigerated items a small bag of freshly grated parmesan cheese! This works great for us since spaghetti is the one of the meals we have mastered! Then there are the more shocking surprises of finding a bunch of stargazer lilies! I never expected that. What's even greater is that the bunch I bought (5 stems) cost me about $3.85! Never could have happened in the States. Then there are those things that you've never seen before. I am used to seeing gum and candy by the check-out counter in the grocery store, but never a 100ml bag of whisky being sold for about $0.70!  -Krista

Preaching in Uganda

Jerome translates into Luganda as Shauen preachesToday was my first opportunity to preach here in Uganda.  I have to admit it was pretty tough.  First of all, this weekend our Theological Education by Extension class met (I'll blog about that later) so I was in class all day Friday and Saturday and was preparing for the small parts I would teach on Thursday night and Friday night as well as building up a picture roster of the class and doing some other administrative stuff that needed to be done before Sunday when the students returned home.  This class stays in Kampala through Sunday morning worship so they can see some liturgical practices modeled and can participate in worship with each other and the community in Kampala.  On Tuesday the liturgy planning group decided to ask me to preach.  So I already knew I had a very limited time frame to get the sermon together and that I would not have the liberty of lots of practice time either.  The cherry on top was when Missionary Jacob mentioned that since this would be the very first time our TEE class came together and since we were modeling ideal liturgical practice in worship that I needed to preach the best sermon of my life.  And, of course, many of the idioms and examples I would use in America wouldn't work at all here.  Yeah.  No pressure, right?  So, since I'm going to be preaching I do all my normal prep work, which takes about 20 hours, and culminates in a full manuscript.  My manuscript, of course, uses more formal language and words not appropriate for a context where English is a 2nd (or 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th) language for everyone in the congregation.  So I decide that I need to do something I've only done in Seminary class before - preach from an outline instead of a manuscript.  This allows me to use appropriate language and explanations dependent on the feedback the congregation is giving.  BUT it makes me nervous.  Very nervous.  So I develop my outline and set aside my manuscript.  I plug the outline into my Bible and thank God for His work.  Sunday morning I'm grateful that there is only one service at Kampala Lutheran Church.  It takes enough energy and focus to preach a sermon from a manuscript at three back-to-back services (as I did in the US during our traveling) and I can't even imagine the effort it would take to preach from an outline in back-to-back services.  So I sweat my way through the first part of the service and finally it's time for the sermon.  I stand up and so does my friend Vicar Jerome, the Assistant to the Pastor and a vicar in the Lutheran Church Mission Uganda.  Turns out he's going to provide a translation of the sermon into Luganda while I preach.  Now I've been here a month and we've never done this before.  We had talked about a Luganda language service as a separate service and I thought Jerome was going to read a translation of the sermon text from 1 Corinthians.  But when it's time for the sermon and you're up front you don't have time to iron out little miscommunications.  So I went with it.  I would have written a different sermon if I knew I was going to have live translation but I have to admit that it worked out wonderfully.  Based on what people have shared with me, the sermon was appropriate and very well received.  Everything worked out so well.  I've never preached with a translator before but people said that they really, really, really appreciated the Luganda translation and that Jerome and I had a good natural flow.  God used my weaknesses - and I have to admit, even on Saturday night I was feeling like I had a pretty weak sermon - and He spoke to His people.  Kampala Lutheran Church's music director asked if I could preach again this Sunday.  I am humbled by the request but I'll have to wait a while before I am able to preach again.  Praise the Lord for delivering just the right message in just the right way - even through me.   -Shauen

January Field Notes Published

Field Notes for the month of January have been published. This month, Field Notes included the following articles:

• Diving Right In - Ministry trip to Gulu and Lira in the north of Uganda
• TheTrumps.org is Redesigned - Details of the redesign of our website
• Getting Here from There - A final article on the process of getting to Uganda
• Facts in Focus - Food: milk, Coca-Cola, eggs, and sugar in Uganda

Our prayer requests include:

• That God would continue to bless His people in Uganda and our work in this place
• For nursing or charity work for Krista that is edifying and provides opportunities for her to witness to the people of Uganda

And we praise the Lord:

• That God brought us safely to our new home in Kampala
• That God has been working in the hearts of the people of the Gulu area who have come together in response to the Gospel to form the 64th congregation of the LCMU

If you haven't seen it yet, download Field Notes for January 2009 (PDF file, 601k) now!

Lesson Learned

Last night Shauen had an evening meeting that lasted several hours. Before he left, knowing I can at times be afraid of the dark, he thoughtfully left a light on in our bedroom for me. I was working on various things downstairs and had no need to go upstairs and did not realize he had left the light on for me. When Shauen did return from his meeting, it was close to 11pm and as he locked up downstairs, I headed upstairs. As I walked into our bedroom to place my phone by the bed, I thought I saw something small move on our bedsheet. I leaned over for a closer look. It was a lake fly, a small bug similar in size to a mosquito, but doesn't bite, is harmless, has a short lifespan and is attracted to light. I noticed there were a couple more on the bed, my eyes were drawn up to our pillows where there seemed to be a good handful. As my eyes continued upward, I was a bit concerned to see a dozen more on the wall above our bed. My eyes continued up the wall to our ceiling and I stumbled back in surprised horror. Here I had been concerned about a few little bugs on our bed, and had missed the hundreds and hundreds of lake flies on our ceiling!! How do you walk into a room and miss that?! We turned the light out, hoping they would be drawn to the security lights outside. Nope! They had settled in for the night and were quite comfy! As I mentioned, they have a short lifespan and would be expected to die throughout the night. This would get rid of them, but who wants to sleep underneath a bunch of bugs that are going to die soon?! We ended up dragging our mattress downstairs, and sure enough, our bedroom floor was covered with dead lake flies the next morning. We couldn't figure out how so many got in, as our windows have screens. We realized that if you don't slide the glass all the way open, there is a gap between the screen and the glass since they are on different tracks. When open all the way, the frames meet, sealing the gap. Well, we learned our lesson and we were thankful that although having so many bugs in your bedroom is kinda gross, it was pretty harmless.  -Krista

Yellow Yolks!!

So if you have been keeping up with our blog, you already know that eggs yolks here are white. However, much to my surprise I just found organic eggs that are advertising a yellow yolk! (6 eggs with white yolks cost around $0.85; 6 eggs with yellow yolks cost around $1.10) We haven't tried them yet, but I'm hoping they're yummy!  -Krista

Learning How to Cook

Before arriving, both Shauen and I were fairly confident in our cooking abilities. Now, we are happy if we make something and it turns out! You can find most things here (I found a little bag of parmesan cheese yesterday!), but while things are the same, they are at the same time different. We buy our milk in a litre bag and it almost tastes like the milk I am used to. Egg yolks are white, making it slightly difficult to tell if you have beat your eggs enough when making scrambled eggs. Both Shauen and I, at separate times, bought a bag of what we thought were beans, but in actuality were raw peanuts. The only way the oatmeal I made was edible was by adding so much sugar and cinnamon it was practically dessert! (How can you mess up oatmeal? I still don't know but somehow it happened!) However, we have learned that we are masters at spaghetti and tuna fish sandwiches. I am also learning that it is hard to break the habit of recycling (there is no recycling program here). So I dutifully rinse out the yogurt container and tuna can and put them in the rack to dry before, full of guilt, I throw them away. Until we are accustomed to everything, each meal is a small adventure and we are most grateful for those times we succeed!  -Krista

Mosquitoes and Climate

It's the middle of a dry season right now in Kampala which I understand means that it rains about once a week.   This week's rain came a few mornings ago early in the morning - it poured with thunder and everything.  Strangely enough, it didn't seem to wash away much of the red dust.  It's been very pleasant as far as temperature and humidity go.  It's warm during the day but only in the 80's.  At night the temperature cools off nicely.  We pretty much have all the windows in the house open all the time - and there are lots of windows.  Even if we closed them, every window has about a foot-tall opening above it with a screen and  louvers in open position that can't be closed.  So there is always air movement and the sound of whatever may be outside at the moment - your neighbors talking, the morning call to prayer from the mosque down the street, singing, or the housekeepers washing the cars in the morning.  This morning we have had a very thick fog - so thick that our screens are covered with condensing water.   The glass windows don't have any water on them because it's the same temperature inside and out but apparently the screen provides just enough surface area for the fog to condense.  We haven't seen (or rather, heard) too many mosquitoes yet either.  I hear about one each night so I think we will pick up some mosquito netting next time we're in town.  I don't know if that's because of the season or if that's how it will be in Kampala year-round.  So far we've been here six days and I have to agree with Winston Churchill that Uganda may just be the Pearl of Africa.  -Shauen

Egg Yolks

What color is the yolk of an egg?  That's what I thought too.  This morning for breakfast Michelle made hard-boiled eggs.  Looked like a hard-boiled egg from the outside.  When I cut into it it was white.  All the way through.  A white yolk.  Perfectly normal, I'm assured.  Just not expected.  It tasted good.  -Shauen

Jet Lag

Yes. We have jet lag.  I fell asleep around 8pm about ten seconds after my head hit the pillow and I woke up at 2:30am with no hope of falling back asleep.  It's going to be a long day.  -Shauen

Appliances

Part of furnishing our home means buying some of the major appliances we need - like a refrigerator, a washing machine, and an iron (anything that is dried outside must be ironed to kill the mango-fly larvae that may have been laid on the clothes as they dry).  Such items are expensive - mostly imported from South Africa by truck I think and who knows where they may have come from before arriving in South Africa.  I think our fridge is Italian.  Regardless of where they come from, none of them seem to come from Uganda or Britain.  So none of the electrical plugs are the right ones!  They are all the right voltage but it is widely accepted that anything you buy that you have to plug in will not have the right plug.  The store is supposed to hand you a plug when you leave to put onto your appliance.  Then you cut the existing plug off of your brand new appliance and wire on your Uganda plug. Crazy! Krista was pretty nervous as I wired our brand new fridge. I was a bit offended. I am an electrical engineer after all. She had no faith in me. Or maybe it was the expensive fridge she was worried about. Anyway, it works fine – I wired it correctly.  It's kinda like us.  Even when we look good, shiny and clean, we have inherited and perpetuated a fundamental flaw - one that someone else has to fix for us to function properly at all.  Praise the Lord for the loving fix He brings fresh every day!   -Shauen

Furnishing a home from scratch

Homes in Kamapala are big or very small.  There doesn't seem to be much in-between.  Although we would certainly fit into a smaller home, like a condo/apartment or a townhouse, they apparently are not nearly as available and the ones I have seen are pricey.  We have a budget for furnishing our home and I know it is possible to do so within the budget as long as we use local craftsmen (which is what I would like to do anyway).  The intimidating part is walking into the large empty living room and the empty bedrooms.  We're starting from scratch.  We've been here about 5 days and I don't have a single chair in the house!  I can't change light bulbs!  We're working on it, of course, and there is a place a few miles down the road where there are lots of furniture makers lined up right next to each other.  So far we've bought a 4-post bed (the four posts are a practical feature for hanging your mosquito netting), and we've placed an order for a dining room table and chairs.  The prices are reasonable and the furniture available is very nice.  It is all hand-crafted and has a "rough" quality to it - just enough to identify that it was hand-made locally.  It's perfect.  Right now we're sleeping in our bed in our home but the rooms still feel cavernous and empty.  With all tile floors and no curtains there is quite an echo in an empty room which only magnifies the feeling.  Fortunately we have an excellent lead on curtains: hand-made, ready in two days for the entire house, simple, and most importantly, affordable.  It wouldn't be such a big deal except for the privacy they provide (I'll blog on that later).  Despite our mostly-empty house, it is home.  And it feels like home already.  How is it that God works in our heart this amazing comfort when it seems as though sometimes all we have is Him and each other?  What a blessing it is to walk hand-in-hand with Christ even from the other side of the world!      -Shauen

Leaders of the LCMU and the work ahead

Today after we did some major shopping for household items like hand towels, an ironing board and iron, a washing machine, glasses, silverware, cleaning supplies, waste baskets, toilet paper, etc., we headed over to the Lutheran Media Ministry Uganda headquarters, which is also the de-facto headquarters of the Lutheran Church Mission Uganda.  President Noah had come into town on another matter and was able to meet us for the first time.  What a blessed man he is.  He greeted us warmly and made us feel very welcome.  Jane was also in town for the day and was able to meet us as well.  We had met many of the other workers at Lutheran Media Ministry our first full day here when we stopped by the office on our way into town.  It is humbling to have someone so excited about my presence.  I haven't even done anything yet!  It is my prayer that God will work through me to serve the LCMU in the best possible way.  The first item on our work agenda is in about 8 days when the LCMS World Mission Area Directors for Africa gather here in Kampala from all over Africa (called the Africa Management Team meeting).  Shortly after that will begin a class/curriculum for 24 men who are interested in pursing Seminary studies.  This two-year class which meets every other weekend is an LCMU pre-requisite to Seminary entrance.  Jake and I will likely play a large part in providing the instruction for this class.  What a joy - I am so excited and nervous.  First, though, I'd really like a desk and chair in my home office (my only office).  That's the task at hand for now. -Shauen

Not Elecricity..... Water!

Based on guide books, we had expected the electricity to be provided on a rolling blackout basis, with power provided to half of Kampala on any given day.  That could well be the case for other parts of the city but for where we live, the power is fine – it’s on all the time as far as I can tell although Michelle (our co-worker who lives across the street) said she saw it go out for ½ an hour the other night. The unexpected concern we have is for water! Our water is shut off during the day – it usually comes on sometime during the night and then is shut off again before morning. To address this issue, our house has a huge water tank up above the roof – you can see them all over the city, big water tanks perched above most houses. So whenever the water is on, everyone who is getting water is filling their tanks and then when the water is off you’re using up your “reserve.” A pump kicks in when you’re using your tank to bring the water up to about the same pressure as city water. It’s all automatic so we don’t really know when the city water is on or off except when we turn on the kitchen sink cold water which is connected directly to the city supply. Every other faucet in the house including the kitchen sink hot water is fed by the tank.  So we can tell if the city water is on or not.  Our hot water is generated entirely by solar although we do have a booster hot water heater in the kitchen for if we run out of solar-heated water which we haven’t yet. The solar does get quite hot and stays hot all night in an insulated tank – easily hot enough for morning showers.  Our co-workers Jake and Michelle have a much larger household than we do, with two children as well as their housekeeper and her son.  They have run out of water more than once when the city water did not come on at night.  Now they are able to come across the street to our place and fill up some buckets if necessary from our tank.  Praise the Lord that even in the midst of scarce resources He finds a way for His abundant streams of water to flow.          -Shauen

You are welcome

The common greeting here when you are coming into someone’s home, office, or market stall is “You are welcome.” It sounds funny to us since no one said “Thank you.” The phrase makes perfect sense, of course. They are saying you are welcome to come into my place, welcome to be my guest, welcome to make yourself at home. It’s often repeated several times in those first couple minutes when you’ve arrived. And that is exactly how we have been welcomed to Uganda – with open arms, a wide smile, and an eager handshake.  We should have expected it, of course.  Christ has welcomed us all with arms held open on the cross.  It is certainly the case that His love holds together brothers and sisters in Christ - even across the oceans.  We have been wonderfully welcomed home.   When you arrive, we will say also to you, "You are welcome."  -Shauen

We have arrived!

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Friends, Supporters,and Family,

We have safely arrived in Kampala.  I'm writing from my supervisor's dining room, right across the street from our house.  Praise the Lord for safe travels and no lost luggage.  We'll be writing more as soon as we can. 

God bless you all!  -Shauen

The Day After Tomorrow

The day after tomorrow we'll be in Uganda.  We leave tomorrow, Sunday, around noon from Sea-Tac airport.  But we arrive in Uganda on Monday night, Uganda time.  Right now I'm still trying to figure out what time it'll be here in the states.  Krista added a sweet widget on the right hand side of our Uganda page that tells what time it is in Uganda.  I think we'll arrive on Monday morning, U.S. time.

Yesterday we had an amazing afternoon.  We've had some difficulty establishing residency in Washington state because our permanent address is a post office box so all our mail has that address which (according to the nice people at the department of licensing) does not prove residency.  So we've already been turned away from getting our Washington State driver's licenses once.  Friday afternoon we were waiting for a package to be delivered that was coming by UPS direct to the house so it would have our physical address on it.  By 2:30pm it hadn't arrived.  This was our last business day before departure.  At 2:30pm. 

1. We set out at 2:39pm from my parent's house for the roughly 30 minute drive to Tacoma, stopping along the way to pick up a year's supply of contact lenses.  What we really needed was them to write me a receipt with our physical address on it.  There was no line at the contact lens place.
2. Our second stop was at the Voter Registration office in Tacoma which went without a hitch.  We didn't really need to register to vote so early before the next election but we did need to get a voter registration card (to prove residency).  Again, no line.
3. Our third stop was downtown Tacoma to get our background checks for our work permits in Uganda.  We got there a few minutes before closing.  There was only one person in line ahead of us.
4. Then back across town to the department of licensing.  We walked in and pulled number 340.  They were helping number 290-something when we arrived.  We were called up to the front about 2 minutes before closing time.  They were SO NICE!  They welcomed me "back" to Washington state and issued us licenses! 
5. With new licenses in hand, then, we had to high-tail it across town again to get to the AAA office for our International Driving Permits.  Once again, we arrived minutes before closing and there was no line at all.

I'm completely amazed at what we got done in the span of three hours.  My Mom was an awesome chauffer providing door-to-door service and lots of emotional support.  God provided hardly any traffic, fast stop lights, and perfect timing with easy waiting lines.  And He somehow kept us calm (at least outwardly calm) throughout our quest which was good because it's not generally a good thing to be all anxious and nervous when applying for a license or background check. 

It'll be different in Uganda.  As my supervisor says, "If you get one thing done in a single day you're doing pretty good."  I feel like a cliff diver gathering myself one last time before the dive.  I'm in that moment of a long, slow blink where you know what's in front of you, you know what you're going to do, but you can't see over the edge just yet.  If it weren't for that amazing lifeguard in the sky (Psalm 121), I'd be scared to death. 

See you on the flip side!  

-Shauen