Cobra!!

That's right, we had a cobra right by our house. Shannon thru herself on the kids to protect them....just kidding.

David, who works at the Children's Home, killed it while slashing grass near the soccer field. Joel carried it to our house to show it to us on a stick! You could still see the shape of the mouse it had just swallowed! Sorry, we didn't have a chance to get a picture.

It's just a reminder that we are still in Africa!

Kid Care

Joel and I got to help out today during free activity in Kid Care. This is the school that all but 1 of the kids from our Children's Homes go to. There are 190 students at Kid Care right now, there should be over 200 by June! During free activity the kids were split into 2 classes, a younger class and an older class. The younger children drew a picture and then colored it in, a lot of them need help with even writing their names. The older class used stems from banana plants and paint to make a picture!

Baby Class

Older class

Family

My Mom and sister Lisa visited Uganda this month. We had a chance to show them a few sightseeing things, the Nile River and Bujagali Falls in Jinja, as well go to the Equator which is near Mpigi. We also spent time at the Children's Homes; my Grandma sent along a stuffed animal for each child here that they were all so excited to get! Mom and Lisa also helped with the care and compassion pre-visits, or watched our 3 kids so Jeff and I had the chance to go together to some of the homes, which was a neat experience for the two of us to share!

Bujagali Falls

Jeff and Lisa had a chance in Jinja to river raft the Nile River, quite and experience they said!

The Equator

Care and Compassion

When the teams come here from Canada , one of the things they do is care and compassion visits. These are visits to homes in the surrounding villages. We go to the home and bring the family some food supplies, blankets, mattresses and mosquito nets. One of our tasks while here was to do pre-visits to all the homes. This meant going to every home and determining what the greatest needs were. Most of the homes were made up of an elderly grandparent and orphaned grandchildren. One home was a grandma and 20 of her orphaned grandchildren, you can imagine how hard this home would be to decide how much food and supplies to give! A lot of the details were the same for every home; they have no income, they grow their own food, but their land is not very fertile, and it is hard work, especially for the elderly grandparents. This process can be very difficult, and Shannon especially, who went to each of the pre-visits, found it to also be incredibly emotional.

14 of the 20 Gandchildren that one Grandma cares for

Betty

Betty is nine years old, and came to Kukiriza Children's Home in October 2006. Her mother has died and her father is very sick. Unlike the rest of Kukiriza, she wasn't here in the summer with last year's team of Muzungus (white people). So she was more aprehensive with us, and it actually took a little work to get a smile from her!! We were up to the challenge! It didn't take long, she became a quick friend! She is now one of the first kids to smile when she sees us, and is one of Joel's best friends here. She is very much a tom boy, and would prefer to play soccer with the boys over skipping rope with the girls. She is also a great singer!! A group of the older kids sing every evening, and often in church, and she is the song leader, her personality really shows when she is singing, you can see on her face how much she enjoys it!

Crocodile

When we took a boat tour on the Nile River one of the things we really wanted to see was a crocodile. The guide said it was a possibility, but not for sure. They took us to the spot where they have often seen them but there were none there. We continued on our tour, looking at birds and scenery etc, did you know there are approx 130 species of birds on the Nile River ?? On our way back we convinced him to check the spot again. We had no idea the horror which was about to happen! We saw the crocodile; it was sunbathing on the shore. We convinced the nervous guide to get us closer for a picture. We got to about 5 feet from it. After taking pictures of it just lying there, I decided to throw a stick at it too see it move. It immediately lunged forward toward the boat! Shannon instinctively threw her body on top of the kids to protect them! The massive beast's jaws came crashing down on the side of the boat; wood splintering everywhere! I immediately jumped on to its back so I could get a hold of its jaws! It continued to thrash about with me on its back! Meanwhile, the boat was sinking and Shannon had swam the kids to shore. After what seemed like hours, I was able to wrestle the angry creature into submission.

In reality...We did see a crocodile and I did throw a stick at it but it lazily slid into the water.