My name is Avin Dyck, I am in grade five and I am 11 years
old. I live in Uganda, which is in East Africa. When I first moved here at the
age of 4 I lived in a place named Mpigi. In Mpigi we lived at an orphanage for
54 kids, I loved staying there and playing with all those kids. We still visit
sometimes and I love to see my friends there.
Now I’m living in a place named Kibaale. In Kibaale we have
a school for almost 1,000 needy kids. It’s one of my favorite places in Uganda
because of playing with all the kids at our school, especially getting to be
with my sponsor child and friend Stella who is the same age as me and also
wants the same future as me as a Doctor. Also we live right by the staff
daycare where I love to help out and to see one of my favorite babies in
Kibaale, her name is Patience! I also
get to go on home visits to give students and their family’s gifts that they
really need like goats, food, shoes, or a bicycle but the best is when they get
a new house and we get to be part of making the mud house! I like to join in
with the Kibaale school when the students go on outreach in the community, they
sometimes help fix houses, give away school supplies to schools that don’t have
enough or visit hospitals.
Part of the week we also live near a town called Masaka; we
stay at the Timothy Centre, a high school for girls. I love all of the space I
have to play there and to spend time with our puppy Tipper that lives there. I
love playing with her and cuddling her, with me she is very calm but with my
brothers she is very playful. In Masaka I go to a school on Mondays and
Tuesdays for missionary kids. I also have online school for English and French;
I love my English course and am really enjoying learning French but am thinking
of taking Spanish next year. I also have homeschooling with my mom, brothers
Joel and Finn, and little sister, Mazzy. I get to help with teaching Mazzy, we
usually do Math together, she loves Math so that is fun to teach her.
What I miss about home is my friends, my school, and
actually my old house. But what I love about Uganda is my new friends, my new
school, and my 2 new homes. I might really miss Canada but if I had to choose
where to live it is Uganda, no contest! Some of the reasons Uganda would win is
the way I feel God is much more with me here than He ever was before, I feel
like He really tells me how to care for the people living here. I also love the
heat every day and of course the lovely babies, I am so thankful that there is
always cute babies around for us to cuddle and help take care of. Also every
morning you’ll wake up to see the birds flying by chirping, and seeing the sun
every morning shows me that today will be even better than yesterday!
Mpigi
Babies!!!
Primary students singing in front of our house in Kibaale
Hanging out with daycare kids in Kibaale
Home visit to give out a gift basket in Kibaale
Helping to build a mud hut
Stella and Patience, my favourites!!
Our puppy Tipper when we first got her
At my friend Hope's graduation
Christmas performance with my friends from school in Masaka
Gymnastics club in Masaka
My name is Finn Dyck. I am in Grade 4 and I live in Uganda.
I first moved here when I was 2 years old to a place called Mpigi where there
is a children’s home for 54 orphans that is part of our church at home, Peace
Portal.
Now I live in a place called Kibaale, it is 4 hours from the
city. There are 1,000 students that come to our school every day. My favorite thing to do there is climb trees
and play soccer with the students. I also like to play with the babies at the
staff daycare. My favorite babies are Patience and Julia. We have two houses,
Kibaale is in the village and The Timothy Centre with my parent’s offices and a
boarding school for girls is near Masaka town. I go to a school on Monday and
Tuesday every week, we call it Danish school because Danish people set it up
but it’s a small school for missionary kids. On the other days I am
homeschooled by my Mom, those days I love
when I can do school work on the computer, like my math program or when I can
type instead of write.
My favorite place to live is in Kibaale because there are
families around and I love seeing all the kids come to school every day. What I
love about being at the Timothy Centre is going to Danish school with my
best friend.
My favorite Ugandan food to eat is rice and beans with g-nut
sauce, there’s also matooke, which is like a cooked banana, but I don’t like
it.
One of the things we do for work is to go visit the student’s
homes and see their families, we give away gift baskets and goats or water
collectors and sometimes we build mud huts for people that don’t have a proper
home. We get to actually make the mud in front of the new house and then put
the mud into the wood frame. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
I have a dog, Tipper, she is a typical village dog that was
a puppy from our security dogs in Kibaale. We named her after a truck in Uganda
that would be called a dump truck in Canada. She loves chasing other wild dogs and
squirrel’s which is good because the squirrel’s wreck our gardens. We grow
tomatoes, pineapples, lettuce and eggplant that we eat.
I love going on safari drives, I have seen lions, elephants,
leopards, warthogs, crocodile, hippos, monkeys, zebras, giraffes, and hyenas,
but not all in one day! My favorite
animal to see on safari is lions. Once an elephant tried to charge our car but
my Dad was driving and he got us out of the way.
Some of the things I miss about Canada when I live in Uganda
are my friends and my cousins, and I also miss Menchies and McDonald’s but a
KFC just opened here which is really good.
On top of Kibaale Hill
Babies!!!
Julia is my favourite
Mud Hut
Soccer in Kibaale
Sports Day in Kibaale with the primary students
Tipper our puppy
Spotting a crocodile on safari
G-nut sauce for lunch, there isn't aways forks
Skip rope with the high school girls at Timothy Centre
Walking to church service at Timothy Centre
