Long time coming

Tuesday July 6

Well, we made the trip to Lira today. We have the goal of completing a kitchen expansion in 4 days. That is; demolishing a wall, pouring a new footing and slab, building up the walls, and then the roof. Right now the Lira kitchen is about 10' wide and 14' long. We will be making it into a 10' x 20' room. Our bus was scheduled to leave the Ridar Hotel at 6:15AM, but we ended up leaving at around 7:10AM. One of the Mums from Seeta was moving north to Lira, so our bus had to make a stop at the orphanage before it came to the Ridar. We had to go and pick up Betty 

at Christian Life Church after we left the Ridar, then 

once we got there, we started to smell something burning on the bus. Turns out the mechanic had over-tightened the brakes and they were smoking. We walked across the street, which is no cake walk, and had a brunch at a hotel that the Douglas's had stayed at before. It was quite nice. We finally got heading north around 9:30AM. I got to sit in the back of the bus, which was literally half full of bags and luggage, with 3 little orphans from Seeta. They fell asleep on me on a number of occasions. We got to Lira around 3:30 PM and dropped off a bunch of things at the Pauline Hotel, then went to the Lira Orphanage. Since we only have about 4 days to get the job done, we met with a contractor up here that is going to help us get everything that we need. We spent the afternoon and early evening running around getting tools and materials. We even wanted to go to the village today and start busting down the wall, but we couldn't find any sledge hammers. So we dropped off some form boards and went back to the Hotel for dinner. The food is actually very good here, I was quite impressed. Kirk and I are just chilling in our room just preparing to watch the Uruguay/Netherlands game.

Wednesday July 7

We had a largely productive day. We got to the orphanage this morning around 8:10AM, and our Lira contractor James had started laying out the footprint of the expansion. We had told him all along what we wanted to do, but he started doing it his way. We were so excited to be pouring a floor the way that we do in the US. We know why there are so many problems with the buildings in the orphanage, but the workers all build the buildings the same way. The floors crack, pit, and chunks come out of the floor leaving huge holes. We got the footings dug, the 

forms fabricated, and rock layed into the bottom of the forms. We even got the wall broken down and the concrete poured. We finished the pour and scraped off the excess concrete then went to the hotel to eat dinner, and then we went back to the orphanage and floated the concrete floor as best we could to make it smooth. I have to say that that is the best concrete work I have ever done. Not because it is the most quality finish, because its not, but because we had kids lined up watching us float the concrete in the light of bus headlights. I sweat more today than I think I ever have. I must have drank 4.5 liters liters and went to the bathroom but once. All the rest was sweat. It was pretty fun doing our thing with all the nationals standing around murmuring about what we were doing.. They must have thought that we are crazy Americans. I heard someone say that they can build a house with the amount of cement we used. I can say without a doubt, however, that we poured a quality floor. Francis the cook is very excited. I heard that the Container was delivered to the Seeta orphanage yesterday, and was inspected today. They want another $3000 on top of the $6000 we have already paid them to let us into it.

Thursday July 8

Mosquitoes attacked last night. Karlie Gonzalez got bit under both eyes last night, when she woke up her eyes were little swollen... also she had amazing sausage toes because mosquitoes hit up each of her knuckles on her feet... someone needs to take Malaria Prevention 101. We got to the orphanage today and the workers had stripped off our forms. I wanted them to leave them on for a bit longer than that, but what can you do. They are just doing what they know. They were setting brick this morning, and it ended up taking pretty much the whole day, so

Kirk, Steve, and I sat around for a while just doing whatever we could think of with the kids that were there. There is this one girl, Mercy, who had the longest fingernails. Kirk and I started referring to her as Wolverine. She seemed to like to go for the throat. Don't get me wrong, she is a sweetie; she just had long fingernails... and sharp. I played the role of David in a David and Goliath skit for Bible School. I worked with Francis, the cook, cooking beans. He makes them very well. They taste like the Campbell's bean with bacon soup. I love that stuff. I ate a couple bowls of that... then I decided that I would carve him a new stir paddle. The one he had was looking a little worn. We had a little mahogany left over from making our scaffolding. That's right; mahogany scaffolding. I have always considered Mahogany as pretty spendy stuff, but here it is like their basic 2x4 that we would buy at home depot. Later in the day, when we were about to take off, I was sitting around and the kids were all lined up to get new shoes. There was a really cool sunset, so I took a picture. Most of you know how I like Silhouette pictures.

Container update. So they opened it, inspected it, shut it, and the latest that I have heard is that they are asking around $10,000 on tariffs for us to access it. We paid it, but I feel like it might not be that worth the money. With that kind of money we could probably build 4 more houses, and fill them with children. They rip us so bad. The organization that is supposed to be helping us has not yet been able to get us registered with the Government or something like that. There was a 10 month waiting period, and we started the whole process in January. So hopefully this will be the last container that we get ripped on.

Friday July 9

Today was a far more significant day than I had realized. I didnt realize it until just after dinner. It was a day all about testimonies. One that touched me today in particular was my friend Tiffany's. She led bible study for the children here in Lira while I was doing construction. The study was about David and Bathsheba; how he sinned and found forgiveness with God. The kids had some great questions. One child asked about how they get forgiveness, or give forgiveness to someone that has since died. That opened up a number of questions in my mind. Then she said that a child asked, “Can I be forgiven if I have murdered someone?” ...”Can I be forgiven if I was forced to kill someone?” ...You never really think about it I guess. Maybe I just don't think about it, but these children in Lira; most have seen loved ones killed, killed people, have been forced to kill... in many cases even someone they loved. Sometimes I think that I have had a rough start at life, but now I find myself thinking, “Who am I, that I get to live the way that I do." So many things that I have taken for granted in my life; some I learned about the hard way, and some I get to learn from someone else. This tribe in particular was a target of Joseph Kony, whom I'm sure that many of you have heard about. “Invisible Children” does a great job at exposing and informing people about him. I will let you lean about him and what he did if you are interested, but getting to be part of people's lives who were directly impacted by him has really impacted me.

Compared to the testimonies about today that I heard, I feel a little like I didnt really do anything significant. Maybe the right word, instead of “significant”, would be “eternal”. Eternally significant? … I put Concrete in a kitchen, and patched floors. I poured a small foundation for a Barbeque, and a small chunk of concrete to help the water at their tap flow away and drain. Though I know this helps their immediate needs, Sometimes I have a hard time seeing anything but treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. Here it also seems like everything you have will grow legs and run away when you are not looking, and here everything breaks ...all the time. Though this is all true, I like to think of it as a constant reminder that there is a bigger and better treasure that cant be destroyed or stolen. =) That is the treasure that we want to give them. All we can do is show them where to get it, and then they have to choose to accept it. The beauty of it all is that the treasure is a gift, and not a wage. You don't have to work for it. You just have to accept it.

Saturday July 10

Seems like the days are starting to blend together. We have almost finished the kitchen. I am getting to know the kids a little more. Since it is a different language, it is taking some getting used to. I don't really have any way of communicating with them other than English. I am understanding Luganda in the south to the point where I can communicate pleasantries, and essentials, but up here it is totally different. It almost sounds like an Asian dialect to me.

Bruce and Steve spent a good amount of time scrubbing creosote off of the existing walls. The kitchen in some places I would say had creosote up to 1/4” thick. The container came the other day, so Bruce and Robert took the bus down to Kampala to get the stoves that we wanted to install, clothes, shoes, a stereo for the Lira children, bed sheets; plenty of things. I got the Stereo jamming with some Hillsong United, and did my usual fetching water. I finished the BBQ, and kept workers supplied with Mortar for brick laying. During bible study, I don't know if it was today or yesterday, but this little girl, Mercy, totally ate a green crayon. Her teeth were Forrest green. It was pretty cute. Two girls at the orphanage are total hams. Mercy and Rita. They are about the same age. I am feeling pretty delirious. I am sitting out in the main room of the Pauline hotel fighting sleep, and mosquitoes. The Germany/Uruguay game is on, but I might have to call it quits for the night. I believe that the girls are trying to play Settlers of Catan on Kirk's and my bed right now too. I feel like this posting is going to be the longest one ever because I haven't had any internet since I have been in Lira.

Monday July 12

I had the most awesome Happy Birthday sang to me yesterday at the Lira Orphanage. We went for church with the children, then back to the hotel to change, then at 3:00PM they gave us a “production”. They had their choir sing and dance a number of songs for us. I swear, they are the best children's choir ever. They sing so beautifully. After the production we started to disperse, and someone tipped the kids off that it was my birthday, even though I had 2 more days, they surrounded me and all sang me a 3 verse happy birthday song.. Ill never forget that one.

Today we set off back for Kampala, taking a minor detour and stopping over at Red Chilli before we get there. Red Chilli is a small safari camp in North West Uganda close to Congo and Lake Albert. It sits right on the Blue Nile. We take a boat safari up to see Murchison Falls and back again. It covers a small amount of the river, but we see tons of wildlife. If Jerry's Rogue Jets wanted to make a sister company, this would be a great place for it. The boats are not so much designed for speed and going over rapids as just putting up river and slowing down to look at Crocodile, Hippo, Elephant, birds, and whatever else may be in the water or getting a drink.

We checked into our first room/hut just a little while ago. And there are some warthogs meandering through the place. Just doing their think looking for food. I guess if you have any food in a tent, they will rip through the tent to get it. So they advise against it. Our food is mostly safe; on the bus.

I brought Deb and Gav (Red Chilli managers) a summer sausage. I remember last time we were here we gave them the rest of the one that we had, and they loved it. So I wanted to be sure to bring them one again. Right now our party of 14 is sitting under a huge grass roof looking out over the Blue Nile into part of Uganda. This is a great place.

Thrusday July 15

Well, a lot has happened since the last time I have typed let alone posted on the blog. Now that I an back at the Ridar, I can now access the internet once again. We had a great time at Red Chilli's. We stayed two nights, and hit up Murchison Falls on the way back to Kampala. After our fist night, we went on a morning boat safari up the Nile to the falls. We had a little time once we got back to the camp, so the younger people decided to take a trip in the bus to the top of the falls and hike down some trails to the bottom of the falls. We fought the Tsetse flies all the way there, and then they just left us alone. It started pouring once we got to the trail head, and by the time we started descending, we were all soaked. I was freaking out because I didn't think the bus would be able to get out of the place since the roads are all dirt and clay. I was wrong, we got out. The rain seemed to stir up the flies for some reason, and we were literally under attack on the way back to the camp by the Tsetse flies. They would chase the bus until it slowed down, then try to fly in through all the windows and bite us...

Ok, so we left Red Chilli's, hit up the falls one more time, and came back to Kampala where we met up with the portion of our team that was on their way to the airport to come back home. We went through the shopping centers and rode the bus with the team to the airport, then finally returned back at the Ridar around 10:30PM

Today, we got to go back to the Seta village and tossed some more brick around. They have gotten so much completed since I have been in Lira. The walls are above my head.. I know that isn't saying too much, but come on... We heard that there was a boys football game at the school they attend, so many of us wanted to go and see that. The game was really cool, our teams all won all their games!! I made a Vuvuzela (Horn) for it our of PVC pipe and was blowing it the whole day. We ended the day at the football and Netball field, and came back to the Ridar.

I know that some of you may have heard about a bomb going off in Kampala the other day/week. I was in Lira, and our team was not affected. Apparently it was Somalians targeting Ugandan nationals because there are Ugandan peace keeping forces in Somalia that they don't want there. We were no where near the bomb, and are all safe. There were lives lost; mostly Ugandans and 1 American.

Its getting slower, the team is shrinking as people are going home and we are really realizing that this year's team has been very close. Ill be making a short stay in Portland before I go to Italy very soon.  

Happy 4th!

Saturday July 3

Today is Winnie and Levi's Wedding!!! I started writing down thoughts on the way to the church. I was riding on the 25 passenger van packed in there listening to “Snow Patrol” just thinking about the wedding. I can only imagine what is happening in Levi's head. He isn't the most outgoing guy, and to be put on stage in front of so many people is way out of his comfort zone. The Ugandan culture is VERY into dancing. However, he is so in love with Winnie that it didn't really matter all that much to him, he was just ready to be wed. They were both so happy. I can only imagine the difficulty in having a relationship over such a distance. For anyone that doesn't know the story, Winnie was one of our interpreters the 2^nd year we came when we installed the water collection system. We split all our missionaries up and paired them with interpreters. Winnie and Levi were paired. The rest is as you might imagine. Now they are married. They are still having problems with the US Embassy though. I dont know if anyone knows someone that works for the US Embassy, or immigration, but they could sure use some help. It has been looking like they are going to have to wait for 9 months to a year before Winnie can come back with him. That situation still needs prayer. I took photos for him at the ceremony. He asked me if I would, alongside the Ugandan Photographers; just in case. I was happy to do so. I ended up taking around 1400 pictures. When I went to bed, I passed out pretty hard. I ended up sleeping in till 7:45 the next morning, which is 45 minutes later than I have yet been able to.

Sunday July 4

Happy 4^th of July!!

Today we have church at the Village with all the children. I think that the service at Christian Life Church is very beautiful, but service at the Orphan village is truly amazing. When you hear all the little children singing at the top of their lungs... they are incredibly rhythmic, and full of singing power. Children's Choirs are the most amazing thing to hear for me. In this case, its not a children's Choir, there are just 700 children packed into the church and every one of them is singing as loud as they can. This is Godfrey and I in the Church building waiting for the P7 children to eat their lunch and come back into the church so we can start our study. I was supposed to teach P7 bible study today, but what ended up happening is that all the children that I was supposed to teach came really late, and I had to head to meet up with the Turners for a 4^th of July Celebration. I thought that I was going to be getting more tea, but Darrie didn't head west when he got home due to sickness. So, no tea. ...but the little party was fun. We had a great time catching up; the Gosveners, Turners, and I.

Ok, so best story of the Day: Sheala Pritchard was so tired when she got off the plane, she just recently confessed to brushing her teeth with hand lotion before she went to bed... don't quite know how you make that mistake, but she did. must have been tired...   disgusting.   Love her to death.

Catching up...

I must apologize, I usually like to have more pictures in my blog, but I haven't been slinging my camera like I usually do. I will get more for you.

Monday June 28

I found out last night that today is the day that we start our older kids's bible study. I would be lying if I said that I was totally ready for it. However, in his usual way, God gave me the words to speak in front of around 150 children. Natalie Caminiti and I are leaders for the older children in a study on the life of David. It was really neat to get the children in the church and have them so attentive... I wasn't surprised at their attention, but it was cool. I cant remember ever being in front of that many people and not being nervous either.

I hear that the container is now 150 miles away from the orphanage, and we can expect it as early as tomorrow. That would be really amazing to see it come in. The stoves for Lira are on the container. We need to have it here before we can go. I never thought that it would get here this early when they told us where it was. That will be a HUGE answer to prayer.

Construction went well today. I stopped around 1:00PM for lunch, then worked on the bible study material, but while we were working, I got to work with the nationals leveling dirt inside the foundation walls so that they can compact and prepare it to pour a slab. I got to meet Pastor Jackson's daughter Elizabeth for the first time. She is a really sweet girl; lots of fun to work with and talk to. She has no accent. I felt a little weird, almost out of place talking to her because my natural Uganda enunciation comes out when I talk to people here. I don't have to worry about it with her. Its pretty impressive that she is so fluent, then I learned that she doesn't know Luganda all that well (still way better than any of us...), and has spent most of her life in Texas. It doesn't change the fact that she is a cool girl.

Levi and Winnie are very excited, Levi has been working with the US Embassy to get Winnie a visa, but it has been a very up-hill battle for him, so that would be a great thing for you to pray for. Pray also for the container, and for God to use me for his purposes.

Tuesday June 29

Had some more great progress at the work site today. We have gotten to the point where, in the Ugandan construction process, where we are placing large pieces of quartz into the floors. That the slab is going to be poured over. I guess they do this to fill space and conserve on concrete costs... who knows. So whenever we walk from the orphanage to the hotel with some of the interpreters, we inevitably end up getting scolded more or less to watch out for Boda-bodas. They tend to drive extra close to you. It gets annoying sometimes, but today I got nailed by a handlebar or a mirror or something. The guy on the bike flew past me, and he had a ton of room on the other side which makes me believe that it may have been intentional. Basically it made me bleed a little bit at the elbow, but turned out to be just a scratch that bled pretty well... Now I have a huge band-aid...

Wednesday June 30

Today was so tiring. I just felt drained all day. This usually happens to me at some point on the trip. There is always a day when the work that you have been doing catches up to you and you get slammed with the desire to sit in the shade and nap. You are tired, just from working every day, the sun is extra hot and saps your energy, didn't get a ton of sleep the night before; basically its a perfect storm. You just are dragging all day. I still went out there and tossed rocks around, then went and did my P5(4^th Grade) bible study. The study went well despite my sleepiness. The children learned about how God wants to be their friend forever. We told them the story of David, how God gave him a friend he could trust through difficult times like when King Saul was trying to kill him. We had delicious Uganda BBQ tonight again. It was awesome, as usual. I had 4 pieces of steak, and 2 pieces of chicken. I also have been wrestling with the hot water here at the Hotel. When the power goes out, which is all the time, we lose our water heater for a couple days. I have a hypothesis... a breaker gets tripped and they just don't go and turn it back on... so then when you are just about to go to bed, you are thinking you will take a shower and be clean, you have to take a freezing one.. its a real downer.

Thursday July 1

Have you ever traversed treacherous rocky landscapes with a wheel barrel full of concrete on a wooden plank? ...I have. There is a decent concrete mixer right in the middle of the worksite and we transport the concrete to the edges of the building with wheel barrels. ...and I swear, if the wheel barrels were Go-Carts, I got the bad one. It felt as if there was a break engaged at all times. Try pushing that full of concrete over a few boards that are teetering on big quartz rocks. It was an experience to say the least. ...”its all for Jesus.” That's what I keep saying in my head. =)

Friday July 2

I had a neat God moment that began yesterday. I was talking with Joan (my sponsored child). She was telling me that one of her older sisters had a problem with her eyes. So I asked if they were pink, and she told me they were. I thought about it real fast and I remembered I had pink eye a few months back. I went to Dr. Bruce and he got me a prescription for some pink eye medication, and it was a decent little bottle; not one of those 2 drops each eye, each day for 3 days kinds of prescriptions. It was a 4 drops, each eye, each day for 2 weeks kind of prescription. I remembered holding it in my hand and contemplating whether or not I should be packing it in my bag; whether or not I would even need it. Well, I did; I put it in my little first aid kit. So when Joan told me about the problem, I immediately remembered it and thought, “God is amazing.” I knew I put that little bottle in my bag for a reason. So today, first thing, when Bus 1 got to the orphanage I went straight to her house. To my surprise, not 1, but 4 of the girls had the nastiest looking eye infections that I have seen. I gave them each a drop in each eye 3 times during the day, and by the end of the day their eyes looked exponentially better. I left the bottle with their Mum, Annette, and said 2 more drops in each eye tomorrow and Ill be back on Sunday to check on them. I felt like a doctor. I then learned later that evening that those 4 girls were out of around 40 children that were infected... so Bruce hooked me up with some more eye juice to take to them. What are the chances...

Team 2 arrived tonight. I cant wait to meet up with them. I also had a small world moment; I learned that one of the ladies (Linda, formerly Bergstrom) on the trip used to spend time with my Uncle Jim Wright when he was just a little guy. She knew all about my past, and kind of blew my out of the water when she told me. She said that she remembered praying for my siblings and I when we were younger in her prayer group.

Container is in Kampala right now and may come to the orphanage as early as Saturday!!!

Wednesday June 23

We went to the orphan village today, and got to reconnect with all the children. It was amazing. I have to say that this time was a little different for me than the previous arrivals. The children made me feel as if I had come home after a 5 month trip. They were alongside the bus just wanting to touch our hands as we drove up. It was really amazing. I was making eye contact with seemingly endless numbers of familiar faces that were smiling uncontrollably.

The flight yesterday was long, and as usual somewhat boring. I have to say that for the first time, I was not wanting to watch movies, or listen to my iPod. I also succumbed to the desire to sleep on the second flight. I am terrible at sleeping on planes; my feet go numb, my neck hangs, and I can never breathe through my nose because it always is so plugged by all the dust circulating in the air. I got through it though. I actually ordered special meals, so I was eating kosher the whole time. The cool thing about it is that aside from being pretty delicious, you get your food up to 30 minutes before any one else. Everyone thought I was Jewish too.... I was constantly like.. “No, no... I'm not Jewish, I just special ordered kosher meals”. They got a kick out of it.

Thursday June 24

Today was our first real day of working. Alarm on my watch has been going off at around 7AM every morning, but I have woken up just before that both mornings too. I actually am waking up at 4AM wide awake, then forcing myself back to sleep and waking up at the usual time. My roommates this year are Kirk and Jake(we call him Hoss). We eat breakfast together, then we all board the bus at 8:30. Today, the construction team went on the first bus. We wanted to get started helping out with the school as soon as we could. We leveled off an area for the container when it arrives and there was a lot of moving brick but that is about it. Kirk did some brick laying, but for the most part they don't yet trust us enough to let all of us jump in and really work side by side. By moving brick we save them a lot of energy and time, so that is fine with me; whatever we can do to help! We finished working around 3PM and went to play with the kids. I got to watch the school use the soccer field for the first time with an organized team. That was rewarding. There has also been a Netball court installed at one end of the field. Netball is like basketball only there is no dribbling and no backboard. The girls like to play netball, the boys like to play football. The bus leaves the orphanage around 5:30PM every day; some people walk. Once we get back to the hotel, many people have been going to the pool. I went the first day, but this time I decided to do some blogging. Dinner starts around 7PM, and then we have our team meeting and prayer around 8PM. Then its off to our rooms for the most part, and so far everyone has been too pooped to do anything but go to bed.

Friday June 25

Still haven't slept through the night. I think it has to do more with the sunburn from yesterday than the time zone. Fought my way through the Mosquito net around 6:30AM and had a nice devotional. I always head down to the pool to do that as there inst anyone down there and its pleasant, so I can have my “Good Morning” time with God. When we got to the orphanage, we did our stretches again, and divided up into two groups. My group needed to get water to the construction site by digging a 250' ditch, laying the water line in and covering it back up. I was proud, we did it in 1½ hours. It was a quite productive day. We finished it all off with a little game of football with the orphans; we tied 2-2.

Sunday June 26

Winnie and Levi had their Kwanjura (Introduction) today. This is a tribal marriage tradition where the men dress in white dresses (called “Kanzu” in singular form) with a sport coat over it. Traditionally the men aren't supposed to be wearing anything underneath, but these days they all remain with their trousers. The women put on a Traditional Ugandan dress called a “Gomesi”.. cant really explain, but check out the picture of Winnie and Levi; she is in one. The Groom and his family are welcomed by the Bride and her family. The ceremony was quite interesting. We had all our prep at the orphanage, and traveled to Winnie's home village, which is Northeast of 

Kampala somewhere; further out from the orphan village. While at the Orphanage, I went to get some water that we have in the room of a house there, and noticed that someone had a nice big piece of beef! I later found out that it was part of the dowry, but if I were in charge of putting it somewhere, I also would have put it there. Logistically it makes the most sense. Anyways, to make a long day short; we parade into the village in our traditional dress, we sit on one side with the bride's family on the other, groups of around 6 girls at a time dance out in front of us and all greet us in the name of Jesus and try to find Levi. I'm not too sure what the purpose of this is, but its tradition. More and more groups are brought out until finally someone who knows Levi is brought out (Winnie). She then says that she knows who he is, and walks back and forth through the Groom's family searching for him. Once she finds him she takes him to her side and introduces him to her family. The dowry is then paid (which is a ton of stuff), and to finalize it Levi presents Winnie's brother with a rooster and says “Muko nkuwa enkoko eno ompe Winnie.” This means, “Brother-in-law, I give you this Rooster to give me Winnie.” They expected him to say it in English, but he really impressed them by saying it in Luganda. Then there is food, cake.... and thats about it.. we all filed into a line and greeted Winnie personally on our way out of the Village. The day went from around 8:30AM to around 8:00PM. It was very hot in my Kanzu and sport coat. It stuck to my body because of all the sweat and restricted my steps, but it was totally worth it. I got tons of pictures of the whole thing, and Winnie was absolutely gorgeous. We then arrived back at the Ridar and watched the US get beat by Ghana... were going to get a ton of flak for that. =)

Team Photo!!!!

Here is the 2010 Abundant Life Church, Ukids Uganda team.  The guy 2nd from the left, top row (Andrew Millikan) gets the award for best face. Notice the cast/brace thing on his arm? yeah, he messed it up playing basketball. That guy is coming to Italy along with me when we get back from Africa. ... Great face though. I am in the red shirt front row. next to the thumbs up. I know that God is going to use this team to do some awesome work. ONE MORE WEEK!!!!

The Mission Season

I recently was approached by a man named Dennis Quick. He is from my church and leads a mission team to Italy; has been for the last 2 years I believe. When he spoke to me, he asked me if I could come to Italy on his team.. I wanted to so badly, but I told him that it was just going to be too hard with the Africa trip to make it work out. I mean, the Italy trip was going to cost around $2,500 on top of the $3,500 that I was already supposed to raise for Africa. I left him that day with the notion that if God wanted me on the rip the funding would come. I told him to start selling my chairs. If I could just sell some more chairs!! I might come up with the money that I need to make it a reality. a few days later I looked into what it was going to cost me to cancel my flight home and instead do a flight from Uganda to Rome, then Rome to Portland. It was looking like $3,000 dollars just to change my flight. I was very distraught. I sent Dennis an email telling him what I found out. He called me a day later and asked, "Why did you send me this terrible message? What do you mean you don't think you can do it?"

     I told him, "Dennis, my supporters are exhausted. I have already asked them for support for Africa, how can I ask them to also support a trip to Italy? Unless you have an order for around 20 chairs for me, I don't see how this is going to happen."

     "Don't worry about the money."
     "What do you mean don't worry about the money?!"
     "Its taken care of."
     "The plane ticket is taken care of?"
     "The money is taken care of."
     "....So, ...what does that mean? Do I not need to pay for my ticket?"
     "Just don't worry about it."
     "What about lodging and food? what do I need to fund?"
     "You need to bring enough money to pay for what you want to bring back."
     "Thats it?!"
     "Thats it."
... I didn't believe it. I have to say my reaction was probably not what he was expecting. I wasn't jumping up and down, I just stood there trying to understand what he just said. Looks like I am going to be doing two more mission trips to add onto my January trip this year! Later we started to talk more logistically about the details of the trip. It just so happens that the Africa trip ends a whole day before the Italy team starts. I found that it is cheaper for me to fly all the way home, hang out for a day, and then fly all the way back to Rome than it is to fly from Uganda to Rome. I can already tell that I am going to have an awesome day on the 21st of July. If I don't stay on Italy time, I am going to be a train wreck when I get back to Europe. So, the Italy trip will be in Naples, Italy and I will be there for 2 weeks. We are going to be working at an English speaking camp for college age people who are wanting to practice their English. I'm really stoked.

Raising Funds

Last Friday and Saturday, I worked a garage sale with Debbie Douglas. We had quite a number of items that were donated. We really had a great time. I wasn't aware how much really goes into a garage sale... Had an early start; we drove around stapling signs on telephone poles of some of the major streets in the area. The signs are a huge deal. most of the people that came to the sale were there just because of the signs.. We put an add in Craigslist, and in The Oregonian but the signs were the main draw. If any of you ever do garage sales, here is a tip on the signs. Big yellow neon paper that says "GARAGE SALE" then a separate neon yellow paper with an arrow that you can staple in any direction. Make a couple sets of those and a few extra arrows and you should do great.. Everyone said "Oh we loved the signs! They were so easy to follow." Another big factor is location. Obviously someone out in the country is going to have a harder time than someone in the heart of Portland's residential neighborhoods. It took a good 2 hours to setup the first time, and around a half hour to setup the second. We sold enough on the first day that we could mostly just move set tables in and out of the Garage. You do, however, always manage to get the early birds that come before everything is out. and that happened both days. They would see the signs, and just start coming. There is definitely a science about the whole thing. Everyone at garage sales likes to barter, so we would just tell them upfront why we were having the sale, and some people decided to make the purchase, and donate additional money for our cause. I had a great time and we managed to make a decent chunk of cash to help pay for plane tickets.  It was a success.