12 August 2007

It has been very rainy here the last few days. We got 1.3 inches on Friday night and 2.2 inches last night. The amazing thing is that by this evening cars were already throwing up dust when they drove down the main road. Puddles still line the ditches, but the road is rounded and packed hard; must be no water soaks in. We got all that water in a total of 3 to 4 hours.

On Monday we had a meeting to try to get the Bible college a little more organized and productive. We agreed that each teacher would take one day a week to hold the students accountable to do the things they were supposed to do. That means 5:00 AM making sure they are up and gathered for group prayers (Tim and I suggested 5:30 or 6:00, but that idea got shot down). It also means supervising study hall from 3-5 in the afternoon and farming from 5-6:30. It is too bad it all has to be supervised, but I think it will make the students better. John Buteyn said the students act like they are middle schoolers. So I asked them how far they had gone through school. Three had finished P7 (about 6th grade), one had finished S3 (9th grade) and 3 had finished S4 (10th grade). Considering the education system here, it is not surprising their study skills compare to middle schoolers.

I also met with SACAB (the blind community) to follow up on their knitting class. The have set Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as group knitting time to keep learning together. I also asked them how the talking Bibles were being used (only two members were present). Francis said he has listened to Genesis, Psalms 1-100, Jonah, MalachI, and some of Exodus (that is 170 chapters in 5 weeks). Magdalene began with Matthew and she is now in Luke (about 2 chapters / day). They said that pushing a few buttons and listening to a speaker is so much easier and time efficient than using a brail Bible. Magdalene said she learned a lot about forgiveness that she never knew before - like that she had to forgive others to receive God’s forgiveness. She said she had forgiven some people that she had been angry with for a long time. Francis said he has gained a greater knowledge of how God’s work in the world began.

The work on the house keeps progressing. The tiles caused a lot of stress this week. The tiles we had gotten for the living room ended up being junk and there were not enough in each box (only 20 instead of 22) so we had to send the tile guy to Kampala to buy different ones. Mandy had night mares that night because someone else was picking out tiles for her house. He came back with some that look like a hard wood floor. I think Mandy was a little shocked at first, but I think she kind of likes them. Personally, I would rather hate how the house looks and have a happy wife than like the house and have an unhappy wife. As a result, I don’t say much when picking out colors and patterns and stuff. I will just be glad when it is all done and we can just live (not to mention we’ll be done paying out so much money all the time). This week we hope to finish the building on the screened-in-porch and to paint inside the house.

Christine and Claudia went to church with us this morning. By the time we get the four of us, Christine and Claudia, Maggie with her 5 kids and two nieces - our van is quite full. Being in church where our family of four has three chairs, each with one square foot of butt space…it makes me look forward to wooden pews and a nursery in December.

It is almost time for bed. A new week starts tomorrow. I hope all is going well with you. Take care.