Sept. 8 -- Mandy's Journal

We had a nice Labor Day pot luck here last week. It has been raining most nights so I prayed so hard that it would not rain. The sky got threatening but we only got a few drops around 8pm. We had 36 people come (including all the kids). It was a bit busy but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We all had meat to grill with our pot luck and then had smores around a campfire. We had a nice night of fellowship with our friends. It doesn’t take the place of family but it did seem half way normal. After everyone left Josh and I sat by the fire for awhile just enjoying. I love campfires.

Friday had the Pitmans over for supper and games. The Pitmans are with the Independent Baptist and just returned from a year furlough. We really enjoy their company and thank God for new friends.

I have been slowly working on the baby’s room since July. Barb helped me sew the curtain and since then I have been stenciling on them and making banners/pictures to go with them. It turned out pretty cute. It is always hard here because you are so limited with material and color choices. The stenciling is of animal foot prints followed by baby foot prints. You’ll just have to come and see them for yourselves! I think the baby will like it.

Grace and Lydia continue to learn Bible verses. Last week they learned, “Be Holy as I am Holy.” Grace says “holy” so cute I wish you could hear it. When I said the verse to her she told me she isn’t holy. Grace also pushes out her tummy and tells us she has a baby in her tummy. She has gotten taller and Lydia has always been on the shorter side, so now people here ask if they are twins. There is still 6in. difference in their height though. They have been playing airport quite a bit lately so they must be getting excited to go to MI. (You know missionary kids when they know airports enough to play it). Their mom is excited too – 9 week count down.

Thankfully things are going very well here and I am not too anxious to go. There are things to do here before we go too. We have actually been looking at another house for rent. When we first went to see it I was preparing myself for a dump because that is what most rentals appear to be, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Besides a lot of yard clean up and minor fix ups in the house, it was really nice. The lay out was very western, big, and all nicely tiled. There are three bedrooms (the master bedroom has its own bathroom – yeah!), a bathroom, large sitting room, dinning room, kitchen, guest room with own bathroom, garage, and a big porch. When we saw it I really fell in love with it. It seemed to be everything I was looking for. The yard has lots big trees with shade. The neighborhood is nice, quiet, and only a mile from where we are living so we are still close. Since we saw it we have been emailing with the landlord (a business man in Entebbe). He is a bit difficult to read so we hope working with him will be ok. It is scary making a big decision so we have really been praying about it. The price is right but we want this to be God’s will. We really think it is right for our family to have our own place and there is a couple coming in January for a year so they could rent our house we are in now or it can be used as a guest house for all our visitors. I just don’t want it to get messy with all we have wrapped up into our home now. We would have to divide up all the things we share now with Sliedrechts and other details. I like our home we are in now – the colors, decorations… so it will be hard to move too. That is why we are praying about it all. We know God will show us what He wants for us. I am excited to see what He does.

Our friends Sam and Esther had a healthy baby girl Saturday. So precious! Ben, Angelina’s son with cancer, seems to be SO weak right now. He has a lot of issues with not being able to urinate so we don’t know what is wrong now. All we can do is help a little and pray for him. Gideon, Pastor Patrick and Florence’s son, had his adnoids taken out last week in Mbale and is doing really well. He is already able to talk better and sleep without snoring.

We continue to get a lot of rain in the evenings around here. The days are hot and sunny usually though. There is talk of flooding again this year. People say that in some places the water is already bubbling out of the ground. I think the people are really scared. Most of them have not recovered from last years floods yet. Their first attempt at farming was ruined by drought and now maybe their second by floods. What will they eat? I pray God has mercy on these people who continue to suffer so much.