Josh's Journal July 26

July 26
Lydia reminds us every day that it is nearly her birthday. She turns five on the 31st of this month. Our friend Stacey arrived on Wednesday night. She will be spending a few weeks with us and will be home-schooling Lydia. Even though Lydia kept saying she did not want to do school, as soon as Stacey got off the plane Lydia could not stop asking when they could start. They did their first day yesterday. I don’t know if she learned anything, but she certainly enjoyed it. They made two charts to keep track of their progress, both of which now hang on the refrigerator. Stacey has been fun to have around. WE have not seen her for 5 years, which is hard to believe. Lydia and Grace are talking her ear off - between their attention and the many hours of travel, Stacey is about worn out. Needless to say, she has been sleeping good at night.
We are wrapping up the term at BBC this week. I am ready for a break. If we go until Friday (I do not know which day the students will be dismissed) I will even get all the way through my course outline. They take their final test on Monday, then I planned to teach on the doctrine of the Church to wrap up the week. I hope I get to because I have never taught that section of the notes.
Ben is still struggling with pain from his cancer. He seems to be doing so well, but as soon as he misses a dosage of pain medicine he goes down hill quickly. I think they were surprised he made it last week because relatives from far and wide came to visit him. I was surprised to see how bad things must be inside his body, and how effective his medicine is. He gets it every month from Hospice in Kampala, but the trip is far and expensive so it is quite inconvenient. However, we learned last week to get him to Kampala before the medicine runs out.
The blind are continuing to knit. Barb has been very pleased with the progress this summer (and how much some of them improved since last summer). They only have a couple of mornings left to learn. John and Barb leave Soroti on Thursday. On Monday we sighted people are going to play goal ball against the blind people from SACAB. They are all over 50 yrs. Most of us are under 50. However, the blind are confident they will defeat us. We have to play blindfolded so they just might be right.
We finally got a little rain this week (and I found a sprinkler in Kampala) so I hope to plant the garden this weekend. I would be out there right now, but the sun is baking the moisture out of the ground - HOT and HUMID out there right now.
I have started handing out the Hindi language Bibles to my Indian friends in town. The first one was very excited when he saw that it was in his own language. The second person seemed a little uncomfortable taking it, but took it anyway and said thank you. The third friend seemed grateful to receive his copy (since he had seem the copy I had given his cousin). We pray that they will read, understand, and believe.