Sarah's Story - Latest news from the Girls Home Aunty

Hellooooooooooo!!! I’m aware that I’ve not written to anyone at all for a while, and I have not done any newsletters for 2 and a half months.... Let me bring you up to date with my news:

The last term has been rather a whirl of activity!!!!!....

The kids have completed their final term of the school year, and are on holiday again. As usual, the school term consisted of waking up RIDICULOUSLY early in the morning (- they have to get up at 5.30am!.....What’s that all about?!?! ), getting the kids to do their homework, and visiting the occasional school.... which is always an interesting experience!.... You can see a picture of me above getting absolutely mobbed by about 40 three year olds when I went to one of the schools in November (I’m on the very left of the picture) – They were all asking me if I lived in the TV, if I was real or a ghost, and if my white skin would rub off revealing black skin underneath!!! Then they all sang for me for about 20 minutes.... it was soooooo cute!!!

Four of our residential White Eagles from the WEP home have both been in boarding school for the last two years, so we were reeeeeeally happy to receive them back home this November after they did their final “Primary Leaving Examination” (which is what the last 2 years of crazily studying 16 hours a day, 7 days a week in boarding school, with only a few days holiday in the whole year, and eating disgusting beans and posho (a food made of flour and water) for lunch AND dinner, EVERY SINGLE DAY, has been leading up to!!!). They all came home and slept almost solidly for several days, waking up just long enough to stuff their faces with mountains of food (unless beans and posho was on the menu)!!!

We had a few kids admitted to hospital (mostly with Malaria) over the last few months, which means that we have to have members of staff staying at the hospital (day and night) because the nurses in Uganda don’t do anything apart from give medicine and take blood (- from what I’ve observed, anyway!), and it’s necessary for family/friends to stay with a patient all the time to help them with everything else (e.g. make food, fetch water from outside, etc.). So the White Eagle staff have been rather busy with all of the hospital stays on top of their normal work! We’re very happy, though, because we just got a new male member of staff working with us, who is helping with the daily running of the project, among other things, so life should be slightly easier from now on!

For the last month, the kids have been on holiday, and I’ve been running the holiday programme with them. I decided that I wanted to start celebrating Christmas, so they’ve been doing aerobics to my Christmas songs, making Christmas decorations with Lois (a volunteer from the UK), and even making marzipan Father Christmases and snowmen, as you can see in the picture (- the kids loved doing this.... apparently there’s little better in life than “playdough” that can be eaten after you’ve finished modelling it!!!). I’ve put a couple of pictures below of some of our White Eagle children getting rather excited during the holiday programme!

On 8th December we said “Goodbye!” to the 10 young men who had been living in the WEP boys’ home. They’ve all moved out to live either with relatives, or to rent rooms. It’s quite a bit quieter around the project without them(!), although the remaining children are trying their hardest to make up for it! There’s a picture below of some of them with their relatives - we’ve spent the last few years trying to reunite them with their families, and the day was a testimony to the success of that, as all of them had relatives there to support them.

I’ve been keeping you updated on the progress of my friend Nampijja who was paralysed 2 years ago in a car accident.... Well!!!! Wait for it!!!!....... She’s now able to walk outside for 45 minutes with no walking aid or anything, and has learnt to sew on a foot-pedal operated sewing machine, and is doing absolutely amazing!!!! It’s a real miracle, and she came to River of Life Church when we had our last “Testimony Sunday” to share her testimony of what God has done in her life, which was really exciting!!!

At the moment, I’m rather excited, because I’m preparing to come home to England on Friday of this week!!!! Woohoo!!!! I’m soooooooooooooooo looking forward to spending Christmas with family and friends, to seeing everyone, to singing carols, to eating AMAZING food, and to having electricity and water (-our electricity and water supplies have been rather terrible of late, and I’m getting really tired of bucket baths and torches!)!!! I’m going to be in England for a couple of months this time, and I aim to have a very good rest after a very busy year, but I also hope to be able to catch up with lots of you .

Anyway, that’s my news! I reeeeally look forward to seeing most of you soon!!!!

Loads of love,

Sarah

Sarah's Story - Miracles, Mumbejja, and Mission

Hellooooooo!!!! I hope that everyone is ok. I’m doing well over here in Uganda. I’ve not written for a while, so let me bring you up to date with what’s been happening here......

First of all, let me give you an amazing update on Nampijja, who is the young lady that I’ve been doing physio with (- I mentioned her in my last Newsletter – she had a spinal injury and had been unable to sit/stand/walk/dress herself/feed herself/get out of her little room/etc. for over a year when I first began seeing her a few months ago)....

Well, I am constantly astounded by Nampijja’s progress, and she has so far WELL exceeded all of my expectations! She is now at the point where she is able to walk inside her room with no stick or anything, walk about 400 metres outside with 2 crutches, prepare and cook all of her own food, do all of her own washing, visit the local shops, and go and see her neighbours!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Just to put it in perspective, 2 doctors and the previous physio all said that she would never stand again, and would not even be able to sit on her own without support, and that the most she could hope for would be for her to be able to feed herself if her hands and arms got stronger, and to be lifted into her wheelchair by someone so that she could sit out of bed.... so it is absolutely a miracle that she is able to stand and walk and get to the local shops and do so much for herself now!!!

In fact, when some elders from River of Life went with me to pray for her a few months ago, one of them – Elder Emily – told Nampijja not to worry because God would do a miracle and she’d walk again very soon, and I knew that this was absolutely impossible, and I kept on thinking “Shut up Emily!!!” (- because there’s nothing worse than an unrealistic patient who doesn’t want physio to ever end because of their completely unrealistic expectations, and who blames the physio for their lack of progress, when in fact it’s absolutely impossible for them to improve as much as they hope!) - Then I thought “Sarah, have faith in God!”, then the physio bit of me thought “Shut up Emily!”, and then the other bit of me thought “Have faith in God!”.... and so I went on and on in my head!!! Ha ha!!! ....Anyway, four months on, I can now say that I’ve seen God do a miracle!!! WOW!!!!!!!

Since I last wrote to you, there have been two new arrivals in the girls’ home..... One is an 8 year old girl, who was an emergency placement from the police, and the other is "Princess Mumbejja”, a very gorgeous, gentle, and cute 5 month old kitten (- see picture below)!!! Of the two, the kitten has been the easier to handle, and by far the less stressful to have in the girls’ home!!! The girls and Kitibwa absolutely LOVE Princess, and spend hours each day playing with her.... they’ve made some toys for her by tying a ball to the end of a piece of string, and then they all hold their string and balls, and run round and round the room while Princess runs round and round after them, chasing the balls. This usually goes on for about 3 or 4 hours, and then everyone collapses in a heap, ready to go sleep – so it’s working out very well indeed, as far as I’m concerned!!!

Since I last wrote to you, we’ve had the holiday programme at the project, which was really wonderful. A team from my home church, Flixton Fellowship, came to visit us, and ran the whole thing. It was really amazing, and all of the kids and young people enjoyed it so much. One of the things they did was a mural on the end wall of the girls’ home, which has brightened things up no end (- see picture), and we also had a trip to Lake Nabugabo with all of our sponsored kids and young people.

Straight after the team’s visit and the holiday programme, I had my own holiday. I went to Entebbe to meet up with some dancers from the UK who were ministering and doing a dance workshop in a church in Kampala, and joined them in their activities. It was really wonderful and restful, despite all of the dancing we did!

The final thing of note that has happened recently is the plan to resettle loads of our young men who have been living in the boys’ home. It is not legal to have young men or women living in a children’s home, but it’s been very hard to plan and help them resettle, so we’ve been taking things very slowly as we’ve worked with them to find the best solution... and we seem to have found it, as the plans are nearly all in place, and they’re well on the way to leaving us now – in fact, they’re all going to have left before the year is out. They’re all going to be followed up very closely when they leave, and of course their sponsorship is not stopping when they leave us – so we’re going to be continuing our support and hope to continue to see them thrive in every way and become productive members of society!

Anyway, that’s all of my news, I think.

I hope that you are all doing well!

Love Sarah

Sarah's Story - Physio, Robinah returns and more!

Hellooooooooo! How is everyone?!?!?! I'm doing great here, and things are going on well! The last two months have been relatively busy.....

One thing that you may be interested to hear about is that I'm doing some physio. I'm seeing two patients... one has a bad back, but one is a neuro patient, and I'm reeeeeally enjoying seeing her and doing some neuro physio! She's given me permission to talk about her to you, as we've become good friends over the last 6 weeks. Her name is Nampijja, and she's 24 years old. She was involved in a car accident just over a year ago, which damaged her spine, so she was left unable to stand or walk. She had some rehab at the time, but was discharged back to her village about a year ago, and for the past year, she has been lying on a mattress on the floor of her tiny room, with few visitors, and nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and listen to her radio (when she has batteries).

When I first saw her, she couldn't sit up in bed, she was very depressed, and she was doing nothing. I wanted to cry when I saw how awful her life was, and how little support she had from family and friends, and I could hardly sleep that night with thinking about her! Anyway, I've been going to her village once a week since then to do some physio, and she's gradually progressing, and, (most importantly!), she's getting some hope that her life isn't over, and she's smiling a lot more!!!! We've become good friends, as I said, and she's helping me with my Lugandan... actually during my physio sessions and visits, we speak in Lugandan only, because, (despite my limited Lugandan), she has slightly less English than I have Lugandan.

I've also enjoyed seeing quite a lot of one of the girls who used to live in the girls' home, and who returned to live with her family a year and a half ago. I miss her (and the other girls who've left the home), so it's been really nice to spend lots of time with her recently, helping her as she prepares to apply to our Leadership Academy for support to go to university. She's pictured below with her beautiful little baby girl.

Most of our kids have been on school trips and had various parents days and fun days recently. Kitibwa and Mercy had their faces painted at their school fun day. They were soooooooooooo excited about going to it beforehand – Kitibwa talked NON-STOP for two and a half hours (from 6am onwards!) about what he was going to do and how excited he was!!! I wanted to gag him!!! Anyway, luckily it lived up to their expectations, (-apart from the cake... apparently they were all expecting a huge cake as on previous occasions, and it didn't materialise... but all was fine, because we'd baked a cake for my birthday, so Kitibwa and Mercy ate that and then decided that the day had been a success after all!!!)

There have been quite a few talks and things that I've done over the last couple of months too... I spoke at the River of Life's Schools Conference in June, where children and young people come to us from about 9 different schools for the day. All of the children love it because they get fed good food by us, and especially because we don't give them beans, weevils, and posho (which they all get EVERY SINGLE DAY for lunch and dinner whilst they're at school).

In June, the White Eagle Project joined in the Day of the African Child celebrations, which involved a march through Masaka and then various performances by different children. The kids all found it very exciting, but I found it rather stressful, as I spent the day chasing after 15 children, and trying to make sure that we didn't lose anyone!!! (-No matter how many times we told them not to wander off without telling us where they were going, they kept on wandering off because it was just too exciting!!!). Anyway, we returned with all 15 children and no injuries, so the day was a success in my eyes!!!

Anyway, that’s all my news!

Lots of love,

Sarah

Aunt Sarah returns and declares DEATH TO ALL RODENTS!

There's a recurring theme in Sarah's Story, namely her intense dislike of the many rodents she gets to share her accommodation with... It's been a while since we've heard from her, so read on to find out more!

Helloooo! I hope that you are all well! I haven’t sent a newsletter for a few months now, so this one is a little overdue! Here’s what I’ve been up to over the last few months....

The month in Uganda before I came home to the UK for Christmas was very busy... It was the school holidays over here, and we ran our White Eagle Project holiday programme (which included sport, Bible teachings, drama, opinion forums, life skills, aerobics, and all sorts of other things). We also did lots of special events, including a mini Operation ARK (– Acts of Random Kindness – where we cleaned up the local area), and a Parents’ and Relatives Sensitisation Day (where we did workshops for the relatives of our kids to prepare them to receive their children back home, and teach them to look after their children well). And there were several other special events which I was involved in (either leading, teaching or attending), such as a youth conference, singles teaching, a parenting seminar, etc., etc. So December was a pretty packed month, and I came back to the UK rather exhausted!!!

Christmas and January were spent in the UK, having a wonderfully restful time with friends and family... and then I returned back to Uganda at the very end of January. Since returning to Uganda:

Our youngest member of the Girls Home - a little lad - has started school and looks very cute in his shorts, which look like a basketball player’s shorts because they’re so big (see photo). He's started getting the school bus, which is apparently SOOOOOOOOO exciting – the first thing he says EVERY morning upon waking is “Aunt Sarah - getting School bus today?” His little comrade in arms, our youngest girl, cannot stop waxing lyrical about the curtains on the windows of the bus – she’s never seen a bus with curtains, so she thinks it’s the most amazing bus in the whole wide world!

Also since returning to Uganda, I have managed to kill 1 mouse, 2 rats and an ENORMOUS spider. I’m getting very brave... although the mouse and rats were caught by my mouse traps that I purchased before returning to Uganda, so all I had to do was biff them on the head once caught, in order to kill them (-although I succeeded in releasing one of the rats when I tried to do this... but it turned up dead the next day under one of the girls bed, so it must have got concussion when I biffed it on the head!). The ENORMOUS spider was in the girls’ bathroom, and our little lad had got to the stage of refusing to go to the toilet because he said that the spider was going to eat him! So the spider met an unfortunate end too! (I think that I’m becoming very brutal!!! – Sorry to animal lovers! ...although in my defence, the spider was so big that I didn’t dare go near enough to catch it in order to set it free outside, and I decided that killing it was the only safe option!).

The girls are all doing very well. They are lovably crazy(!), and spend many an evening putting on shows, singing and dancing, playing silly games, or playing hide and seek (- which is actually quite fun when the power goes off, because you can’t see a thing!). They also get a huge amount of homework, which for one of them in particular is a bit of a trial to be got through each evening (it takes her about 5 times as long as it takes the others because she’s very distractible!).... but we’ll get there eventually!!!

We’re continuing to work towards resettling lots of our kids, and after successfully resettling some children last year, we had 4 young men graduate from the boys’ home this month – they are all now working and supporting themselves, as we continue to sponsor them in further education/vocational training/through business grants. We had a big party, and sent them off in style – it was a really good celebration of everything they’ve achieved, and also of how God has completely turned their lives around - from being in a place of utter despair with no hope for the future (e.g. living on the streets for some of them, not knowing where the next meal would come from, and having no hope of going to school or getting a good job), He has given them all such an amazing hope and a future!

So things are moving forward at the project with all of this resettlement that’s happened and is going to happen over the next few months.... We keep on having some very important government officials visit us to check that we’re keeping to policies (as far as being a children’s home and resettling children are concerned), and we’ve had some very positive feedback, with one of them even saying that she considers us to be an example for other projects to follow because of our work on resettling children back with their relatives! So that was very encouraging, especially because resettling them successfully (so they don’t run away/leave home) is such hard work with so many challenges!!!

Anyway, that’s all for now. I hope that everyone is well, and that you’re all having a wonderful 2012!!! Love Sarah

Sarah's Story - The Last Stand of the Rats

Hellooooo everybody!!! I hope you’re all well!  I’m very well over here.  Let me tell you what’s been happening over the last month and a bit.....

The big event has been the countdown to leaving the Girls’ Home building that we currently rent.  Our contract runs out at the end of September (Friday this week), and it was decided that we would move out when that happened.  At the same time, the project has been building a new children’s home down on the site where the Boys’ Home is situated, and so the race was on to try and get it built and finished in time for us to move into.  For several weeks now, we’ve all been thinking that there was no way that it would possibly be finished on time as we watched progress, but the guy in charge kept on telling us that it definitely would be.... Well, he has had to concede defeat, because (as you’ll be able to see from the photos below, taken yesterday), it is not going to be ready by tomorrow lunchtime!!!  He has now set the expected date of completion at Friday of next week instead, but I’m not convinced that it will be finished by then, either!!!  (It’s nice to know that builders are unrealistic with their time-frames the world over, isn’t it?!?!?!)  So we are moving out of the current Girls’ Home building this Friday, and we’re going to stay somewhere temporarily until the new building is finished, and then we’ll move in.

At the same time, some of our girls are being resettled back home with their relatives.  Hope (16 years) and Isaiah (1 year) have already returned to live with their relatives during the last school holiday, and Judith (17 years) and Teddy (11 years), are going to go home this Friday when we leave the old Girls’ Home building.  Of course, we’ll continue to follow them up, sponsor them, meet with them, and mentor them, once they’ve gone, so I’ll still get to see plenty of “my girls” even after they’ve gone, which is good!!!

.... So it is change all round, come this Friday!!!

This last week has been a week of war on rats!!!  Our current Girls’ Home building is infested with rats, and we’ve tried everything over the past few weeks and months – rat traps, rat glue (VERY sticky glue that you smear on a piece of cardboard, and then put in the favourite spots of the rats with food on, in the hope that they are stupid enough to walk onto it for the food, and that they will then get stuck), rat poison, and just simply trying to hit them on the head with a big stick!  We had practically no success whatsoever... they ate the food from inside the rat trap, and then walked out of it, without it snapping;  they avoided the rat glue, or managed to free themselves if they did stick to it (apart from one very small rat that got stuck – which I then bashed on the head to kill – I’m very proud of how brave I am – it’s the first rat that I’ve personally killed!!!); they aren’t foolish enough to eat the poison-soaked food; and when we try to hit them, they just run and hide under furniture!!!  HOWEVER!  Because we’ve removed nearly all of our furniture from the girls’ home in preparation for leaving this Friday (we had to move it when the boys were off school last Sunday, so that they could help us with all the heavy lifting), we’ve taken away nearly all of the hiding places that the rats would go to, so this week we’ve spent every evening chasing rats round the house with big sticks, and hitting them on the head when possible!!!  (- I say “we”.... actually, it was the girls and Aunt Tinah, because although I was brave enough to kill a small rat stuck to rat glue, I am not brave enough to chase a huge rat around the room, which can jump up at me and bite me!!!)  So far they’ve managed to kill 3 between them, but the war continues, and it’s our nightly entertainment now that our TV has gone!!!  The only place that the rats can hide now is in the top of our cooker, but Teddy has found a long metal skewer, and spends her evenings poking the skewer through some slits in the back of the oven in an attempt to get the rats to run out of the cooker again so that they girls can hit them!!!  The girls are having great fun!!!

I’ve finished my Celebrating Children course now, although I don’t know if I’ve passed my assignments (apparently lots of us have failed and will have to redo them!).  So, for now, there are no more assignments to do, and I can concentrate on putting everything that we learnt into practice, and I can relax more on my days off, which is very nice!

We had a team from Runcorn  visit us last month, and the kids put on a bit of a show to welcome them.  They decided to paint their faces after my cousin sent some face paints out to me, and they had a fabulous time singing and dancing, and we had a fabulous time watching them – they’re very talented!

Anyway, that’s about all of my news!  Have a good October!

Love Sarah

Sarah's Story - new girls, a snake, baby-sitting and a visit from the dentists...

Helloooo everybody!!! I hope you are all very well! Things are very good here in Uganda!

There have been even more changes in the girls’ home in the last month – we welcomed two MORE girls into our home to live with us. Their names are Tendo (9 years) and Katherine (11 years), and they are sisters. They’re staying with us for a short time until they can go and live with their relatives. Teddy (who’s 11) is loving having them live with us, and the 3 of them are as thick as thieves when they get together and leave a trail of chaos behind them wherever they go!!! So that’s 4 new residents in the girls’ home in the space of 6 weeks!!! There’s a picture below of Teddy, Katherine and Tendo (and Juuko one of the White Eagle boys) in their school uniforms about to leave for school, and another of Hope and Isaiah, and another of Isaiah, Hope, Aunt Esther (who looks after Isaiah and Kitibwa during the day) and Kitibwa (who was in a bad mood at the time, so has a scowl on his face!).

An unwanted visitor to the girls’ home this month, however, was the snake pictured below, who came to visit Aunt Tinah late one evening a few weeks ago – she has a room off the back yard, and the snake was outside her door when she came out! I wasn’t there (thank God!), but apparently she screamed very loudly, and the young man who lives above us heard her and came and walloped it on the head and killed it – then the girls put it in a bucket until I got back so that they could show it to me!!! - So I thought I’d take a picture and show you, too!

Isaiah has been poorly over the last day or two – he had malaria quite seriously and had to stay overnight at a local clinic and was on a drip for quite a long time.... But, thank God, he’s fine now, and loving being back at the girls’ home – he gave us all a HUGE smile as soon as he got back, and has been very happy ever since!!! Kitibwa missed him so much, and kept on asking where he was and wanting to play with him. One of their favourite games is to hold the handle of a skipping rope each to their mouths and use it as a microphone to sing into, and Kitibwa was trying to get me to hold one and sing with him in Isaiah’s absence - but apparently I was a very poor substitute, as he gave up in disgust after only half a minute of my singing!!!

On the theme of Kitibwa and Isaiah, I had no idea that two babies could produce quite so much poo in one day!!! I sometimes look after them (on Aunt Esther’s day off), and I’ve been shocked at the number of nappies we can go through in a day!!! I’ve also been shocked at their attention span when they like a game – one of their other favourite games to play is “Ring a ring of rosies”, but sometimes I find it hard going when we’ve already sung it about 50 times, and they want to do “Again!”!!! My muscles get tired from all that falling down and jumping up again!!!

I went on the second part of the Celebrating Children course a few weeks ago, and it was absolutely wonderful (apart from the fact that they’ve given us some horrible assignments to write before we return in a month’s time! I reeeeally hate writing essays!!!). The course is just so inspiring, and we all came back full of even more passion to work with children and show them God’s love in everything we do!

Over the last month, we’ve had a few visitors to River of Life, including a group of dentists from the UK who came to give free dental treatment to the people of Nyendo. Lots of our kids had their teeth checked and some had treatment. Some of our kids also helped out at the clinics as dental nurses (holding torches, passing instruments, etc.), and others learnt to do oral health education sessions for the local adults and children. They’re even going to do a teaching session at church this Sunday – we’re very proud of them! (One of the things I learnt during that week is that here in Uganda they don’t tell little children that a Tooth Fairy comes to take their teeth when they’ve fallen out and leave a coin, but instead they have a Tooth Rat!!!! Ha ha!!! I guess it’s much more believable for them, since rats are in nearly everyone’s houses!!!)

Anyway, I think that’s all my news from this month. You’ll be glad to hear that the beans with the bean weevils in are finished (yeah!!!), and, although we had maggots in our maize flour which we make our porridge and posho from (posho is one of the main foods here, made of flour and water mixed together and cooked in banana leaves for about 4 hours), I managed to avoid them as I ate somewhere else the day they discovered them (- lucky escape for me!). We gave the rest of the maggots and flour to the farm to make posho for the pigs, who don’t seem to mind the maggots in the slightest bit!

I hope that you are all doing very well.

Lots of love,

Sarah

Sarah's story - welcoming new members of the family, riots, insects and Operation ARK

Hellooooooo everyone!!! I hope that you are doing well! Life here is good, and the last month has been great!

One of the highlights of the last month was welcoming 2 new residents into the girls’ home: Hope, who is 16 years old, and her son Isaiah, who is 1 year old. We were all soooooooo excited to see them, and are loving getting to know them! Kitibwa, in particular, is overjoyed to have a little friend to play with, and spends all his time hugging and kissing Isaiah... although he tends to smother Isaiah a bit at times with all his affection!!!

But they play together a lot (see photo – Kitibwa is in blue, and Isaiah is in grey and yellow), and whenever Isaiah cries, Kitibwa comes over and says “Sorry” and strokes him. On the first day that they arrived, Kitibwa took Isaiah by the hand and led him from his room and into the sitting room to where everyone else was - he was really looking after him and it was soooooooo cute!!! Hope is lovely! She is very tall (Isaiah takes after her – he’s almost a year younger than Kitibwa, but nearly as tall), very gentle and kind, and wonderful with Isaiah. She’s getting on particularly well with Kitibwa’s Mum, Kellen.

Another noteworthy event of the last month has been the riot that we had.... in fact, there were 3, but the first was particularly severe. People in Uganda, and particularly in Kampala, have been doing “Walk to work protests” that have often escalated into riots, and people in Nyendo (where I live) started to riot too one day 3 weeks ago. They were dragging people out of cars and off motorbikes, and trying to burn and destroy their vehicles, and setting up road blockages with burning tyres. The police came with guns and tear gas, and then the army came with their guns too, so there was a lot of gunfire for a few hours. I was safely locked inside the girls’ home, but most of our kids had just gone down to the boys’ home. Although they were safely locked in, they got tear-gassed, because, when the police came, many of the rioters ran and hid behind our church (just by the boy’s home), so when the police tear-gassed them, our kids got tear-gassed in the process, because the wind blew the gas straight into the boy’s home! They were all crying and coughing, and their skin stung for some time, but no one was badly hurt.

The whole thing lasted about 4 and a half hours, and initially, I was watching proceedings from the balcony of the lady who lives above the girls’ home, but when they started firing shots, I beat a hasty retreat, just in case a bullet went astray!!! There were quite a few injured that day, but most tragically of all, a little 2 year old girl who lives not far from church got killed during the riot, when a member of the reserve army entered her house and blindly opened fire because he thought one of the rioters was hiding in there. That resulted in tensions being rather high in Nyendo, and there have been 2 further riots since the bad one (but they only lasted for 3 hours and 2 hours, and there were much fewer shots and a lot less tear-gas). Since then, there have been police patrolling Nyendo every single day, dressed in riot gear and gas masks – they look like navy-coloured Storm Troopers from Star Wars, and are quite scary-looking when they’re all dressed up!!! They seem to have taken up 2 bases in Nyendo – the first is in the church grounds (by the boys’ home), and the other place they sometimes go is just outside the girls’ home – I don’t know whether they think we’re a particularly dodgy lot, and likely to start a riot!!! Anyway, we’ve decided that we’ll be particularly safe in the event of another riot, since they’re camping out just by us!!! The surprising thing (for me) is that the riots didn’t leave me feeling scared, and it wasn’t scary during it either, and I had thought that something like that would be!

The last month has also been a month of insects.... first of all it was “White Ant Season”, when all the ants come flying out of their nests, and are promptly caught by all the local kids, to be eaten either straight away (i.e. alive), or saved for later to be fried. (White ants are a local delicacy.) I wasn’t brave enough to try them alive (I kept imagining them running round my mouth!), but I did try them fried, and they were very nice, to my surprise! Then, it’s also “Grasshopper Season” again, although there don’t seem to be as many as last season, so we’ve not been eating them much. And then, lastly, we’re eating lots of insects in our beans.... but that one is not intentional or planned! The problem is that we’re growing our own beans at the White Eagle Project farm in order to save money, but they didn’t spray them with chemicals (like they do with the ones we usually buy), so the beans are infested with weevils!!! They’re horrible – they float in the sauce, so I try to remove them when I see them, but they’re also hidden inside some beans, so as you’re eating you suddenly feel your teeth crunching on something like grit, and you realise that you’ve just chewed a bean weevil!!! It reeeeeeally puts me off my food, which is a shame as beans are my favourite food over here, and we have them 5 days a week!!! Unfortunately the sack is huge, so we’ve another month or so of eating weevils and beans still to go! (And you can’t waste food over here by throwing it away, just because it’s infested with weevils!)

Last week, we had Operation ARK (Acts of Random Kindness). It was great fun!!! We (the youth and youth leaders from the churches in Masaka) spent the week clearing rubbish from the streets and market places of Nyendo and Masaka town, clearing drains, and generally blessing the community.

Everyone worked soooooooo hard, and got ridiculously dirty and grimy in the process, but there was such a good atmosphere the whole week, and there was a lot of joking and good fun!!! We also had lots of singing and dancing and good food (-apart from the bean weevils!) each day! Here are some photos below showing sludge from a blocked drain, someone clearing said blocked drain, and someone clearing rubbish from the street...

And there’s also a photos I took of the hundreds of chickens that arrived packed in the back of a truck, ready to be sold at the market that day, because it looked funny!

Anyway, that’s my news. Life continues to be interesting, and full of new experiences!!! I’m also busy running the holiday programme with our kids, doing my homework and assignments for the “Celebrating Children” course I did last month (they have to be done before I go back for part 2 of the course in 2 weeks’ time), and doing various other things at church and with the project.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and are enjoying Spring!!!

Lots of love,

Sarah

Sarah's story - Going on retreat, Snakes, and Celebrating Children

Helloooooooooo!!! I hope everyone is doing really well!!! Thank you to everyone who’s e-mailed me! I’ve had quite a busy month, so I’m slightly behind with my e-mails, but I’ll catch up soon!

Despite being busy, the last month has been wonderful! The highlight of it was when I went on a retreat during my week off. I went with my friend Thirsa, going on public transport all the way, which is always an interesting (if rather uncomfortable) experience, as you get packed in like sardines, and often share the space with chickens, sacks of potatoes, and lots of wierd and wonderful stuff. The retreat was in Jinja, on the banks of Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile. It was soooooooooo incredibly beautiful!!!!!

The retreat was entitled “The Father Heart Encounter” and was AMAZING!!! It was all about knowing God as a Father, and was really really wonderful! Also, the food they gave us was amazing, and I even had a strawberry!!!! – it was the most beautiful strawberry I’ve ever tasted! (- although one of the Ugandans was very suspicious of what he called “a funny English flower”, and was convinced it would make him ill!) There were also lots of interesting people there, including 4 people from Karamoja, a very primitive part of Uganda, who amazed us with stories of life in their village, where they still wear very few clothes (just a few strategically placed animal skins if what they said is true), drink blood mixed with milk, and buy their wives with cows (- it costs 150 cows to get a good wife, apparently!). They invited us to go there and preach (and even offered to give us some animal skins to wear so that we could dress - or rather undress - like them!!!)..... Maybe one day I’ll get the chance to go.... Anyway, as I said, the retreat place was incredibly beautiful, and it was so lovely to sit and enjoy the views, etc. Thirsa and I were slightly worried when they told us that a quite big water snake had recently been seen just by the edge of the lake – we decided to go down there together, just in case we saw one... though in retrospect, we decided that we didn’t know what on earth we would have done if we had seen one, or why going together would help – although I guess it would mean we had only 50% chance of getting bitten if the snake decided it wanted a bite!!! (But they assured us that water snakes are very timid snakes, and very unlikely to attack!).

Speaking of snakes, one of our VERY brave White Eagle boys killed a big (to my eyes, anyway – it was about 1 metre long and just over an inch in diameter!) snake down at the boys’ home last week!!! It was at the edge of their football pitch, and he hit it on the head with a big stick. It became a bit of a local tourist attraction for the local kids for a few hours - they picked up the dead snake with sticks, and tried to scare each other by chasing after their friends with it. Every child is terrified of snakes here, whether they be alive or dead, so there was a lot of screaming for a few hours, until someone disposed of it!

Last week, I had the privilege of going on a course in Kampala, along with Uncle Julius and Aunt Emily (the project manager and project director). It was called “Celebrating Children”, and was the first of 4 separate weeks during the year. It was all about working with children, how God views children, how to listen to children, stand up for their rights, include them in decisions, run children’s projects well, be good children’s workers, etc. It was really good, and everyone left with a renewed passion for working with kids, with new skills, and with fresh ideas about developing their projects. We have to do six assignments before the next training week, so I’m trying to organise myself to get all of them done in time. Some of them are quite hard, and not very fun.... Others are quite fun – one involves observing a child at play and writing up a load of stuff on it, and I’ve chosen to observe Kitibwa – so far I’ve observed him hiding his toys all round my room, hiding my keys (- lucky I was observing him!!!), and trying to “phone” me with the television remote control! I don’t really like tests and assignments (- I had decided to try and avoid ever doing any exams/coursework again after finishing uni.! -), but it’s worth it, because I’m learning so much through the course, and we hope it will help us develop the project, as well as helping us improve individually.

This week, we’ve got 4 visitors from the UK staying at the girls’ home. It’s reeeeeally wonderful to have them, and we’re all enjoying their company!!! I’m continuing to slog away at learning Lugandan, and am not making very fast progress, which is sometimes frustrating because some other people come and seem pick it up very quickly! I’m focussing on particular areas, one of which is phrases to use for the hospital ministry.... so on Monday, I acted as an interpreter for one of our visitors as we went round the hospital – I was sooooooo pleased, as I understood nearly everything that was said to me and had some medium length conversations, and only needed help when some patients asked if they could give their lives to Jesus – I got stuck after 2 sentences! (I’m learning a few new phrases every week, so I’ll try to add that to my repertoire soon!).

We’ve had a HUGE amount of rain here in Uganda over the past month – despite 2 months of dire warnings via TV, radio and texts from the government telling us there’d be a drought and a famine in Uganda!!! Everyone’s very pleased about the rain, although it has meant that there is an abundance of mosquitos, and I’m getting eaten alive everyday by them despite wearing a ridiculous amount of mosquito repellent and eating Marmite like there’s no tomorrow, as someone said that can help! (– I’ve even tried wearing 3 different makes of repellent at once, but had to stop because the girls complained that I smelt so bad! – but it didn’t work anyway – they still bit me!).

I’d better leave off here, as the girls are about to come home, and I need to meet with Teddy to hear her read – she reads to me every day to try and improve her English, although she tends to read with a Mancunian accent, as she’s learnt how to read and pronounce lots of words from me!!! She doesn’t speak like that yet, but it would be funny if she did! Maybe Kitibwa will!

I hope everyone is doing very well, and that you have a WONDERFUL Easter!!! Eat lots of chocolate eggs for me!!!

Lots of love,

- Sarah

Sarah's Story - Back in the saddle for River of Life 2011!

Hello everyone! I hope you are all ok! I’m doing well here. I’ve been back just over a month now, so I thought it was time I wrote another newsletter.

Having had a WONDERFUL time in the UK seeing friends and family, (and eating like there was no tomorrow!), I returned back to Uganda and received a lovely welcome from the White Eagle kids and staff, especially from the girls, who nearly knocked me over in their enthusiasm! Kitibwa was in a mood with me for some time (-I think because he felt that I’d abandoned him!), but now he’s back to normal, and gives me just as many hugs and kisses as ever! He’d learnt loads of words while I was away, and also knows nearly everyone’s name now. He doesn’t always pronounce them correctly, hence “Aunt Sarah” is “Ah-Fat-cha”, and “Kevin” is “Mi-mi-mi” – but we all know who he means! It’s sooooooooo cute!!!

Three of the girls had returned home over Christmas to live with their families (although we see 2 of them every weekend at church), just leaving 4 girls and Kitibwa in the house. And two of the remaining girls have had to go to boarding school, and so we just see them at weekends!!! So the house is considerably quieter than it was last year!!! But we continue to run the evening programme, etc., so my work hasn’t changed.

As I mentioned to loads of you when I was home in the UK, much of our emphasis this year is on trying to resettle our residential kids (i.e. those in the boys’ and girls’ homes) with relatives. It’s not possible in all cases, because some of our kids were abandoned, and for some of them it’s not safe for them because of violent relatives. - But for those that can, we are trying to prepare them to return home. So we’re busy writing policies, mentoring our kids, and arranging meetings with relatives. - But our homes won’t be empty, because we will take in more kids to replace the ones who go home – we already got asked to take in a little baby/child by the probations officer at the police station for some time until their situation can be sorted out (-but we don’t know if we can as they’ve not told us much about them yet!). So watch this space!

If it’s ok, I would just like to flag up one of our girls in the girls’ home. I hope that this doesn’t offend anyone, as that’s not my intention. Please ignore it if it does!..... but just in case anyone would like to have the opportunity to bless one of the girls that I look after, I’ve been told that one of the girls in our girls’ home, Judith (see picture below), is in need of another co-sponsor. She has been with the project now for several years. She is an orphan (both of her parents died when she was young), and came to the White Eagle Project when she was 10 years old. She has just turned 17 years old, and is in the second year of Secondary school - she didn’t start school until she was quite old because when she was little she worked as a house-girl (doing the cooking, cleaning, washing, etc. for a family). Anyway, she’s growing into a wonderful young lady (although I’m very biased!), and works hard at everything she does, and is greatly in need of another co-sponsor. (If you are interested in helping, please go on the website: http://www.riveroflifeuganda.org/sponsor-a-child.aspx )

Appeal over!

We’ve had elections here in Uganda since I’ve been back, and it’s been very interesting watching the candidates campaign ( - 1 man who wanted to be elected to the local government gave us hundreds and hundreds of grasshoppers – yum! - , to try and convince us to vote for him! I’m told that hardly any of our kids and staff who vote were persuaded to vote for him, but we all enjoyed the grasshoppers immensely!!!). When they last had presidential elections a few years ago, there was a lot of violence all over the country, so we were praying that there would be peace this time.... and there was!!! There were a few small problems in some other parts of the country, but nothing too major (nothing like a few years ago!), and Masaka where I live was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO quiet and peaceful – people keep saying it’s never been like that before in Masaka during the elections, so that was great!!!

The kids were all off school (and came back from boarding school) during the elections. We couldn’t go out much (just in case of violence starting up suddenly while we were out), so we had to entertain ourselves and think of things to do.... and we at the girls’ home decided that on the Saturday after the elections we would have a feast of chicken and chips, which is a rare treat indeed!!! (- it was funded by my brother!). The girls were sooooooooo excited all week, and there were whoops of excitement whenever anyone mentioned the coming Saturday, and then we spent ALL of the Saturday preparing our food – we had to kill the chicken and pluck it, etc., and we had to peel and chop a whole load of potatoes, and then do the cooking, which took us hours and hours and HOURS on the charcoal stove, but it was good fun as it occupied us all day and everyone got involved! And then in the evening, we had our feast!!! Yeah!!! Aunt Tinah is an AMAZING cook, and was in charge of all the cooking, and managed to produce the most wonderful tasting chicken ever!!!!!!! We stuffed ourselves silly (Hee hee hee!!!), and then sat there very happy and very full, talking into the night!!! We had a few chips left over, which the girls had cold for breakfast the next day, so as not to waste even a single one! It has gone down in girls’ home history as “the Big Feast of February 2011”, and the girls are still talking about it now!!! It was a fab day!!!!

I’ve been keeping on going with trying to learn Lugandan, and whilst I remain not very good at all, and can only say a few sentences, I have learnt some specific sentences.... these include sentences I can use when I go on the hospital ministry, e.g. asking how people are and what’s wrong with them, and can I pray for them, etc..... and so this month I managed without a translator for the first time at the hospital!!!! Yeah!!! I was so happy!!! I still prayed in English, but the rest was in Lugandan!!! When I didn’t understand what someone was saying, I just nodded and said “Bambi” in a sympathetic tone (which means a lot of different things, including “I’m sorry for your situation”) and that seemed to go down well when I said it, as people thought I understood every word!!! Ha ha! So that was good, and has given me a boost to keep on learning little bits.

I’m very tired at the moment, because Teddy has been borrowing my alarm clock to wake up in time for school (she has to wake up at 5.30am) and is getting confused about the time.... Let me explain... Telling the time in Uganda is a bit different - because the sun rises at about 7am and sets at 7pm all year round, they tell the time by the number of hours into the day or night there are. So what we call 7am, is the first hour of the day, or 1 o’clock... And this can cause some confusion, as I discovered this week when Teddy kept coming to wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me that the alarm clock didn’t go off and that she’s missed school - because when she sees it saying 2am she thinks it’s 8am and that she’s late!!! It’s very hard to be patient when you’re woken up in the middle of the night every night for a week!!!! Ha ha! I don’t know how people with young babies manage being woken up for months on end!

Anyway, I’ll end here, as this is a VERY long e-mail! It was soooooooooo lovely to see so many of you when I was in the UK over Christmas and January!!! I’m sorry for anyone I didn’t get to see!

Lots of love!

- Sarah

Sarah's Story - Grasshoppers, Jackfruit and the year to come...

Sarah keeps us updated on the latest chapter in her Ugandan story, in her own, inimitable stlye:

Helloooooooooooooo! How are you? I'm really well, and continuing to have a fab time here!!!

It's "Grasshopper Season" again here in Uganda (I think there are 2 a year), so I've been eating grasshoppers the last day or two. And it's also been the season for jackfruits, which are one of my favourite fruits ever! We have a jackfruit tree in our garden, so we've been eating plenty of them! If you don't know what a jackfruit is, see the photo. They're gorgeous!!! (The best way I can describe the taste is that it tastes a bit like Tutti Fruiti flavour Chewitts used to taste like!)

It's the wet season at the moment (there are 2 wet and 2 dry seasons a year), so everywhere is very soggy, muddy and slimy all morning, until the sun dries it all up again by mid-afternoon. The power continues to be a problem, but the water supply has improved slightly over the past 2 weeks, so that's VERY good! Kitibwa (see photo, when he decided to come and help us with the washing up!!!!) was scared of all the shadows thrown by the paraffin lamps at night a month ago, but he's getting so used to the dark every evening that he's become a lot braver now, as power cuts every day (and so paraffin lamps each evening) are just a way of life to him now!

He's getting cuter by the day!!! His vocabulary has progressed from "Alleluia!" and "Amen!" (said each time with a punch in the air!) to saying "Auntie Wala" (which I think is Auntie Sarah/Ronnah/Tinah!), "Teddy", "Kisakye", etc. (...all the girls' names). He has learnt to sing a song called "Baby Jesus", and is soooooooooooooo cute when he sings it!!! I'm trying to capture it on video, but he gets stage fright every time I stick a camera in his face!

The girls have all been doing exams over the past 2 weeks, and Robinah has now started her A-levels. Apart from Robinah (who finishes in December), they all break up from school in 2 weeks' time, so we'll be into the holiday programme again soon. It'll be really nice to have them all around again!

My Mum and Dad came to visit a few weeks ago, and I had a FABULOUS time with them! The only bad thing was that I didn't get all the hot baths and showers I was anticipating, because we had several days when the hotel had no power and no water! So my Mum and Dad had a REAL taste of Uganda (including bucket baths!).

Now that my Mum and Dad have been, and we have had a chance to have some long chats, I can officially announce that I'm coming back to Uganda next year! Yeah! I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO incredibly excited about coming home and seeing all my family and all my friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (- You would not believe quite how excited I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) But I'm also very excited about what God has for me to do here in Uganda next year, and about spending another year with the girls and all the kids here in Uganda! Yeah!

Anyway, that's enough for now! As usual, I've written more than I intended to!!!! I hope that you are all really well, and I hope that when I come back I can see as many people as possible!!!

Loads of love to everyone!

- Sarah

Sarah's Story - Luganda Learning, Policy Planning, Sponsorship Support and Erratic Electricity!

Hello everyone!!! How is everyone? I hope you're all doing well! I'm doing great!!! But the last month has been busy!!!

I've been REALLY trying to learn some more Lugandan over the last month, as it will make such a difference if I can speak a bit more.... And it's going ok-ish. I'm not really gifted in learning languages(!), but I'm having fun because the girls are teaching me, and it's creating a lot of laughs round the dinner table (I'm trying to speak only Lugandan every evening during dinner, which is a bit of challenge with my limited vocabulary - so I just make most of it up!!!). Also, apparently, I keep on saying rude words by mistake, which always creates a lot of screaming laughter! - My pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired, it would appear!!! Ah well!!! At least I'm trying!!! When I go on the Hospital Ministry every Monday, I try out little bits now and again with the patients, and they seem to appreciate my efforts (as well as laughing at me, of course!). I'm also trying to learn to cook some Ugandan dishes, and the girls are my teachers again... so that's been fun too!

I've been very busy with the staff each week, developing some policies with them for the White Eagle Project, which has been interesting - I never thought I'd do anything managerial like this, and find it weird that I'm now doing this stuff!!! I'm learning a lot...

I've also spent a lot of time working on getting background information on very needy kids who live locally that we've identified as needing urgent help, so that we can try to get sponsors for them. So I've been doing lots of interviews, lots of typing, etc. to try to get all the important information down about them. (....So, if you'd like to sponsor anyone, let me know!!! There are a whole load of reeeeeeeally needy kids in difficult situations that we're looking for sponsorship for!!!).

The kids on the project are all doing really well at the moment, although some of them are working far too hard (in my opinion!!!) because they've got their exams (O-levels and A-levels) approaching. I can't believe the hours they do at school!!! Some of them leave for school at 6am, and don't return home until 7pm. It's crazy!!! I'm glad I didn't go to school in Uganda!!! But just to prove it's not all hard work, here's Kyesake as a puppet (for some reason...)

We had some visitors from America about a month ago, so we had fun when they came, and they took the kids to the local (and the only!) swimming pool, so some of the kids got a chance to relax and have a break from their studies that day at least.

All the usual stuff has continued, like the evening sessions with the kids, the youth group, church, prayer meetings, hospital ministry, staff meetings, etc, etc. So, life is full and interesting! ......And I'm still loving it here!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm very excited at the moment, because my Mum and Dad are coming to visit me next week!!! Yeahhhhh!!!! They're coming for a week, and I'm taking my week off while they're here so that I can spend all my time with them. I'm particularly looking forward to staying in a hotel for a whole week which has hot running water!!!! I'm going to have about a million hot baths, even if the weather's boiling outside, just to make the most of it!!!

We had over a week with virtually no electricity at all, a week or so ago (it would come on for a few minutes every couple of days, then go off right away again!!!). It was a bit frustrating, but also fun, because we had to make our own entertainment in the girls' home (due to the lack of a TV and adequate lighting), and so we played lots of silly games, and spent some evenings rolling about in hysterics!!! Kitibwa (the little toddler who lives in the girls' home) was terrified, though, every evening, because he found all the dancing shadows caused by the lanterns we used really scary, so he spent every evening clinging to anyone he could!!!

Anyway, I'll go now! Loads of love to everyone! Sarah

The latest news from Sarah @ the Girl's Home

Helloooooo everyone!!!! I hope that you are all well!!!! I'm sorry that I haven't written a newsletter for AGES!!! I've been quite busy! Anyway, here's my news.....

I've had a really great couple of months! It started with going on safari 2 months ago with Anna and Liz (the 2 gap year girls who've been living at the girls' home), which was soooooooooooooooo much fun!!!! We rode on top of the Project van as we drove around the safari park, and then had a boat trip on the lake, and I got completely over-excited at seeing monkeys, baboons, zebras, hippos, crocodiles, etc. close up!!! We had SUCH a fun day!!!!!!!

Shortly after that, Anna left us (sob!), to go and prepare for starting university.

I had my week's holiday during the first week in August, and I spent it in Entebbe and Kampala with a group of Christian and Messianic Jewish dancers who I used to dance with in England. They were ministering at a church in Kampala, and asked me to join them, which I was very happy to do. I had a FAB week - we really saw God move during the sessions we did at the church, through the teaching, dancing, praying, etc., and I felt completely spoiled the whole week - we were staying in a lovely house on the edge of Lake Victoria (it was really beautiful!), we had amazing food (we even got taken out for a Chinese one day - my favourite!), we got to visit the source of the Nile (which was beautiful), we got treated by everyone we met, we had the privilege of visiting and meeting some amazing places and people, and I had a brilliant and very inspiring time just hanging out with everyone - it was just generally fab!!! (I'm running out of words to describe how amazing it was!)

The kids broke up for their school holidays as soon as I got back, so I was then busy running the holiday programme with them for a couple of weeks, which I reeeeally enjoyed, as we had a lot of fun and the kids were very enthusiastic (although, as usual, it was tiring!)!!!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, 9 people from my church in Flixton came to visit Masaka (Yeahhhhh!!!!!!!) - 5 of my really good friends, and 4 of the girls from the teenagers group I used to help with. I almost burst with excitement seeing them all, and I had the most brilliant week with them!!! I just loved spending time with them, laughing, joking, talking, praying, etc, and it was great for them to all come to the church, the White Eagles Project, and some of the other ministries, and get involved with all the stuff that I'm involved with! And they came equipped with chocolate and cheese!!!! (Yeahhhhh!!!!) It was really wonderful (- having them here, that is, not just the chocolate and cheese, although that was really wonderful too!)!!!

We also took the kids to Lake Nabugabu, (- funded by some people from my old dance school, who had raised a whole load of money so we could treat the kids to a day out -- THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!), where we spent the day swimming, eating, chilling, playing, chatting, etc. with the kids. In short, it was an amazing week!!!

Then, Liz (the other gap year student who'd been staying in the girls' home) and Kate (a girl who came here for just a month) left (sob!), as did most of the Flixton crew.... But 2 of my really good friends, Sarah and Anna, stayed on for another week, and we had a great week doing some stuff with the kids and staff, going out for meals, etc. It was reeeeeeeeally wonderful to spend quality time with them!!!!

Now they've all left, but we have 3 American visitors who are here for a week! Phew!

- So, life has been busy, but lots and lots of fun, with lots of visitors who have been a HUGE blessing to me, and also to the White Eagles kids and staff!!!!

Life should settle down a bit now, as we don't have any more visitors planned, and the kids are all back at school this week, so we'll all get back into our term-time routines!

Sarah's Story - Highlights from May

Hello everybody!!! How has everyone been over the last month? - The last month has been good here in Uganda.....

We had the last week and a half of the holiday programme at the beginning of May - Highlights include:

• Watching High School Musical 1, 2 and 3 (the kids were up on their feet clapping, singing and dancing throughout the movie each time - the atmosphere was electric! - And at the end of the first movie they didn't want to stop, so they just put on some music and carried on singing and dancing for ages - it turned into a full scale party, and was sooooooo much fun!!! I also found it funny watching the films with the kids, because every time anyone kissed during the movie (even a quick peck on the cheek), they would rewind the DVD, then pause it at the point of the kiss/peck on the cheek, and all start clapping, jumping up and down, and whooping at the tops of their voices - it was absolutely hilarious to watch them!!!);
• Going to the swimming pool with the kids and spending the whole day there in gorgeous sunshine (I love Ugandan weather!);
• A visit to the farm (the White Eagles dig there in the hope that we'll be able to grow some of our own food to reduce food costs - I went with them one morning and it was absolutely brilliant - the kids had so much fun despite the hard work so the atmosphere was wonderful, and the view was absolutely BEAUTIFUL (Uganda is seriously a beautiful country!!!), and when they'd finished, we all sat down and ate sugar cane, guavas and paw paws freshly picked from the farm - it was a near on perfect morning!!! (- The only thing that stopped it being completely perfect was the amount of very big, very disgusting, and VERY scary looking creepy crawlies and flying things - Yuk!!! - One of the few not so nice things about Uganda!!!) I had a go at digging, but I wasn't at all good at it compared to the kids (who've all grown up doing loads of digging on their families' farms since they were tiny children), so the kids told me (with some pity in their voices, it has to be said) to stop and let them do it, as they would be much quicker and much more effective than me!
• Aerobics sessions, which were a lot of fun, and which the VERY pregnant Aunt Emily (the Project Director) took a full part in, jumping up and down with as much vigour and energy as anyone else, much to everyone's consternation!!!

The school term is now in full swing, as are all the White Eagle evening activities and staff sessions that I'm involved with. There are loads of visitors here, who are helping out with different activities, which is really wonderful - Anna and Lizzy (the 2 Mazungus on their gap year who are here for 4 months each) have been getting stuck in and are both taking more and more responsibility for leading different things, and doing amazing, and really growing into their roles here! And we've got some Australian girls here for a month too helping out, which is great ...and Thirsa is still here.... So there are 6 of us Mazungus altogether, and we've had some good times swimming, making pancakes, visiting the bakery (my favourite shop in Masaka!!!), and watching DVD's together!!!

We had a staff team-building day a few weeks ago, which involved a meal out (- Roast pork - it made me very happy! ), and playing/having tournaments on the Nintendo Wii and WiiFit - it was SOOOOOOOOO funny seeing the staff get really into it, and we still laugh about it now whenever we talk about it (- especially as one really quiet member of staff got soooooo into it when anyone else played - he was practically off his seat shouting out instructions and advice to them at the top of his voice - everyone ended up watching him instead of the screen because it was so out of character for him, and so funny!).

I've REALLY enjoyed going on the visits to the hospital over the past few weeks - it's SUCH a privilege to pray for people, and I just love it!!!! I'm also really enjoying the time I have (now that the school holidays are over) to pray, study the Bible, and prepare for the evening sessions, etc. - God's teaching me loads, including how to trust in Him when there are tricky situations with the girls (which there are every so often - what with them being teenagers, and teenagers from difficult and abusive backgrounds at that) that are really difficult to handle, and where I don't know what to do - He's teaching me to just follow Him step by step, as He works things out. - So that's cool!

Kitibwa gets cuter by the day!!! He now runs everywhere (-walking is just too slow!), and he has the most gorgeous smile ever! He also understands a lot of what we say, including "No" and "Come here", so is much easier to control!!!! They've just sorted out some day-care arrangements for him in the last day or two, and we all miss him LOADS since he's been out of the house all day (although it's much easier to get on and do our work and prepare for things, admittedly).

...Anyway, that's a round-up of my news over the last month. I hope that everyone is well!!!

Sarah is originally from Manchester, UK, and is currently our Girls Home Aunty in the White Eagle Project. She's very kindly agreed to us publishing her newsletters on our blog to give a taste of life as a missionary at River of Life

Sarah's Story - burglars, chocolate and sewers!

Hellooooooooooooooooo everyone!!! I hope that you are all well!!! So, the last month has been interesting...

First of all, we had two burglaries about a month ago (both were done by the burglar reaching through the window in my room - one while we were at church, and one during the night). We now have a night guard, and a guard while we're at church, and lots of extra security measures!

On a good note, though, since my last newsletter, Lizzy (a gap year student from my church in Manchester) arrived to stay in the girls' home and help out with the White Eagle Project and Nazareth Orphanage for four months. She came equipped with chocolate, "Friends" DVD's, a new DVD player, and presents from my church in Manchester! Yeah!!! It's really great to have her and Anna (the other gap year student who's here for 4 months) here, and we're having a great time!

The kids have been on holiday for the last 3 weeks, so life is REALLY hectic, but fun!!! We've got the holiday programme up and running, so my time is being taken up with doing dance sessions, aerobics classes, debates (which don't involve much debating at all, but do involve lots of ridiculous and hilarious objections!), group discussions, life skills sessions, games sessions, volleyball (watching and keeping score, you understand, not doing!!!), Fellowships, prayer meetings, etc., etc., etc. There have also been a few parties, swimming trips, worship events, and other things thrown in to the mix.

Last week, we had "Operation ARK" (Acts of Random Kindness), which involved the young people (including all the White Eagles) from the churches in and around Nyendo going to the poorer areas of Nyendo and doing things to bless the residents, including: painting houses (in rather garish shades of green and blue, mostly!!!), sweeping streets, cleaning and sweeping up the market area (very smelly!), clearing a rubbish heap (even more smelly!), clearing a drain (the most smelly of all!), and giving out "Boxes of Blessing" (boxes with basic supplies in, like rice, sugar, tea, etc.). It was soooooooooooooooooo much fun!!!!!!!!! There was much hilarity, alongside the hard work, and the atmosphere was great! I REALLY enjoyed it, and it was good getting to know the youth from the other churches, and great to do a hard day's work and see a difference at the end, and see the residents really happy with what we'd done (- at least, that's how I interpreted their faces, but they could have been grimacing at the smells created by unblocking the drain, etc!).

We also went to Lake Nabugabu last Friday with all the kids, as Tim and Sarah (an English couple who came for Operation ARK) took us. Tim volunteered here at the White Eagles Project for several years, and Sarah is his new wife, so they took us to the Lake to celebrate their wedding and the end of Operation ARK (which was Tim's idea in the first place and has been run by him for the last 2 years). It was wonderful, and everyone had a fab day!!! We all swam loads, ate loads, and, in my case, drank loads, because the Lake was really choppy that day, and I swallowed rather a lot of rather brown-looking water whilst swimming... but I haven't had any ill effects, so far! We finished the day by watching "Avatar", cinema style, in the boys' home - it was amazing, and a brilliant end to a brilliant week!!!!

Unfortunately, Jack the dog died yesterday. Jack (who was actually a lady-dog) had been the White Eagles' dog for 7 years - she was a stray who sort of attached herself to the project - and despite them spending months trying to get rid of her initially, she was much loved in the end. She will be remembered for her affection (she always walked the kids to the nearby schools, or to and from the girls' home/church), as well as for her promiscuity (- she had puppies every year she was here practically!). The kids held their own funeral today, which was half tongue-in-cheek, and half serious - it was both funny and solemn at the same time!!!

We've got a week and a half left of the holiday, then the kids go back to school. At the moment, it is well and truly grasshopper season, and they are all over the place (there were about 30 flying and hopping about the toilet at the office today - it was a scary experience using it, as they are huge compared to English grasshoppers, and they kept flying or hopping onto me whilst I was in there!!!) The kids catch loads everyday, and then fry and eat them. Today, I had a lesson from some of the younger kids in de-legging, de-winging, de-tailing and de-antennaeing(!) a grasshopper!!! I never realised how soft and squishy grasshopper bodies were until I kept squashing them by mistake today when I wasn't gentle enough de-winging them!!!

Sarah is originally from Manchester, UK, and is currently our Girls Home Aunty in the White Eagle Project. She's very kindly agreed to us publishing her newsletters on our blog to give a taste of life as a missionary at River of Life

Sarah's Story - hot running water and grasshoppers!

Hello everybody, I hope that this post finds everyone well! I'm going to try to keep it shorter than my previous posts... So here goes....

I think I told you in my last newsletter that I was looking forward to seeing my Mum and Dad at the beginning of March... Well, they arrived safely, and I had a WONDERFUL time!!!!!!! It was so lovely to show them the places I'm going to, the things I'm doing, to introduce them to all the kids and staff, and to show them why I'm so passionate about this place!!!!! They had a great time, and we even had power nearly the whole time they were here, so we got our quota of 10 or so cups of tea a day every single day!!! We lived in luxury for a week, and stayed in a hotel in Masaka (- we even had hot running water!!! - I felt the most clean I've been since I came to Uganda! - it was fantastic!), and I had a nice rest and felt very refreshed and invigorated after my short break. (- And they brought me lots of chocolate, which did my soul good - hee hee!!!). So it was just great!!!

Other than that, life here has continued in much the same routine - looking after Kitibwa, staff training and staff meetings, activities with the kids in the evenings, youth group, hospital ministry, prayer meetings, and church. I'm really loving everything I'm doing, and have had some fantastic times with the girls over the last month - the girls' home has resounded with laughter on a regular basis, so much so, that the lady who lives above us has come to check if we're ok a few times because of the noise we were making! The hospital ministry (where we go and pray for patients and give out food, etc.) is a particular highlight of my week, as is eating chapati and beans and freshly made passion fruit juice on a Sunday evening!!!!!!

We've had a few visitors over the last couple of weeks, which has been great fun - first off an English guy came to film bits and bobs for a promotional DVD; then an English couple called Ben and Sarah came and helped with the White Eagles Project (they're youth workers in England, and they were absolutely brilliant as they did some staff training and all the evening events with the kids for a week); and last of all a girl called Anna, who is English (but lives in France), has come for 4 months... She's on her year out before Uni, and is helping with the younger kids here and at Nazareth orphanage. We have another girl called Lizzy (from my church in Manchester) coming out in a couple of weeks, also for 4 months, and also on her gap year before Uni - she'll be working with Anna, and they'll both be living here in the girls' home. So the girls' home is getting busy!!! I'm now sharing a room with Thirsa (the Dutch girl I've mentioned before).... And we're all getting excited as we're hoping to have even more visitors coming over the next few months (but not staying in the girls' home, thank goodness!) for various reasons, including "Operation ARK" (Act of Random Kindness) which begins in a few weeks. I'll write about it more in my next e-mail, but Operation ARK involves a week where the youth from the local churches do things to bless the local community, like painting houses, cleaning up rubbish, giving food parcels to the poorest families, etc. It should be AMAZING.... I'll let you know all about it in my next e-mail.

I've also had the privilege(!) of eating grasshoppers this month!!! They are considered a great delicacy over here, and it is currently grasshopper season (so there are loads of huge grasshoppers about), so I had to have a go! (They actually don't taste too bad if you can get the thought out of your head that you're eating a grasshopper!!!!!)

Anyway, I'll end my post here, in the hope of keeping it shorter than my last two!

Sarah is originally from Manchester, UK, and is currently our Girls Home Aunty in the White Eagle Project. She's very kindly agreed to us publishing her newsletters on our blog to give a taste of life as a missionary at River of Life