Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from Uganda!

We hope you had a joyful Christmas, celebrating the Savior’s birth with family and friends! We are so thankful that Jesus humbled himself, leaving Heaven’s glory to be born into our sinful world. He did what no man has ever done, living a perfect life, dying a shameful death on the cross, rising again all to redeem us~that we may have eternal life with him when we die!

Isaiah 53
2b-3a "He had no beauty or majesty to attract to us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. 5-6 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Having a warm, tropical Christmas, away from our family and friends, made the holiday quite unique for us but we enjoyed it still. We spent our holiday weekend out at Dave and Darlene Eby’s house, missionaries here with MTW (Mission to the World), our home church’s mission organization. (David stayed at their house for his project trip, they teach at Westminster Seminary.) We are so thankful for the “family” that God has provided us with here!



The Saturday before Christmas, we attended our first wedding in Uganda. My friend Nichol, the third grade teacher at Heritage who’s an MTW missionary here from San Diego, married Emmanuel, a French Teacher at the International School of Uganda from the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo.) The wedding was quite a cultural experience, blending American, Ugandan, and Congolese traditions. Some different traditions were when the Africans cheered, hollered and clapped when the bride entered the church, the bride and groom sat down up front for part of the ceremony, they signed the marriage certificate a part of the ceremony, and at the reception the bride kneels to feed the groom and his family cake.







On Christmas Eve, David celebrated his 25th Birthday. I surprised him with his favorite blueberry muffins with crumble topping from America for breakfast. (Thanks, Mom!) We then worshiped at our church, New City Bible Church, (Presbyterian Church of Uganda) where Dr. Eby preached. Normally Gerald, a Ugandan pastor, preaches. That evening, the Eby’s hosted a Christmas Eve dinner. With over 40 people, a mix of Americans and Ugandans, it was quite a full house! We enjoyed steak, tilapia, BBQ chicken wings, veggies, cheese and crackers, punch (passion juice and Sprite), and of course, Christmas Cookies and the singing of “Happy Birthday!” (David’s had a mint brownie cake on Christmas.) The evening concluded with watching American football, the Eby’s are huge UCLA fans since their son used to play for them. They had fun teaching the Ugandans the rules.



On Christmas Day, similar to our American celebration, we had a large breakfast, read the Christmas story, and opened some presents in our pajamas with Christmas music playing in the background. The five college age Ugandans that Celebrated with us were so excited when they received soap, paper, pens, highlighters, gum, and watches from “Mom”, Darlene!





Christmas for Ugandans is not nearly as big of a deal as it is in the West. It’s refreshing and much more simple here not to have all the commercialism and materialism, most Ugandans cannot afford gifts. You really wouldn’t even know it was Christmas time until just a few days before when Ugandans start to sell mini, Charlie Brown sized plastic trees on the street with colored foil streamers/garlands. There are a few decorations up at the mall and grocery stores, but that’s about it. No Christmas light competitions here! To most Ugandans, Christmas is a time to visit with family and eat. Often, men leave their villages to work in Kampala where more jobs are in order to support their families. So on Christmas, many travel by matatu (taxi) home to their village to be together as a family. And of course, their celebration wouldn’t be complete without rice and matoke (a banana-like fruit that’s cooked liked mashed potatoes.) Traditionally, Christians also go to church on Christmas. Some my students were traveling on Christmas, the beaches of Kenya are a popular place, also Dubai and South Africa.



On Christmas, David’s biggest thrill was going 4-wheeling, compliments of the Sheffer family. This is a picture of him and Dave Eby after an hour and a half of playing! The winding village roads are so washed out that they are naturally perfect for off-roading. Heather (another girl who stayed at the Eby’s) and I enjoyed a nice walk while they had their adventure.

After our Christmas dinner, we were both able to talk to our families, just as they were beginning their day! We are greatly anticipating my mom and dad visiting us in less then a week now. They fly into Nairobi, Kenya on the 31st where we will take a 12 hour bus ride to meet them. In Nairobi, we will visit with Imbumi and his Presbyterian church in the slums of Kibera, one of the worst slums in the world. We met him at CPC last spring and several groups from our church have done short term projects with him and his church. Natalee, (my sister who died), was planning on doing missions work in this part of Kenya so we look forward to visiting there. After Nairobi, we will venture down to south Kenya and to the beautiful Masai Mara and go on safari there (if you’ve seen Out of Africa, this is where the movie was filmed!). We will then make the bumpy journey back to Uganda and share our lives here with them!

We are so thankful they are coming and have a lot to cram in during their 10 day visit! Please pray for good weather for their flights (leaving the US Friday), safety for them flying and for us (traveling by bus to Nairobi), that the luggage would arrive on time and intact, and that they/we would have an impacting, meaningful, and an enjoyable visit!

Here’s some pics of some of our Christmas celebrations:
My 5th Graders and Me:


Our Class Christmas Party:




eMi Staff Christmas Party:


Decorating Cookies!


The Whole Gang:


eMi Interns:
Tricia, Jean, John,
David, me, Julie

Webale from Uganda!

Amanda and I are very grateful to all of our supporters who have enabled us to serve in Uganda through their prayers and financial giving. We're in the process of writing thank you notes to each of our supporters right now. Some of you have probably received the postcards while other people should be receiving them before Christmas.

There's a neat story behind the postcards. We wanted to do something that would allow us to send a personal thank you to each person or family supporting us. We toyed with buying African cards but those are quite expensive. We eventually decided that I would use my developing PhotoShop skills to make a postcard, we would buy the ink and paper, and print them ourselves here at the office. At the same time, Amanda was gearing up for Parent/Teacher conferences at school. During one of the conferences, a father mentioned to Amanda that he owned a printing and graphics shop in town. Amanda asked how much it would cost to get the postcards printed up. He graciouly replied, "They won't cost you anything!" The next day we met Albert at his shop, Excel Graphics. His employee, Lynn, showed us the paper selection and helped Amanda change the font to something she really liked (Amanda likes different fonts, if you didn't know that). We were able to pick them up the following day.

We're grateful for so many things here, and the free postcards fall into that category as well. Please let us know if you don't receive a postcard by Christmas and you are supporting us in some way. We want to be able to thank each person for their contribution to our ministry.

A good time for a weather comparison

We've heard from friends and seen on the news that the weather in St. Louis has been pretty rough recently. I saw on STLToday that over 500,000 people lost power. Honestly, that happens here daily with the electrical loadshedding, but we obviously don't have the cold weather that makes the situation a safety risk.

About a month ago I was thinking to myself, "I'm so happy it's cloudy today!" and it occurred to me that people back home were probably hoping for sunshine now that the weather is cooler. I thought it might be fun to show everyone why I was excited about the cloud cover. Check out the graph below for a comparison of the average monthly highs and lows for Chesterfield, Missouri, and Kampala, Uganda.

Happy Thanksgiving, Uganda style...

This is our live turkey. That won't be the case for too much longer. We love you all!

It is now a tad later here in Uganda. The turkey, uhh, doesn't look like the photo above. Except for the picture posted below, I'll refrain from posting the rest of them, considering there's a lot of spurting blood and flapping headless bodies. (Paul, check your email because I sent them to you.) Anyway, We took the turkey downstairs where Steve used the panga to cut the head off while I held it. After the first swipe, the thing went far crazier than I was expecting (for good reason). I regained a hold of it while it continued convulsing as Steve finished cutting the head off. Blood was spurting everywhere and he said to let it go. I did. It was a mess. We all helped pluck the feathers out and it's in the oven as I write this. Quite an experience. I think I prefer the grocery store, but I guess I have the knowledge now if I'm ever in a bind.

A Visit to a Local Slum

Last Tuesday, David and I, along with John and Jessica from eMi, visited orphans and widows in the Kifumbira slum in which our church ministers. New City ministers to the community monthly, sharing Christ’s love through praying, sharing scripture, listening, touching and giving. Before heading a few kilometers down the road to the slum, about eight of us gathered at the church to pray for our time there, that the women and children would be encouraged and come to know Christ’s healing love. I was a little surprised when Gerald, our pastor, explained that today the women and children would all gather in one place and we were going to individually encourage them though sharing bits of our testimonies, scripture, and whatever else the Lord laid on our hearts. I thought we were going to be talking, praying and sharing with the women and children one on one or in small groups, not speaking to a group of 75 ladies! Speaking in front of large groups is not something that I particularly enjoy or that comes naturally for me. I started to think of ways I could “hide” in the group or conveniently be playing with the children when it was time to share. The thoughts didn’t last long and I was soon convicted of my selfish heart. I have Christ in me who is so much greater than my own fears of public speaking! Many of these women and children are hungry, sick, suffering with AIDS, and are desperate for encouragement, longing for a taste of hope in their dismal circumstances. I know the only love that can truly heal their heart and give them hope for a new life where there is no more suffering..... I began to pray that Christ would give me the words that the women needed to hear from Him.

Driving down the bumpy, muddy road into Kifumbira, children waved and adults stared as we entered into their humble community. Wood shanties for homes, curtains for doors, a pit for the potty, a fire for the stove, life here continues in stark contrast to the luxuries that we’ve know all our lives. It’s also rather ironic that this slum, one of the poorest in Kampala, sits nestled behind the wealthiest district in Kampala. In Uganda it seems that you are drastically poor or wealthy, there’s hardly a middle class. My heart broke as Pastor Gerald pointed to one adorable little girl and explained that she had AIDS, judging by the spots on her skin. She probably had never been tested for the disease and definitely did not have money for the treatment. I wondered how many others in this community were living with AIDS and didn’t even know it, or how many were daily suffering and in pain because they couldn’t afford the treatments.

Our white truck climbed up a hill, interrupting about twenty-five boys playing football (aka soccer). The minute we stepped out onto the grass, children immediately surrounded us, appearing it seemed out of no where. I just held out my hands to them and they fought for them, simply wanting to touch my hand. We did a quick walk through of the community, and it seemed quite similar to the houses on our street and the poor living conditions all over Kampala for that matter. While we walked, the children chased after us, chanting like they all seem to do, “Muzungo, how are you? Muzungo, how are you?” (Muzungo=white person in Swahili).

Meanwhile, ladies of all ages gathered on a hill, many with babies and small children. New City had unloaded boxes of soap, rice, vitamins, and were attracting quite a crowd. Jessica and I played with the children and tried to get them to sing songs to us in Luganda (one of the main languages in Uganda) while Gerald spoke briefly to the group and introduced our team and our purpose in being there. My heart started to race once again as I realized that I would be speaking in a few minutes. One by one people in our group went up, we had four Ugandans and four Americans. I was tempted to run off with the kids or to go play football and have a legitimate excuse for not talking. Once again I realized that I have a hope that some of woman may not know and it would be a waste and selfish of me not to share it.

Before I knew it, David was up, sharing with the women and suddenly Gerald was making the eye brow signal at me, telling me that it was my turn. Yikes. Here I am, a young, healthy, rich girl, standing before women of all ages in conditions that I have never known or experienced, yet their eyes were all drawn on me with great expectation, longing to hear whatever words I had to say. I felt ill and weak as I walked up front. I prayed, telling Jesus that I could not do this on my own, I did not have words to say, asking him to please speak though me. I realized as I went to stand by Gerald that I was still gripping a little girl’s hand, dressed in a pink dress. Though she was about three, it felt secure having my hand in hers so I didn’t let go! She was not scared.

I prayed again, took a deep breath, and by God’s grace, spoke calmly and with strength that was not my own. Amazingly, the Holy Spirit gave me the words to say, and Gerald translated them in Luganda for the ladies to hear. They clapped and nodded when I shared that I know they are hurting, hungry, sick and suffering-BUT Christ’s shares in that because he came to the earth and suffered for them, ultimately to suffer and die for us, taking our sins upon himself. He cares and wants you to cry out to him. They smiled and clapped again, it was a crazy experience and I was close to tears the whole time. I shared a few more words, and with a breath of relief, went back to the comfortable circle of children, my hand still being gripped by the little girl. It was overwhelming because I knew that that was not me speaking, but Christ in me. Nothing in me could have had strength and known what words the women needed to hear except the Holy Spirit in me.

What touched my heart even more was the little girl who bravely went up with me and held my hand. I asked her afterwards what her name was. I made out a name I thought was Susan jumbled together with some other sounds that sounded to me like Natalee (the name of my sister who died almost 3 years ago.) I couldn’t believe it. I thought that I must be hearing things. She barely spoke English, so I asked her several more times what her name was. Her friends told me it was “Susan” but I knew that I had heard Natalee. As the others from New City spoke, she and her brother sang several songs for me and I still couldn’t get over her name. She even pointed to and touched my sister’s butterfly ring that I wear. At the end, right before we left, her mom found her with me and I asked what her name was. She answered “Susan Natalee.” My heart was filled with joy and I found it so providential that the little girl who held my hand while I was afraid to share with the women about Jesus’s love name was Susan Natalee. What an encouragement to my heart and a sweet gift of grace from the Lord!

Exodus 4:10
Moses said to the Lord, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past not since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

The Lord said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and teach you what to say.”