Africa Update

Well. Day 8 of our Uganda trip has come and almost gone.
We will be leaving the beautiful country of Uganda on the 2nd.
Being in Africa has been indescribable. I have met some of the most amazing people in my life and they are the people who live with no electricity, no running water, to medicine, no connection with the outside world, no bible, no money to buy food, no money to get tested for HIV/AIDS, no money to buy ARV’s if they are infected, and no money to send there children to school. All they have is their HOPE in GOD, and that alone gets them from day to day. WOW!!!!

Being here has spurred me on in new ways, to do the right thing, the thing the bible speaks of. Take care of those who are orphaned & widowed, to be a voice for those who have none, and to spread His name to the Nations. God has placed new vision and passion in paul & I. We have SO many things we will begin planning for once we are back in the states. New partnerships, new focuses, new ways of thinking, new trips to plan, new ways to spread God’s word, new ways to share God’s love with those who have nothing, & new ways to restore their hope.

Here are a few pictures from the trip so far. Of course paul has updated his site a couple of times (furthermoreproject.com) We just got REAL internet yesterday. The first week we had literally had nothing! And then once we made it to watoto we finally found reliable internet that is comparatively quick to anything else in Africa. (this would be a snails pace in America… literally!!!)

We will be packing up here in Kampala soon, 3 of our team members drove over to Rwanda (8hrs.) for the next day or so to speak at a conference there and then will be coming back to grab me & jerrod, we are staying at the conference to continue on learning how they run the watoto project. Then we will head on west to visit a couple of other villages and an orphanage.

So goodbye from this masungo for now, (that means white person) we hear this A LOT from the children. They yell this at their friends to get them to come and wave at us as we pass by them. It’s pretty funny!! And I would just like to point out that as I have typed all of this out I have said everything in my mind with an accent. Well technically not an accent I just keep ending my sentences going up like it’s an exclamation… It bugged me at first but now I’m constantly talking that way & literally can’t stop. It’s pretty funny. It’s like we were made to speak this way or something. Haha

Blessings from Uganda Africa, & may your light shine so bright for all the world to see!
~c.b.

My 4 essentials for Africa.

Here I am less than 7 hours away from leaving for our flight to africa.
I'm afraid I will forget something. But then I realized that I only need 4 things.
If I only had these 4 things. I think my trip would be the same no matter if I lost my luggage or not, or if I forgot..... my underwear... haha just kidding.
anyways. Here are my 4 essentials for my africa trip. Everything else I can go without.
of course i need my bible. And this one is small enough to fit into my camera backpack. Cool. huh!!
So here is my camera bag. You can't see 2 compartments which are holding another lens and some other random things. I sure do love my new backpack. Which my bible fits perfectly in!!

My 3rd thing that is an essential for this trip would be....
my new mp3 player. I don't like the fact that I have a mp3 player. I feel like I'm cheating on mac right now. But it was the best i could do for the money i had. I'm just blessed to have something to listen to while i'm on the plane!!
The last thing is my new shirt i just made. Sorry it's backwards i took the picture with the computer and it turns everything around.

So here it is... my 4 essentials for Africa. This is really all I need.
My Bible to spread the joy of my Savior.
My Camera to document all the faces of Africa that need our help.
My mp3 player for my sanity! and maybe even sharing some good tunes with an African.
And lastly my LOVE t-shirt.

Were hoping to have internet while we are there. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get it at least a couple of times.
Please pray for the 5 of us (Duke, Paul, Jerrod, Mike & me) and also in a week my old pastor from oklahoma (Nick) & his daughter (Amy, who is the wife of my youth pastor growing up) will be going to kenya (just next door to uganda)
May we take each step with the Lord's guidance. And I pray our hearts and voices will be filled with His words & songs.

Lord may there be more of you and less of me!

1 relaxing day!

well. today have been non-eventful and lazy so far. It's now 12:20pm I'm still in my P.J's and ipod is apparently still sleepy! Surprised? didn't think so..

this was after i woke ipod up and took him outside.

this is me bored. why? you might ask. well.................

......this would be why i'm bored. Cause ipod fell asleep on my stomach while i was checking my e-mail.. how is that even comfortable??!! I don't know. but i feel so bad about moving that i'm now just sitting here waiting for something to wake him up. ha

Well were gearing up for our trip to africa. We leave in 7 days. We are SO excited! Ipod is excited cause he is going to go stay with grammy!! I'm going to be blogging about getting ready for the trip. So be prepared to be bored. haha just kidding!