The United States

It has officially been a week since we arrived back home from our almost month long trip in Uganda. The transition from Africa to the US was quite a culture shock. Being on the road on the right side instead of the left was the first difference. In Africa, you had to go to several shops to find all of the groceries you needed for cooking a decent meal. If we step into a grocery store here, we have almost every food we can imagine at our fingertips. The orphans were joyful when we wrote them a note on a thin piece of binder paper and treasured it as though their parents had written it. Here, kids get bored with one toy after a few hours and throw tantrums for more than they were given. In Africa the kids shared everything with one another, even the mums did too. In the US we strive to be individuals and fight for ourselves to gain our own personal wealth. I don't want to sound like I am bashing our country, but sometimes the precious thing we call "freedom," is really a crippling thing. I know I have taken it for granted. God has revealed Himself to each of us in so many unique ways. We got to see such joy coming from people who have experienced such tragic situations. My prayer is that all that I have learned and all that has shaped me from this trip will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Thank you for your prayers and support! If you have any questions about our trip or any comments at all, you can email me at portoricn_singer@surewest.net (It's my email from back in 7th grade haha)

So goodbye for now! God willing, I will be blogging from Uganda next summer! : )


(The pictures are only a few of the many from our safari)

Last day with our African family

Hey everyone!
So it’s been a while since I’ve written you. But I’m glad my mom got to update you all the other day on the Mums ministry stuff. So here is my tid-bit on the past few days. First off, Lira is such a different experience. The stories and lives each of the orphans and mums have had is very unique. Only five years ago, Joseph Kony and his army were here in Lira. Things got very shaken up and you can only try to imagine the kinds of things these people experienced. Anyways- God has used us in some pretty neat ways here. It took a while for the orphans and mums to warm up to us, but they finally did and it was pretty awesome. We got to spend time everyday with the Mums. Yesterday we had a tea party with them that ended in some intense prayer and worship. God takes hold of things and really shakes things up (in a good way.) God provided the words they needed to hear and the words we needed to hear as well. As well as the mums, we got to have VBS every day with the kids. They loved it! We taught them about David and how he became a king because God chose him. We taught about sin, forgiveness, and heaven. The kids started to get into it and began asking questions, which was cool to be apart of. Today was our last day in Lira and it was full of lots of fun. We went to church at the orphanage. There we sang, heard testimonies, and had a lesson taught by “Dr. Bruce” aka, Uncle Bruce. Later in the afternoon we came back for a presentation put on by the children. It was full of skits, poems, and even their very own choir! The kids did an amazing job… and their dance moves put all of us to shame. You can see in one of these pictures, my attempt to dance like these kids. Though I was no pro, it was so fun and the kids loved seeing the “mazungus” dance. We had to say our goodbyes- gees do I hate those. I fell in love. With Africa… with the mums… and with all of the precious children.

Well as we transition from leaving the orphanage, we will be traveling tomorrow to take a mini Safari for two days. On Wednesday we will be meeting up with the rest of the team for one last day of shopping and fellowship. We fly out of Africa on Thursday night (so Thursday morning U.S. time) so if you could please pray for a safe journey that would be much appreciated… cause I would love to come back to this awesome place in the near future ☺

We love you all and look forward to sharing more of this journey with you in person!

In Him,
Karlie

Lira (Pam's blog)

Pam’s Blog:
As Karlie shared with you, 10 of us loaded up a bus and headed for Liar early Tuesday morning of this week. Being on the roads is quite a hair raising experience here in Uganda but God has provided a very wonderful, safe bus driver, Robert, who has driven us every where the last three weeks. We are in Northern Uganda which was about a 5 hour drive from Seeta. There is a orphanage here, as well, run by Christian Life Ministries. They do not get as many visitors up here so the team we came with from the US always tries to make a point to come up and bring needed items as well as lead mum’s bible studies, bible school for the kids and do a building project. Our construction team consists of 4 men, which Steve and Kirk are part of (Bruce & Adam are the other two for those that know them). They have been working on expanding the building that serves as a kitchen for the orphanage. They are adding stoves that will continue to be fueled by fire and wood. The kitchen will have better ventilation and help the cook, Francis, not have so much smoke around him while he works. The team has been enjoying working alongside local Ugandan construction workers. The rest of our team, 7 women, which Karlie, Kristin, & I are part of, have been leading mum’s bible study in the mornings and VBS for the kids in the afternoon. I had the privilege of teaching about Ruth (my personal favorite of women of the Bible) and Karlie and Kristin taught the kids about David & Goliath yesterday. Needless to say, we are pooped out each night by the time we get back to our guest house. This guest house is right across the street from the orphanage and is so convenient to come back and forth from. The whole staff is so friendly and taking very good care of us.

This orphanage is very different in many ways from the one in Seeta. The most obvious difference is that there are only 110 kids and 9 mums here versus 900 kids and 64 mums down south. So, we noticed it is more calm and quiet here. The mums here are very young and all of them are young enough to be my daughters. Their ages range from 20 - 29 years old and two of the mums have been here 5 years. Can you imagine raising 12 children ages 5 - 17 years old when you are a child yourself? Because of the war that this area experienced not too many years ago, a few of these mums were brought out of refugee camps to come work at the orphanage. Just today after our luncheon for them here at our guest house, we heard many tearful testimonies of these young girls and the hardships they’ve experienced during and after the war. Many have lost dreams of going to university because of finances. It is $1,000 to attend for a year, but the average annual income here in Uganda is $1,800, which I’m sure the mums don’t even come close to making. Many are responsible for providing tuition for younger siblings making it harder to save for their own education (all grades have a tuition - no free public education). It was heart wrenching to realize these young women haven’t had the opportunity to have a mom raise them, love them, and teach them. They just were thrown into adulthood at a very young age. I just want to scoop them all up, bring them home, and be their mom. After three days with them, they have just begun to warm up to us. I think they are a bit more skeptical of outsiders and have seemed more shut down because of what they have witnessed in their lives. But, again, at the end of each of their testimonies, they gave glory to God for providing them mum jobs. They are thankful for the food, shelter, and small pay check they receive because they know it could be worse.

Wow! what is my worse day back in America? Do I have to worry about getting sick from malaria (which many of the mums and children have), or even Typhoid which they are starting to see here, or do I need to worry about the stub toe I have that has gotten so infected because I don’t have the proper bandages or ointment to put on and I live in dirt, or will my flip flops hold up a whole year until the Muzungus (white people) come back with more, or the one dress I own has a broken zipper and is getting to short because I’m growing too tall, or the football (soccer) I got from the team last year lasted only a couple months because I play all the time with my friends on dirt, or . . . it goes on and on! But these Ugandans still find joy in the small things. Things that make them smile: mums getting their very own gift bags of shavers, lotions, fingernail polish, underwear, towels, soap, etc. or gently used skirts from team members (they let us know if they have their eye on a particular skirt of ours), or just sitting down and talking with them (they like this best). What makes the kids smile: coloring with crayons that we brought for them, cutting with scissors (which they don’t have here), playing soccer with team members and if a conventional football is not around, the boys make a ball from many plastic sacks wound up together or an old sock stuffed with trash, seeing their image in a picture we just took on a digital camera (they don’t have mirrors) and they love just hanging out and holding hands with us. Today it struck me how creative these kids get with so little. I saw two little girls playing chinese jump rope with plastic sacks stretched really tight and tied together. They were having a blast together. It made my heart happy. I better close, it is 10:30 pm Uganda time. I’ll go to sleep with a smile on my face as I reflect on my day and am thankful, once again, that I’m here!!!!

-Pam

On the road again...

We are sitting in the lobby of the hotel in Seeta waiting for our bus to arrive. In a few minutes, ten of us will be headed to Lira where we will spend the rest of our trip. What is in Lira? -you ask. Well, there is a small orphanage of one hundred kids who don’t get visitors very often. Based off what I’ve heard from other group members, the kids in Lira have even a rougher past than those in Seeta. I can’t imagine what that means, but we will find out here in the next few days!
Before we embark on the next adventure, let me update you on the past few days… Saturday was a fun-filled day for the Ukids team. We got to attend a Ugandan wedding! Long story short, one of our team members, Levi, fell in love with one of the translators from the orphanage and decided to marry her. Levi and Winnie (his now wife) got married at Christian Life Church, and then had their 5+ hour-long reception at Livingstone Gardens in a university. It was so neat to see the traditions.
The past few days at the orphan village have been truly amazing. It has made it so hard to say goodbye to all the kids. If I weren’t completely crammed for time, I would tell you more, but they are loading up the bus now so I’ll have to fill you in later (IF the internet in Lira allows)!
Thank you for your prayers and for making it possible for us to experience this amazing place!

In Him,
Karlie

Mum's Day

Pam’s Blog: A team of 7 women including myself just wrapped up a week long Bible Study for 22 Mums. We studied 5 women of the bible and memorized scripture to go with the lessons on a daily basis. We’d begin our meetings with praise and worship and wow! do these women know how to praise God. They sing beautifully and with such life. They clap and even dance while they make incredible music without any instruments. It is an amazing experience. After the group lesson, we’d break up into small groups to have discussion. My ladies were Eunice, Betty, Beatrice and Hope. The first day they were very shy and I had to establish a rapport with them. Since three spoke only Lugandan, Eunice, whose english skills are very good, translated for me. By the middle of the week they were loving on me and hugging me. Kristin came down with a fever and stomach issues on Sunday. I shared this with my ladies and asked for their prayers for Kristin. Kristin came by the study a couple days later and thanked them personally for their prayers. They got so excited and began touching and hugging her. Right away, they said it is not to our glory but God’s! They are such incredible ladies who love the Lord very much. I visited each one of them in their homes this week and they are so proud to show me their children’s (orphans) rooms, as well as, their own. We would customarily sit on a mat in their room and visit. I had each one of them tell me their testimony. Each one of these women have experienced such hardships in their lives but don’t dwell on that part but how God provides for them and His love,instead. As I write this, my eyes are filling with tears as I reflect on each of their genuine faith in the Lord. They are such warm people that love to touch and hug and give words of affirmation and love to me. I am blessed to call them my sisters and friends in Uganda. They will always remain in my heart as precious women. Today, as a culmination of our week together with all the women, our team treated them to a special day at our hotel. They arrived by bus this morning in their best dresses. They were so excited as if they were children getting off a bus to go to Disneyland. Then we treated them to a manicure and pedicure each. Karlie and Kristin had the privilege of doing this and making these women feel very special. We then had a beautiful catered lunch for them and I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen women eat so much. They piled their plates and even went back for seconds. These women’s diet consists of mostly only starchy food at the orphanage and they get meat only once a month. So, you can imagine when they are offered chicken, beef, and fish all at one time, what their plates looked like. It was hard to imagine where these thin women were putting this quantity of food. We sent them home with a gift back of soap, finger nail clippers, lotion, and shaver. You thought we gave them a million dollars. The simplest of gifts are a treasure here! One women said to us, “This is like Christmas to us!” The mums look forward to this day for one full year. The entire day struck an emotional cord in me as I stopped to realize how we have so much in America. We are a blessed nation! It is hard to explain the poverty here until you experience it first hand. Often, I stop to cry as something I’ve seen breaks my heart and the helplessness I feel not being able to fix it all for these dear friends. This is an amazing experience and I’m so excited God brought me to Uganda to continue my journey in growing in Him. And wow, He is working in my life as I watch these people praise God. They don’t measure His love by what they do and don’t have, they just see Him as The Great Provider and go to Him for everything they need. Thank you for your prayers for our family!!!!!