How many Indians does it take to drill a well?

We leave tonight at 10. Part of me is excited to go home, but most of me wishes I could stay for another month... or six.

The bush was a ton of fun, but also tested our patience. We waited for three more days for the drillers to come. They finally came on Monday evening, thankfully. It was an amazing sight. Everyone in the village came running and they sang and danced as the huge trucks came through. They sang, "Webale Yesu, Webale yesu, Webale Mukwano"... Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus, Thank you friends.

I have to admit that it was hard for me not to get teary eyed. I know people back home have been praying for and waiting for a miracle while we we've been here, by far, this was it.

Now I bet you're wondering about the interesting title to this blog. It's truly a testament to the miraculous well drilling experience as a whole. After waiting for three weeks (yes, John did in fact book the drillers to be in Rwenjiri on the 26th of June) the first team finally arrived to tell us that after drilling the borehole we would have to wait even longer (until after we left the village) for the finishing team to come from Kampala and complete the pump.

As it stands, the village is still without water.

BUT.... theres a 300ft borehole waiting there capable of producing 1849 liters of water per hour (this is an above average amount). We're currently waiting for the finishing team to put in the pump and the concrete pad around the well.

So, within the next week, worms, parasites, water-borne bacteria, and scummy water will be a thing of the past for a little village in the middle of the African wilderness. The unbelievably cute children will no longer have fat tummies and will no longer have to walk down a huge hill to get water twice a day. Though this is one of thousands of villages in all of Africa that don't have a well, it's been a life changing improvement for the 5,000+ people that will benefit.

I'd like to thank all of you for your support, some for your monetary contributions, and most of all for your prayers. They have been so appreciated and have no doubt been fruitful.

I guess I'll see most of you in the next few days.

God Bless

TIA

If you've seen the movie Blood Diamond you'll remember one of Leonardo DiCaprio's lines in response to anything bad happening..."TIA"- THIS IS AFRICA.

(Resty, Joyce, and Joseph)

This has been our slogan for the trip. One thing everyone notices when they first arrive in Uganda is the time difference. I'm not talking about the actual ten hour time difference... I'm talking about African time and American time. You know, Americans are always fast and get out and get 'em types of people. When we want to go somewhere we get our act together and go. When we say be somewhere at 10am we expect the person to be there at 10am. Not so much here in Africa. By rule of thumb, when we say 10am (of course the Ugandans agree to 10am) we end up having to wait for at least two hours.

So, when the well drillers say they'll be to Rwenjiri by Sunday, they actually mean Wednesday, and once Wednesday (Today) comes around they actually mean some other day.

So this is the state of things. The well drillers are late.

(The alleyway behind the Church)

On the brighter side of things, we went to a school in Lusaka today. The children were exceedingly cute. We gave out books again and of course they sang and clapped for us. One class, the baby class of four and five year olds, stuck out to me the most. They sang this song about how they love Jesus- it even had solo parts and a little dance at the end.

I've been taking a ton of pictures. I'm so excited to show everyone- too bad it takes about fifteen minutes to upload one picture. I've taken upwards of 800 pictures so far and still have four gigs of space left on my cards. My new camera was well worth the investment.

The weather here in Kampala has been rather nice lately. Unfortuantley it isn't the weather that's hindering the well drilling. But apart from that we've been enjoying it. I even got a tan- or so I thought. Just a few minutes ago I was surprised to find out that my tan was actually dirt! Not just any dirt, but the dirt that lands on you and sticks, even if you take showers. Uck. I had to scrub my arm for about a minute before the dirt finally started coming off. I'm definitley taking a much longer shower tonight.

Ok, have to go now. We're about to go see a movie here at Garden City- the Belle Square of Kampala.

Some More Pictures

It's about 5:00pm here and we just got back from the primary school at Troas. We had a lot of fun. It's about a two hour ride there from Kampala and we stayed there for about five hours. We spent the day handing out the books raised by Kimberly's book drive. There were seven classes of about 30 children and we were able to give each class about 10 books. The books will help alot to teach the children English.

Also, we handed out gifts sent to sponsor children from their sponsors. I think three or four of the kids received care packages of clothes, school supplies, and 50 kilo bags of rice from their sponsor. One boy even got a bike! They were all overjoyed- even the ones who didn't get care packages.

The ones who didn't even have sponsors were happy too- just to have the new books in their classrooms. It is surprising though to see how many aren't sponsored. The ones who are sponsored were chosen because they are the poorest or were orphaned. Still, the ratio of sponsored to not is quite large. Only about 25 were sponsored and upwards of 150 weren't. We're working to spread the word to get more sponsored.

I'm very excited to leave for the bush on Friday. The city has been wearing on us all. The exhaust, dust, and mosquitoes are quite overwhelming. The mosquitoes are much fewer in the bush, as there is less standing water. I won't be able to post when I'm out there but I will have access to a phone if anything happens to us.

We haven't heard much from John, Woody, and Sam in Rwenjiri. Pastor Wilson's house seems to be nearing completion, over budget but complete still the same. Please keep the Calhouns' sponsor child, Dativa, in your prayers. Apparently when John went to see her in Rwenjiri her and her entire family have come down with some sort of bug and Dativa has a bad case of worms in her gut. We've bought antibiotics and deworming medicine and will be taking them to her on Friday, but still keep them in your prayers.

The problem seen in Dativa and her family illustrates the absolute need for clean water in the villages. Also keep in your prayers the weather and the well drillers - that the roads are dry and the drilling goes smoothly

The other day I went shopping for my parent's sponsor child. His name is Lubanjwa Bashir. I haven't met him yet but will have the chance in Rwenjiri next week. I think he too will be overwhelmed. I got him a big bucket and filled it with some necessities like cooking oil, sugar, salt, tea, coffee, some school supplies, and also a bag of rice. The woman who cooks for us says the 50 kilos should last a family for six to eight months. I'm very excited to give the stuff to him!

Tomorrow we're off to the school in Lusaka to do the same stuff we did today.

If anyone from the church sees this, I got a chance to see the Burch's child as well as the Spears' and Kirshner's. They are all doing very well and were busy today writing them letters to send back with Kimberly.

Take care!

A picture is a thousand words? Try a million?

I only had a few minutes... so I added this picture. Hopefully this gives a good idea of life in Kampala.

It in fact didn't rain like we thought it would. Today was bone dry with clear skies! The well will be drilled, but a bit later than planned. So we may not be able to see it before we leave.

Pray for dry weather!

Hello all-

The last day or so has been truly exciting. We spent all Wednesday getting ready for John and Woody to leave on Thursday morning and they had so much stuff they ended up having to take two vans! On a whim I decided to go with pastor Moses and one of the Ugandans named Joseph to drop John and Woody off in Rwenjiri (The village in the bush). It turned out to be a very interesting decision.

The worst part is that I made the assumption that since it hadn't rained for a day in Kampala the roads would be dry and that wearing flip flops and board shorts would be ok. Wrong. The four hour drive out there was a lot of fun. We were all in the vans laughing and talking and having a good time. The roads themselves were dry and dusty but we did get stuck once in a giant mud puddle. We had all the guys with us so it only took a few minutes to get un-stuck.

With only a small delay we arrived first in Kamusenene before heading off to Rwenjiri. Kamusenene is the town that has our first working well, and I got to check it out. When John and Woody came in November their goal was to drill in Rwenjiri, but due to rain they couldn't get the truck all the way out there and had to settle for drilling in Kamusenene instead.

The well was amazing. It was truly a blessing to see so many children with their jerry cans lined up to get the clean water just within walking distance of their houses. Without the well they would be walking miles to filthy mud holes with contaminated run-off water. I even took a sip, it was delicious.

Once we arrived in Rwenjiri it was great to see some friends that actually remembered me from last year. Work on pastor Wilson's house took astonishing pace before we arrived. I expected to see a one bedroom brick building- as it would be a great improvement from the one bedroom, tattered, decomposing, mud and straw hut he was living in before. But, to my disbelief there was a large two bedroom house with a kitchen, bathroom, and livingroom. I have to admit that if I ever moved to Uganda I could easily and would be willing to live in the house we're building for him. This building is a sign of things to come for this poor villiage in the middle of the Ugandan wilderness. Water is very soon to come and hopefully electricity and more residents will come as well.

Now, the drive back was very different from the drive there. There were only Moses, Joseph, and I in one van following Sam Lawrence's uncle in another van. We were peacefully driving पस्त Kamusenene on the horribly unmaintained road when......

ok so Kimberly just came in the door of the Cafe and the clouds seem to be rolling in. Eminent torrential rain will ensue. So i've got to go. I'll be back tomorrow to finish the story. Sorry :(

Please pray that the drill truck can make it out to Rwenjiri tomorrow. People need this well and honestly think they're cursed because we're tried three times already. Please pray.

Strange eats

I had crocodile for lunch! We went to an Indian place for lunch and had Crocodile Tikka Masala, it was fantastic!

Today has been a good day. It's about 4:30pm here and we've had a full day of shopping. It looks like John and Woody will be able to go to the bush on time so we had to buy all their supplies. We bought some mattresses as well as some food for some of the sponsor children that live out there.

The weather hasn't gotten much better. It was much warmer and muggier than yesterday but has drizzled on and off for most of the day.

We've all gotten mostly acclimated with the change in time.... thanks to the aids of modern medicine ;) . I took a few tylenol pm last night. Though I woke up at about 3am I went back to sleep in just an hour and slept until 8 or so. I should get a full night of sleep tonight and be ready to do some work.

John, Woody, and Sam will leave in the morning and Kim. Jessica and I should be able to get to one of the schools and hand some stuff out.

I'll be in touch in the next few days, take care!

Arrived Safely

Hey everyone-

I'm in an internet cafe at the one mall in Uganda and I only have seven minutes left, so I'll be fast.

The first night went well. I got a little bit of sleep but we're all pretty tired this morning. It's rainy and windy here, so the trip to the bush for John and Woody will most likely be postponed. Overall it's great to be back. I'm so excited for what we're going to be doing.

I only have three minutes and it will take that long to post... the internet is quite slow. I'll try to make a trip back to one of the cafes closer to the apartment later tonight.

Happy independence day!

In Amsterdam

I'm in Amsterdam! It's about 8:15 in the morning here... about 10:30 in the evening in Seattle. It's rainy and cold.

The flight here was relativley good. It was about nine and a half hours total. I slept for the first two hours and played Mah Jong and read scientific american the rest of the time. Since I slept a bit I'm ready for another 8 hour flight. It'll be about 8:00 in the evening in Kampala when I get there so if I don't sleep on this next flight I'll be ready to konk once I get there.

Amsterdam is cool. I could defintitley come back and visit. I'm very thankful though for all the no smoking laws in the states... my lungs feel a bit like dying right now.

I probably won't be posting again until Wednesday or Thrusday once I get into Kampala and get settled.

Departure- 14 hours

I leave at 1:00 pm tomorrow afternoon.

If you believe in prayer, please pray for a safe flight with no hassles or delays. If you don't pray, please send happy thoughts... very happy thoughts.

Departure- 4 days

Hey everyone! I leave in less than 72 hours!

Everything is coming together quite nicely! I was getting worried that all my stuff wouldn't be able to fit in my one carry-on suitcase but thankfully it did. (All thanks to space-bags... they really work!)

If you haven't seen the movie Last King of Scotland, I would recommend it. It's shot in Uganda and will give you an idea of what type of place I'll be staying at and a bit of background about Uganda.

I'll hopefully be landing sometime late Tuesday night and won't be able to get to a computer until Wednesday. I do hope to post a blog while in the airport in Amsterdam, so keep checking the site!

Departure-26 days

If you've made it to this site, congratulations! You've reached my blog!

This year I'll be spending most of my time in the city and I'll have much easier access to the internet. If I don't post blogs, it means something terrible has happened, or I'm having way too much fun!! ;)

I'm getting uber stoked for this trip! It was such a blessing to even be given the opportunity to go! If you don't know what exactly we'll be doing over there, let me give you a brief run-down...

There will be five of us going this time and we'll be split up for the bulk of our stay in Uganda. These five include John, Kimberly, Jessica, Woody, and I.

John and Woody will spend the entirety of their time in the bush working on the well in Rwenjiri and building Pastor Wilson a new brick/concrete home. Kim, Jessica, and I will be around Kampala for two weeks and in Rwenjiri for one week.

While in Kampala I'll be helping Kim and Jessica with a book drive for some local schools as well as visits with the sponsor children of members of our church in North Bend. As well, many schools around the Valley have sponsored children and donated books so I'll be videotaping the book drive and videotaping thank yous to show the US schools on our return. I'll also be interviewing Ugandan teachers and older students to further fundraising in the future.

This trip will be another amazing experience, and I'm so thankful for everyone who's had a part in contributing to my being able to go.

Until next time--