Furlough Plan

There is just under 2 months left until I fly into Grand Junction for the beginning of my furlough. I love my work here, but I am very excited to see my family, friends, church and my supporters. I will be again working on my support base and would love to visit with you. Please feel free to email me for scheduling time together. Cost of living here has doubled and in some instances tripled. I will try to work some while home to offset funding. I will spend lots of time with my family. My kids, grand kids, siblings, my mother and my dear church family. I love you all and Praise God for your prayers, love and support. Can you believe that nearly 3 years ago I came to this country intending only to be here for 2 weeks. It is amazing to me that the direction of my life so changed for the better. WOW!! If your interested, I will be flying into Walker Field (Grand Junction Airport) on June 27, at 9:30 AM. Would love to see you and hug you.

Life at Amani Baby Cottage and beyond...

Hi Dear Ones;
I pray your all well and safe. Praise God for His goodness. I am so blessed to be working and serving here in Uganda. I stay very busy all the time it seems. In fact, right now, I am busy acting as midwife again on the side. I delivered a beautiful baby girl for another missionary couple last Thursday morning and everything turned out great. Our Director Danyne Bharj is nearing her delivery. We are in Kampala the capitol city right now currently waiting it out. Were in Kampala because of the unreliable transportation and road conditions from Jinja to here. She is making progress but not currently in active labor yet.
The kids at the baby home are doing great. They are healthy and happy, or at least as much as possible for Uganda. People do not realize just how healthy and happy these kids really are. While it can never take the place of a real home with a mommie and daddie, it really is a great place. These kids get three nutritious meals everyday. I manage their health and they get medicines when needed and vitamin supplements every day. When they need something, it is usually there. Even though it is a third world country here, we are blessed to be able to provide a safe, loving haven for these precious children. I will admit that they do thrive and grow faster once they get to traditional homes (those that are fostered or adopted), but these children are not lacking.
We have received children that were severely malnourished or sick with malaria or something when they arrived, but given a few days or weeks we not only get them as healthy as possible but we fatten them up and give them really good nutrition. Lately, it has gotten even better. I spent many hours creating a nutritional plan for these kids that would provide them with as good a diet as they will ever get here. It truly provides from all the essential food groups. We recently were able to decrease the amount of posho (corn flour paste which has virtually NO nutrition) in their diet and replace it with Lentils (which is extremely nutritional).
The kids also spend time learning, playing, interacting and receiving lots of love and attention from the mommas, volunteers and the administrative staff. They truly enjoy their lives here. They laugh and play and interact like all children do. When they are disobedient or naughty they are disciplined properly.
We so love raising these kids while waiting for real families to claim them and make them a part of their family.
We have a few special needs kids that really need a good family as well. Amani Baby Cottage truly is a place of "PEACE".

Tax Day today, but... who will you touch for good

Well for those of you stateside, if you havent already done your taxes, today is the day!! It is the official day for TAX DA Y!! Just in case none of you don't already know this, your friendly foreign field missionary is letting you know!! HA HA. I really just wanted you to know that I love you all and I am praying always that God would bless you and that HE would enlarge your territories.

I think of all the people that have come through my life or been a part of it in some way. We all in some small way, are a part of the kingdom. NO ONE is greater than the next, yet we all can be blessed and can be a blessing.

We touch people in ways we don't even know. How we touch them is the important thing. How we act and use our words. What we do and say. What we publish online, which is read by many. I want to try and live out those words and pratice what I preach. I pray that my actions will always speak louder than my words.

When I sit before God one day, I want Him to say "Well Done, thou good and faithful Servant...You have been faithful in small things, now I will give you many".

I am a sinner saved by grace and I am humbled before God Almighty. Wow!! I know NO eloguent words to accurately describe what I feel about His presence in my life. I only know that He is here and that brings me great joy. I want that for everyone.

Today, I am going to do my best to love whoever I see. The loveable and the unloveable. Some people rub you the wrong way and some people you just cant wait to be around just another day. While accomplishing what I need to do for the day for me, I pray that I faithfully show the love of God in my actions. If I can be a help to someone, even if it seems to be in the smallest way, yet may help them tremendously, then I pray I can do that.

We have a man that does the majority of the driving or hired driving for us. If he himself is not the driver then at least he finds us someone who will. He is honest and reasonable and does everything he can to please us and protect us. He is a joy to be around. He is muslim but is very open to the gospel. He hears it fromALL OF US ALL THE TIME. I keep thinking that with all the christian souls he has had in the car of his, one of these days, he will just decide that he wants to be a part of it himself. Many seeds have been planted in him and I know they will one day, come to fruition. One of the parents that has already gone back stateside with their newly adopted child even gave him an Ugandan Bible. The driver surprised the parent by telling him, that he had one. (We all thought he did not have one). He has even read parts of it. He studied it some with the Koran.

Oh the rejoicing in Heaven, when one soul reaches out and says "Take me and save me"!!

So today, who will you love, who will you uplift and edify? Who's back will you pat and say, "Good Job" Even if you do not feel like it? YOU know that is what your suppose to do. Rejoice in one another and uplift one another. Be thankful to those, who have helped you and been there, even if you do not realize it or want to.

All of us have had someone that helped us along. Let us all be willing to share in a blessing!!

Today, I am thankful for my children and my home churches and those of you who support me financially. I love you all and am grateful to God for each of you. I love you all. I am thankful for Danyne, our director, who has worked tirelessly for the last nearly 5 years to keep a loving, safe, healthy haven for these children. For Debbie who works hard administrating all of it. For Ditte, who is working hard at Coordinating all the current fostering. I am thankful to each and every lady (Ugandan) that works for us at Amani. I pray for their homes an loved ones. I pray for all the volunteers and parents that are here working on adoptions. I pray they see the good we do and the love we have for these kids. I pray for their safety in traveling back with these kids we have nutured.

SO in saying, I will close saying GOD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU AND MAKE HIS FACE TO SHINE UPON YOU AND GIVE YOU PEACE!! I love you and Praise God for you!!

Gift Day at Amani for the Kids

I am blogging twice today to play "catch up" on events. We have a wonderful family, who was one of the first families ever to adopt from Amani Baby Cottage, bless us with some great gifts. Every year they have a fundraising Christmas Party with their friends and raise money for the baby home. This year we took part of that money and had some yard toys purchased and sent to us. Another missionary group had a container sent over and we were able to get those toys onto their container.

The day we presented them to the kids was so fun, and we totally enjoyed watching their faces and see them enjoy these toys. Thank God for this family. Every day since our kids have enjoyed these toys and we have enjoyed playing with them. Here are a few pictures for you to see our 'gifts'. Blessings to you all today.

Ressurection Sunday Sunrise Service

Hello Dear Ones;
It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged. I've not had much time for getting online much less blog. I pray your all well and safe. Blogging tends to be way down on my priority list. I apologize. Going back a couple of weeks, we had a wonderful Sunrise Service here on my front lawn on Resurrection Sunday. It was a rainy weekend, and in fact was cold enough that I actually put on long sleeves and socks.!! Perish the thought!! It had rained most of the night before and stopped only about 5 AM. Sunrise service was scheduled for 6:30AM. That gave us just enough time to clean up the chairs and benches we laid out the night before on the lawn before it started raining and get things set up. Most of it was set up and ready the day before. Unfortunately, it was load shutting and we did not have power so I had to make Canyon Coffee. You campers will know what that is. Everyone was scheduled to bring something for the potluck breakfast that would immediately follow the service.
The service was beautiful and the sky breathtaking. We had some Praise and Worship time lead by Ryan McCabe and I. He is a fellow missionary here with Calvary Chapel. Then we had a time of Communion led by another fellow missionary with IMB, Rob Davis. Then I sang a song for a special and then Jesse Chance, missionary with Global Outreach, gave a mini sermon. We closed with another Praise and Worship song. It was glorious and a beautiful time for us to come together and celebrate the risen saviour. We had about 30 people including the children who braved the early morning.
Not less than 45 minutes after we had everything cleaned up and we were on our way to church for service it started raining again. It rained hard and continuously for the rest of the day. I wish I had a picture to include with this, but I just didn't think about taking photos. I was so blessed just to be a part of this beautiful time together. I pray your Easter was blessed and that God blessed you. Debbie and Sonia and I took lunch at the Palm Tree with Danyne and a couple of other friends and then went home and just Vegged the rest of the day. As it was pouring down rain, it was a great day for reading, resting, and curling up with a blanket. I thought it felt so great to be cold.