Beth's Adventures in Mbarara Uganda

Four times a year, all Church of Christ Missionaries in Uganda get together, hence the name "quarterly meeting." This particular meeting was supposed to be held during election week back in February, but instead got pushed to the last weekend in March.

So, the main reason for heading out to Mbale was for business, but it ended up being one of the most fun times I've had since being here in Uganda. I mean, I had a FANTASTIC time! Left one Thursday right after school and stopped in Kampala for the night. LOVE Darla for housing us ALL THE TIME! Not the best night of sleep though, because power was out, there were tons of mosquitoes and I was HOT! No big deal though...

Next morning headed out with Darla and Mark (after spending several hours at the airport trying to pick up someone's lost luggage) to Mbale. Arrived at the "teachers' house" around 5 and then went out to Oasis for dinner. GREAT food, great company, great time in general! Power was out, but when we got back, we hung out and played some crazy games or something. Slept well...with a mosquito net!

Saturday morning we went walking and then to a coffee factory. I am in LOVE with that place. I could live there...mmmm...the smell of fresh coffee!! Anyhow, it was fun (check out my pictures: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bethellent/my_photos) to learn about the process the coffee bean goes through to become drinkable! We bought some coffee and I even got to help pack my beans into a bag. The lady would not let me use the big special heat sealer machine, but it's all good...

So then we made a quick stop at the market (check out the picture of the fish just chilling!), had a late lunch and then dinner and then went to a time of worship. Went back with our wonderful hostesses (Becca, Jamie, and Rachel) and played some more games and then went to bed.

Sunday was church, followed by a catered lunch with everyone and then our business meeting (not so much fun). Ran around town and helped prepare dinner for all the singles, which our hostesses graciously provided. Went to a special thingy for the Shelbournes who have been here TEN YEARS, followed by a game night.

Monday, we went walking again and then to Sisyi Falls...not really sure if I'm spelling it right, but you pronounce it CC falls. Anyhow, a very lovely day. Weather couldn't have been better, nor the company. There are lots of pictures of this beautiful place on my pictures sight, so make sure you check them out! There were lots of monkeys just flying through the trees, and there were some cool looking lizards, not to mention the interesting looking trees and the cactus growing on top of a huge boulder! There were Tarzan-like vines hanging down from some of the trees and roots that you could climb! So, great day overall! Then we went and got take-out from Oasis and went to play games with the Linda Tyler and Andrea Baker (husbands were all in Kenya at the Annual Men's Retreat). There, we determined (finally) my Meyer's-Briggs personality type: ENFP--in case you're wondering!

Tuesday was a school day. Andrea and I met with the "administrator" of their school (Danetta) to pick her brain. We had lunch at school with the teachers and then I spent the day working on school stuff. POWER actually came on at their house for the FIRST time since I had been there and stayed on about 5 hours!!!

Wednesday, school started with a devo, followed by games and water balloon tosses! Then we all (kids, teachers, moms, etc.) walked to the pool for the afternoon. That afternoon I went putt putt golfing with Andrea and the boys! Then we were supposed to have a ladies' Bible study or something but since power was out and the generator wasn't working right at the house we were supposed to go, they cancelled it. Fortunately, they didn't cancel it until after we piled in the back of the pick-up truck to go pick up Heidi. So we sat in the back of the truck and got to see the beautiful stars! Jamie and I even sang a song! Another great day!

Thursday was when we said goodbye to the Mbale girls and I headed back to Jinja with Andrea. There we met her husband, Jay, and the other guys for lunch at this Mexican restaurant, which was actually GOOD! Then I rode with a couple of guys to Kampala where Darla let me stay at her house AGAIN! We made pizza and attempted to make icecream, then we played cards with the Bakers and Mark Long and Scott Glisson. Pinnochle!!! I know you may not believe this, but this was my 7th great day in a row!!!

And that's essentially where my Mbale story ends....the rest of the trip involves going to Luwero to visit an orphanage....but that's a whole other story. Check back later for that....

Lots of people thought the question was too easy last week, so this week I'll give you a choice.

Answer any (or all) of the following:

A. If you could have free, unlimited service for 5 years from an extremely good cook, chauffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which would you choose?

B. Relative to the population at large, how do you rate your physical attractiveness? your intelligence? your personality?

C. Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?

For Easter, the Glissons hosted an early morning Missionary Fellowship. We met at 6:30 am for a sunrise service, followed by a time of fellowship and FOOD, of course! It really was a great time, even though it was pretty early. One thought that Scott shared was how we were celebrating Jesus' resurrection, and coming out of a time of darkness into the light and even more importantly, a new life! It just hit me and made sense why we were choosing to get up so early for a sunrise service...

After that, I went to town church, where I sang 2 new songs with the "choir." Lori has been trying to teach the Ugandans to sing in 4-part harmony and I was needed to help with the tenor--of all parts! I think things went well and God was praised! Service was much shorter than normal, getting out at 12:15! So I joined the Bakers for lunch at Agip. After lunch we went to the new building site. The progress they are making there is AMAZING! (If you want to see it, you can check out: http://www.ankolemission.com/bldgblog.htm)

I went home and had a nice little nap--my first in MONTHS! At first, I felt a little bad because power was on and I was feeling like I needed to do some things that involve power (laundry, for example). But, I gave in and decided to just have a day of rest!!!

Around 5 pm, I went to the Bakers, where Lori, David, and Sarah also joined us for an Easter egg hunt. After the kids found the eggs, they hid them for Jay, Andrea, Lori and I to find. It was fun! Then we made tacos for dinner, which we got to enjoy in candlelight, because the power went out.

When I walked home, the sky was clear and beautiful with so many stars. Everything was quiet, except the wind blowing through the palm tree leaves and the night insects and birds (and the occasional barking of the Bakers' dogs!). A little while later, it got a little cloudy, but the moon started to rise in the sky and lit the night quite wonderfully. I tried to get some pictures of it. Some don't look TOO bad, but unfortunately they don't even come close to capturing the beauty that I was blessed to witness.

Overall, the Lord blessed my Easter with a beautiful sunrise, meaningful worship, peaceful relaxation, and great friends throughout the day. Hope yours was just as wonderful!

p.s. I've tried about 8 times to upload some pictures, but the internet seems to be temperamental....so I'll just try again tomorrow!

I've recently decided that I'm not the best at keeping in touch with many friends and family members at "home." So what I'm going to do is try to email a question out each week that hopefully people will answer....just to try to stay in touch. Might be silly, but who cares? If even a fourth of the people respond--WOW--I'd just love to hear from people!

In case you don't get my email question of the week, maybe I'll try to post one here too.

Ready for question #1? (Feel free to respond here or email me!)

For a person you loved deeply, would you be willing to move to a distant country knowing there would be little chance of seeing your family or friends again?

During the month of March, we had a team worship time where we focused completely on the Lord’s Supper. It was really a meaningful time to me just because I was going through a rough time right then. We actually spent a good part of the time sharing past and current ideas about communion, i.e. what it is to us, where we got these ideas from, how we feel about it, etc. Overall, it was a great time to get to know my teammates; I really enjoyed communing with them, as well as communing with the Lord.

Last week, my students wrote “How To” papers. They were given the choice about what directions they wanted to write. Herin chose to write a paper explaining how to hard-boil an egg and Curt wrote about how to make a tuna fish sandwich. So on Friday, we had “Directions Day” where we graded the papers by following the directions and making ourselves lunch. You guessed it—tuna fish sandwiches and hardboiled eggs!! It went really well, although the tuna was REALLY salty! I guess 1 tsp. of season salt and 1 tsp. of garlic salt will do that!

One Saturday morning in March, we had a "missionary fellowship." This just means that ALL missionaries in Mbarara get together. All denominations and nationalities are invited and we just come together in unity to praise the same God. We also played a fun little game, where we tried to get to know each other better. Even though we all live in the same city, we don't cross paths much. The fellowship is always a great time to form new relationships with people who share a common passion for our Lord.

The month of March was a sad one in school as we said goodbye to 2 of our classmate. Kiho Sato went to Japan on a 6-month furlough. Also, Eric Choi moved with his family to Kampala so his father could continue working on his language lessons. I realized I had already posted some pictures and wrote about this after I added 18 more pictures and changed the name of the picture folder to "School Goodbyes in the Month of March." SORRY!

But let me tell you about the few extra pictures I added. There was a little going away party for the Satos before they left for Japan. That is one chunk of pictures. I also added 2 pictures from Kiho's last day of school with us. One is just of her and Herin swinging and one is a class picture of P4.

Another group is from a small going away party for Eric and his sister Crystin (in P2), which happened to fall on St. Patrick's Day. We ate lunch with P2 and played some games and then had a big cookie and a prayer circle for the Chois before they moved away.

We sure do miss Kiho and Eric!!!