Saturday, May 3, 2008 - continued

NOTE: I was going to put some final pictures on BUT I can't get my computer to upload them from home......go figure!

After I finished bloging, we decided to walk through the town to see some of the sights.....not much to see downtown.

We inquired about the Botanical Gardens and was given directions. They said a short walk.....to them, yes. But, we finally made it. The cost wasn't great but they charged for each camera that you had. We walked around to see the different trees and such from all over the world. And, of course, monkeys. They would come right up to you wanting something...and follow you, hoping for a handout. We walked through the park area, down to the beach (on Lake Victoria) and through the picnic area. There were four families having a cookout/picnic and they were all playing soccer and it was fun to sit and watch them as one of the guys would make a good play and their family would cheer - another and their family would cheer. I loved their names of the families....Jacob...Issac...Abraham and Job. We even saw them sneaking a picture of Barbara and I on their cell phones. We were there a couple of hours and started walking back to the guest house. We were probably 3 miles from the home and it was hot and humid.....We were happy to
arrive and sit under a fan for awhile. After cooling off, we decided to order food at the guest house. We placed our order (just chicken and chips-fries) at 5:45pm and waited and waited and waited...finally at 8:10pm, we received our food - 2 and 1/2 hours later. We were ready to leave but we were "home" so we had to wait it out. After we ate, we decided to read a little and then to bed. Around midnight, a group of kids from Sweden came in and decided to have a meeting just outside our window....so sleep was erratic.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Our last day in Uganda. We slept in and found the power was off sometime during the night. We got up late and had our Bible study and took cold showers and repacked. We were running out of shillings and we didn't want to convert more money so we had snacks for breakfast and lunch to save the money for dinner. Sol and Jose arrived about 2pm (they are flying back to New Jersey for their daughter's wedding) and we had a very nice visit with them. They were also taking over our room. We sat around and talked and ordered our Food at 4pm so we could eat at 6pm since we were leaving at 7pm to catch our flight. We really enjoyed our time with them and made new friends. At 7pm, our taxi arrived and we headed to the airport. Our flight was at 10:20pm and they wanted us there 3 hours early. We got checked in in 30 minutes so we sat around for 2 and 1/2 hours waiting to leave. Finally, our flight left. The flight was good and uneventful.

Monday, May 5, 2008

We arrived in Amsterdam at 5:30am and searched out some "comfort chairs" - lounge-like chaises for resting and catching a little sleep. We didn't sleep much on the plane and we had 7 and 1/2 hours in Amsterdam. We maybe slept a couple of hours and the rest of the time was just walking around looking in the shops and browsing around. Finally, we boarded and faced a 11 hour flight home - again uneventful. We arrived home on-time at 3:30pm - Darlene picked us up, we went back to her house, picked up the dogs and headed home - arriving around 7:30pm. We didn't have much sleep and the last 30 hours but we wanted to stay up until bedtime so we could get back on schedule and not have too much jet-lag. WE ARE HOME!!!!!!!!! We had a great night's sleep in our own bed and it was great.

This trip was great. We were able to see the work that Mandy and Luke are doing with the children of Uganda. Not only is she concerned with the children, but she is also working with some of the adults trying to help them improve their life. They are doing a wonderful job at the orphanage. We are thrilled and honored to have worked with them for a month. Blessings to them. We met some wonderful people while we were there and have developed some friendships that will last a lifetime. Thank all of you for your prayers while we were gone and thanks for traveling with us through this BLOG. We love each of you and May God Bless You! WE ARE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love all

DAD and MOM
Jerry & Barbara
Mema & Papa

Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - continued

It did not rain and I was able to walk to a couple of other supermarkets and finally found the Tandoori Marsala spices. I then walked up to the main street and caught a boda-boda (Motorcycle) for the trip back to the guest house. When I got back to the house, Barbara had finished our final washing and was reading a little. We walked back to the Home so I could put a third coat of varnish on the sign but it was still tacky. Before we left, Barbara got a ride on the back of one of the boda-boda with Godfrey...He cooks during the day and uses his bike for extra money in the evening. As we were leaving, we saw Alibert returning from Kampala where he had taken one of the toddlers (Daniel) for a hearing test. They didn't get all the testing done but did determine that Daniel has some hearing. The final tests will be done next week.

There are street vendors that roast corn-on-the-cob. I checked with Mandy previously and she thought it would be OK to eat so Barbara and I walked a couple of blocks and found some and brought them back to the guest house. We put butter and salt on them and started to eat. Mine was just OK and Barbara's corn was tough and hard.....so we split one and it was so-so.

Mandy has called a couple of times today and I will give you an update of the adoptive families and their trials. Both the families went down to Kampala today to try to move things along and be available to help speed things up. It seems that every way they turn, there is a roadblock in their quest to get everything done. At one time today, William was double-parked outside the lawyer's office (they have been parking there for the last 5 years) and a couple of police officers came up and waited to take William away. There was a lot of discussion and pleading for his release. One of the lawyers came down and, with a little bribe, was able to convince them to let him go. Another time, the families were under a shade tree, with the children playing to keep cool, and one of the security officers came and asked them to move somewhere else. These are the types of things that continue to happen and discourage the families. To sum it up, they did not get all the papers signed and today is a national holiday (Labor Day) and nothing will be open. Hopefully, things will be signed on late Friday but it will be too late for this week. So, things for them have been delayed for ONE WEEK. Keep the families in prayer as they are getting discouraged. There must be something great planned for these children as the enemy is trying to keep them from going to their adoptive home.

We had our dinner and waited for Mandy and the families to return. They arrived around 9pm and went straight to their rooms......very down and discouraged. We feed very bad for them as one family has small children at home and they were expecting to be on their way back to them.....continue to keep them in your prayers. Although they knew these delays were possible, they continued to hope that things would get done.

Barbara has finally recovered from her sickness and now I am trying to catch a cold. Barbara is not getting much sleep with my coughing. Ny-Quill has become my "best friend"....with it, I am getting some sleep and my cold is getting better.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Our final day in Jinja. Today, we will wrap things up at the Home, pack and get ready to leave. Let's see, we are almost out of flavored creamer for our coffee and my flash drives are full of pictures (I have taken close to 5GB of pictures), so it is time to go home :-) But first, things need to be done. Up for breakfast and the families were very somber and close to tears from their disappointments. Mandy informed us that the baby that had the burn-like places on her body did not make and died last night.....it was too late for the baby to be helped.

After breakfast, we headed to the Home. I put the final and third coat of varnish on the sign and it turned out pretty good. I cleaned up the brush and came into the house. Barbara is cooking away in the hot kitchen making custard for the kids. When you make something, it involves a lot of work as you have to make up to 60 servings. So she is slaving over a hot stove making the custard. Of course, they ran out of milk (one batch was ruined because of spoiled milk) and she had to wait to finish until more milk could be bought. Barbara looked out the kitchen window and saw the young female toddlers with babies tied on their back and he ran and got me so I would take some pictures. Barbara finally finished with the custard.....all this by 11am.

All of the toothbrushes, that was given to us, was mounted on a board in the bathroom. Each toothbrush and cover has their name on it. They were excited to get their brushes and wanted to immediately brush their teeth.

After the children finished their lunch, Barbara went in and presented each child with a gift. We got these bags from Foundation For Kids in Ontario. The gift consisted of a felt bag containing an Eor blanket....soft for them to cuddle with when they sleep.

We then went for lunch.....of course, at the Source.....our final lunch there. After lunch, we went with William to his home. He wanted us to see it after they had moved in. They were all living in a two-room hut and now they live in a three-bedroom home with plenty of room. His wife was so happy to show us her new home. We also took some family photos for William.

We came back to the house and Barbara gave out the custard.....the kids love the treats that Barbara makes for them. They keep asking for more chocolate chip cookies. I went and helped William with their payroll. After we finished the payroll, Mandy asked me to go with her and William to the local office for child protection. We dropped Barbara off at the guest house for her to relax as she worked very hard today, cooking and serving. My presence might help things go a little easier and it did. Government officials here, as everywhere else, like to feel important so we did the necessary chatter to get the things done. Again, Mandy knows how to get the things done here in Uganda. She has helped so many people and continues to do so.

We said goodbye to everyone at Welcome Home Ministries :( It was sad. You get to know certain people and you leave a part of you here when you leave. I went to the guest house and I helped Barbara finish packing. We will be leaving at 4am tomorrow so we need to pack tonight. We had our last meal at the guest house and, as always, it was good. Rebecca, the cook each night plus she cleans our room, has been a blessing to us and is a very hard worker. Barbara and I gave her a little bonus to bless her. She was very appreciative and thankful. Tonight was a little sad that we have to leave the adoptive families behind. We said our goodbye and we wished them the best.....we will continue to keep them in prayer and hope all goes well. Early to bed.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Up at 3:30am, load up the van and we were off at 4am to Entebbe. The rest of the group has a 9am flight so we have to be there by 7am. It was an uneventful trip and we actually made it a little early at 6:30am. Barbara and I had considered taking an earlier flight to Amsterdam but decided against it.

After we said our goodbyes, the driver took us to the quest house which we will be staying for the next couple of days. It is the Backpacker....not as nice at the Ebeneezer but OK. The owner is Frank and we met him decided to get started after putting our bags away. We wanted to go to the Equator and see the sights. Since it is a two hour ride, we decided to go there first. So, we took off. Frank is a talker, with a heavy accent. I asked him about Ida Amin and he gave me the complete history of his reign and the Entebbe raid by Israel. It was actually very interesting, coming from a person who lived through it. We went through village after village and each one has their series of speed bumps (big ones) so the trip was long. We even went by a banana truck that was overloaded (well, all of them are overloaded) and was overturned. We finally arrived at the Equator and it wasn't much. I guess I was expecting something on the line of the Equator in Ecuador but nothing like it. It had two displays, across the road from each other, and a few shops. However, if you wanted to buy a certificate about being there, you could view a demonstration of how the water goes down a funnel in the northern or southern hemisphere. Anyway, it was a little disappointment so we did a little looking (nothing interesting to buy) and was gone in 30 minutes.

Next, we headed back to Kampala where Frank was going to give us a tour of the capital city. We went by the American Embassy and then went to the Garden City, which is the mall that we had been to three different times........I didn't have the heart to tell Frank that we had been there. We had gone into a different entrance so I didn't recognize it at first. We had lunch at our favorite food court. Next, we went to the cultural center and did some looking but no shopping. Then we headed back to Entebbe for the evening. It was an interesting day and an exciting one........Frank is a very aggressive driver and likes to drive fast......he might have been trying to impress us....he did, although, the wrong way!

After we returned, I took a taxi to the airport and tried to change our flights back home (2 days early). They finally found us a flight back, via Minneapolis, BUT for an additional $400.00 US! We decided that a couple more days in Entebbe wasn't too bad. Back to the Backpacker for the evening......ate dinner watched a little CNN news and on to bed.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Up late.......we slept in until 8am. Took out rime getting ready and had a bit of breakfast and we went off to town for a little exploring. Stopped at an Internet Cafe and here I am updating our Blog. This takes you up to about 1:30 pm on Saturday. NOTE: I will probably have one last short blog before we return home.

Love all

DAD and MOM
Jerry & Barbara
Mema & Papa