Christmas in Uganda

The difficult thing about writing a blog post is choosing what to share...because there is always so much we could share! I really want to write about our first Christmas here, however I must first share briefly about our visit to our friends village today. The visit was not planned. We were hoping to meet with our new friends Fred and Ruth. We called them last night and they invited us to come out to their village today! We accepted the offer. Fred and Ruth live in Soroti town. Their parents and younger siblings live in the village. They had gone to stay with them for Christmas.

The village was beautiful, well kept, with flowers and a large area of grass for the kids to play. Even more beautiful were the people there. 4 generations. The grandfather of Fred and Ruth was the first Christian in the area. He was looked at as a crazy man when he shared about Jesus Christ. His faith has now been passed on from generation to generation. 

future orange trees

field of green peppers

Pastor Fred(left) and Ruth (on right) with 17 of the children they are helping

We visited, shared a meal, played some soccer, took a tour of the gardens.....but my favorite part was meeting 17 of the orphan children that Ruth cares for. She invites them every year to share Christmas with them in the village. Ruth herself was an orphan who was taken in by her aunt and treated very badly. This is the reason her heart aches for these children. Ruth makes jewelry, sells it, and sends these children to school or pays for their school supplies. Her dream is to have a place where she can house them with a mother and father figure, love on them, teach them about Christ, and teach them vocational skills. She was struggling today with the idea of them going back to their current living situations. None of which are good. She met each of these children through churches in the area that she would visit to meet with people when she was running for a position in the government (LOC 5) The churches would bring her these children and ask if she could help in any way. She spent much time researching to see which children were true orphans in desperate need of help and it was those she felt God leading her to help. 

Fred is a pastor of a church called Jesus the Way. We are praying if this is where God would have us be part of. Fred is also an entrepreneur/business minded man, which makes Chris quite excited. 

The team we are part of is all about coming along side of the local church to provide food, freedom, and forgiveness to the communities we are working in. We are so excited that the Lord has brought this couple into our lives and we look forward to seeing what God will do through them as we walk alongside of them. 

Chloe and Angela (Freds Sister) jumping rope

All right, now onto Christmas! It was warm, no snow...I didn't mind, but my kids were all missing it and we were all missing family and friends. We had a team Christmas party which was such a blessing. We played games, ate alot of great food, and spent time in worship at the close of the evening.

Christian with his gift from Miriam- a handmade truck filled with candy!

Goodies from the Team Beyond Womens Christmas Tea- so you can see we don't suffer from lack of sweets here in Uganda at Christmas!

Our family Christmas was Great! We made pizza and bread sticks here for the first time. Be thankful for Little Ceasers!! Our pizza crust was all made by hand. The tomato sauce prepared from scratch. The motzeralla cheese block shredded, a fresh pineapple cut,  and thank goodness for the one pack of pepperoni that we still had from home! It was a fun day of gifts, food, a movie on the projector, soccer,
and swing ball.
  

yes, Christian has a blue stripe in his hair. Chloe recieved Blue hair chalk for Christmas!

On the 22nd we had a Christmas party for the kids in our neighborhood. Our children and some of their friends acted out the Nativity. It was awesome to see who God would have come as you can invite some of them and it is very possible you could end up with 100! They all came dressed in their best. There were 16 children and we had bought 16 Bibles. 4 Children who do not go the church, 2 muslim children, 2 orphans, a child who lives on the streets of Soroti, and 7 others. God is good. The Michmerhuizen family had given our children some money to take with them in order to buy one of their new friends a gift and also to share the Christmas story with them. Trayton was so excited to be able to buy each of them a Bible and I wish you could have seen their faces when they opened it. A craft, sodas, chapatis, the Christmas Story, gifts, and dancing...it was such a great time!

Below is a picture of Christmas Day which we were able to spend with some of our friends! We ate a meal, played soccer, and finished the evening with The Nativity Movie outside on the wall with the projector.