(Note-not in any particular order...i.e. I do not miss purple gatorade more than I miss my family)
1. Movie night with our homeless friends Mike and Steve. We had a picnic dinner at church, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, shared popcorn, watched The Encounter, watched them recognize the similarities between the movie and the good Samaritan, and then they walked us to our taxi. Every church should hang out with homeless kids.
2. We had to take our homeless friend Bwanika to the clinic to get tested for malaria, which he had. After his doctor's appointment and getting his medicine, we took him out to lunch. As we are sitting at the table, he addressed us each by name and said thank you.
3. When we slept on the streets, a little boy named Wilson who slept next to Katie played with her arm hair all night.
4. When we slept on the streets, Katie looked at an older boy sitting next to her, and asked "Are you going to take care of us?" and he said "yeah"
5. Fahad. The face he made when he saw us for the first time back in Uganda, and the excitement he had. As well as, the shock on his face after he found out we had slept out on the streets.
6. Katie singing This Little Light of Mine at medical, with a bunch of kids who couldn't speak english, but they knew that song.
7. Mallory praying at the beginning of the week to run into her friend from the last trip, Edward. On Friday, she literally ran into him on the streets. They were both shocked and overjoyed.
8. Our night at the discipleship house. It's a house with 4 former street kids, who now live in a house sponsored by our church. It was amazing to see God's fire in those boys, and their desire to live out his Word.
9. Just walking into the slums, and having 30 boys run up to you and give you hugs.
10. Not fixing problems, but just living beside the broken.
Top 10 mzungu mistakes:
1. Do not get off of the tax before you are supposed to
2. The ground here moves, which leads to our mzungu feet slipping a lot and busting it in the mud
3. Trying to learn Luganda in a tax when your translator is making you say 'I am hairy' and then the whole tax busts out laughing
4. Handing your money to a man who is not the conductor on a taxi
5. Freaking out when you see monkeys for the first time, getting out your camera, screaming - while all the Africans look at you like Americans would if we had just seen a squirrel.
6. Forgetting that bathrooms don't have toilet paper here
7. still addressing people with a "hey ya'll!!"
8. Amazzi and mazzi are not the same word. One means water, the other is a not so nice word for poop
9. Forgetting your raincoat and wearing a white shirt
10. Calling a kid "Larry" for 2 weeks when his name is Derrick.
Top 10 funny and potentially dangerous moments:
1. Getting on the boda with an elderly man wearing a helmet, who had to have a sidekick give him a pep talk before we took off.
2. We went to the jail way up in the country side to look for our friends. Katie got hit with the runs. Katie and Maria walked twenty feet down a hill, Katie dropped trousers, and looked up to see a small, elderly village woman who had plopped down on the ground at the top of the hill to watch the show. Mallory, being the good friend that she is, sat next to the woman and laughed as the woman watched the most exciting thing she would probably get to see for the day.
3. The day a man tried to buy Mallory from our translator.
4. The day Katie almost punched a street vendor in the face for trying to kiss Mallory through a taxi window.
5. The day a goat farted.
6. Katie making faces at people when they stare too long.
7. Boda Boda men trying to kidnap Ryan
8. Our entire ride to the the sleep out on the streets. Peter trying to take us up a one way street three times in a row. 2 Irish men bantering in the front seat. A boda boda man posing on his boda boda for a straight 30 minutes while we tried to sleep next to homeless children...still not sure why he thought that was attractive.
9. William's ring tone is Barbie girl...were not sure if he knows it yet.
10. Irish people and Americans ate an Italian restaurant in Uganda - how's that for culture?
11. There are many primal, tribal, and instinctive things about Africa. We have harnessed all three traits when a large bug finds its way into our room, or when mosquitos attack right before bed time. You have never seen Mallory or Katie embody such a desire to kill.
12..(yeah we know we said 10 but we're funny, so life with us is funny) We take 2 kids to the malaria clinic, and while Mallory is sitting in the lab of all the patients who have malaria and are getting their blood tested, there is a mosquito flying around her head.
Top 10 things we miss from home:
1. Purple gatorade
2. The fact that in America there is a frozen yogurt place on every corner
3. COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE...real, delicious, ground coffee...not instant
4. Harry Potter weekend on ABC family. It's been weird not going back to Hogwarts this year...we are hoping to make a quick trip to the Burrow to say hi to our friends over christmas time.
5. people we love
6. Katie misses running without the fear of being chased
7. English (or being able to speak to the people you meet)
8. Gum
9. Mouth Wash
10. Sonic
Top 10 favorite things about Uganda:
1. Holding orphans' hands
2. Pineapple
3. Bananas
4. Posho and Beans
5. It's home
6. walking down our dirt road in the village while seeing monkeys and eating sugar cane
7. we have a really Godly, beautiful, fun, funny community around us
8. Everyone here knows how to drum -Katie's pretty happy about that one
9. The noises africans make
10. the sketchy frozen yogurt/custard place outside of the petrol station next to the slums
(note: 4 of the 10 are food items....we do still hold some american identity)
Top 10 prayer requests:
1. a burning conviction that God is good
2. a passionate and thankful heart that God has raised us from the dead and that Jesus died for us
3. more of God, no matter what the cost
4. our friends Mike and Steve, they are in jail, and we have been trying to find them
5. more of God, no matter the costs
6. yielding to the Holy Spirit
7. camp is coming up! prayer for discipleship classes and for our campers
8. we are sending some kids to school in January - so provision, favor, and their desire to persevere and learn (Fred, Timothy)
9. that the boys in the New Life Homes know who Jesus is and fall madly in love with HIM
10. that the street boys will find deeper freedom in God than they ever will on the streets
We're giving God many HALLELUJAHS for being here.
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