embracing the love: untitled update

The past couple months have been full. With both joys and sorrows. One, our aunt who had been fighting cancer for the last few years finally is finished suffering.

Our Aunt with some of her great nieces

She left behind 9 children and her husband. 5 of those kids are under 16 years and the husband is an alcoholic. Also, this year there is famine in the area, so they are having trouble getting what to eat. Please keep praying for this family.
Also, one of the former child soldiers from deep in the village that I had worked with and we also helped sponsor in school with the help of some one from the states, also died just a few weeks ago. We had received a call a few weeks before that that he was sick in the hospital, but were surprised to find out that that sickness led to his death. It doesn't sound like they even knew what was causing him to be sick. They just said they had to keep "adding blood" whatever that means. Health care in this country can be so frustrating and it's so sad to lose a young man like Emma when it seems so preventable. Keep praying for Emma's family, he was the oldest son of his single mother, so he was the one helping to keep her well.

Emma inside the house he was building for himself

In the beginning of August we had a team of 6 come for a visit. Teams. Well...it's hard to explain. We love having visitors, but it takes a lot of work. Teams are complex, and there's so much controversy over the effectiveness of short term missions, but they can also be so encouraging to us who live on the field day in and day out. We recently had a team from Kalamazoo/Ludington come for a trip. We started planning with them about a year ago. And after many Skype meetings, and schedulings and budgetings they finally arrived. And thankfully they were the easiest group we've had so far. Even though at the end of the day we are tired. You know how it's hard to feed a group of people something that everyone likes? Well, try doing it in a foreign country with foreign foods. Anyway, the team did a great job, they led a Vacation Bible School for the kids at Welcome Home Orphanage, one of them did a much needed marriage conference, they visited one of our purity clubs in Soroti and shared the gospel with them, they met LoCoDi sponsored kids and some sponsored kids in another program. They donated 51 Ateso bibles. They hiked waterfalls and had boat rides in the Nile. Saw lions and giraffes and warthogs. They blessed others and were blessed. Those ten days came and went. Kind of like when you spend hours in the kitchen preparing a delicious meal and it's eaten all up in a few short minutes.
As much as teams are hard work, we love them. It's so fun to share our world with people who days before only had a social media sketch of what life is like in Uganda. And every one who has visited at some point usually has to say, "Now I understand why you have a hard time describing a 'typical' day here." We are encouraged when people get to meet the people that we are pouring out our hearts for and can see first hand the need for the work we are doing here. And when they go back to their comfy homes stateside they are different. They think differently, talk differently, spend their money differently, pray differently.
Also, through all of this Ruudy has been struggling with sickness. He has been feeling achey and tired on and off for over a month now. We treated several things, and tested more things, but haven't found out anything yet. From the blood tests we've gotten it shows that his body is fighting something, but telling what it's fighting is the problem. He has a doctor appointment in the the states on the 28th of September and we will hopefully find out more then. We haven't bought our tickets yet but are looking at mid September to the end of November or beginning of December, depending on how we are coming along solving Ruudy's sickness.
While we are stateside we would love to meet up with you. Maybe you've been considering a trip to Uganda for sometime or maybe the thought never crossed your mind until today. We would love to share with you more and see if the Lord leads you to come for a visit. But even if you are not interested in coming for a visit to Uganda we would still love to visit with you wherever possible.