Visiting the house-to-be

(Written on Wednesday, July 7)

This morning we woke up and went to see Mark & Sarah Thomas’s sponsor family. Imagine this, we passed the little girl (about 7 years old) just outside the school and found out she had walked by herself to the clinic because she was sick.


It’s about a 3 hour walk each way. I can hardly make myself chicken noodle soup when I’m sick much less walk for 6 hours in the sun. The blessing is that because she is sponsored through Kibaale Community her family can get medical care at the clinic. It was a long and bumpy 30-minute ride to the house. Here are Josh and Joel with their sitting pads for the back of the truck.


Jeff parked in the bushes and we walked for another 20 minutes along the hill to the house. They are currently living in a mud hut, which Jeff thought looked pretty unstable and would probably collapse when the rainy season starts so it’s wonderful that they will be getting a new mud house.


They are going to build the new house a bit further up the hill, farther from the insects in the small lake below. They have a lot of work to do to prepare the land and build the wood structure for mudding.


We will also be taking them to the market on Monday to buy clothes and shoes with the gift that Sarah & Mark sent from home. They sure seem like a nice family but have had some tough times as they were thrown off their land by a rich man who then ripped all their plants out and let his cows graze on the land. The family then moved to an empty house that Kibaale community arranged for them and now that they’ve been to court are able to move back onto their land and start again. It was very humbling to have them give us corn as we were leaving.

In the afternoon we went to Primary Chapel. It was beautiful to listen to the kids sing and pray. They have such beautiful voices. We were trying to figure out the verses they were learning but couldn’t quite get the hang of the Lugandan.


Aislyn loved walking all the primary kids back to their classrooms. They were all jostling to be the ones to hold her hand.




It was very nice to see Judith today at chapel. Apparently she wore the new dress we gave her to school today and had to go to the community office and get changed into a spare uniform. She is such a sweetheart and I so wish I could bring her home.

We’ve had a quiet afternoon and are looking forward to the Germany-Spain football game tonight. Jeff is putting a strong emphasis on his German ancestry these days.