February 11, 2007
Some type of intestinal virus has been going through our household and I am now victim number three. Blake and Addison preceded me, and I hope that I will be the last. It is quite frightening to be very sick here, because you are never quite sure what you might have. This particular illness had chills, fever, and vomiting and acted similar to malaria. We took Blake to the hospital twice because he stayed sick for 4 days and we did not want to take any chances with malaria. A missionary girl that we met at Thanksgiving died of cerebral malaria last month. She was only 16 years old. If you catch malaria early it is easy to treat, but we hate to run to the hospital every time someone is ill. We need wisdom and protection in regards to sickness.
We have had many opportunities for hospitality in recent weeks. We are now on houseguest number four. Two of our guests have been singles that we met during our missionary training at MTI (Scott Ickes and Stacy H.) and it has been interesting to see how three weeks of training brought so many people into relationship. We have also met several missionaries here who attended MTI, and it immediately gives you some common ground. We are so thankful for the training that we received and we use it daily.
We had an opportunity this week to adopt two Jack Russell terrier puppies but decided against it. A missionary here is leaving on a 6-month furlough, and she needed someone to care for her dog who has two 1-week old puppies. The deal is that if we took care of her mommy dog for six months, then we could keep the puppies. We took a poll and it was 5 votes to one to keep the dogs. However, if mama ain’t happy then no one is happy. Actually, I was fearful for how our dog would interact with the adult terrier, who is much smaller than the monkey that Paska killed.
I really hope that our next pet will be an African grey parrot. They are beautiful birds and also the most vocal of all parrots. Some have a vocabulary of over 1,000 words. I keep getting conflicting information about the legality of having a parrot, though. We know several missionaries that have them, but we are told that it is illegal unless you have a license. However, they are not currently offering licenses, but do occasionally do so retroactively for parrots that have already been purchased. Trying to find out the correct information is not an easy thing to do here. If I get an opportunity to buy one, then I probably will and then try to figure out how to make it legal later. If you don’t have a license, it just means that you could never bring it back to America with you. We are told that you can get a parrot for around $20, and they are over $2,000 in America.
I read a fascinating article about spiritual abuse this week that described many of the things that we have experienced here. The articles are on www.morrischapman.com and are found in a three-part series on his blog site during April of 2006. The article describes 7 characteristics of spiritual abuse, and we have witnessed every one of them. I have also been reading 3 John and the description of Diotrephes in verses 9 and 10 is exactly what is occurring here. It is amazing how anything we encounter is addressed in scripture and that God has a response to every type of sin.
I am composing this blog on my Apple laptop and it has been running for almost 2 hours. Maybe God has healed it. Previously, it would shut down after a few minutes and never lasted more than 20 minutes. If you are praying about our laptop, please continue to do so and know that God is answering your prayers. It really would be a miracle if it started working properly now since the water was spilled on it over two weeks ago.
We keep meeting other Christians and fellow missionaries all the time. It is really exciting to see how it occurs. I was helping pull a motorcycle out of a ditch this week, and another Ugandan man also stopped to assist. It turns out that he is with Campus Crusade and spent 17 years teaching at a seminary in Kenya. God has recently called him back to Uganda to minister here. It will be interesting to see how God uses this relationship. Also, this week, I was trying to get my laptop to send email at the gym (they have wireless there) and a lady came over to see what I was doing. It turns out that she is also a missionary here and her ministry is in media. She primarily produces videos for mission organizations. She came to our house for lunch that same day, and we had a wonderful time of fellowship together. She is leaving in two weeks to go to the states for treatment on a brain tumor that has returned, but she is at total peace. I believe that God will place us in work together in the future since she is feeling called to student ministry. The relationships that we have already made in such a short time has been the most encouraging thing about being here. We have many new friends, both missionaries and Ugandans, and we also keep meeting people in ministry and places of influence. It is clear that God has a purpose in this and we look forward to seeing it unfold.
I dreamed this week that I was on a brief return trip to America and I was in some type of food court with many hamburger places. I was having the hardest time deciding which place to eat and what to order. I settled on a double cheeseburger and chocolate shake. The boys have said many times that the first thing that they want to do whenever we are in America is to go to McDonalds. (Christian just told me that he would rather go to Beef O’Bradys). The food is good here, but there are some things that we miss. We have learned how to make homemade pizza, and the meat is pretty good, though a bit gamey. We have found an excellent Thai restaurant and Indian restaurant that is good as anything that I have had in America. It is not cheap, though, and is about the same as it would be in America. We are also currently dealing with a poor exchange rate. When we arrived we could get 1850 shillings per dollar, but it has dropped to 1730 and was down to 1710. We are trying to put off any expenses for a while until the dollar strengthens, which is supposed to happen in March. Apparently this occurs every year with the influx of dollars at Christmas and the new year.
That is all for now. Please let me know what you are interested in hearing about and I will try to address it.
Blessings,
Kevin for the Ironside Tribe
p.s. the computer ran for about 4 hours uninterrupted today, but did just shut down after about 10 minutes while I was trying to post this blog. Please pray that it will be corrected once and for all.
Some type of intestinal virus has been going through our household and I am now victim number three. Blake and Addison preceded me, and I hope that I will be the last. It is quite frightening to be very sick here, because you are never quite sure what you might have. This particular illness had chills, fever, and vomiting and acted similar to malaria. We took Blake to the hospital twice because he stayed sick for 4 days and we did not want to take any chances with malaria. A missionary girl that we met at Thanksgiving died of cerebral malaria last month. She was only 16 years old. If you catch malaria early it is easy to treat, but we hate to run to the hospital every time someone is ill. We need wisdom and protection in regards to sickness.
We have had many opportunities for hospitality in recent weeks. We are now on houseguest number four. Two of our guests have been singles that we met during our missionary training at MTI (Scott Ickes and Stacy H.) and it has been interesting to see how three weeks of training brought so many people into relationship. We have also met several missionaries here who attended MTI, and it immediately gives you some common ground. We are so thankful for the training that we received and we use it daily.
We had an opportunity this week to adopt two Jack Russell terrier puppies but decided against it. A missionary here is leaving on a 6-month furlough, and she needed someone to care for her dog who has two 1-week old puppies. The deal is that if we took care of her mommy dog for six months, then we could keep the puppies. We took a poll and it was 5 votes to one to keep the dogs. However, if mama ain’t happy then no one is happy. Actually, I was fearful for how our dog would interact with the adult terrier, who is much smaller than the monkey that Paska killed.
I really hope that our next pet will be an African grey parrot. They are beautiful birds and also the most vocal of all parrots. Some have a vocabulary of over 1,000 words. I keep getting conflicting information about the legality of having a parrot, though. We know several missionaries that have them, but we are told that it is illegal unless you have a license. However, they are not currently offering licenses, but do occasionally do so retroactively for parrots that have already been purchased. Trying to find out the correct information is not an easy thing to do here. If I get an opportunity to buy one, then I probably will and then try to figure out how to make it legal later. If you don’t have a license, it just means that you could never bring it back to America with you. We are told that you can get a parrot for around $20, and they are over $2,000 in America.
I read a fascinating article about spiritual abuse this week that described many of the things that we have experienced here. The articles are on www.morrischapman.com and are found in a three-part series on his blog site during April of 2006. The article describes 7 characteristics of spiritual abuse, and we have witnessed every one of them. I have also been reading 3 John and the description of Diotrephes in verses 9 and 10 is exactly what is occurring here. It is amazing how anything we encounter is addressed in scripture and that God has a response to every type of sin.
I am composing this blog on my Apple laptop and it has been running for almost 2 hours. Maybe God has healed it. Previously, it would shut down after a few minutes and never lasted more than 20 minutes. If you are praying about our laptop, please continue to do so and know that God is answering your prayers. It really would be a miracle if it started working properly now since the water was spilled on it over two weeks ago.
We keep meeting other Christians and fellow missionaries all the time. It is really exciting to see how it occurs. I was helping pull a motorcycle out of a ditch this week, and another Ugandan man also stopped to assist. It turns out that he is with Campus Crusade and spent 17 years teaching at a seminary in Kenya. God has recently called him back to Uganda to minister here. It will be interesting to see how God uses this relationship. Also, this week, I was trying to get my laptop to send email at the gym (they have wireless there) and a lady came over to see what I was doing. It turns out that she is also a missionary here and her ministry is in media. She primarily produces videos for mission organizations. She came to our house for lunch that same day, and we had a wonderful time of fellowship together. She is leaving in two weeks to go to the states for treatment on a brain tumor that has returned, but she is at total peace. I believe that God will place us in work together in the future since she is feeling called to student ministry. The relationships that we have already made in such a short time has been the most encouraging thing about being here. We have many new friends, both missionaries and Ugandans, and we also keep meeting people in ministry and places of influence. It is clear that God has a purpose in this and we look forward to seeing it unfold.
I dreamed this week that I was on a brief return trip to America and I was in some type of food court with many hamburger places. I was having the hardest time deciding which place to eat and what to order. I settled on a double cheeseburger and chocolate shake. The boys have said many times that the first thing that they want to do whenever we are in America is to go to McDonalds. (Christian just told me that he would rather go to Beef O’Bradys). The food is good here, but there are some things that we miss. We have learned how to make homemade pizza, and the meat is pretty good, though a bit gamey. We have found an excellent Thai restaurant and Indian restaurant that is good as anything that I have had in America. It is not cheap, though, and is about the same as it would be in America. We are also currently dealing with a poor exchange rate. When we arrived we could get 1850 shillings per dollar, but it has dropped to 1730 and was down to 1710. We are trying to put off any expenses for a while until the dollar strengthens, which is supposed to happen in March. Apparently this occurs every year with the influx of dollars at Christmas and the new year.
That is all for now. Please let me know what you are interested in hearing about and I will try to address it.
Blessings,
Kevin for the Ironside Tribe
p.s. the computer ran for about 4 hours uninterrupted today, but did just shut down after about 10 minutes while I was trying to post this blog. Please pray that it will be corrected once and for all.
posted by Ironside Tribe at 3:41 AM
1 Comments:
I miss you guys and think about you every day! I will be praying for the health of the family... and the apple! Tell the boys I will be sure to go through McDonald's in memory of them this week. ;) Just think, you guys will be healing hearts by helping orphans and I will be destroying mine by hardening my arteries. Isn't life poetic?
Hug everyone for me. Love ya'll. Katie M.
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