Rattins living Coram Deo

Many of the ministries here are run by Acoli staff who do a marvelous job! But it is also important to gather as a missionary team to pray, fellowship, and support each other. Having a team in ACTION Gulu is really a new thing (and a team that is only growing as the Riegers plan on arriving out here late Jan/early Feb!) so we're all still trying to figure out HOW to be a team. Please pray for us as we work through HOW to be a team, HOW to support each other, HOW to support our directors (the Binghams), etc. We celebrated Thanksgiving together as a team, including a visiting couple, and had a wonderful time! What a feast (mostly thanks to Candis)!

Today's cultural experience was quite a new one for us. Nursery school graduation (called "gradation"). Like many special events, it was an EVENT! We hurried to get to the school by 9:00am, but given the gloomy cold rainy weather we figured that we would not be late for the "9:00am" start. On top of that, the head teacher broke his leg a few weeks ago and is still in the hospital in traction, so he was not around to "make things happen." So we helped put up the tent and decorations. I'm not sure when it started, no earlier than 10:00am. There were speeches, a sermon with an altar call (two folks came forward! Pray for these two souls!), presentations by K1 and K2 (songs and recitations), a full debate by the older children's debate team, a drama and songs by the graduating K3 class... By 3:00pm, lunch hadn' t been served yet and we received the go-ahead to leave. We were grateful since we were exhausted! The most interesting part was...

(our first Thanksgiving in Uganda ) We have SO much to be thankful for! Our first thanksgiving in Uganda was spent out and about. We had a prayer walk with the team and staff at the nursery/primary school and Home of Love orphanage. Ana was thrilled because that meant that she spent the day with Fortunate, Brian, Moses, Innocent, and her other friends. She was off with her friends most of the day, even sitting in Fortunate's class and crying when it was time to leave. Back to the rest of us. Since this prayer day involved people coming from various locations and since it was raining (Acoli DO NOT like the rain!), the start was delayed until Gracie was much too hungry and tired to participate. So I sat and fed her porridge (maize porridge is served mid-morning for "breakfast" at the school) during the first part of the prayer walk. Now, the porridge is stored in a thermos to stay hot as it is walked from the cooking shelter to the office and while people get around ...

We went to the church that is just near Home of Love today. We really enjoyed the worship time - we haven't learned enough Acoli yet to understand the songs, but it was beautiful to be witness to the dancing and singing to the Lord! (Here we are walking to church with the Home of Love children. Gracie has a group working on getting her wheelchair through the clay and mud and ruts and Ana is glued to her best friend!) Ana went to the children's service with her best friend, Fortunate, and they caused problems with all their hugging, giggling, and goofing off together! They are peas in a pod, those two! (This picture started as a cute hugging picture till Fortunate decided that Ana should jump on her back while Brian quietly and sedately watches the circus!) (Gracie got taken "home" by the older girls after church and we found her, some time later, by following her joyous yells and a chorus of giggling children. The girls had taken her into the shade of the eating she...

"Great is Thy faithfulness," O God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be. "Great is Thy faithfulness!" "Great is Thy faithfulness!" Morning by morning new mercies I see; All I have needed Thy hand hath provided— "Great is Thy faithfulness," Lord, unto me! Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest, Sun, moon and stars in their courses above, Join with all nature in manifold witness To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide; Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

(Ana and her new "best friend" at Home of Love. I asked Ana if she and Fortunate talk to each other and she had to think long and hard. Kids don't need to talk to each other to be friends! Fortunate doesn't understand much English and Ana doesn't know much Acoli yet! I tried to use it as motivation to learn Acoli for Ana. The kids love drawing in the dirt, playing with stones and sticks and the goats and the pigeons!) I’ve never been a really paranoid mother. I wash their hands and vaccinate them and keep them in car seats and helmets but otherwise feel that a little dirt is good for them. But what paranoia I did have is being tested. The first two weeks’ of vehicles that we rode in here did not have functioning seatbelts, so Josh and I were constantly evaluating if a partially or non-conventionally secured car seat was safer than no car seat. Our personal vehicle is equipped with lots of seat belts and we praise God for that! It’s impossible to kee...

(I didn't know Josh was taking this picture - I look really funny - but it gives a little glimpse of my kitchen.) You have probably heard that everything takes longer here… it’s true, for many reasons. Everything is simply more work-intensive. Today, I drove to the market (at least I have a car! That cuts two hours off the endeavor!). I spent just an hour buying 3 green peppers, 1 bunch of greens, 1 papaya, 1 bunch of bananas, 3 avacados, 8 tomatoes, 1 pineapple, 5 passion fruit. Each type of produce was purchased at a different vendor. Each interaction includes a greeting, laughing at my Acoli, asking for the words in Acoli and trying them out back and forth until I pronounce it right. Then I ask for the price, expertly feel and examine the produce, and then make my decision. Then, more greetings and pleasantries, more laughing, and I’m free to move on. It’s quite a nice experience, but there’s no quick errand. Then I drove to another place to buy eggs and conver...

The verdict is in about cloth diapering in the tropics. Fuzzi Bunz are fantastic! Noah is in Fuzzi Bunz and they dry SO quickly that I can get them washed and dried usually before the afternoon rain (we’ll see when rainy season is truly here full force in several months). For what to use to stuff the diapers, I am using several things. I’m using regular old prefolds because I have them – I have the infant size and they work fine. BUT they take a LONG time to dry. What I love are what my friend Gina recommended: car wash cloths. The large ones are fantastic and work even for Gracie (think 8 year old sized bladder in a cloth diaper – yeah!). And the best thing is that they dry very quickly (almost as quickly as the Fuzzi Bunz themselves) AND stay soft despite harsh washing, wringing, and line drying in strong sun. I’m also using an absorbant liner for two reasons: poop and rashes. Noah gets a little rashy in cloth diapers but that was solved by using cloth liners next to...

Tomorrow is Orphan Sunday. God commands us to care for orphans and widows - who has he put in your life? We are so blessed and inspired to know some amazing families caring for those around them! Pray for the orphans that we have in our life now - 60 plus children in Home of Love who have been orphaned by violence/war. Pray that we might be an encouragement and blessing to them and might, in some way, show more of Christ to them by our presence and love. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

In New Hampshire, I was a "bathe-em-once-a-week" kind of mom. Spot clean the kids, bathe them if they're really messy or have an accident, but otherwise, a good thorough bath on Saturday and they're good to go. NOT HERE! This is a "bathe-em-at-least-once-a-day" type of situation. Noah, well, he's a boy. Need I say more? I'm not even sure why I dress him in the morning! Josh's family loves the fact that Josh is getting pay-back for his childhood extraordinary messiness - but even they say that Noah has unfathomable talent in the realm of messy! So add the red clay dirt, the mosquito bites (it seems that two mosquitoes took up residence INSIDE his little tent - oops!), his propensity to sweat profusely, the scratches and bruises that come with exploring new territory, and Noah is a mess 96% of the time. Ana is also busy exploring in the red clay and sweating up a storm so she gets the night-time bath. No complaint from her! She doesn't even...

Gulu itself is trying to be a city - parking tickets (really a permit for the day) along the streets with the shops, electricity some of the time, more and more shops and a more "organized" market. But local living is still largely in traditional huts as soon as you get out of the few blocks of city. This is a scene on the way to Home of Love Orphanage (ACTION's orphanage where we will be spending a fair amount of time!). Notice the neatly swept dirt around the huts - very tidy and keeps snakes and other unwanted critters away from the huts.

So you want to know what life is like right now for us… we’re not sure yet! We have been still settling in. We’ve only been in our home for 5 days so we’ve been unpacking for the most part and figuring out how undertake daily life. But we had a lovely welcome celebration at Home of Love on Sunday and today we met each of the classes at the primary school. The experiences were overwhelming to Grace, exciting to Ana, and normal to Noah who just went about his explorations as if nothing different were happening. The roads around us are mostly dirt, although the main road from the capital through our city is paved. Josh is doing a great job driving a borrowed 15 passenger van on the LEFT side of the road, avoiding the many many bikes, motorcycles, and pedestrians. We have electricity for a few hours a day – enough to charge up our computers and wish for a little more! It’s fine now, because the weather is very cool at night – down to low 70’s. (We'll get a generator before the...