Skip to main content

Luxuries

We live in an era of missions unlike any other.

Missionaries through the centuries have followed God's leading into certain physical death. They packed their few belongings in a coffin, bade permanent farewell to their families, and traveled for months to reach their destination for a few months or years of feverish proclamation of God's word before their ultimate demise.

There was no Skype, no facebook, no email, no phonecalls. Letters took months to reach loved-ones IF they arrived at all.

Today, in Northern Uganda, we have electricity at least 40% of the time. We have a solar set-up to provide a little light and charging when the power is out. We have a little dorm fridge to keep milk cold. We occasionally can get meat and cheese. We (this month) can get yogurt all the time.

And, Josh takes trips to Kampala periodically to meet with our missionary team leaders. Kampala has nearly everything. Yes, I had nori, rice vinegar, and sushi rice brought from the USA by a visitor. But, besides my wild ambitions of making california rolls for Father's Day, we are truly living in a global era of missions. And even the california rolls are remarkable - travelers leave the USA with bins full of goodies and arrive in our home in Northern Uganda 3 days later... with bins full of goodies.

All this waxing eloquent is to give you a list of some of the luxuries that Josh brought up from Kampala this week - I thought you might find it interesting and remarkable!

- clothesline
- frozen tilapia filets
- tiny amounts of various fresh cold cuts and a wedge of Camembert
- 5 pineapples (great place along the road between Kampala and Gulu to get cheap delicious pineapples!)
- a giant jackfruit (same fruit area)
- a white board
- amarynth flour
- oats
- a can of Pringles
- a large bottle of vanilla extract and five bottles of lemon juice

You can see that our luxuries range from actual luxuries to every day staples that aren't available in Gulu. We can't buy these luxuries all the time, but what a treat a few times a year!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Check out this progress!

A year ago, my friend Rachel http://josiecomehome.blogspot.com/ emailed a photo of her beautiful son standing on his own... I've since dreamed of having a photo to post of Gracie doing the same thing. It was always one of those wild-don't-think-it'll-ever-happen kind of dreams, a romantic, fairy tale type of dream. But this week, Gracie made another leap in development and muscle tone. It started when I leaned her up against the wall and planted her feet a shoulder-width apart. For the first time, she didn't lunge for the safety of my arms or hands, but rather, she allowed herself to stand steadily on her own two feet and she kept her center of gravity centered over her feet instead of wildly in front of her or to one side or the other. She even quickly figured out that she couldn't lurch around in excitement while standing on her own two feet with no support but a wall behind her back, but rather had to express her excitement over this new development with a gentl...

Family of Three!

We are in Liberia - the electricity goes in and out because the generator is having trouble keeping up these days! So hopefully it will stay on long enough to post and the internet connection will allow me this luxury! We were united with precious Gracie on Thanksgiving day - I will write more about this later. But, oh! is Gracie a joy! She is so beautiful, so joyfilled, and a bit mischievious. Her physical limitations do not permit her to accomplish much mischief, but we can tell that she is trying to push some limits already. If we were not in love with her already, she is irresitable and such a treasure and blessing from God. In our two days together, she has not cried once. She spends most of her days smiling, she loves to snuggle (good match for us!), and has the most contagious laugh! Life takes more effort for her - her cerebral palsy is moderate and every activity is a challenge and is clearly tiring for her. Meal times (which she loves) take a long time and much patience and d...

Ana Gail Rattin

Ana Gail Rattin (pronounced Ah-nah) Born December 5th, 2007 at 5:35pm at 42 weeks weighing 7lb 8oz, 21 3/4 inches long Some adventures at birth, but everyone's doing great now! Read Luke 2:36-38!