Sssss is for Sssnake. Eeee is for Eeeemun!!

More snake excitement.
Earlier this week, as I was walking back to my banda, I saw a snake in the grass. The good thing about most snakes is that they will move away from you when they realize you're coming. So it did move away from me, but unfortunately it moved TOWARDS our banda. I think it must have a hole somewhere in the tall grass around our hut. We called Papa Lokwii to walk around with his stick and look for it, but it's still out there somewhere. It looked fairly long (probably 4 ft?) and was a medium/dark green with two yellow stripes down the length of its body.

This second snake story, which took place just this afternoon, I did NOT witness, but I got the full account from several eye-witnesses. Josh was walking out to his shop when he noticed the cat, Timu, hissing furiously at something. He saw it was a snake and that Timu was trying to protect her two kittens from it. Josh, Ruffin, Jamie and the guard, Akol were all present at the Death of the 7 1/2 Ft. Forest Cobra. Akol knocked it on the head a couple times with his stick, and Jamie threw stones at it. Even after its head was smashed in, its reflexes caused it to twist and curl around on the ground for several minutes after it was dead (I've seen the video, it's horrifying). There were four toads in its stomach, two of which were still alive and moved around a bit after they were cut out, but then they died. We think it was going for one of Timu's six week old kittens. The boys dissected it (the heart kept beating for a long time after it was dead), skinned it, and are now curing the skin to make it into a snakeskin belt or guitar strap. I saw the skin just a little while ago... even with 1 1/2 feet of the length cut off (you can't use the head or smaller part of the tail for a belt) it is still REALLY long. The skin feels pretty cool but it's starting to dry out too much so they need to oil it, and then salt it to keep it from getting smelly.

Snakes are just a part of life here. A very unwelcome part of life. Now that it's the dry season and they're looking for water, we're sure to see more, so please pray for us, that we would be diligent in taking precautions, but that we would not be too paralyzed by a fear of them. The fact that Erika and I have now had three snakes right outside our hut (two dead, one still unaccounted for) is pretty scary, but we have to go on with life. We still need to walk around at night, we need to take certain paths to get certain places.

Some precautions we take:
Never walk at night without a good flashlight. You can't really enjoy the scenery when you're walking, you have to look at the ground. If you want to stargaze or just enjoy the mountain view, it's best to stop and look, and then keep walking when you can pay attention to your surroundings.

Stomp when you walk. It's not graceful or ladylike, but the snakes feel the vibrations.

Don't leave any water sources around the banda. The snakes are thirsty.

Shake out boots before putting them on. NEVER put your hand where you can't see.

The T's had a black mamba that wasn't much bigger than a worm. They still have venom. All snakes should be killed unless someone can confirm it's not poisonous (some are actually helpful, they eat rats.)

Never a dull moment. These critters keep us on our toes, that's for sure!

Rain's gone. Here comes the fire.

We're definitely in the dry season now. The rains are gone, the wind is blowing, the sun is hot, and the wildfires have started. Last night there was a noticeable haze of smoke over the whole compound, although we couldn't see where the fire was burning. Some of these fires are caused by people intentionally burning their fields - to remove brush so the enemy (the Pokot, or other raiders) will be more visible (probably for agricultural reasons too, but I don't know how that all works); some fires are started by shepherd boys who are hungry for some BBQ rat, so they burn the fields so the rats will run out. The problem in both cases is that these fires can easily get out of control, and there's no fire department in Nakaale. The missionaries tell me that fires are to be expected and can get quite scary, but Bob plows a break line around the mission, and the guards keep the area watered so that, hopefully, the fire won't jump onto our land. They've never had a serious fire here on the mission, so I'm not too scared, but there have been some close calls. So you can pray over the next few months that we, and especially our neighbors living in thatched huts, will be protected from the wildfires.

RP Missions Countdown

I am so thankful for the way the Lord has blessed me through my RP Missions trips. Not only have I fostered wonderful friendships and had some truly once in a lifetime experiences during my trips to White Lake Covenanter Camp, Airdrie and Inverness, Scotland, and Karamoja, Uganda -- I've also learned so much about myself. I've learned that the Lord has given me particular gifts that can be used in His kingdom, and that I should not be afraid to seek a way to use those gifts for His glory. I know that it's no accident that God has given me a desire to work with children. He has been growing my abilities in this area for as long as I can remember. God opened my eyes to the idea that this love for children is not restricted to comfy middle class American kids -- this particular gift has opened the door for me to work practically anywhere in the world. Through RP Missions, I've discovered, wadio wadio (slowly slowly!), that surrendering your life to the Lord isn't scary, and it's not a sacrifice. It's an immense blessing. My life is more fulfilling and exciting than anything I ever could have planned for myself -- God has been leading me to a wonderful (not necessarily easy, but joyful) life of ministry.

I am so indebted to RP Missions for helping me through the baby steps of missions. Now I'm beginning to crawl, I guess... but I'm still a baby here on the field. I still need guidance and help. So far, I've been blessed by wonderful counsel and encouragement along the way.

There are others who have already gone through these baby steps, and now they're walking. They're running. They're out in the fields, reaping the harvest of souls that the Lord has prepared for them. But they can't do it alone.

RPM&M (Missions and Ministries) recently announced that there is a $50,000 deficit in their budget that needs to be met by January 1st. I have given to RP Missions in the past (very little, but whatever I could spare). Now I'd like to ask all my friends and family to consider giving just $10 to RP Missions to help them meet their goal. What is $10? One less strand of Christmas lights and one less Christmas-y frappacino at the mall? If $10 were given to RP Missions for every person who has viewed my blog, they could put another person like me on the field for six months; they could pay for the Cush4Christ team's Christian Education program -- twice! It's a small sacrifice with an eternal reward.

Visit this site to learn more about what RP Missions has in store for next year, and how you can help them meet their New Years goal. Only 21 days left!

In Christ,

Emily

'Tis the season!

It's strange to be celebrating the holidays on the other side of the world. I've had plenty of birthdays away from home, but this will be my first Christmas away from the family (cats included...). I know that Christmas is going to be a ton of fun, though. Erika's piano students will have a Christmas carol recital/party a few days before Christmas, Friday night we'll have a white elephant gift exchange, and Saturday (Christmas Eve) we'll celebrate Christmas with a big meal together (I think? plans were still in the works last I heard). Since Christmas is on a Sunday we'll have church, I'm teaching Sunday School that day, and then there's the Christmas edonga (dance) and also a wedding that I might go to with Leah (we tried to go to that wedding a few weeks ago, but found out it had been postponed till Christmas day because the priest from Nakapiripirit wasn't able to get to Nakaale through the mud). I'm not exactly sure how the edonga works, but I know everyone wears their best clothes and all the beads they own, and they meet out somewhere towards Atedeoi I think, and the men jump up and down in a circle and the women dance around them outside the circle. I think it's a prime time to choose a fiancee, so that will be interesting to see. But I'll tell you what it's like once I've seen it with my own eyes, Lord willing :) The dance goes all day and night so hopefully we'll be able to pop in for an hour or two. On Monday night the Knox's are having us over for a Boxing Day dinner party.

Last night Jenny (Baumgardner) Knox had me, Erika and Leah Hopp over for a girls' night. We did pedicures (my feet haven't been this clean since I left America... but we didn't scrub all our callouses off cause we need them!), had delicious Indian food (naan, rice, and daal... sooo good), and we just chatted and relaxed. It was wonderful. I am so blessed to be here with such fun, sweet, encouraging ladies. You guys are the beeeest :)

So, today I need to bust out some more TEFL lessons (obviously this blog post is just my way of productively procrastinating!). This afternoon several of us are going to get together to play board games before dinner. Since it's my birthday, they let me pick the meal tonight, but I'm not too creative so I just picked Mexican food. It's always delicious, especially here. I am learning to cook a lot of amazing things here, I can't wait to get back to the States and try these recipes at home. Who knew I'd have to go across the planet to finally learn to cook... but I'm starting to enjoy it. It's becoming less scary to me and I've only had one disaster meal (failed tomato soup and grilled cheese... just does NOT work here) so that's not so bad.

Ok. No more procrastinating.
Much love,
Emily

Could it be? Is it really the dry season??

There have been a couple days without rain now and it is very, very windy. The wind is nice... although the sun is bright and hot, the breeze makes it very comfortable. For now, at least. I've been told that when the dry season is in full swing, there are a lot of wildfires and the driving wind blows the sand everywhere. Just another feature of the Karamoja Resort and Spa: mud treatments, exfoliating sandstorms, wading pools, the malaria weight-loss program... :) The wind right now is ridiculous. I have never felt such strong wind in my life... and this is just the beginning!

We've had two false alarms already when we thought the dry season was starting, so I'm not counting on it... but it would be nice for the rain to be done so the roads will dry out. I'm sick of muddy feet and my flip flops being destroyed in the muck... and it would be good for the roads to dry out since different members of the mission have to drive down country many times in the next few weeks.

On Thursday the Wright family will be leaving for a ten day vacation down country. It will be quiet and boring without them (they bring a lot of life to this compound! I love those kids...) but it will also be nice to have ten days to organize life, work ahead on lesson plans, clean the banda and kitchen, and just relax for a while. I'll only be teaching from 9:45-12 every day. It's also wonderfully providential that they're going away now, because it will give me lots of time to complete my TESOL course, which I have to finish by December 23rd (and I still have 8 lessons to do, each of which takes several hours!).

My mind knows that Christmas is coming, but it doesn't feel like Christmas at all without snow... Erika and I do have a nice little fake tree in our banda (which she lovingly refers to as The Toilet Brush) with tinsel, colored lights and decorations. Last year's teacher, Amy Folkert, sent Erika and I a package of Christmas presents! It had candy, decorations, a card for Erika (who shared this banda with Amy for 3 months earlier this year) and a few presents. She doesn't even know me so it was so so sweet of her to include me in the gift.

I'm also having mixed feelings about turning 24 in a few days. 24 just sounds so grown up. In some ways it's great, and I'm so glad I'm an adult now, and done with school! But in other ways it's a little daunting because at this point I really need to start taking things seriously and planning for whatever's next... time to start making some serious decisions which could really influence my next few years, important decisions like where to live and work next year. But I'm excited that for the rest of my life I'll be able to say I celebrated a birthday on the African savannah :)

If at first you don't succeed...

Erika and I are hoping to start a kids "afterschool" type Bible study in the village behind the clinic ("after school" isn't the best term since most kids here don't go to school... but you know the idea, sing, play games, hear a Bible story). So today was going to be our first day. We walked down to the clinic and tried to mobilize as we went (shouting "apena akilip" and "potu daadang" to all the kids we passed on the road.) If not for a pretty intense game of soccer happening in the middle of the road outside the clinic, we could have had quite a group... as it was, about 10 kids came. Erika brought them to the big, empty building (the ward) and I went off to the village to get Rose to translate. But when I got to Rose's home, she was making dinner and said she could not come...
So I went back, gathered up Faith, James and Stacey from their banda, and went back to the ward. I told Erika that we didn't have a translator, but we decided to wing it and make do with our tiny vocabulary and hand motions. We taught them Red Light Green Light. Of course, these kids have never in their life seen a stoplight, or any road signs at all for that matter. So Erika had a piece of green paper with "apethi" on it, which means "go" (or fast? something like that) and a red paper that said "bas" (stop). These kids also can't read, but it was helpful for us to have the words written out. Basically we just demonstrated what to do and they had a great time...
We also tried Duck Duck Goose. Faith, James and Stacey are old pros at this game now. The K'jong kids seemed to enjoy it, but the problem is that they wouldn't say the words, or they would just whisper them. We tried to have them repeat after us, but they were too shy. So they would walk around tapping each head saying something like "duh" or just a general "uh" sound, and then when they got to the person they wanted to goose, instead of saying anything distinctive, they would say "uh" again, or they would just start running with no warning and we'd just yell "apethi! apethi!" to the one sitting down until they figured it out. So I think we should pick some Karamojong animal words that they can pronounce easily and use those next time. Dog Dog Cat (Ino, Ino, Epus)?
We obviously couldn't do a Bible lesson without a translator, so then we sat the kids down and attempted a few songs. Thankfully Faith knows the Karamojong songs pretty well so she actually led them for us, and many of these kids come to Sunday school and church occasionally so they  know the songs too. We sang Kire Ejok Akuj (super easy and repetitive), Kidyama Lore A Papa, and Yesu Amina Ayong (Jesus Loves Me). I was quite convicted that I don't know the songs well enough, so I need to practice those during the week.
Altogether though, the kids obviously had a lot of fun, our charades worked, and everyone went away smiling. We'll try again next week, hopefully with a translator, and we'll tell them the Christmas story.

ngaKaramojong Prayer

Yesterday at our language lesson, Rose taught Erika and I a simple prayer we can say if we come across someone who is sick or injured. It will take a lot of practice to memorize this (and, as Martha said, one missionary trick is to read prayers off index cards, because everyone closes their eyes during a prayer so you can get away with reading!). But I would like to try to memorize the whole thing.

Akuj Papa, ikilakara ainakin isua ngiboro daadang.
Ikilakara akiboi kaapei akilip ekonikiro.
Akuj Papa - kitangaleo ngikonei kosi.
Ka kidara ikes toyakaun kaapei ka isua akimor akiroit kon.
Papa Akuj, kotere erauni ekiro kon ngolo apolon nooi alotooma isua ikilipi jui jui.
Ngona ikilip isua kira iyong!
Agogong kapedori daadang ebunit a neni kon.
 Iyong Papa Akuj ipolo ngooi.
A lokiro a Yesu Kristo Ekapolon yok. Amen.

Father God, we thank You for all things.
We thank you that we are here together.
We pray in your name Father God, heal our friends.
Keep them so that they may be with us to share your Word.
Father God, we pray always that your name, which is very great, will be in us.
Hear what we pray!
All strength and power come from you.
Father God, you are very great.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

You Know You're In Karamoja When...

1. The internet is down for two days. Why? Because the cell tower (which we can see from our mission) ran out of fuel to power the generator (because there's no electricity here) -- this fuel shortage happens at precisely the same time each month, by the way -- and the truck carrying the fuel up from Mbale is completely stuck in the mud over an hour away.
2. You see an ant in your food, you scoop it out with a spoon, and you keep on eating.
3. Rose comes to the door. "Hemly! I have a jigger just here... do you have something?" Erika immediately responds "on the desk!" Yes. We keep a safety pin readily accessible solely for the purpose of digging bugs out of hands and feet. (Thankfully Erika and I haven't had any jiggers yet, but Erika did have to have a guard, Sam, dig a thorn out of her foot. He's apparently the BEST... he's so careful you don't feel a thing).
4. You're really not all that surprised to walk into lunch one day and see a dead Green Night Adder  in a cardboard box on display. I was, however, less than thrilled to learn that it had been killed just outside my banda. Papa Lokwii, the one who killed our cobra, came to the rescue again!
5. You can't tell someone their baby is beautiful, because they think evil spirits will ruin the child if you say that. So if you tell a mother that her baby is beautiful, she will just laugh nervously and try to get away from you.
6. Owls are wizards. Chameleons are demon-possessed.
7. You're walking to the clinic and you reach the culvert (small river) where several people are bathing. Yes, they are naked (could be men, women or children). And yes, they would like to greet you, talk to you, and even help you practice your Karamojong phrases... right there knee deep in the river.
8. You wake up to beautiful mountain views every day... and every evening the sunset looks like a spread out of National Geographic.

On Tuesday I went to the nearby market town of Namalu. First stop, Juliano’s nursery. Juliano is a really nice Italian guy who grows flowers, trees, etc. in Namalu. Leah (another MA, who does health education and literacy work) and Erika really wanted a REAL tree for Christmas. They came home with a real tree, but it’s certainly not your traditional Christmas tree J It has a long stem and a few big, broad leaves at the top, which have now been thoroughly decorated with tinsel and popcorn strings. Unfortunately, just this morning the tree officially died... all the leaves fell off  :(

I bought some beads at the general store, which I need to string together in time for the Christmas edonga (dance), which we’ll hopefully be able to attend. We wandered around but didn’t do much shopping. We visited a man who sells vegetables, and he gave Kipsy and I free bananas, which was nice. He knows how to keep his customers. J He was selling matooke (aka plantains, or green bananas – you cook them in oil and they are sooo yummy, they taste like potatoes), yellow bananas, tomatoes, onions, kumquats, and little green eggplants. I didn’t buy anything from him this time, though. I was hoping to buy some blankets or fabric, but they didn’t really have any out, probably because it was drizzling. After wandering up and down the market street, we went to Pastor Emuron’s church for a Bible study with the pastor, his family, and a few members of his church. Attendance was low (probably 8 people?) but it was interesting to hear them talk about Christmas. Leah was asking them what the average Karamojong child or adult out in the villages knows about Christmas. The influence of the Catholic church is very strong here, because the first missionaries to Karamoja were Roman Catholic. Unfortunately this means that most people here know a lot about Mary, but she is so overemphasized that they worship her more than her Son. The Catholics taught, first and foremost, that Mary is the mother of God… and they didn’t really distinguish that she was not the mother of God the Father. So they seem to place her even above the Trinity. Leah is going to be visiting the villages and sharing the real story of Christmas, and its relation to the whole of the Gospel.

            When the Bible study was over, we all climbed back into Pastor Al’s SUV (Kipsy and I had sat on the floor in the trunk on the way over… Erika rode in the back on the way home). And we proceeded to get very, very stuck in the mud. It took us several minutes of violently rocking forward and back, forward and back, spraying mud everywhere, before we finally got out of the ruts.

Oh, rain. It’s still raining like crazy – no dry season in sight. Our laundry lady/language teacher Achio Rose said that the people in her village are coming to her asking “Are these the rains of Noah?” For us, the rains are mostly just a pain – we have to break out our boots, we can’t charge anything and we lose power every night because there’s not enough solar power coming in… but for the people in the villages, they have to walk around barefoot in the mud, wade through rivers to get to work, and sleep on the floor in flooded huts. Their crops are being destroyed by the rain.

It was raining all day yesterday, and by the time me, Erika, Heather, Leah and Ruffin went over to the Tricarico’s for dinner  everyone was freezing. We were all decked out in our hoodies, jeans, socks, with blankets wrapped around us. I asked Mrs. T what the temperature was.

It was 68 degrees.

I’m becoming such a wimp.

After dinner, while we were sipping tea and eating gingerbread cookies, we started hearing popping sounds. In all seriousness, I said, “Ooh, are those firecrackers?!” And everyone said, “Yeah, firecrackers.” I did not get the sarcasm. Laurie comes in from the other room and says “Gunfire.” There were a lot of rounds going off, and the six night guards on the mission compound blew their whistles to alert each other and make sure no guards were sleeping on the job. We just stayed inside. Later we found out that the shots were coming from Alamacar, which is quite a ways away from us, back in the hills, but the sound of the shots was echoing on the mountains so it sounded very close. We also found out that the local militia successfully stopped the raid. The militia is made up of government-appointed locals who are allowed to have firearms to prevent raids – the rest of the Karamojong are not supposed to have guns, the whole region has gone through a disarmament). When I walked back to my banda around 9:30, I quietly greeted the two guards on the Wright’s compound who were faithfully walking back and forth with their bows. It was good to see them taking it seriously… I feel very safe here.