The picture above shows the finished product as of yesterday lunch time, the official end of our 'work' tasks at the village! We were able to get the house to the top of the windows and more. We were able to get the ring beam in place and all the door and window lintels, then lay the four courses of bricks above it. It is now ready for the roof. Of course the clean up took quite some time too, as working with mud and mudbricks creates heaps of dirt and rubble in the house.
The team is doing well. We went to church this morning and then this afternoon was spent in town picking up souvenirs and paintings that were ordered.
This evening we will eat with the children of the village and say our farewells. This is always hard on the children as they bond pretty quickly to the teams. They all have written us letters and drawn pictures for us to remember them by, and we will give them replies to their letters tonight.

There are som many stories to tell and individual experiences.. way too many to put up here. I encourage you to ask one or a few of the team members to tell you what they experienced and get a glimpse of what it's like being in Africa.

Tomorrow we pack and clean Suubi house and leave for the Capital Kampala. We will spend a night there before catching a very early flight on Tuesday to Kenya. We will drive from Nairobi to the Masai Mara, where we will spend 2 days at a safari park. This will be a time of relaxing but also exciting as we will see the many animals of the African savannah. We are all looking forward to it.

Some of us are still struggling a bit with stomach upsets so we'd appreciate your prayers for that as we travel, but otherwise we are well.
The blog will not be updated from Kenya as we will not have access to internet.
Thank you for your prayers and support! They are appreciated and felt.

Team 9

The girls celebrating the end of the day!

Monday of the second week, and the goal is looking more realistic. It's hot and steamy and we haven't had rain since we came, but the team is doing a great job. We are enjoying the help of a few excellent Ugandan workers too. Today we were able to mount the windows in and begin to brick the walls up around them.
Yesterday was a special day for us and the kids of the village. In the morning we went off to their church and enjoyed a typical African church service. Lots of clapping, singing and dancing around. Many moments of raising our voices to glorify God and to top it off some of our kids sang some item songs up the front. Us white people are amazed at the parts of the African body that can shake and move during dance!!
The afternoon was spent taking all of the children in the village out to a resort swimming pool. No mean feat, organizing 32 small and not so small children into bathers and into the pool. Some of the children had been before and some had not. Africans don't usually swim, so it was a thrill seeing the small ones get so excited, although some of them were so frightened.
We finished the afternoon off with sodas and cookies as a treat before the kids all went home tired and satisfied, and we the team went and sat at a restaurant by the Nile to have dinner.

Most of the team are doing well except for a few tummy bugs and slight nausea. We are tired by the end of each day but well satisfied.
We value your prayers heaps and look forward to telling more stories as the days go by.

Blessings
Team 9

Team 9 update

The new SUUBI (hope) house

A fresh update from team 9 in Uganda..

Well, we're a week in (sort of). Today we finally got the house up to window stage! This is half way to roof belt height which is our goal!

Last night we had the opportunity to have supper with the children of our village. We split the team in half so that half of us had supper with house 1&2 and the other half with house 3&4. After supper the whole village got together for devotions. We were treated to a fantastic, refreshing time with God hosted by our wonderful children. Most of us went home humbled when we compared our children's passion for God and how they express it, with our own!

Instead of me writing heaps this time, I've asked a few team members to write some reflections for you to read, and of course check out the photos below...

Keep up the prayers! We are well aside from a few tummy bugs, and we are safe......

Blessings

Andrew

The last week has been a steep learning curve, but incredibly rewarding! From never laying a brick in my life to working 8 hour days laying bricks. The physical aspect of our days is tough but the relational parts are incredible. The friendships that have developed within our team are life long and the interaction with the children are always a highlight to our days! My highlight so far is participating in worship and devotion with the kids. Their passion in praise and worship is inspiring and a lesson we could all learn.

Jocelyn

When I first heard that there was a mission trip to Uganda to help build a mudbrick house for young kids I thought to myself, “Who me? I'm not sure I've got what it takes...” But wow has it been an incredible experience! Working all day laying bricks, something I never thought I'd ever do, spending afternoons with the kids and even taking part in their boisterous singing and devotionals has been a truly unforgettable experience! I came here thinking I would change their lives but instead mine has been changed by their pure love for God and their beautiful joy for life, even though materially I have so much more than them. An amazing and touching first week in Uganda, one I will never forget!

Ruth

Ten muzungus (white people) came to Uganda to build a house but so much more has happened! We have made some amazing friends and become part of a really special community in the short time we have been here. Yes, the house is going up, and it hasn't always been smooth sailing but the obstacles have taught us much about this beautiful place and how to adapt and work as a team. I'm loving Africa!!!

Katrina

Below: 2 deep thinking building men!!

It's the end of Thursday and we've been working on site now for three and a half days. We are beginning to get traction now. We are waiting for some bitumen to arrive from Kenya that has been held up at the border. We need this for the external walls so it has slowed us a bit. Not that we've not found work to do though. We've been painting, cleaning, fitting skylights, re-fitting solar panels, cleaning houses after construction, checking and making sure sewing machines work properly, cleaning out and re-organizing the whole tool shed and more!! We hope to see the bitumen tomorrow sop that we can pull up the external walls to match what we've done internally. The temperature has been high the last few days (unlike Melbourne we hear!), and the heat takes it's toll, but all in all, the team is doing a fantastic job!
It's been fun interacting with the kids as they come home from school in the afternoons too. Teaching them songs and learning (sort of!) a few ourselves. On Friday evening we'll be eating with children and doing evening devotions with them, then on Sunday afternoon we'll take them out swimming. This is always great fun and a treat for the kids. For us too by the way!
The power here is irregular. The government is having trouble keeping up with the demand which means we have power for 12 hours or a day, then not for the next day or 2. Water is also a little unpredictable, but we've had enough when we needed it albeit slow...
We are eating well, very well in fact. The weight loss some of us were counting on may certainly not happen! We have a wonderful young lady called Lucy, who has just graduated from YWAM's vocational training school, and needed to have some experience cooking for a group as she'd like to be a cook. We have enjoyed her work and will be able to write a recommendation for her CV.

We are all still well, and keeping safe. We'd appreciate your continued prayers if you're following this blog. We do not take for granted anything in Africa and know that God is with us.

First update from team 9 in Uganda..
After a long flight we arrived together with all our luggage and yes that is almost a miracle.
We then had a long drive back to the village as there had been plenty of rain and the traffic was chaos. 120 kms in about 4.5 hours!
We woke the next morning ready (sort of!) to go for it at the building site.
The first job to do was finish off making some trusses and then clean up the site and slab ready to work on. The requisite looking for all the tools necessary took a while too.
Working hard!! The top one has a pretty lady!! (the blogger is a bit biased!)

The ladies did an admiral job carting barrow loads of mud bricks the whole length of the it's site to make stacks ready to use. The afternoon yesterday was spent discovering Jinja, getting money out of the ATM machines and checking out the main street. The day was finished off with a dinner at 2 Friends (a local restaurant) as a team with Ron, Anne, Hank and Louise. Very nice!
The new mission house (Suubi we call it) is our lodging place, and apart from a few small bits and pieces it's shaping up to be a premier place to stay.

Stan and Ron were able to fit one of the skylites we took over which made a huge difference inside. Can't wait till the second one is in. The solar power system is beginning to work and Ron's patience with the local power providers saw power being connected and working yesterday. A fridge with cool drinks is luxury here, and we sure appreciate it!
Tomorrow the walls begin to be built up higher and it'll seem like we are really moving.
The weather is hot and steamy but we are all doing OK with enough water and rest when needed
A lovely morning sunrise today!!

We'd appreciate your ongoing prayers for our health and safety, as well as for good working conditions..

JULY TEAM (#9)
Back Row L-R: Andrew, Philip, Jordan, Hetty, Stan
Front Row L-R: Sue, Jocelyn, Ruth, Natalie.

In just 2 weeks the next team (team #9) will be heading to Village of Hope! We are a mix of 3 couples and four singles. One of the young ladies on our team (Katrina) is missing form this photo as she has gone on ahead to London first.
We arrive on Sunday the 3rd and are excited to be able to spend time working, playing, praying and having fun at Village of Hope.
House #6 will be our goal, as well as many other exciting ideas. We are very much looking forward to meeting all the children, the mothers, our local workers and the many that live in the villages around VoH.
Please pray for safety, health and wellbeing for our team as we are there. these are things we do not take for granted and would really appreciate specific prayer for us.

We will update the blog each few days hopefully with photos and testimonies of what we are seeing and doing.

Andrew

A Day in the Life of a RAV4

I’m awakened fairly early, just on dawn, as David the night guard comes as usual on most mornings to help me bathe. The water is cold at this time of day, but I have fairly tough skin so can cope. After bathing I get to just dry naturally under the rising sun.

At about 7:45 am ‘the driver’ comes out and loads my back end with tools before slamming my back door shut. I try to complain by not catching the door properly, but he just keeps at it until I give in and let the thing close fully. Then he puts that sharp pointy thing in my ignition switch for the first time today and twists! Oh the pain. It takes me a couple of minutes for my engine to warm to the task, but then we are away.

The drive is a relatively short one from the village down the road to the new house where thankfully the tools are unloaded and I can stand straight again and rest for a while. Unfortunately its only a short rest as we head back up to the village for more supplies. This time I get pushed and prodded until my back seats are flattened and then the back is loaded with a heap of metal - I hear the word scaffolding” being used. This stuff is so big that they can’t even shut the back door, so I have no opportunity to protest. Out the gate and I get my own back a little as I tip some of this metal out the open back door so ‘the driver’ has to stop and reload. From there its all down hill and he surprisingly takes it very slowly, so I don’t feel all the bumps, not like when he is in a hurry! Again I scrape my bottom on the ground as we enter the new house block. When is ‘the driver’ going to do something about that entry. It hasn’t been nice since the grader came and turned the gutter into a moat. Oh no! Apparently the boss (Robert) likes what the metal can do and tells ‘the driver’ to go back for another load. Seems like he is getting smarter. This time he uses a couple of bags of Lime from the shed in my rear end first to change the angle of the metal, so I can’t tip it out any more. After offloading this second lot of metal, I finally get a rest for an hour or so.

After a nice little snooze in the morning sunshine, I am rudely awakened by ‘the driver’ reefing my door open. NO ... he’s been at it again. Some days he comes out of that house all wet from sweat and then just flops down on my seat and I get covered in it. And with the dust that is always around here, how does he expect me to keep a nice, clean appearance on my lovely cloth seats? Back we go to the village for ‘the driver’s’ lunch break. All very well for him, he kicks all the kids out of his house while he eats. Where do you think they go? Straight to me, thats where. It seemed like a nice idea at the time when my Japanese stylist painted me black, but these kids have trouble differentiating between me and a blackboard, so all they want to do is write all over me. Sometimes this is very hurtful and has left lasting scars! I don’t like it. When ‘the driver’ finishes his lunch its time to become a food transport vehicle and take food to the workers. The posho tin is always a bit hot, but my carpet doesn’t seem to mind. Its when that Mama woman puts the other stuff on my seat that the problems begin. The container is fine, but seems unable to keep all of the stuff inside inside, and it tends to dribble. ‘the driver’ doesn’t seem to mind too much, he just rubs it in and mutters something about “not being his seat, so why worry”.

After the lunch run I finally get a decent bit of exercise as he has to go into town to go to the bank, apparently so that the workers can be paid. I do miss those nice smooth roads back home in Japan though, as some of the places ‘the driver’ takes me here are very rough. More of a “cross country’ event than a “track” event.

We no sooner get back to the house from the bank than that imposter of an engine, the generator, coughs and splutters and uses up its last bit of fuel. How embarrassing! But good old reliable RAV4 to the rescue. A quick trip over those Bugembe bumps to fill up the yellow jerry can and we can get that generator purring again. At least on this trip ‘the driver’ brought one of he little kids along for the ride. I liked giving him my front seat view as he felt that bit special.

Is there anything else that can run out today. Because I provided all of that metal called scaffolding, the workers are making good progress and have run out of nails, so its off I go again to replenish their stocks. Its just the short journey down the hill to Wairaka trading centre, but the journey back is all over the place. No easy way back from there!

Once darkness sets in I usually get to rest - ‘the driver’ doesn’t like being out on the roads here in the dark if he can help it. I think it is something to do with the number of pedestrians and the lack of street lighting that he is used to. But tonight it is a different story. The little boy from next door is really sick and so I become like an ambulance and rush him to hospital The roads around the hospital are filled with potholes and its dark so they are hard for ‘the driver’ to see so I am unable to deliver the “smooth riding experience” that I always aim for. After waiting at the hospital for a while, ‘the driver’ and his friend Luke come out and off we go on a search for supplies that the hospital needs. They don’t really seem to know where they are going, but eventually stumble on a clinic where I get parked and they go inside and then come back after a few minutes with strange looks on their faces and mutterings of “smuggling” and “the nice nurse who helped them” Back to the hospital to deliver the goods and then after another short wait, finally I get to go home and call it a day.