Uganda Mission Trip

My trip to Uganda was amazing. I thank the Lord for all He did for me while I was there. I never got sick and everything ran smoothly. I will be having an evening service later in the year and look forward to you being there. Thank you all for your prayers and financial support. They meant a lot to me. They were a huge help.

God Bless,
Kathleen

Boliva Team March 2010

Where to Start?!?

Guess Who!?! We are back, and my thoughts are as bumpy as the roads back! There is so much to tell...and I thought I`d start while the rest are showering!

Well, as we headed out early Saturday morning, we drove over very rutted, bumpy eroded roads, even a bit worse than usual because of the rainy season a few weeks back. Some of those hairpin turns were pretty narrow and washed out...but the Lord took us safely to every area we needed to get to. Only 1 flat tire, and a whole lotta`bouncing! We had a bit of a new experience in that we arrived in a very remote area to come up over the edge of a hill and saw a HUGE brick building, kinda`in the middle of nowhere, to find out that was where we were doing radios! It was a community municipal building, still being built, and 7 villages were coming there that day for a community meeting, and a local Bolivian pastor who works out in those villages had asked if we could give out radios to all the people coming. Now, that sounds great on the surface...but none of these people were receptive to our coming, and made it very obvious. Hector explained that the people in this area are very suspicious of any outsiders, particularly because of the Spaniards who pillaged their land and stole their children so many years ago. Some of we ladies would approach a group of sitting mothers and children, and they would actually turn their heads as we tried to strike up a conversation! One little girl I managed to convince to take a candy from me actually went around our jeep and spit it on the ground! It was a little disheartening...but we realized that in spite of the cool reception, these people had never heard of God`s love and if they wanted us gone...the radios they were willing to receive would talk to them in a much better way than we ever could. So we got their village lists, and handed out hundreds of radios.

After that bit of a bumpy start, literally and figuratively, we were off and running! Approx. 1350 radios later... the village we ended in was such a stark contrast to that huge brick unfriendly place...a tiny little poor adobe village, where we slept on the mud floor of the little adobe and mud church...but they gave us such a loving reception, and the only food they had...a little bowl of corn on the cob and sheep cheese. As we sang and played and made crafts with the 20 children in the schoolhouse, gave them little teddy bears and bouncy balls, it was obvious these were the only toys they had ever had, and their little brown eyes just danced! And our final 50 radios were placed in such welcoming, weathered hands...we were blessed beyond measure to complete our mountain days with these dearpeople.

And on the lighter side, I have learned a few new cultural tips...for instance, when you find a dying pheasant on the side of the road, it makes a great hostess gift to the receiving village! And tho we tried to add to that initial gift by chasing a large jackrabbit full tilt in our jeep in the dead of night around haripin turns in the Andes mountains...well, let`just say that was not one of our best ideas, and the bird had to be given alone...and VERY well received, I might add.

Also, when you sleep in a village deemed a chagas village, it`s a good idea to run your tarps up the walls as well as the floor. For explanantion, a few of these places had signs on the road, calling them chagas project villages. This is where the straw roofs which carry a bug which brings a nasty sickeness called chagas...well, project are underway to replace many of these roofs with the clay tiles, thus helping to eliminate this terrible disease. So we did stay in a few places that were in the midst of their chagas improvement ...thus the wise idea of tarping as much sleeping area as possible. So far, we are all bug free, but we`ll see.

Well, the shower stall beckons, and I must sign off. We had an incredibly healthy, unified team...and we thank each one of you who thought of us and prayed for us. We really could`ve never done it alone! And we`ll be home late Sunday night, hopefully, and will be looking forward to your welcoming arms and smiles!

With Love...Tired, Smelly, but Greatly Blessed

Karinna