Lately

School has been in full effect around here lately. I have been working everyday with both Trayton and Kidist on all of their subjects. If you ask me, I'd say we're having fun, but an adults fun-o-meter might rank a little differently than a 9 year olds. Chloe has been doing great with her schooling as well. She has it a little harder than the other 2 kids. Since she is in 6th grade, all of her work is done online, so I am here to tutor her and help when needed. Since we started a week and a half behind, she has had to play catch up. Instead of doing 6 lessons a day, she's had to do many more in order to catch up. I told her that when she is all caught up, I'll take her on a date for dinner and milkshakes. We are almost there! Pray that this last little bit of catching up can come with ease and little stress.

Trayton, Kidist, Chloe, and I on our first day of school :) 

Since school has started, we've been spending most of our days in the compound. We do school from 8:30 to about 2 or 3. When we're done we usually run around the compound. We play basketball, soccer, eat jackfruit or sugar cane, or maybe even a game of nukem if we have enough people. This past Saturday we had the opportunity to get out of the compound and travel to Tororo. Tororo is the home of our friend Patrick. He took us to his village and we spent the afternoon there. His village is beautiful! It sits back, near a stream, with fields all around. There is even a spot, where if you stand in the right place, you can see the hills of Kenya! We spent the afternoon hanging out with his family and friends. We took a walk down to the stream, toured huts, and spent some time in the kitchen. While Trayton played soccer with some of the boys, the girls played jumprope. The little girls there sang a song while we swung the rope. Although language is a barrier, everyone shares the joys of laughter. A quote I came across the other day says it best, 'Laughter is the shortest distance between two people' - Victor Borge. 

Here are some pictures from Tororo:

Cross on top of a hill in Tororo

Apuki Ida Michelle (Patrick & Kate's new baby girl) and I 

Apuki Ida Michelle 

Trayton playing soccer with some of the boys.

Kidist and I playing jumprope with Brenda.

While we were playing with the kids, Kate (Patrick's wife) and Sara (Patrick's sister-in-law) were cooking away. We had pork, chicken, rice, pasta, and atop. It was all great! Everyone was so welcoming, and we had fun learning more about their village and visiting. I think we'll have to make another trip there sometime in the future. 

Besides school, things have been going pretty well. Everyday brings something new, whether it's somebody knocking at our gate or giant monitor lizard roaming our yard - yup, that happened. This not-so-cute thing was found in our yard the other day.

It is the second one we found in the past couple weeks. We are not sure how they keep getting in our compound, but we're lucky to have Patrick here to take care of them for us. After the lizard nearly made our dog Charlie go blind, by smacking him with it's tail, we decided to have a little fun with it. We put it outside of our gate right by the road to scare people when they pass. We took videos through a crack in our gate to get people's reactions. We decided that if we were in America, we would get better reactions. The people here were a little shocked, but we didn't see anything worth sending into Africa's Funniest Home Videos (if there is such a thing).

So, that about sums up everything that has been going on here in Jinja, Uganda. Thank you all for your love and support. I'll leave you all with a few prayer requests:

- Adoption for Josephine and Noah. Chris and Michelle have finally received their written ruling from the court, but it's missing the judges signature. He is apparently on leave through the end of October, so we're praying he decided to make a pit stop at the courthouse very soon!

- We have had recent news that Christian (the oldest of the Fisher kids, who is back in America) has injured his knee while playing football. It might be a meniscus tear, but we're hoping it's just a sprain so it will heal itself instead of having to get surgery - we'll know more in the coming weeks.

- School. Always a need for prayer when it comes to education :) Pray that we can stay focused in our nice outside classroom, and that Chloe can get caught up soon so she doesn't feel so weighed down by so many 'overdue' assignments.

That is all the requests I have for now. Hope you're all doing well in the U.S.! Sending lots of love from Uganda. ♥

Grace & Peace

Kendall

Best Classroom Ever!

It's quiz time everyone. True or False? I have the best classroom ever.

Just hung our handy curtains to block out sun and other distractions

Our comfortable wheel barrel chair

Sitting mat and ladder-turned-easle 

For the other teachers, you know I can't really put that question as a quiz because it is an opinion question. In that case I'll grade you on participation, if you answered the question you pass! In my opinion, I think I have the best classroom ever! I have to admit I was a little nervous at first. Every classroom I've ever been in has had things all over the walls. How was I supposed to decorate a classroom when I have no walls to hang things on?! I was lost.
After Michelle and I had sporadically discussed the classroom, we finally had a free day to put it together. The kids started by sweeping off the platform, and then within a matter of minutes we had a classroom! :)
This week, we finally had our first couple days of school. We picked up Chris at the airport on Sunday night, and we stayed the night in Entebbe. The next day we did not get home till late, so Tuesday morning I woke up and spent all day with my head in the curriculum that Chris brought back with him. I was thoroughly confused, but through prayer and encouragement from my dad I made it through :) Wednesday we started school and it was good! After we finished our work for the day, I had the opportunity to video chat with the kid's online teachers/coaches. This helped me out a lot! They helped clarify exactly what the kids had to have done online and what was to be done offline. All of Chloe's school work in done online, and about 30% of TJ and Kidist's work is done online. All of their schooling is through Icademy Global. Right now I am teaching TJ and Kidist math, english language arts, science, social studies, writing, and health. They also do spanish and keyboarding, which is all online. Some of the subjects that I am teaching them also have a couple parts online, but mostly I am teaching them out of books. Thanks to the help from the other teachers, Thursday and Friday were smooth sailing. We have run into a little bit of a technology issue with Chloe and her school website, but hopefully that will be fixed soon and we can get moving through her lessons!
I am so happy to finally be teaching. I was almost beginning to forget why I came here in the first place, so this was a great reminder of where my heart lies. Today after we finished school for the week, I sat in our classroom and made lesson plans for the next week. It's great being a teacher! And I have to admit, I think lesson planning is 10x better when you're sitting outside with the African breeze blowing past you. :) 

Unjust

Over the past couple of weeks we have befriended a couple of boys; Zack, Amis (ah-mees), and Abadoo (ah-bah-doo). Zack has been a special friend of the Fishers for a little while now. The first time I went into Jinja town I met Zack when he came up to our van window to say hello. Zack and his friends cannot be older than 13 and they live on the streets. They survive by making as many friends as possible. No matter where we are in town, they spot our van. We ofen joke that Zack probably has a 6th sense, a sense that specializes in finding muzungus (white people). Since we have been spending a lot of time with these boys lately, we have realized that all of their friends are white or of a different color, never Ugandan. Here in town, the people of Uganda look at these street boys as if they are scum. Many times I catch store owners or other people of Jinja giving the boys dirty looks. So you can see why Zack, Amis, Abadoo, and many others are drawn to everyone else except for other Ugandans.

The past couple mornings these 3 boys have come to our gate, before we are even awake. Our guard, James, told us that sometimes they come around 6 am. Depending on what we have planned for the day, we usually let them in to play for a while. After all, they are young boys who just want to play. They don't want to be on the streets, it has to be exhausting! 

Zack riding around Noah and Josie in the pool.

Abadoo riding the ripstick 

Zack and Amis being silly

Abadoo, Zack, & Amis. I tried so hard to get a nice picture of them, but they kept cracking jokes.

 Since these boys are younger, the older street boys take advantage of them. We have seen both Zack and Abadoo with red eyes where they have obviously been beat. They come to our gate with torn clothes and not always are they wearing boy clothes. They wear what they can find, and they keep what the older boys don't steal from them. 

The other night we went to dinner at The Keep, one of our favorite restaurants in Jinja. When I walked out to the van with Trayton, I heard my name being called through the dark. It was Zack, Amis, and Abadoo. They must have been walking the streets and found our van, so they decided to wait for us. Zack told me they were hungry. Here I was, stomach bloated because I was so full, and Zack told me he hadn't eaten all day (which probably wasn't true, but I'm sure he hadn't eaten much). I told them to wait till the rest of the family came out and we'd find them some food. There was a meat-on-a-stick stand right by the van, but Zack said it wasn't a good one. He would take us to the 'goody one, goody one' as he likes to say. You've got to admire their persistence. They may not get food often, but when they do they want it from the best place. So, 10,000 Ugandan Shillings later (about $3.80 USD) all three boys had a chicken on a stick and a chapati for dinner. A chapati is kind of like a thick tortilla, when they're fresh they are very tasty and very filling. Not a bad dinner if you ask me. Kidist was very jealous she couldn't have chicken on a stick too, that is her favorite! After we got them food, we asked them to show us where they sleep. Turns out they sleep right next to a wall on some cardboard. They sleep next to an older mad man. They call him their scurry, or their gaurd. They say he protects them, and will beat whoever crosses them at night. 

The other morning the boys were at our gate again. James let them in for some jack fruit from our tree in the back. While they were eating, Zack informed us that during the night soldiers raided the streets and picked many boys off the street. Zack, Amis, and Abadoo said they had to run, or they would have been caught too. We're not sure exactly where the soldiers take the boys, but we want to find out. James told us it's somewhere outside of Kampala over water, possibly on an island. We also heard it could be just outside of Jinja. We're pretty sure they are taken to a place that is similar to a prison. There is a problem with the prisons here in Uganda. There are many many people in these prisons and many of them are unjustly put there. Most of them could go years without a trial. It's so hard to think about how unfair these innocent boys are being treated.
As for now, we are trying to hunt down a primary boarding school for the three of them. We want to find a school that will help them be as successful as possible. Having a warden and head master that understand where the boys are coming from is very important too. We hope we can find a school soon so we can start preparing them.
Please pray for our new friends. Pray that we can be a light unto them and that we can be a good example. They know that we want to help them but they have a huge issue with trust, and I don't blame them. They have told us many stories of people that started to help them with something then they had to go back to the states and left them in the dust. We want them to know that we will do all we can to help them, but somedays things don't always go as we plan or language translations are wrongly interpreted so it makes it hard.
Thank you for your continued support and prayers. You guys rock!

Grace & Peace
Kendall

Gettin' Jiggy with the Jiggers!

Last week was a busy week! We started off the week by heading out to the village of Niagobya on Monday. We are SO close to being finished with the playground. Just today we went and finished priming the watch tower and put on a first coat over most of it. Tomorrow we are heading out early to put on a second coat and do some touch ups. Then the playground will finally be complete! A project which we thought would only take a week, ended up taking us about a month now. The kids are so anxious to play on all the toys. On Saturday I had the opportunity to push many of them on the swings. The laughs were contagious, and the smiles were bright! It is so great to see the children play and have fun!

All the children playing and waving when we drove up this morning 

Kidist, Michelle, and I painting the watch tower

 

The children loving the swings

This past week we also dropped off our friends Betty and Esther at Uganda Christian University (UCU). It felt a lot like a college campus feels in America. There were many people walking around. They had different tents set up and music playing in the fields. UCU is one of the top universities in Uganda. I am so excited to hear how classes are. Betty and Esther are going to school to be teachers so of course that makes them even cooler in my book ;)

So I bet many of you are wondering where the title of this post came in...well here it is:
This week Kidist and I had the opportunity of experiencing our first jiggers, and Chloe had her second. For those of you who don't know, a jigger is a sand flea found in Sub Saharan climates. We got the jiggers out in the village while we were painting. The building that we keep most of our supplies in is said to be jigger infested, so the teachers at the school moved all of our things for us to a different room. I guess we were a little too late though.
Here is a nice diagram I found on Sole Hope's website. It explains very nicely what a jigger does.

We are so blessed to have Sole Hope right down the road from us. They are an awesome organization that helps remove jiggers from peoples feet, but that's not all they do! They also educate, give hope, and supply people with shoes to become healthy again. Jiggers can enter all over the body, and there can be many at a time. I had the pleasure of having 6 total jiggers. Kidist had 3 removed and another one was found alive, crawling on her foot [Eeek!], and Chloe had 1 removed. Thanks to our friend Moses, from Sole Hope, he removed them (almost) pain free.

Kidist getting a jigger removed by Moses. I'm holding her hand just in case it hurt :)

I'm going to try to explain this the best I can without getting too graphic. When the jigger crawls under the skin, it lays an egg. Then as you can see in the diagram, the egg turns into many eggs and egg sacks. So, Moses sterilized our feet, and then took a safety pin and began opening the dead skin around where the eggs were. Then he removed the dead jigger and egg sacks, and we were jigger free! As for my experience, it wasn't too bad. Before removal, it was a little tender to touch the spot where I had the jigger, and it was also quite itchy. The removal wasn't too bad either, Moses did a great job! Sole Hope does some amazing things. From now on, when we head out to the village again this week, I will be wearing my closed toe tennis shoes. Although I said getting a jigger wasn't too bad, it's not something that I wish to experience again if I don't have to. I think it's more of a mind thing for me, knowing that I have a bug in me that laid eggs is a little unsettling.  

Click here to check out Sole Hope's website. Read more about all the great things they do!

A huge thanks to all of you for your continued prayers and support!

Grace & Peace

Kendall