Day 13 – 9 July 2017

Today was a day off from “working” kind of crazy to even call it work because it’s not at all, it’s just loving and serving. After a late night of movie watching and UNO playing, we all slept in a little but waking up to my boys saying “wake up mama” put an immediate smile on my face.

We got up and ready for the day and all had breakfast together before piling into a matatu (taxi) and heading to church. The boys love coming to Acacia church with us, and like seeing Pastor Terry preach. They didn’t even want to go to children’s church this time because they wanted to stay with me, which was ok with me for sure.

After church, we headed out to Bugembe where our social worker Eunice and her husband Grace and their sweet son Einstein live. We were spending the day with them, having lunch and Grace taught me how to make chapatti…which is my favorite Ugandan food.

They are such an amazing family and are such a blessing to us. We met Grace last year, he is one of the dentists from Hope Smiles, the organization we partner with to do our dental clinics. Grace and Eunice became our first Ugandan sponsors when they chose to sponsor one of our girls Hadijja. When we were looking to hire a new social worker Grace told us about his wife who was a social worker and we hired her.

They are an incredible gift from God to us. Eunice is an awesome social worker, and has done so much in just the 8 months she has been working with us. She loves the children and the community and it shows in her work. Grace is a wonderful role model for our boys, he is gentle and kind with them but also shows them to work hard, take advantage of their education and to become someone great. They both love the Musima village as much as I do, and they are planning to make it their home when they build a house there. We are thankful they both work with PY but more thankful to call them friends.

We sat around talking, sharing stories about the US and the differences in Uganda. We looked at photos of them growing up and heard about their lives before coming together. We got to meet Grace’s brother Nelson who is also in school to become a dentist, and Nelson was a great help to us when we had one of the mamas of one of our boys in the hospital in Kampala a couple of months ago. He would go and visit her, arrange for her treatments and make sure she had all her medications. Just another example of how this family loves and serves and blesses PY so much.

Around sunset, we headed up to the top of Bugembe hill, near where the king of Busoga has his home. The view from up there is amazing. Our photographer Friday took my senior photos in the place I love so much. Eunice had a friend of hers make me a beautiful dress out of traditional Ugandan fabric, I can’t wait to see the photos.

After the photos were done we headed back to town for dinner and another movie night with the big boys. It was a great day off spent with some of my favorite people in the world.

So for now…Mweraba!