Week 3

Day 15: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 - Check this out!

Asher and Mercy are still scared of the guest house dogs but they were sooo brave today and got close enough to pet them! If you want to see how fast Mercy can run, just have a dog nonchalantly walk past her. That girl may have track in her future yet! 😉

Not too exciting of a day today - I kept the littles preoccupied while the bigs did their schoolwork. We have a night routine down pretty good now - eat dinner, go for a walk, play outside at the guesthouse until we start seeing mosquitoes, SHOWERS! (We are all covered in red dirt by the end of the day!),  then Kenzie fixes Mercy's hair, talk with Steve on the phone (always the best part of our day), prayers, bedtime (and break for me and the bigs!).

Tonight Abby played her guitar softly while I layed down with Mercy. It was the sweetest thing. She just layed there looking into my eyes until she dozed off. I kept thinking to myself, "How did our little, ordinary family from tiny Collinsville, OK get to this point? And Asher and Mercy call me momma. How did I get to be so lucky?" Mercy still has her "episodes" but we can definitely tell her heart is softening. And a huge reason for that is because of your prayers. Thank you so much. We are so grateful to have you on this journey with us. ❤️ Here's a few more pics of our day...

Day 16: Thursday, February 11, 2016 - Today started off with our usual outdoor playtime with the littles so the bigs could focus on school.

We took a break at lunch and ate at The Keep, one of our favorite restaurants in town. It has a beautiful outdoor area to dine in at, delicious food at affordable prices, and it comes out fairly quickly. (There's been several restaurants we had to wait close to an hour for our food to be served.)

Afterwards, we quickly checked out a few craft booths and I snagged a woven mat - not sure if I can get that on the plane with me - but I needed one for our guest house because I am always sitting on ants when we go out to play. Mercy insisted on carrying it for me which got us some interesting "child labor" looks from passerby's 😂

The family that has helped run our guest house and has lived here for the last 15 months moved out yesterday. Bob has a prison ministry and will be focusing more on that. Occasionally, volunteers for orphanages stay here but we are hoping more adoptive families move in soon. It can get a little lonely without company so you can add that to your prayer list if you think of it, please. 😉

Also please pray we receive our verbal ruling and court order tomorrow so we can move on to the next step. Our Judge said he would give it by noon so I hope he keeps his word. 🙏🏼 We plan on staying in all day tomorrow as a presidential candidate will be passing through town and we want to avoid any conflicts that may arise.

Day 17: Friday, February 12, 2016 - Last night was a looong night. The power went off at 10 but came back about 45 minutes later. But then it went off again about 2:45 in the morning and didn't come back on until about 8. This was really bad for us because we rely on our fans to keep us cool and to block the noise. Thankfully the littles slept right through it but the bigs and I were so miserable. It was so hot and way too quiet except for the dance music being played at the clubs a mile or two away. (The girls thought it was pretty funny that they played Justin Beiber's song, "Sorry".) Plus, it's just a little eery with it being so very dark. You have to expect the power will go out on occasion here but it's just very inconvenient when it does.

So when our power was up and we had wifi again, I got a fun message from one of Asher's preschool teachers. She said they had their Valentine's Day party and had Asher's cards for him when we return. That was so sweet and thoughtful of them.

He misses his school and church friends so much. Also our neighbor, Desmond, and his other buddy, Sammy. He told me the other day he hopes some of them will be at the airport when we arrive home. 😉

We were a little concerned about today because Presidential candidate Kizza Besigye was speaking at various locations around Jinja and there were talks that riots could break out. As far as I know, it has been fairly peaceful, so that is good. Monday the current president will be passing through. I think it would be neat to see him but of course we won't for safety reasons.

After breakfast this morning, it was sheet washing day and Asher and Mercy were so happy to help our friend, Christine, do the washing. Thankfully she was very patient with them and it preoccupied them for an hour or so.

Enjoying their morning cup of hot tea

They have such a sweet relationship.
We're so thankful they have each other.

One of our prayer requests were answered tonight - an adoptive family moved in. Thankful for the company but I feel so bad for them. It's actually a returning family that was here when we first moved in. They completed the entire legal guardianship process then went to their visa appointment at the U.S. Embassy and it was denied. So now their case will be sent to Rome, of all places, to get reviewed there. Praying they get to go home soon as they have been here since about the 3rd week of November. 😕

And another highlight for us was getting to FaceTime with Steve's sister, Stacy, and her kids. ❤️ We are really missing our friends and family back home.

And oh yeah - we were hoping to hear today that Judge M gave us his verbal ruling...

...

... And he did! Thank you, Jesus! I was concerned that we wouldn't get it until after elections so we are very thankful to have it this early. It's supposed to be "officially" delivered Monday and our attorney is requesting that he go ahead and give us our court order at the same time. If he does this, we can start the passport process which would be amazing so big prayers are requested. Hoping to start it before Election Day which is on the 18th. We love and appreciate you all and hope you have a great weekend.

Day 18: Saturday, February 13, 2016 - Today we found another treasure in Jinja - the Jinja Nile Resort! For less than $3 per person we got to swim at this amazing getaway. The landscaping was so beautiful and it was right on the Nile River. We swam and ate lunch and were able to clear our minds for a bit. Wish Steve were with us but thankful for rest and restoration!

Do I take too many pics of this girl? #loveher

Asher helping Mercy fall asleep for nap

Day 19: Sunday, February 14, 2016 - Happy Valentine's Day from Uganda! We celebrated by opening cards that Steve left us and hid in my suitcase (so sweet!) and we exchanged homemade cards that we made for each other...

We rode a boda to church at Worship Harvest ...

We played outside. That's pretty much always a given...

We walk on this ledge around our
guest house many, many times a day.

and ate an amazing lasagne dinner at the Italian guest house up the road from us....

 It was a good day and we are counting our blessings.

As I was typing this, our electricity went on and off again twice. Praying it stays on the rest of the night so we can get some 💤💤💤

Thank you for praying with us that we "officially" receive our verbal ruling tomorrow, as well as our court order so we can begin the next step which is getting Mercy's passport. Also, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni will be campaigning in Jinja tomorrow so please pray that all is peaceful in our town.

Day 20: Monday, February 15, 2016 - We stayed in all day today because President Museveni was coming to Jinja to speak. Loud African drums were played all day long in his honor. There is talk of riots going on but they are mostly in Kampala. We are thankful to be at our guest house in Jinja and feel pretty safe here. Please continue to pray for peace in Uganda over the next week. Elections are Thursday but the winner may not be announced for several days.

I mentioned in another post that Mercy has zero attention span but I have found something that girl loves to do - clean! I bet she swept this morning for a good 30 minutes and "helped" with the laundry for an hour or so. They teach those skills so early on in babies homes and orphanages here. She loves it though, and it seems to make her happy. 😉

Chatting with the street kids

Good news/bad news: We found out late tonight that our verbal ruling was delivered and our lawyer also has our court order in hand! Hallelujah! I was hoping to go to Kampala tomorrow to begin the passport process but things are pretty unstable there now so we'll unfortunately have to wait until middle to latter part of next week. This will set us back about a week but, of course, I don't want to take any chances with our safety. Reminding myself tonight that God is in control and His timing is perfect!

Day 21: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 - Soooo... Today ended up being an interesting day. After breakfast, the bigs started on their school work while Asher, Mercy, and I grabbed a boda and went to a friend's house for a fun play date. We have found a boda driver we like because he is safe and drives slow. So we've been calling him when we have short distances to travel like today. We went to the home of one of Mercy's best little buds from the babies home who is also getting adopted. Their family moved to Uganda to adopt Billie Bowa and to work for AMAZIMA MINISTRIES. The kids had so much fun playing together and it was a nice break for them to get out of the guest house. I also enjoyed the company of my friend, Mary.

After the play date, we (including the bigs) went to lunch at The Deli then ventured to the grocery store to get a few things. The girls are getting pretty good at converting shillings to dollars and trying to stay within our food budget. 😉

This building is across the street from the Deli. I think it's so cool looking!

After we got back, we "tried" nap time - didn't work...

Instead, she chose to take off her dress and undergarments and wear them on her head and put on her nightgown. She was quite funny to watch. I would not normally let her get away with this but I put her down for a late nap and didn't really want her to sleep or she wouldn't sleep tonight. I just needed a little Mama break. 😉

Then at 4:45 I received a call from our attorney telling me we have an 8:30 passport interview in the morning in the capitol, Kampala (about 2 1/2 hours away). I wasn't thrilled about going there because of potential chaos this week with elections but if we go to our interview in the morning, we can possibly get Mercy's passport next Tuesday. And things have quieted down in Kampala so I decided to give it a go. We had about 45 minutes to pack our bags, find a driver to take us to Kampala, find a place to stay the night, and find a different driver for tomorrow! God was definitely in the details in all that planning because our driver already needed to go to Kampala and my preferred guest house (Herb and Ellen's) just happened to have space for us which is rare because they stay quite full. So we are now in Kampala for the night. Our interview will hopefully not take very long then we'll grab something to eat and head back to Jinja. Things are moving! Thank you so much for your prayers! A few more pics from our day...