Sumo, Sushi, and Salvation

Here's some pictures of the festivities from this past weekend....

The "Sumo Sisters"-Maren and her friend Brooke

Christoper "Sushi" Scott

Joshua being baptized!! Yeah!!!

Picture of the Day-- A Memory of Uganda

Uganda has been on my mind A LOT lately-If you asked my wife I'm sure she'd say,"When is it NOT on your mind"? I think its because I'm nearing the 1 year anniversary of the trip I took with Compassion International - When I saw this picture on the internet earlier today, it just cracked me up.. It was taken in the capital city of Kampala, otherwise known as "Kampothole"-according to the article accompanying the picture. I do remember thinking that I would never complain about our roads here in the states when I got home.

ONLY IN UGANDA could you catch fish in a pothole!! I will attest to the fact that they really are deep enough to fish in. I think some of them actually were deep and wide enough to swallow a whole car!

HELP HAITI LIVE

Hey everyone,

If you are looking for something to do this evening, without even going outside in the wonderful weather, then look no further!!

Tonight at 7:30pm cst. is the Help Haiti Live Concert. The event is actually a ticketed concert event taking place tonight at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville TN. HOWEVER the event is also being streamed live at HelpHaitiLive.com --so you can watch from the comfort of your own home!

"Help Haiti Live" is a production of Shaun Groves and Synergy Production Group for Compassion International .

100% of on-line donations through HelpHaitiLive.com will go to Compassion International's Haiti disaster relief fund. 100% of net proceeds from ticket sales go to Compassion International's Haiti disaster relief fund as well.

Scheduled to participate tonight are Alison Kraus and Union Station, Amy Grant, Big Kenny, Matt Kearney, Jars of Clay, Rebecca St. James, Brandon Heath, Need to Breathe, Dave Barnes, Matt Wertz and Switchfoot's Jon Foreman.

So if you want to stay in tonight, put on your pj's , make some popcorn ,and grab the laptop..it should be some great music for a great cause!!

What the Heck??

What the heck is going on??!!

Barbara Mandrell calls Missy on her birthday......

and tonight.........wait for it...........wait for it...........

George Jones came over to visit us!!

We were told, by the neighbors, he was waiting on our front porch last night too, but we weren't home. Darn......Soooo glad he stopped back by tonight!

P.S. In case you aren't a country music fan-George Jone's nickname has always been "The Possum."

A GOOD DAY!!

Well today was the big day we had all been waiting for-THE DAY TO FINALLY MEET OUR SPONSORED CHILDREN! Alot of people were a little nervous, myself included. Questions swirled through our heads the night before like,"What if they are shy and don't want anything to do with us?" " What if they don't like what we have painstakingly picked out to bring them?" What if.... What if....

But we got over it quickly, when we started walking to where we were going to meet them. The plan was, we were to be able to be with the children, from about 9:00am to 4:30pm But as we were walking, Dennis,who is a Ugandan working for Compassion and has been over coordinating all our stops on this trip, came up to me and said, "I just wanted you to know that there is some transportation problems for Felix, he is on his way, but it is going to be awhile. I'll have to be honest and say my first thought was "Oh no!!, I've traveled all this way and I'm not gonna be able to see him.

There was one other sponsor who's child was delayed in traffic as well. Everything worked out fine though. The other sponsor's child arrived about 1:30, and Felix ended up arriving at about 3pm. I was thankful just to be able to spend 1 1/2 hrs with him. But it turns out our tour leaders told me that since he was late, he would be able to stay and join our group for dinner at 7:30pm. So he got to enjoy soccer/football, and we went into a wading pool to WADE but Felix decided to go swimming with his clothes on. :) Felix was accompanied by his mother, his 11 month old baby brother Joshua, and his Compassion project worker, who also helped to translate what Felix was saying to me. So, he ended up getting to stay the full amount of time. His family didn't leave until almost 10:00pm

I think God had it all planned out this way for 2 reasons:

1.)Since Felix was not there yet,I was able to do what I love doing...Taking Pictures!! I got to capture all the moments of the other sponsors meeting there kids. I also got alot of shots of them playing games etc. It was an emotional time for some! Beforehand, we had kind of wandered how, everyone would be able to take pictures as we were all meeting our kids at the same time. Problem solved!

2.) I think Felix wanted to make a Grand Entrance. He was a fashion extraordinaire as you'll see in his pictures below.

Enjoy the pictures....and if you should feel led to sponsor child please click here

Sponsors were lined up on the left and children were instructed to run across and find their sponsor.

Group photo of all sponsors, children, & Compassion project workers,

No, I didn't tell him to put his right hand like that! He did it on his own. :)

This is Felix's mother, his 11 month old brother Joshua, Felix, and me.

Felix opening his back pack full of Goodies!

And enjoying the fruits of his labor.

Well, I have about another gazillion pictures, but that is all for now, the internet is painfully slow, and I have to be up early. Tomorrow we are leaving Kampala and heading north to the town of Lira. I think it is about a 5 1/2 hr. drive. We will get a break from driving as we are stopping at a Compassion Project along the way. We will be staying in Lira until Monday morning, and then heading back here to Kampala. We fly out of Uganda bright and early Wednesday morning.

I Made It!

Hello from Kampala, Uganda!!

After two nights of travel with VERY LITTLE sleep, our group arrived in UGANDA!! I still can't quite get over the fact, I am in AFRICA!

We arrived at 7:45am today Uganda time,-11:45pm yesterday IL time. It took us about 1 1/2 hrs to go thru customs, and then another hour to get to our hotel. After arriving and getting checked in, we had about 1 hour to RELAX, before eating lunch and heading out to experience Compassion in Uganda. We went to the Kansanga Child Survival Project which has a program which focuses on teaching new mothers family planning, prenatal care , and infant and toddler care. The project manager, started with a worship and then expained what they do here. We got to sit in on a class for mothers and their infants and learned about the home visits they do with the mothers once or twice a month to make sure they are giving proper care to their child. There are approximately 30 mothers they minister to and I think almost every one of them, and their little ones were there today. One thing I like about Compassion is how they show us everything they do. Today they had on hand the infants records, which have recorded every visit they have had with the mother to document her progress. It also has the child's immunizations, Dr. records, everything you could think of, to make sure the child is being treated correctly.

We also watched as some of the women there, made necklaces, out of strips of paper,. They sold these to help support their families. They even asked us to sit down with them and showed us how to roll up the paper on little pins, then when it was completed were used as the beads.

Lets just say that I have NO future in jewelry making! It was also neat to watch them sit around in a group,while doing this, and every once in awhile, one of the women would start singing a worship song very softly and before you knew it, they were all belting it out dancing and praising Jesus. It was almost like you had stepped back into another era in time. Things definitely move at a slower pace here, unless you are on the roadways, then its a whole different story. We also went on home visits of three different women in the program. More on that later.

Well, its really late here, and I have to be up and ready to go at 7:00am. I will leave you with some pictures from today. The kids are awesome! Always smiling and happy, even when, their living conditions are horrendous. As you will see they are big HAMS and love to have their pictures taken and look at themselves in the viewfinder. We started out with babies today, but the older kids just kept showing up.

Enjoy!

The Countdown has Begun!

We've had alot of strange things in our fridge before-such as forgotten leftovers that have morphed in their sealed bowls into other creatures with hair. We've also had milk that has on its own, turned into a cottage cheese like substance, but here's something I have never, ever, seen in my refrigerator before......

Missy: "Lovey, have you seen the bottle of coffee creamer that I bought at the store?" " I can't find it."

Denny:" Why sure, it's hanging out right behind the gallon of milk and the TYPHOID VACCINE dear!!"

Yes, this past 2 weeks people, in the most painful way, I have realized that in al little less than 3 weeks, I am going to UGANDA, AFRICA with Compassion International. Holy Cow! Where does the time go... it just seems like a few weeks ago that I was praying about this and now it is almost time to leave.

After having 5 different shots, I now have "peace of mind" in knowing that I am safe from the dreaded yellow fever,meningococcal meningitis, polio, hepatitis A, and, tetanus/diptheria/pertussis-the good people at the health department were kind enough to roll that last shot into one :)- instead of three separate ones. God Bless them!!

The shots weren't really that bad, the worst thing was while the nurse went to draw up the shots, she left me to read the literature on the possible side effects of each of them. Big Mistake!

The side effects ranged from the simplest of just having a sore arm, nausea, vomiting, fever to the most drastic -which was from the yellow fever vaccine-which could, just COULD, lead to TOTAL ORGAN SHUTDOWN -1 case reported per every 200,000-300,000 doses given.

Let's see the last time I checked, you needed most of your organs to stay ALIVE!! MY nurse Nan,was quick to reassure me,"Oh don't worry, I've never had anybody die from this"....with a sweet smile on her face. I was quick to follow up with," And how many have you given- 199,999 doses?" I think I would have felt more comfortable in her saying that she had someone kick the bucket in the past-just kidding. But I was quick to remember that God is in control of it all, and rather than look like a wuss, I sucked it up and took the shots.

And guess what, as you can see, I'm still here. I am happy to say that the shots are all over with now, and I just have to take something for malaria-which I will start 2 weeks before I leave and continue taking for 3-4 weeks when I return, and the "LIVE" Typhoid vaccine, that is hanging out on the top shelf of my fridge. I start taking it this week, which consists of 4 pills to be taken one every other day. The "Live" part kinda freaks me out a little. I think I would rather be putting something in me that's dead-not alive,but what the heck--there's no turning back now!

So that is what's going on in my life right now, I will keep you all (probably the 2 of you who still check in here every now and then) up to date on what is going on -btw sorry for the lack of posting in the past 2 months- As long as there is an internet connection -which, believe it or not, there is suppose to be one, I will keep you all informed of my adventure while it's happening on the old blog here.

Talk to you later...