Endurance...

If you've been following us on our trip, thank you so much.

We've been keeping extremely busy. Of course, we are still traveling around doing our bit of teaching. Yesterday, we were able to share at Uganda Christian University and then we stopped by Kuluva Hospital. After a bit of teaching, we were able to walk through the hospital and see patients and pray for them. It was very heart-wrenching to see the condition of some of these folks, but it was so encouraging to see people caring for them and to see their attitudes in light of their situations. I'm sure if you talked to any of us one-on-one, we'd be able to give you a much more personal look into what we experienced.

In our final week and a half, we still have two overnight trips, a decent amount of teaching, a trip north to witness ministry up there, a sports gala, a final service to lead and then our departure.

So the youth workers here are getting every last drop out of us, haha. But we're glad they are. We've loved doing the ministry we've been able to do while being here.

Continue to pray that we would stay focused on the task at hand and not get distracted knowing of our soon return home. We want to allow God to use us to our fullest potential and we need our minds to be all here. We are continuing to build great relationships so pray that those would strengthen and be maintained upon leaving.

I (Kevin) apologize again for the lack of video lately. As we travel around, I get some video but it's often very similar to stuff I already have. But I am hard at work brainstorming and shooting things for our final video. And we've got another interesting video planned to highlight not our trip, but the real life of people here in Arua.

Thanks for all your prayers and we'll meet again soon!

A Day in the Wilderness

Last Wednesday, the four of us and several of our local gang took a trip to Paraa National Park which included a trip through the wild and a journey down the Nile to Murchison Falls. The video below will give you a glimpse into our exciting day.



The journey there and back was not a typical drive. A 1.5 to 2 hour drive took 3 hours either way. This was due to the not-so-great durability of what they call a taxi - a small 14-passenger bus-thing. The tire was taken off a couple times and fixed, and the engine overheated three or four times on the return. And sitting in the back of this shock-less piece of metal was not very comfortable. But nonetheless, the day was very enjoyable.

False Alarm

I guess disregard the below post. I mean, you can read it, but disregard the part about not having a video today. The Internet has decided to cooperate to an extent so there is a short video. Again, it's nothing spectacular, but at least you can see some more of what we're doing.

Difficult Updates

Hey everyone. I (Kevin) apologize for the lack of videos lately. I have one created but the Internet hasn't been working very well the last couple times we have visited. I do want to share what we have been doing but it's been difficult to do. And it is hard to find time to make videos. Or at least make them good. I want to make sure that they are good quality. But I can say that the end video will be well worth the wait. Not sure how soon I'll have it done - hopefully within a couple days of our trip ending. But I'm excited to put time into it so you all can see a detailed overview of what we're doing and how we have been learning through certain situations.

So be on the lookout in the future.

More Life in Arua!

This video is some of the sights and sounds of our last few days. Things have really been taking off and we have been experiencing some great things. Three videos have been posted today so be sure to watch the other two below! Thanks for the thoughts and prayers...

Blind Boys - Sean's Comments

Below Sean talks about our experiences with the kids we meet. The Blind Boys singing that he mentions can be seen and heard in the above video. And there are three posts all in one day, so don't overlook the one below!

Teaching - Sean's Thoughts

Below is Sean's comments on our first couple days of teaching. I apologize about the quality of the video. I have to use a low quality in order for the video to upload at a decent speed. Enjoy!

Headed to Uganda!

We've been here for a few days now, but I'm finally able to get the video up of our venture over. Hope you enjoy it!

"You've gotta be flexible!"

Never before had the above statement been so true! And we should have expected it. Rae Rynaker, our short-term site coordinator, reiterated that phrase over and over during our orientation at the beginning of last week.

If you haven’t heard, here is a brief (and I do mean brief) synopsis of our travel adventures thus far:

Wed, June 16 – 3:30 p.m. – arrive at JFK, except it was the wrong terminal. We then hauled all of our luggage to the end of the terminal, took a variety of elevators and hallways to AirTrane which led us to the correct terminal.
- 6:00 p.m. – depart JFK for Amsterdam
- 9:30 p.m. – realized an air conditioner unit on the plane had failed, causing us to turn around and head back to JFK (legal reasons, apparently)
Thurs, June 17 – 1:00 a.m. – arrive back at JFK and stand in a line to potentially receive hotel and food vouchers along with transportation to the hotel.
- 1:00 – 4:00 a.m. – stand in various lines trying to figure out how to reconnect our flight out of Amsterdam. Realized we were in a pointless line, and eventually received meal vouchers at a different kiosk. We then boarded a van to take us to our hotel, which just so happened to be overbooked. So another hotel is logical, right? Nope. The driver took us back to JFK briefly, then we took a 20-minute ride to our final destination, the Holiday Inn Express.
-12:00 p.m. – leave our hotel for JFK Take 2
-12:30 p.m. – arrive at JFK and stand in line for three hours to figure out how to reroute our flight.
-6:00 p.m. – leave JFK for a second go at Amsterdam (an hour later than the expected take off)

As I write this, it is 10:15 and we are somewhere over the Atlantic well on our way. So it will take a bit longer than we had expected to get into Uganda, but here is how it is happening:

Fri, June 18 – 7:00 a.m. – land in Amsterdam
- 8:30 p.m. – leave Amsterdam for Nairobi, Kenya
Sat, June 19 – 7:00 a.m. – land in Nairobi
-8:30 a.m. – leave Nairobi for Entebbe, Uganda
-9:30 a.m. – ARRIVE IN UGANDA!!

Again, this is how it all is expected to happen. Who knows what will really happen.

But going through this has actually proven to be a very positive experience. All our time in line allowed us to meet a few different African natives, a couple of whom where believers. It was very encouraging to see other folks using their skills and situations to benefit the Kingdom. And we obviously learned patience, but in a much more applicable way. One difference we have continually heard between American and African culture is a time-oriented vs. event-oriented mind set. So just as was said at the beginning, we have to learn to be flexible! We are going to encounter many unexpected tests in our 7 weeks in Arua, and this was a great test-run to see how our team acts in the face of frustration.

And on top of this, we are privileged to be travelling with a fifth Ugandan teammate. Ashley Gillman, who we met Monday at orientation, is ending her travels in Kampala, Uganda and will be there for at least nine months serving the Lord by using her public relations skills to help at-risk children. So it has been great to have someone else along in the adventure with us.

Well, we’ve got another good 4.5 hours left in this flight, so I’m gonna do my best to get some shut-eye – something thas has been rare as of late and will be hard to come by tomorrow night as we make our way south into Africa. Again, thank you all for your continued prayers and thoughts for our team as we seek to show the love and goodness of Christ in whatever and any way we can.

Photo by Ashley Gillman

Follow You

The morning of our departure, Kevin and Jess performed Leeland's "Follow You" at Vienna Baptist Church. The words are so appropriate to what we want our mission experience to be. The words are as follows:

You lived among the least of these
The weary and the weak
And it would be a tragedy for me to turn away.

All my needs You have supplied.
When i was dead You gave me life.
How could i not give it away so freely?

And I'll follow you into the homes of the broken.
Follow you into the world.
Meet the needs for the poor and the needy, God.
Follow you into the world.

Use my hands use my feet
To make Your kingdom come
To the corners of the earth
Until your work is done
'Cause faith without works is dead
And on the cross your blood was shed
So how could i not give it away so freely?

I give all myself.
I give all myself
I give all myself.to you.

Getting Ready to Go...

This video was recorded last Friday night after a great first team meeting. Sean recaps our day and talks about what we're excited about!

Hello White People!

Only a few minutes into my research about Ugandan culture, I had found several sites telling me to expect that common phrase aimed toward outsiders...

Jambo Mzungu! Translation - Hello white people.

But, to be sure, it's not an insult. This is just something they say. So we thought it was an apt title for our new Team Blog.

We each have different means of communicating with those supporting us, but we thought it would be nice to also have a communal blog. On here we want to post more general videos letting people know what is going on... things that we are all learning. We are going to use lots of short videos to do just that.

Our main goal is for those following us to stay as updated as possible. We can't let our desire to include folks become a distraction while in Arua, but, as you are a part of this ministry, we feel like we need to let you all know what's up.

Hope you enjoy!

Kevin