Pictures Mom got off Facebook! :-)

Saturday, July 24

Well, it's actually Sunday. I thought I'd copy a few (hahaha) pictures off Facebook and post them so you could get a glimpse of the girls and some of the things they've been experiencing. Enjoy!

I think this is the boat they took to Sigulu Island - a 2 hour ride - and where they live on the island.















Here is the school and the school supplies they took for the children.
















Amy at prison...















And the girls picking out dresses and with the children:

Amy sighting?

Tuesday evening during the supper rush, there was an odd sighting in Torrance: Amy at Rascals in her apron??? Even the other workers stopped bagging, cooking, and helping customers, because they could not believe their eyes. She was back! Yes, seems a little strange she flew all the way back to CA for a night of work and some free chicken and rice, but see for yourself.

Calling

This morning during family time Bob Mooney said something that really struck me. He quoted Matthew 25:34-40
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
After reading this passage Bob went on to explain that this is not a check list for our lives but it is a calling for our lives. I had never thought of the passage in that way before. Having this fresh in my mind made me more present during our outings today.
Today we went into town to do a little shopping; they have a farmers market area, their avocados were HUGE and only cost about 30cents. Many people stocked up on avocado, onions and tomatoes, GUACAMOLE!! It was nice to be able to walk through the markets and see the way Ugandan’s live.
After the markets we went to Smile Africa, we were going to feed the children lunch. Feed My Starving Children has provided the food for these children.This food provides enough nutrients for children to thrive; this food is scientifically formed to help children who are severely malnourished. The children at Smile Africa are amazing. They are all SMILES! We got to serve the children their lunch, and hung out with them for a little bit.
Later in the evening we went to the Awinjo House. The Awinjo House is this incredible compound that a retired man from Connecticut started to house orphans. The orphans sang several songs for us, they have BEAUTIFUL voices. What a blessing it was to be able to hear their voices and the vision that the gentleman has for expansion of the compound. He wants to be able to house up to 400 kids. God is doing great things in the Awinjo House!
We are called to make a difference, we are called to empower people…but the greatest thing is the empowerment we received.

Fish Face

Today we were blessed to have the opportunity to go to church at True Vine. The church services in Africa are hours long. However, they allow us to come late since we are not used to such long services. We were at church for about 2 ½ hours, and let me tell you… those were the fastest 2 ½ hours I have ever experienced. There was much dancing and singing, and a message from Pastor Bob. It was amazing to see each of the different tribes presenting their dance to the congregation. During one tribes dance, they invited us up to dance with them. What an amazing act of worship, to be up and dancing. The children were supposed to be outside at Sunday school, but once they saw the Mzungu coming to church they wanted to join us. The children here just love to sit on your lap and be loved. So that’s what many of us did during church. Some of the children are very shy, so you will wave at them, and they will come over. The little boy that was sitting with me was very tired during church. I could see his head nodding off, but when I would try and have him rest his head, he would wake up. Eventually he was comfortable enough where he reclined and took a little nap during the service.

After church we went back to Juba to do more painting. Today we were painting outside on the school walls. Here in Africa many of the schools don’t have school books, so the teachers have posters with pictures on them, things like parts of a fish, parts of the body, parts of a seed, the body, and a map of Uganda and Africa. So we painted these things on the outside of the school. What a fun experience that was. The sun was very hot today. Many of the children were there and wanting to help out in any way they could. My friend Kristen from yesterday found me right away, and greeted me with a huge hug. She was an amazing help today, holding the poster so that I could draw the things on the walls. She would periodically tell me oh I have to leave and go do something, but I will come back. She stayed with me through 2 paintings. We had some fun little conversations while painting. One revolved around the fish’s lips. So, I showed her how I make fish lips (something that I have done for years) She laughed so hard, then made fish lips back. Pretty soon her sister Jennifer and friend Jennifer and Lucy were over making fish lips with us. There were some local women sitting on a bench watching this all unfold and they were just laughing. It was fun for all. I was able to get some pictures of us making our fish face.

Many people worked very hard on each of these mini murals. Michael was given the task of doing the coat of arms… and it was not an easy task. We had all finished our murals, and Michael was finishing up his, when it started to rain. And when I say rain, it was rain. The sky opened up and it came down good. Michael finished up and we said our see you’s (here in Africa it is pretty rare that someone will tell you good bye, because they know and hope that they will see you again) and ran to the van. It was a great day, we got many mini murals done, and were able to hang out with our friends at Juba.

July 16th

Today after family time the team from Good Shepherd met with Pastor Ruth, what and incredible woman of God she is, to discuss what items Smile Africa needs the most. Members of Good Shepherd have donated money and $2000 (or 4 million schillings) was set aside for school supplies. Pastor Ruth has such a giving and loving spirit. We talked about the children at Smile Africa, the Karamajong, and she was telling us about the children’s past and how they are looked down upon by society. The Karamajong tribe is looked down upon because many of the men are drunks and don’t care for their families. The children would be found digging through the rubbish near the street for food for them and siblings.

After we met with Pastor Ruth we went to lunch in the city. It was nice to be able to see how the people of Tororo live. After lunch Sam, who works with Pastor Ruth took us shopping for all the supplies that we needed to get for Smile Africa. We got to walk through the city and interact with the locals. Alicia has a guy flirting with her and Sam scolded the man, and told Alicia that he is not a good guy.

We then delivered the supplies to Smile Africa, and got to walk through the compound and see all the improvements that have been made over the past 3 years. We also got to play with the children. These children are adorable and have so much love to give. Pastor Ruth said that she loves to look into their eyes and see what they will be when they grow up, and is so thankful to God for bringing them into her life.

July 17
Today we got to visit 2 of the 3 gardens that are being started in Uganda. The idea is that they will be able to produce vegetables that they will be able to sell and become self-sufficient. What amazing job they are doing. The vegetable garden was only started in November, but they have wonderful vegetables growing. We were able to see some very large, lush produce. Some of the items they do not exactly know what they are because they received many seeds that were not marked, but planted them anyway. Once they had their first harvest, there was a high demand for cucumbers – something that is not native to Africa, and many people had never had before. They are open and willing to try to grow anything since they do not know exactly what will grow in the African soil. They are also composting, so that they can reduce waste and use it to help fertilize the plants.

Amy went to Prison
I am not going to lie I was very anxious about going to the prison to visit with the prisoners. There was this feeling inside me tell me I needed to go. I was very nervous but I just asked God to quiet those nerves so that I may be able to be present with the men and women at the prison. They told us that some of the men and women who are in prison may be innocent. If a person is accused of something they are taken to prison until they are able to have a trial, which in some cases could be months or longer. Women who are in prison have their children with them in prison until the children turn 8 years old then the children are kicked out and they are on their own. When I heard this it broke my heart.

When we arrived at the prison we met with Pastor Eric who is a local pastor who is the one who runs the prison ministry along with the hospital ministry. He is an incredible man who has such a heart for the prisoners. After we met with the warden we went inside the prison. As we were waiting to get in we could hear the prisoners singing, “This is the day that the LORD has made…” this comforted my nerves a great deal.

When we got into the prison we were outside under this beautiful big tree, where the prisoners already were. The facilities were in poor condition, and we learned that most of the prisoners do not even have beds to sleep in. Pastor Eric told us that the conditions of the prison as well as the way they treat the prisoners have improved greatly since he first started coming to the prison. They had chairs for us to sit in. We got to sing songs together and pray together. What an incredible experience. There was one guy that was one of the first ones I spotted when we got there. He was standing on the outside of the circle and didn’t seem to be interested in what was going on. I said a quiet prayer that God would work in his life. As we continued to worship he moved closer into the circle.

Dave Peters got up and preached as well as Pastor Bob, from Messiah Lutheran Church. After they shared Pastor Eric asked the men and women who had not accepted Christ yet if they wanted to. About 20 people accepted Christ that day, one of them was the man that I said a quiet prayer for. What an amazing experience. All those that accepted Christ received a Bible along with a cross crochet bookmark. They were so excited for those items. We also brought soaps and razor blades for the prisoners.
Pastor Eric had some amazing words to share with us and the prisoners. He told the prisoners that we would continue to pray for them and that they need to continue to pray for us, because we have come to visit them, and many of them their own families do not even come to visit them. After the service we got to shake the hands of the prisoners and talk with them. I am so glad I listened to the prompting in my heart to go visit with these prisoners. I feel truly blessed to have gotten the opportunity to spend the afternoon with them.

Kelly went to Juba to Paint
When we were at Juba we were very busy painting inside 2 of the school rooms. It was amazing what we saw while we were pulling down cardboard signs – scorpions, many crickets, large spiders, and 2 HUGE cockroaches. We painted much of the afternoon. There were kids peeking in the windows watching and talking with us as we worked. We got about 15-20 kids who were around to get their hand painted and put it on the wall just under the chalkboard in one classroom. They loved having their hand painted, and then being able to see their print on the wall. (This is something that kids around the world must love – because we have done this at home and the kids there love it too)

I got to know a girl called Jennifer and her sister Kristen. Both are such sweet girls. When we were done painting Jennifer came up to me, and was holding my hand. I could feel that she had something in her hand, but I did not know what it was. As we continued holding hands she began to move her hand back and forth in mine. When she was done, she took my hand and turned it over, she had a piece of brown chalk that she had been rubbing between our hands. She took my hand and put hers right next to mine, looked up at me, smiled, and said “look now we are the same”, and gave me a great big hug. These kids are so sweet, and have much love to give.
After we were done painting we hung out with some of the kids, singing songs with them.

Thursday July 15, 2010

Today we went to Paya and Juba.
We started our morning off with a drive to Juba. We went to a school, where we were treated to a performance by the Primary School aged children. They sang and danced for just over an hour. Their songs were beautiful, and would just bring tears to your eyes. The joy that they had and the smiles as they were singing welcoming songs to us, and thanking God for the new visitors.
After a lovely performance at Juba we drove about an hour to Paya. Paya is a village that was severely flooded in April and May of this year. During this flooding they lost lots of crops and nothing was able to get to them because the roads were affected so much. We were greeted by many people. The women were so overjoyed to have us bringing them beans and porsha. When we got off the bus we received many hugs!! The women had loud cries of joy (Alicia can make the noise – you will have to ask her for a demonstration  )
One of the local pastors thanked us for coming and explained about the flooding that had taken place. We divided ourselves into 2 groups, one handed out the beans and porsha to the families that were in the most need, and the other group did the Womens Ministry – Hope4Women. Amy and I went and did the Womens Ministry. What a humbling experience. There were 20 women that we were going to be pampering – I found out later that there is no word in their language for papmer, this is something that is very unusual for women to experience. We were getting ready to start, had the 20 women that were selected sitting around the tree, and it started to rain. So we had a quick location change, and moved inside. The women were given a basin to put their feet in, and it was filled with water, the women immediately started cleaning their own feet. We had to stop them from doing it themselves. I walked up to one woman and painted her fingernails, she was so overjoyed and thanked me many times with tears in her eyes. After painting nails we would wash their feet, put oil on them and wrap them in a bag and they would rest their feet in slippers. I could not get over how callused and hard their feet were and the miles that they have traveled on their feet to provide for their families.
After we had painted and washed their feet, we would put lipstick on and give them a new scarf. We would then show them in a mirror and some of them didn’t know who was looking back at them. After every woman had been pampered we handed out a bag of beans and a hoe to each woman. They were so joyful and excited to be receiving a hoe. Wendy lead a wonderful message and then invited the women to accept Christ. Many women raised their hand that they wanted to receive Christ, there were even kids that were looking in through the window and they wanted to accept Christ as well. It was so moving to see these women accepting Christ. One of the local pastors told us that many of these women will start coming to church now that they have accepted Christ.
I could go on and on about what an amazing experience this was.

Day 1 July 12
We left today for our 2 week mission trip to AFRICA!!!!
We met Dave and Kelly R at church at 9am to pack up and head out to LAX for a 12:40 flight. Alicia had an earlier flight that connected in Denver, and we will meet her in London.
So we got to LAX, met up with Bob, Rick, and Lisa who are from Messiah Lutheran in Yorba Linda. We hung out in the airport for several hours before we were able to board our direct flight to London. However, our bags were not at lucky to get a direct flight to Africa, like we had hoped. We checked them at LAX, and then would have to pick them up in London and re-check them in London so they could have a direct flight to Africa.
We were all called to board the flight, once everyone was on the captain came on and told us that we were going to be delayed for about 15 minutes so that they could fix the AC, the 15 minutes turned into waiting on the plane for almost 2 hours. We were able to make up sometime while we were in the air.
No one got much sleep on our overnight flight. We landed in London at about 8am on Tuesday

Day 2 July 13
LONDON!!! We made it all the way – and it only took us 10 hours.
Amy, Kelly R, Dave, Rick and I decided that we would “run” through London during our 13 hour layover. Well since we were delayed at LAX, that shortened up our layover, then with having to pick up our bags and find something to do with them cut our a little more of our time.
We were supposed to meet Alicia in London after she landed. So we went to our meeting spot, sat down and man did it hit us – we were TIRED!! Having not really slept in just over 24 hours can really wear you down. We waited for about an hour and she still had not shown up, so we decided that we would wait just a few more minutes then we would have to go so that we had enough time to get back to the airport, check back in, pick up our luggage, re-check it, and get to the gate 2 hours before boarding time. We were able to make it with lots of time to spare. Once we were in the airport we met up with some more people who were traveling with Hope4Kids. We decided that it was time for dinner and headed to Fudruckers for some fish and chips (Amy and I had burgers and chips – we don’t eat fish). We were sitting waiting for our dinner when I saw Alicia walk up. She had gone into London by herself and found her way over to the meeting spot – but we were not there. We missed each other by about 15 minutes  -- We will have to go through London together on the way home.

Day 3 July 14
Today was another day of LOTS of travel. We left London at 8pm, and landed in Nairobi, Kenya at about 6:30am, had just enough time to get off the plane, make a quick potty stop and get in line for our last flight to Entebbe, Uganda. We made it to Entebbe (EBB) at 9:15am. After we got our visas and luggage we were warmly greeted by our friends.
We loaded up into 2 buses and set off to the Nile River, along the way we made a short call (peeing on the side of the road behind corn fields) before long we had people swarming our car with chicken that was on a stick. SO GOOD! We also got to have chapatti (a bread like tortilla), also very good as well as some yummy bananas. We arrived at the Nile River where we shopped a little bit, and then we loaded back into the buses for another 2 hour drive to our hotel. During the drive to the hotel it started to rain so they had to pull off the road so we could move our luggage inside the buses.
While we were stopped we could see kids running to the side of the road from all around. Shouting Muzungu (White Person) and waving. One little boy would put his hand over his heart then push it away from him (like you do when you blow someone a kiss). Once we started taking pictures of these adorable children they would stop and smile for the pictures, posing then go right back to jumping up and down, so excited to see the Muzungu.
We made it to the Rock Classic Hotel at about 7pm, what a long few days of traveling. We were given some time to shower, get our stuff situated and head down to dinner between 7:30 and 8:30.

The internet is very slow, we will try to get some pictures up sometime soon.
Thank you for all of your prayers.

Todays The DAY!!!

Well as I sit here at my computer, and the clock has just passed 12 am, I think to myself, WOW... today is the day that we leave for Africa. In just over 12 hours we will be on the plane waiting for takeoff, which is scheduled for 12:40pm.

Some of you maybe slightly concerned if you have heard about the recent bombing in Kampala, which is in Uganda. There have been some e-mails that have gone back and forth and it looks like we will be very safe. Here are the words we received from Julie, one of the Hope4Kids coordinators....

Hi Team - Yes. The first team has safely departed for home. Those team members and staff staying through both trips were safely en route to Tororo hours ago.

Our teams' safety is of utmost importance to us on this trip - and every trip. And, please be assured that we will be working in primarily rural areas. We do not, at this time, do any work in Kampala. Tom, Angie and Elizabeth are always in touch with local authorities as well and you will be well taken care of.

Our prayers are with the Ugandans who have lost loved ones and also with your team for safe travels tomorrow.

I will be in the office in the morning to answer any questions or concerns you may have.

Blessings,

Julie

Please continue to lift up the people of Uganda. Here is some of the itinerary of what we will be doing while in Uganda... there is a saying ...TIA... This Is Africa... which means that things can change at a moments notice.

AFRICA ITINERARY
(Tentative) JULY 12th– JULY 26th

MONDAY JULY 12TH Everyone check your departure times from your city. Be at the airport at least two hours early. Be sure to have your passports and airline tickets or your E-Ticket itinerary! We are on our way!

WEDNESDAY JULY 14TH Arriving in Entebbe airport in Uganda. Welcome to Africa! Our team will meet you at the airport and we will board the buses to travel to Tororo. The trip will take about 5 hours and we will keep you well fed! Today may bring your first experience with chicken-on-a-stick and fresh bananas! The excitement will build as we near our home for the next several days - the Rock Classic Hotel in Tororo. After this long day of travel, you may want to dip in the pool, take advantage of the sauna or steam room and for a few bucks, ask for a massage! Later this afternoon you’ll get a first glimpse of the 35-acre site that is home to our partner, True Vine Team Ministries. This site is home to our hospital, boarding school, church, orphan headquarters and some of the sponsored kids! Each morning in Tororo, breakfast will be at 7AM, followed by Family Time at 8AM. This is a time to reflect on what we are experiencing and also learn what options are available each day.

THURSDAY JULY 15TH Today you will meet some precious children. We’re headed to Vision Nursery School to meet the children and Pastor Peter Obbo of Kingdom Preparation Church. The children have prepared some music for us. Those of you with sponsored children here will get to meet with your kids today!! We are planning for construction projects to begin here today. Also, there will also be artwork/painting opportunities in the school classrooms and Rachel will lead a women’s outreach to empower some of the local women and widows. You won’t want miss this opportunity to make a difference!

FRIDAY JULY 16TH Today, you have the opportunity to experience well dedications in Rwaniah and Bukembi A. There is nothing like witnessing first hand the difference that fresh water makes to a village! We will also be distributing our first set of dresses at the well. The dresses were made through our Dress A Girl Around the World program. Elizabeth will lead a sponsorship outreach distributing goats to children in the program.

SATURDAY JULY 17TH How about climbing a mountain? Those who are interested will meet our hosts at 7AM at hotel lobby for a climb up The Rock. Others may sleep in but we will all join for breakfast and family time will be around 9AM this morning. Today sponsors with children at True Vine will meet with their children and Rachel will be leading a women’s outreach at True Vine as well. Later this afternoon, Angie and Pastor Eric Sabitti will lead a group to the prison in Tororo to pray with the inmates.

SUNDAY JULY 18TH Some will be going to True Vine church for worship this morning while others will worship at one of the village churches. Hang on! This is an experience! Be ready to experience joyful worship like you have never experienced before. This afternoon we will visit Mile 8 fish farm to see our partners’ steps towards self-sustenance. And then, you have the opportunity join Pastor Eric Sabitti and visit the Tororo City Hospital. We’ll be providing spiritual and physical blessings by praying with patients and families and delivering food.

MONDAY JULY 19TH Today, Elizabeth will lead a village sponsorship outreach. Painting and construction projects will continue as well. Others will want to join Angie for a special journey to Sigulu Island, a remote island off the coast of Lake Victoria. Although Sigulu Island is one of the poorest areas we will visit, Sigulu Island is home to five church villages under True Vine Team Ministries. After a drive to the shore, we will reach the island by boat and plan to distribute school supplies to an underdeveloped school that shares one teacher for seven classrooms. This is our first opportunity to do an outreach to these children.

TUESDAY JULY 20TH Today we will visit Smile Africa Ministries with Pastor Ruth! First we will go to Water Village where the women participate in the sewing ministry. This is a great shopping opportunity because there is a small store selling the women’s projects. Then, we will head over to meet the Karamojong children. We’ll feed lunch to more than 400 kids through the partnership between Hope 4 Kids and Feed My Starving Children. Also, we will have a women’s outreach today while we are at the Smile Africa site. Tonight…..we hope you’ll join us to visit the children of Awinjo House who will lead us in worship as the sun sets in Uganda.

WEDNESDAY JULY 21TH Come celebrate two more new lifesaving wells in the villages of Nayemba East and Imuli. If you haven’t had a chance to attend a well dedication earlier in the trip, don’t miss it! There is nothing like the joy of a village during the dedication of a well. Painting and construction projects continue today and you also have a choice to join Elizabeth for a sponsorship outreach at a local village

THURSDAY JULY 22ND This morning we will wrap up any unfinished construction and artistic painting projects. We’ll hold another women’s outreach and True Vine and also have a sports day with the kids. If you don’t know how to play netball, here’s your chance! Tonight, the team will enjoy a farewell dinner hosted by our dear friends at True Vine.

FRIDAY JULY 23RD We will check out EARLY and load the buses for our trip to Tanzania. After we arrive in Tanzania, we will spend some time with the children in the sponsorship program. You are the FIRST team to visit these special children and they are eagerly anticipating your visit. Tonight, we will stay at the Bunda Elephant Hotel. Sleep well!

SATURDAY JULY 24TH Be sure your camera batteries are ready! After an early breakfast in the hotel, we will depart for our Safari on the Serengeti. We hope to see herds of elephants, hippos, giraffes, zebras, crocodiles, and if we are really lucky we may see lions! Tonight, we will travel to Kisumu, Kenya.

SUNDAY JULY 25TH This morning we will be worshiping at a small Kenyan church and then spending the majority of our day with the sponsored children in Kenya. Our children in Kenya are also so excited about our visit. Many of these children were displaced during the post election violence that occurred several years ago. We are so pleased to see that through the support of their sponsors, they are attending school and doing so well. This will be a special day. Tonight, we head to the airport in Kisumu and after a short flight to Nairobi, we will connect to our international flights home.

MONDAY JULY 26TH Connecting to our various flights. Arriving USA on same day! We hope you all have had an incredible experience! Thanks for being a difference maker and part of the Hope 4 Kids International team!

We will arrive back to LAX on Monday evening about 8pm.
We are looking forward to sharing this adventure with you!
Love,
Kelly and Amy

PACKING...

Let me start off by saying I am perfectly fine with my OCD, some people think I need to seek some help for my "problem". I pack EARLY...when I say early I mean like a week in advance. Last Sunday, July 4, 2010 I started packing, I was about 75% done by the end of the day. I even starting laying items out for Kelly so she could pack. Kelly told me that she was not going to start packing until Thursday July 8, 2010. When she said this I got very anxious so I had to start helping her out.

We are very excited about our up coming trip. Tonight was the first night to take our Malarone pills, those are for malaria...some people have had hallucinations when taking their malaria medicine, this should be interesting!

Hope 4 Kids Website

Ok my friends, we are less than a month away from our trip to Uganda. Here is the Hope4Kids website (if you click on the title of this post it should take you there) with some information about Africa. There is a Latest Trip Reports section on the lower left side of the page and a there you can see and read about the current trip. Once we get over to Africa you will be able to see and read about what we are doing in Africa... at least that is my hope. I just went to the site and the blog s from 2008 and the pictures are from April 2010. So we will see. I hope that things will be updated so you will be able to follow us in Uganda.

However, we are gone we are going to try and post on our blog, but the internet can be a little slow and at times does not work for days. But we will do our best to update you as to what we are doing and what God is doing while we are there.

We are getting close to our departure date and are getting very excited. We know that God has amazing things in-store for us. We feel completely blessed to have this opportunity and can not wait!!

Garage Sale

We have been collecting things or "treasures" for this garage sale for months. Grandma and Grandpa's homeowners association does a HUGE garage sale once a year, and this year we were able to participate in it. We started out this garage sale with leftovers from the last garage sale we had, and it grew from there. The garage started as a place for grandma and grandpa's cars to be parked and turned in to a place where Kelly and Amy stored their garage sale treasures. Mom and Kelly went up and "organized" all of the stuff we had one Friday night.
Before














After













So it has been 2 days since the garage sale, and the reality of how well we did still has not quite set in.


We (Grandma, Grandpa, Amy, Bobby and Kelly) decided we would get up at 5am so we could get ready, have some coffee and start setting up our sale, since Grandma says, "The early bird gets the worm". So 5:45am came around and we were opening up the garage to start setting up for the masses. Within 10 minutes we had our first customer. We let her know that we were not quite ready, so she asked if she could look as we brought things out. ABSOLUTLEY!



By 8:00 when the sales were supposed to start we had already made a good profit.

We had so many friends and family members stop by and provide help through the day. We are so thankful for all of their help and support throughout the Garage Sale.



We could not believe how many people came. Hundreds!! When it started to get a little slower Grandpa went inside the house to count some of the money that we had already made. By 11am we had $900 profit!! We continued to sell until 2:30!! At 2:30 we started boxing the items that did not sell up and the Salvation Army truck was going to come by and pick up anything that was at the curb. Well lets just say with lack of sleep and left over items the boys got a little goofy...


After boxing everything up we all went inside to count the money...We made a grand total of (Drum roll...)$1,437!!!! Holy Cow!! God is so good!! The day was a HUGE SUCCESS!!! We are so very thankful for everyone that donated items and those that helped out at the garage sale. We really appreciate everything! Thank you!!

Shot Shot Shot Shot

Today Kelly and I went to the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services to get my immunizations! My appointment was at 9am, we got there at 8:45am and we were out of there by 9:10! Who can say that they spent less time then that at the regular doctor even with an appointment? NOT MANY!! I was very impressed at their efficiency and friendliness! I got 4 shots, Tetanus, Polio, Typoid, and Yellow Fever. I also got two prescriptions for Malaria and Ciprofloxacin. The best part was the shots were cheaper than I thought it was going to be! However the immunizations might have been cheaper but my prescriptions were not cheap...dang insurance!! :)
If you are a little squeamish, you might not want to watch the videos.
We are very excited about the trip as we are only 94 days away.

~Amy

Thank YOU!!

Thank YOU!

This is a huge Thank YOU to everyone who came out to El Paso Cantina yesterday for our fundraiser. This was the second one that we have done, and from all of the familiar faces that we saw it should be a huge success.

The first one we did was at Rubys down by the beach and we raised $230. Thank YOU! We won't find out how we did on the El Paso fundraiser for about a week. But I will post once we find out.

Thank YOU to the many people who donated items for our garage sale that we had back in October. The items you donated to us, and the use of friends garage and front yard helped us to raise just under $500.

There are still people who are recycling for us - or saving their recycling and we will come and pick it up. Thank YOU!

We are still receiving response cards in the mail daily with people who have committed to pray regularly for us and who are helping to support our Mission trip to Uganda financially. Thank YOU!

We feel so fortunate that there are so many people out there who are supporting us in these various ways, and without your support this Mission Trip to Uganda this summer would not be possible.

So, a huge Thank YOU, goes out to you for all of your support!

Shots!!

Well it's a good thing I am not afraid of shots anymore.

Today I had a Dr's appointment to get my shots. I have had insurance through Torrance Unified, since I was a contracted Long Term Teacher this past semester,and it does not "run out" till the end of the month. So I thought I would call the insurance and see if just by chance they covered travel shots, since they can be pretty pricey and not necessary while living in the States. I didn't think that they would cover them.
However, after calling twice, just to make sure, they told me that my insurance covers 100% of all vaccinations, travel ones included.

SCORE ONE FOR KELLY!!

So I made an appointment, and today was my day. $25 got me Yellow Fever (and the clearance card that is needed to enter into Africa), Typhoid, and a Polio Booster. Yellow Fever and Typhoid both went into my right arm and Polio went into my left arm. Yellow Fever and Polio did not hurt a bit, Typhoid on the other hand had a stinging after effect. After each of the shots the nurse had to search for a place to put the band-aid, since I don't really bleed.

Tonight both of my arms are a bit sore. We will see how they feel in the morning. But its worth it, these few shots put me just that much closer to getting to Africa, for a trip of a lifetime. I can not wait to see what God has in store for Amy and I.

~Kelly

151 Days

Its official!

There are 151 days till Kelly and Amy leave with 3 other people from Good Shepherd to go to Uganda on a Mission trip.

Our plan is to blog before, during and after the trip. We feel very fortunate that there are people who are helping us get to Africa and will be praying for us, so this is our way of keeping you updated as to what is going on.

Please keep checking back for updates.