Home again, home again

How can it be?

We've been back in Uganda for over 2 months??

And no blog updates (oh dear!)...

First of all, I apologize for our lack of blog posts.  I've never done this "coming back from furlough" thing and was TOTALLY blindsided by the difficulties we would face in leaving family and friends and heading back to Uganda.

For our first month back I felt like I was slowly waking up from a dream.

I would suddenly remember things that used to be second nature...like my Ugandan phone number, or someone's name from Watoto, or how to order from our favorite restaurant.  

I had to get used to living in Gulu again...complete with DUST, HEAT, BUGS, and DIRT.  I'll admit that our first morning back in Gulu I had a little melt-down.  I called my friend crying because there were bugs in the flour, ants in the sugar, I had no milk, all my pots and pans had dust on them, and all the dishtowels were stained.  I admitted to her that I KNEW it was just Gulu....and I KNEW that I was once ok with it...and I KNEW I'd be ok with it again....but that morning I WASN'T ok with it!!! whew....  She lovingly talked me "off the ledge" and had me call another friend to come help me clean my kitchen.  The days have gotten significantly better since that first one!!

I just wasn't prepared.

I'll admit it.  I wasn't prepared for the emotions....the missing of my kids, my family, my friends.  I mean, I was excited about coming back to Uganda!  I was ready to come back!!

But I've since learned that all those emotions are normal.  It's just hard.  Plain and simple.

Doesn't mean we aren't supposed to be here.  

It just means that this part of the calling is hard.

So for the first month I just "survived."  I helped my family unpack and get settled back in our house.  We went to the grocery store.  We remembered how to make the foods we like to eat here.  We pulled out school books and started homeschooling again.  We went swimming.  We visited friends.

We even went up to South Sudan!!

Scott went to Kenya for a week-long men's retreat.

Life started to get back to normal.

And then our power went out.

Not for one day, one week or even two.

Nope.

For one month.

Here in Uganda, when dry season is ending, the people burn their fields to get them ready for planting in rainy season.  Well, one of the fires burned down the transformer for our house (and many others!!).  The electric company had to send the transformer to Kampala. In Kampala they had to FIND someone to repair it.  Then they ended up just buying a new one (apparently ours was 20+ years old?).  Then the truck to transport the new transformer broke down (and I guess there are no other vehicles in Kampala!?!).  But finally, 1 month later....our power was restored!  woo hoo!!

Praise the Lord we have a generator that we could run for a few hours each day to charge phones and computers.  As soon as we would fire up the generator everyone would run to computers to check facebook, emails, etc.  That left me without a computer....but I have my trusty iPhone...I just don't like to write blog posts on my phone.

So here we are....2 months later...finally writing an update!!

Thanks for understanding!!

So I'll end this apology post with some pictures of our life back in Uganda.  Tomorrow (or the next day or the next!!) I'll write more of an update of what we've been doing since we've been back (besides surviving!) and what our future is looking like!!  I'll even update the pictures in our sidebar soon!

First of all, we got a dog!!  Her name is Harper.  She's definitely a puppy (she loves to chew things and jump...but we're working on training her!).  The kids love playing with her and she makes a great guard dog (even though she technically won't attack yet...people are afraid of her!).

Slightly less exciting than getting a dog...we got to eat at our favorite restaurants in Gulu again.  This veggie sandwich with avacado is SO YUMMY!!

We've had fun going swimming again (while reading about the freezing cold temperatures and snow in America!).

One day while we were swimming a group of school kids came.  They all crammed into the kiddie pool.  Probably about 30 kids in all....

But wait...then more kiddos came!!  And they ALL got in the kiddie pool!  It was crazy!

We went up to visit friends in South Sudan.  This is a view out of the car window.  Doesn't look like much to see, does it??

But here is beautiful South Sudan at sunset!  Quite gorgeous (although hot!!  100°F at 10:00 pm inside the house!)

This is everyone watching as Josh and Scott tried to kill a black mamba that we saw by the porch.  Did I say "tried to kill"?  I meant, they definitely, without a doubt killed that sucker!!

We got the chance to be a part of the church service on Sunday!  This is my friend Denise telling the story of Abraham (I'm standing at the back where no one can see me snap this picture!)

  

Because it was in the middle of dry season, the road to South Sudan was terribly dusty!!  We had no air conditioning in our car, so we had to drive with the windows down.  I took several pictures to give you an idea of just how dusty it was!

Here's the truck coming towards us.  You can see all the dust behind him!

Closer, closer, closer...everyone hold your breath!

And this is an actual view out of our front window right after the truck passed us.  At this point I was PRAYING that no one was coming towards us!

And this is Benji, Laura, and Melissa right after we got home!  Needless to say, we IMMEDIATELY went and showered!!

We've been able to go back to Watoto and see our babies!

We've been reminded of how crazy big bugs are in Uganda!  As you can see, this moth is as big as a dvd!!

This is how chickens are sold here.  The are strung up on motorcycles or bicycles and ridden through town.  These chickens were going to be someone's Easter feast.

And, yes, we've had plenty of time to be silly!  GrandKate sent us glow-in-the-dark markers and a black light.  We've had fun seeing all the different things that glow...including Garrett's teeth!

More posts and pictures coming soon!!