Update

Feb 6th.

Today is my birthday. I am a quarter century old. It started off pretty well. We made some progress on the guesthouse. However, it took a turn for the worse when my stomach that it didn't like whatever I had put in it a while ago, and turned itself into knots trying to evacuate itself as fast as possible while doing a backflip. Lets just say it wasn't pleasant. There are lots of nasty bugs here. So I missed lunch because I was sitting on the concrete recovering, concentrating on the nice feel of the breeze on my cheek, trying not to move any muscles to save energy. SO, today's lesson is, ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS, and thoroughly.

So now that my belly is empty, I feel somewhat better, but now I have no food in me to give me energy. Doh. so i'm going to rest instead of going back to making rafter tails for the guesthouse on the most rickety ladder I have every seen or stood on.

We had a lovely rain last night/early this morning, from about 3 or 4 until 6. Pounding hard rain with thunder and lightning. It is supposed to be the dry season, but there has been occasional rain.

Ellie helped make a banna cake for me for my birthday, and everyone sang to me at dinner, of which I ate a little. There is a little boy who was adopted from the baby house, and today is also his birthday. He is 3, and very cute.

Feb 8th.

It is raining again, and it did not stop in the morning like last time. It is 8:30, so Ellie is off to school. However, we cannot work on the roof in a thunderstorm so I am chilling in our banda (hut). I plan on taking advantage of this time to read. When the rain lets up we'll go back to work.

The internet system is not all that I had hoped for. For one, the campus is quite large, so my laptop's little wireless antenna is not strong enough to send back a signal to the tower which is a good quarter mile or more away. Not only that, it seems to be a bit flunky sometimes, not always connecting. Anyway, since I'm on computer duty here as soon as the guesthouse work is done, I'll see what I can do about that. I will be working with Sam, the IT guy to set up more access points around the campus.

The speed also varies greatly. sometimes it seems mildly fast, and others, abysmally slow.

Some of you might be wondering how you can pray for us. That would be awesome; God has been very kind to us in giving us travel mercies so far and thereby answering your prayers for us.

-Pray that we would develop good relationships with the right people. New Hope is a big place, with well over 70 day staff, not to mention volunteers and short term teams. One of the reasons that we're here is to understand if this is the kind of life God would call us to, so it would helpful to get a real handle on what that life is.

-Pray that we don't get malaria. there are a number of folks who have it or are getting over, and a lot of the children have it. I really don't want malaria, because it is not fun.

-Pray that Ellie would be able to adjust to the very different Ugandan style education system.

It is now 10:30, and still raining hard.