Easter and Toilets

Blog Post About April 2021

I know it's Thanksgiving for you in America, but I've just gotten to Easter last spring.

For Easter 2021, we got together with a large group of Americans and we all brought dishes to share.

The house that hosted grilled a lot of chicken tikka for us, and there was more than enough to feed everyone!

April 4, 2021

Keira and a few kids had an Easter egg hunt in the house and the courtyard. 

The weather was nice, and we enjoyed a long afternoon together.

I don't know why I am going to show you this, but I took a picture of it because at the time, I was thinking, "Does this ever happen in America?"

Maybe it does.

Maybe this is what a lot of gas station restrooms look like.

But for here, this is pretty common. 

This is a toilet at the local medical clinic I went to for a check-up.

Can you see all the water dripping all over it?

I'm pretty sure this was not from a recent cleaning.

All the water on the seat, on the floor, on the top, etc is from the previous user. 

This culture likes to use a spray hose when they finish going to the bathroom, most of the time in lieu of toilet paper. 

It's rough being the person that follows this act because you have to do a lot of wiping down before you can use the apparatus.

I just thought I'd share.

April 5, 2021

And instead of ending on that note, here is a picture I took of Keira off of instagram of her dancing last spring.

April 11, 2021

A Surprise Easter Treat

For Easter, our sweet neighbors that let us borrow the convection oven invited 

Keira over for an egg hunt.

The mom was so good to plan ahead and get plastic eggs from America 

(or maybe she had them from years past)

Keira had never remembered going on an egg hunt before because the only one 

she ever took part in was when she was three before we left America.

She had a good time.

We all went over to watch her, and they even took a family photo for us.

April 12, 2020

He is Good (even in lockdown), and yes, He is Risen!

Things I see (Vol 12)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, 

Volume 9, Volume 10, Volume 11

A car with "this" on the back windshield was parked in front of our house one night, and I just thought, "You can't get any more wrong than this."

After 60 years of research, they are still "staring" instead of "starting."

Yes, you are seeing correctly.  This woman is watering astroturf.

We use one gas bottle for a long time on our stove/oven.

These are the weekly exchanges of gas bottles outside of a naan (bread) shop.

That's a lot of bread, folks.

Bread is a serious business here.  

People line up at 6am for their morning bread, 11ish for their afternoon meal, and 7pm for their evening meal.  

You just lay your money under a piece of long rope, and the man at the window takes the bills closest to the window and asks whose money it is and how much bread they want.  Then the next bills get asked about and so on.  It's quite a system.

The shop above was being charged rent that was too high, so they started construction 3 plots down on their own shop.

You can see that the size if very unassuming, but it is still the heart of the neighborhood.

Reminders of all of God's promises are a happy thing here in the Middle East, because sometimes the darkness feels heavy, and knowing He's near is a beautiful thing.

I still don't understand the Christmas and Easter decorations in this country.  The people really don't understand the meanings of any of them, but they adopt what they see from the West.

After I heard that some people think we worship the Christmas tree at Christmas, I can't imagine what they think about celebrating Easter with eggs for.

Life at the French school.  This is what happens when you say jé instead of jai.

She didn't seem to mind, and apparently, she wasn't the only student that got drawn on.

This reminded me of how big of a splash "Covfefe" made in May of 2017.

The Battle is Real

He is risen!

There is so much behind that statement.  

There is so much about that statement that has changed my life, brought me to where I am, made me who I am, and continues to grow me into the person I want to be. 

Easter a year ago, we celebrated Easter on a mountaintop. 

The Angel armies watched the Son rise and worshiped from their battle stations 2000 years ago. 

We watched the sun rise, and we worshiped from our battle station.

We must live this Truth out daily in our lives. 

 The top of the mountain was so cold and windy, but we felt such warmth in our hearts as the sun rose.  He meets us again and again.  He never fails. 

On the other side of the mountain, to the west, was a city about to be awakened by the light of the sun coming over the hill.

The moon would soon disappear, and the inhabitants would wake to another day, the beginning of their work week.

But it wasn't just another day for us, and we spent time bringing this land before the throne.

It's a beautiful land with beautiful people.

As you spend time reflecting this Easter on what He has done for you and in you, also remember those who don't even know of His sacrifice. 

The battle is real.

II Cor 5:14-15 "For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died^; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

(The kids and dads hiking after breakfast)

Easter...finally

Well, it's been awhile.

I'm going to do a quick catch up for you (in pictures mostly) since Easter.

 It will be easier than trying to catch up in words.



 Well, I tried to take an official "Easter" picture, but with Caleb, things are just...interesting.

Here he is imitating his sisters' posing.

Then he decided to show his true colors.

Still being Caleb...

 Sadly, when he tried to just smile, he couldn't get it right.

Then the girls wanted their picture with Aslan

 I'm not a cat person, so this affection for the "rat killer" is amazing to me.  Aslan is pretty much just a rat trap/deterrent  for me, but I'm glad the kids like him SO much.

I'm being serious!  If you only knew how many times a day they tell me, "I love my kitty."








Later in the day, Kylie and I went with Abbie and Casey (two of the Fusion girls) to join a family celebrating Easter on a hilltop in Arua.

This is Dean

This is Agenda

Betty and Abbie with a beautiful background

Kylie and Casey

Dusk in Arua

And then, of course, I've told you about the Easter Monday goat roast we attended.

  

Here are the proud cooks with their "dish."

A "good" Friday

On Passover/Good Friday, we had a fun task to do which we were excited about.  

A good friend of mine works for a radio station here in Arua, and every year she decorates eggs to hand out to all her employees.  This year the number was 300 eggs!

They are always so impressed.  Some of the people think she raises "special chickens" that produce these eggs ;)

The task seemed daunting...and then my three kids arrived.

They were knocking them out left and right.

Part of the beginning

It was quite a set-up

Taken from each end of the table...and there were still more elsewhere.

We finished in record time...no surprise.

Then we had a good lunch and decided to go down to look at some of the crafts that were on display at the radio station.

Two men at the station go into the villages to collect crafts kids have made.  It helps show the kids they can do anything they put their mind to, and then it gives them the privilege of being "on display" somewhere.


Here is a SMALL sampling of what we saw.

LOVE the satellite dish :)

Talk about "using what you got..."

Well, the truth is...we didn't make it to the crafts so speedily.

We took a detour so I could show the kids and the two Fusion girls who were with us, the sound booths where all the "action" takes place at the radio.

While we were looking in the window of the studio a man came up and introduced himself and said he needed a child to read something on the radio for him.

Kylie really didn't want to do it, but I knew she could.

We walked in the room, and when he gave her the three pages of announcements to read, she gained some confidence.

She was reading nine different announcements about special service times for children to listen to the Easter message.

The grammar was off a bit in about three of them including the one below (like saying "As the church symbols" vs "As the church symbolizes") , so I helped correct the wording, and she did a great job reading.  She read them over and over until she got them, and I think she had fun.

The best part was listening during the kids' program on Saturday afternoon while we did chores around the house.  I heard her SEVEN different times.  One time, I was out hanging laundry on the line, and I heard her on the radio next door, which was on a different frequency.

Everyone listens to the radio here for their news.  Alice even came in Monday, and said, "I was trying to figure out how someone that sounded like Kylie was on the radio."

Another fun experience.