A Christmas Whirlwind

Blog Post About Winter 2020

The cards you all sent made the best decorations in 2020! It was such a blessing to be remembered by so many and our plain-looking tree thanks you :)

We went to church for Christmas Eve, and then we came home and Kylie and Karis treated us to our own "food board." We weren't able to have all of our overseas friends come by for the Christmas story and some American food, and they were missed.

On Christmas morning, Keira read us the Messiah's birth story from Luke 2.

I don't have a picture of Caleb because I think I missed him opening the few he had. He had decided to forego most gifts so that he could buy parts for and build his own computer. 

That evening (on the 25th), we all loaded in the car to drive 2.5 hours to my parents' house to celebrate Christmas with them and other family member that could make it.

Kylie and my sister-in-law put this "board" together. In reality, these are the kinds of foods we have always eaten and snacked on at Christmas and other times with family...for years. 

I was just thinking the term charcuterie board was something new invented to describe what we had been doing for years. Nope.

The French came up with this in the 15th century. "Chair" means "flesh" and "Cuit" means "cooked." It basically translates as "pork-butcher shop." Their shops also included the pig's internal organs, which I'm thankful has gotten removed from our boards in America.

In French, the one preparing the meat is called a Charcutier.

So just like Solomon in his great wisdom reminds us, "There is nothing new under the sun."

The cousins that were able to make it sat at the "kids' table" for dinner. 

Who doesn't love sitting at the kids' table, right?

Things like this happen at the kids' table :)

This is my son on the right and his cousin (12 days older) on the left.

They decided to try some hot sauce called "Da' Bomb" my dad had around the house.

The sweating, moaning, and pain continued for quite some time (and probably later, if you know what I mean).

When Kylie returned back to college, she found a youtube video showing that the hot sauce these boys tried was the third hottest in this particular hot wing contest.

Yes, these are things that happen at the "kids' table." :)

We only stayed two nights with my parents because we needed to go see the other grandparents and more cousins on the 27th. 

One of the many benefits of the grandparents living in Waco is that we can go see the Chip and Joanna Gaines empire almost anytime we want. We hadn't gone in few years so we drove over to see all of the new additions like this chapel. The crowds were really low because of Christmas, plus there was rain in the forecast.

We also took advantage of other "Waco-things" like the store near the Dr. Pepper museum.

S'mores by the fire was a nice ending to the day.

And the next morning, a few of us got up and went running/walking downtown.

Covid + Christmas made for a very quiet, enjoyable morning.

We knew it was important to see both sides of the family because we are rarely, if ever, in America during Christmas anymore. So even though this was a whirlwind of a trip, it was good!

And What A Fun Run it Was

We decided to run in the city's 4K fun run as a family. In year's past, it's always been a 5K, so we don't know why the distance was changed this year.  

We did some training at a local park, which is the only place you are supposed to run in this country...running trails, in parks, in designated areas/

Then three days before the race, we went to another park across the city to pick up our registration forms.

When we pulled up, there was a collection site in the parking lot for Syrian refugees being kicked out their homes.

Inside, we picked up our packets, and they took our picture.  The next day, one of my friends found this picture posted on a facebook page for the race.

We got up early and walked to the starting line, according to the map we were given. The 10K and marathon runners were at a starting line half a mile in front of us, and the marathoners had taken off earlier.

We saw that the back of our shirts said, "Run for a Clean Environment," however, the numbers in our packet had a peel off back, and there were no trash cans around.

This was the scene everywhere at the beginning of the race.

The irony is not lost on me.

I took my family's pieces of paper and walked to a water station to ask some ladies sitting there where a trash can was.  They stared at me blankly, and said, "There isn't one."

They kindly took my trash, set it on the table with the water and looked at me strangely.

Littering is such a common thing in this country. They are not taught about caring for the environment or picking up trash. Funny enough though, they like to keep their house, sidewalks, AND the STREET in front of their house clean.

This is the starting line.  You would think it is big enough that people wouldn't miss it, but...

Some 4Kers started at the 10K line and ran less than a 4K; some runners started at the 4K for the 10K and ended up running over a 10K; and some people started at the 10K, intending to run a 4K, but missed the awful-placed signs for the finish line turn off, and ended up running a lap of the city with the marathon runners.

 It was VERY well organized.  NOT!  And that's not the end of the "amazing" organization.  There was more at the finish line.

Here is my running partner.  She did great, but the heat did get to her a little over half-way through.  She finished, but I had to do a LOT of encouraging to get her to keep moving.

Guns and guards watched the running route.

The other four finished relatively quickly, and they waited to cheer Keira and I on when we crossed after them. Some news station put a camera in my face for an interview right after I crossed the finish line, and I have NO idea what I said.

We were told to walk through a partitioned-off walkway to a "celebration party" and awards ceremony. As we walked through, we were handed medals.  Kylie was handed two!  One by a guy on the right side and one by a guy on the left.

The funny thing was, one guy was handing out this medal that I'm showing below.

It's a medal for MARATHON runners!

The 4Kers received a different medal (or if you are Kylie, you received one of each).

All we could do was laugh.

We did not want to stay for the awards ceremony, so our family and some girls we ran with went out for a big Middle Eastern breakfast.

It was nice to sit and talk about the race.  And funny enough, as we sat we kept getting texts from some parents still looking for two of their sons.  They had apparently started at the wrong starting line, got ahead of their parents, and missed the turn off for the finish line.  They ended up running almost a half-marathon!

Their parents grabbed them when they finally saw them coming over a bridge to tell them what had happened, and they took them home.  They didn't even get a medal for all of their trouble :)

The next day, a picture of Keira and me showed up a bunch of places.  I just figured we must have been the only ones running slow enough for them to catch on film. :)

 But what a "fun" run it was ;)

Running on the Roof

May was semi-pleasant, and I was able to run outside in the mornings without feeling like I was going to faint from the heat.

The trick for me was I didn't want to taxi to the park in the morning (this was before we got a car), and running in my neighborhood is not an acceptable thing.  A running track is the only acceptable place to run here, and the travel back and forth would just add to my time.

So, I decided that the roof would be "acceptable."  I ran in a crazy 8 pattern around our swamp coolers.  There's not a lot of space to pick up speed, but I was just jogging slow, so it was fine for me.

When Doug put the canvas up and tied it to the swamp cooler, it took one of the "arms" of my crazy 8 away, but I still managed.

I got a view of the neighborhood in the morning, watched my neighbors go stand in line for their morning bread, and was blessed to pray over this nation.

However, every now and then, I would get a whiff of the chicken/turkey/duck/pigeon mess below.
Wow!  That will wake you up faster than a cup of coffee.

One morning, I saw some workers cleaning it up.  That is bread that you see there.  Leftover, not eaten naan and samoon bread.  It is over a foot thick as they shovel it up.

Whew!  Fresh start!

Everybody has different things on their roofs.  It's just an extension of their house.

Well, Ramadan started, and the late nights stopped my early morning runs.  When we crawled out of Ramadan, the temperatures were climbing quickly.  We had a heat wave where a few days hit 120. 

We're back down to 110-117, but I think I'll wait to start running until I feel a breeze again.

I will say that my running made for some very curious neighbors.  A few asked me about it on the street, and honestly, I don't think any of them have ever considered exercise before, so maybe they'll think about some of this stuff for themselves.

Surgeon General warning:  Don't run in August in the Middle East.

Fun Run

So, Arua had its first ever Fun Run.

The entry fee was equivalent to $2.50, and only about 40 people participated, but it surely made for a fun morning.

It was fun for me, of course, because I wasn’t running. Notice that all my friends were actually dressed for the race, but not me. I named myself the official photographer and cheerleader.

I did, in fact, take pictures of every runner and sent them to the mayor for him to print if he wished, and I took pictures of the 20 people from the YWAM base that ran, so they could put the shots in an end of class video for their graduation.

It was the place to be. I looked up after the race started, and here came Florence, my language teacher.

But let me back up a little.

To get to the race, we were walking the mile or more from our house to where the race was starting, and one of our friends drove by and offered us a ride. It resulted in us being the first people there. Once everyone had arrived and race time was about 15 minutes away, the mayor’s youngest daughter decided she wanted to run and asked if Kylie would join her. Kylie didn’t even pause to think about it. She said, “Yes.”

As everyone lined up, I kept thinking that Kylie had no idea how long a 6K was, but she was determined.

Jack, our favorite piki driver, had been asked by the mayor to lead the race for the front runner. Karis and Caleb stood sadly by me as everything started to happen,

and at the last minute, Jack said, “They can come.”

They hopped on with huge smiles and were so excited to get to be a part of the race, too.

The first place runner was actually a professional runner for Uganda. As he came around the second loop to finish the race, he lapped Kylie and her friend Nikki.

They didn’t care. Kylie was still all smiles.

The mayor called the car following the last place runners (Kylie and Nikki) several times to try to get them to pick up the girls and move the race along.

Kylie told me later that she and Nikki did get in the car once while they followed the new “last” place person for a small distance. Jack also told me she walked a bit, but I was still proud that she finished. The mayor quit after 3K (along with 4 other people).

This was the famous finish line....toilet paper.

After the first place finisher, came Felix.

He is a 10 year old boy who had never been in a race before. He came to the race with his sponsor family just to watch, but when they asked him if he wanted to run, he said he really wanted to.

He was wearing flip flops.

I snapped this picture of Felix finishing his first lap and kicking off his flip flops for his sponsor Dad to pick up, and he finished the race bare foot.

He was later given several prizes for awards, and some gentleman in town promised to buy him running shoes. As a matter of fact, the man came through, and I delivered money for his shoes last Wednesday.

Some of the government officials have even eyed him for being a runner for Uganda. Felix may have quite a bright future ahead of him.

Doug finished in good time,

and then we just waited for Kylie.

The cool thing was that Doug had enough cool down time and Karis and Caleb had both finished long ago with Jack,

that they all waited for Kylie and then ran with her the last 100 yards or so to finish the race.

She and Nikki were awarded something for coming in last (2 handkerchiefs each), and since Kylie was also the winner of the “youngest runner” award, we declined and let another kid have something.

I mean, when you win a handkerchief, what else do you need.

This is Kylie standing beside Mayor Asiki.

This was the press at the awards ceremony. All the reporters were holding up their recorders.

Radio is the main form of communication here, and I realized it the next day, when people came up to me and said, “I heard Kylie’s name on the radio for winning at the fun run.”

They probably knew more about the race than I did.

The mayor thought the race was successful, and he wants to have another one…next month.

We’ll see how that goes.