True Wedding proposal!!!

…so I was walking down to the beach front to get onto the boat to head to the mainland. I was walking with Olive, my lingira mom! A man I had never met stopped her, and they were speaking lugandan. I didn’t have a clue what was happening except the fact that Olive kept pointing to me. So as we left him I asked Olive what just happened? She laughed and said, he was asking permission from me to take your hand in marriage! I love Africa, it just makes me laugh… a man I have never met, asks me to marry him… go figure?! Lol….

So my friend Joy… her wedding was scheduled yesterday… we got to Tororo around 11:30 am, the wedding was to be at 12:00pm, then it was delayed to 2pm… it was coming to 4pm and still no wedding or sign of the bride or groom…. A friend with me got a text-message on his phone from Joy, stating to pray because she didn’t know what was going on… so we did…. Than we found out that her father was refusing her to marry until she brought/ or her husband to be brought 3 million shillings …. About $1600…(just part of the bride price and only part of the high demands her father was making) they didn’t have that money… so now because it was coming to 5pm and I was with a crew of people from the islands that had to get back that night, we had to leave. I still don’t know if the wedding happened or not… I can’t imagine how Joy must have felt on her wedding day…

Girls Night out!! … I took jess to Bugali falls to the greatest restaurant this side of the world (well at least that I have found so far!) and it was expensive to Ugandan standards, but cheap to U.S. standards… $7/plate). The best part is taking the motorbike to bugali falls and the excitement of the speedy pace and the huge hills to the falls… I think I am going to miss motorcycles when I come home! Maybe my husband will have to drive one when I get married someday! Well I can’t really say the motorbike was the best part… everything was excellent… the beauty of bugali falls, the steak and chicken dinner that we both got… mashed potatoes, fresh veggies!!! mmmm!!! Our wine glasses filled with water!! Love it! (ywam does not allow us to have any alcohol in Uganda, Christians in Uganda are forbidden to even have a glass… its okay though, I liked dreaming about my red wine!) we originally had yellow roses on our table, until I snuck over to another table and replaced our yellow roses with red ones! To top the dinner off we enjoyed this banana fry-cake with ice cream and chocolate sauce. Sooo soo good! We raced home and watched Ocean 11… and for the first time in history, it was jess who fell asleep and I stayed up and watched the entire movie!!! good movie, but I hated that they made two bad ‘guys’ and so I ended up cheering for a bad guy at the end! It was so nice to be able to go out and enjoy ourselves!

Secondary School update: the good news…. The Board of Governors (BOG) for the secondary school was completely set now, and we had our first meeting where decisions were made as a group (not one man/women making solo decisions) It was so good to see the collaboration of the minds! Robert Wafula is named the chairman of the BOG, he really understands the importance of community involvement and communication amongst all stakeholders… so I think He is just the perfect man for the job. We called the community and parents of students for a P.T.A. meeting and elected the PTA board… another great feat! We have meetings and celebrations set for the future, so I am very excited about those things! As for the teachers we set a mission statement for the school and set up the rules and regulations for the student body… along with putting in place teachers roles and responsibilities… along with setting up the terms of service for teachers…. The bad news… so I calculated some numbers concerning the secondary school… and the number of students we have (even if they were all paying) does not even come close to paying the high cost to run our school! For example we currently have around 52 students and to run the school just on the current budget we would need 272 students! Obviously with more students come more costs… so we just need wisdom for the leadership…. I shared a detailed report with the leaders at the last BOG meeting. So this is what we are looking at
…Looking for school sponsors (whether it be individuals, businesses, or churches)
…about $2200 to come in per month to have a fully functioning school


We had our second child sponsorship meeting where we took minutes… this meeting was focused on prayer… we got some good scriptures… email me if you want to see the minutes...we now have 6 children receiving sponsorship.

Clumsy or what??!! …its almost a month ago, I think I cracked my foot so hard on a rock that I broke or fractured a small bone in my left foot… it hurt for weeks, and my pinky toe is still fatter than the other one and at times it still hurts. Then just this week I was running down on a dirt path and in a blink of an eye, I was flat on the ground and my knees all scrapped up…I had tripped on a tiny tree stump! I think I need to go to training camp for runners!

I hope all is well with each of you, I love you and miss you! Can you believe I am coming on 5-months in Africa! I can’t… I still can’t believe I am in Africa and it is October coming to November… I am only supposed to be here in the summer months :)

Loving you,
mandy

'you were chasing toilets all day by taking the bodda bodda (motor bike) all around town!"....my friend Henry Isobaa

so i came into town October 9th to celebrate Uganda's day of independence. We went to a field where independence festivities convene... the mayor of Jinja spoke, the band played (I miss the badger band!) , men/women danced a traditional dance, soldiers marched; it was great to be there... except the fact that i was 'chasing toilets all day!!' for whatever reason my body has decided not to allow me to eat oily food such as the chapti's with egg, sumbosa's, french fries.... so anyway i have been steering clear of such items and have eliminating almost all things made with oil since so much is made with it... so this morning, i thought i was brave, i thought to myself that i have been healthy not getting sick, let me just take 3-small bites of a chapti (everyone else was, why not me too!!!) and go on my way... well, i really didn't think that would do anything, i even thought maybe this whole oil thing is just in my head.... well no sir!!! i ended up chasing toilets all day. i don't know why or what has caused my body to react to the oil, but I guess when I think about it, it really it is not such a bad thing to stay away from oily things except i miss them at times! But i just loved the way Henry described my day, i had to share it with you!

I have talked in the past about lots of disunity amongst the church, ywam and the community... well it was so good last week the community leaders sat with the church and ywam leaders (for the first time ever!) and the community expressed their feelings toward the local church. The community felt that things the church/ywam implement are said to be for the community but seem only to be for the 'born-agains'. The community talked about the school, apologies were made to the community from the pastor who was one of the initiators of the school...he stated he was sorry for the way in which the school was started (too fast, without community input)... there was much spoken i can't write it all but just know this was a great thing. it is so vital to have community support and involvement. who is the church/ywam serving if not the community? and are they really following the ways of the Lord if the community is not informed... so it was so good and such an answer to prayer.

The school has been really struggling with finances… I recently found out last week that the school was in about $3000 debt… that next day I went into town, we had gone to the school bank account and there was $3300 in the account from an outside donor! I don’t understand how the Lord works and provides I just know He does!

Random thoughts….
**its official.... when i come back to the U.S. ... i am building an outdoor shower!!! i love bathing at night and looking up to the stars...
**my favorite pick-up line… ‘helloooo...... my size!’ :) lol