Handfuls of Blessings

"Mom, when can we pick up more people?"  I was a little baffled.  It was Sunday morning, and we had just picked up four of our neighbors for church, making our 8 passenger van tight with 14 people now in it.  Everyone was quietly laughing at Skyler's seemingly outrageous question. Skyler exhibiting hospitality to a tailess lizard "What do you mean?  Didn't we just pick up some people?"  I asked him in a puzzled tone. "Not here, from the airport!  When can daddy get more people?"  Our kids love company!  This is the 270th day of the year, and we have had visitors in our home 114 of those days.  (This excludes the lady living in our guest quarters who teaches at our orphan school.)  God has richly blessed us with many visitors during this term, and our children think it strange when we don't have guests. May they always keep the mind of Christ in being "lovers of hospitality."

"Ok, Shiloh, you have a spelling test today.  Let me get your book."  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Shiloh was headed out the door with a piece of sidewalk chalk.  Running away from his lesson?  Not at all.  Shiloh loves to take his tests on the driveway.  And because it is so fun, the others are scrambling out of their seats wanting to take his test, too.  After eleven years of homeschooling, I have learned a lot myself.  One thing is to let the students have fun while learning.  Why writing spelling words with chalk is more fun than a pencil, I'm not sure, but I sure have a better day when my children are eager in their work. Shiloh enjoying his outside spelling test Another lesson I have learned is to use the curriculum that the kids love.  This year we used The Story of the World for history for Stanley and Shiloh.  The book is so interesting that the other kids were finding excuses to be in the living room to...

One of the blessings of missionaries is seeing new churches started.  What is really exciting is to see the nationals answer the call of God to step out in faith and begin churches on their own.  Brother JJ Kalanzi and his family has done this 30 minutes from our Masaka church in the village of Mbira.  This is an area where many of our orphans have come from, and the church was begun as a result of several of the orphan guardians getting saved.  The Kalanzi family is doing a great work for God, and the devil is not happy. Two weeks ago, Brother JJ brought 15 new Christians to our Wednesday evening service to be baptized.  Praise the Lord!  On his return back to Masaka from taking them home, four men threw a log in front of his vehicle, forcing him to stop.  They pulled him from his Prado and began searching it for cash and cell phones.  Brother JJ fought the one man guarding him and then ran into the bush.  He waited in the dark for about ...

Mismatched - But Both Sandals When Shane was little (and much shorter), I can remember him arriving at church and immediately taking off his shoes and socks every week.  He could tolerate wearing them the short distance from home to church, but then off they came.  Mismatched - But Both Closed-Toed Savannah is the opposite; she loves wearing shoes - but unmatched ones!  When we get home from church, off goes one shoe and on goes another - of a different style.  Unmatched - But Both Crocs  Because she is always wearing unmatched shoes, it becomes quite the challenge to find a match when we do leave the house, even for other family members since she likes to wear our shoes, too. Unmatched - Totally! How beautiful are the feet of my darling daughter.  May she always find a way to brighten our day.

One of the things that missionaries find themselves doing a couple of times a year is filling out questionnaires from supporting churches.  These range in length from one page to four or more pages with varying questions.  Last week I was filling one out that asked for the clothes sizes of our family.  That one always throws me for a loop.  By the time two or more boys have worn the shoes, the size has completely worn off.  Or if I have purchased the shoes here, I never remember what the conversion is (my son wears a size 39?).  I was checking the label of a pair of trousers, and it said 52.  Hmmm...what size is that?  I couldn't find a single American size in one of the boys' stack of trousers.  (Trousers are worn on the outside.  The term "pants" is used for the undergarment.)  So how do I get clothes with such strange sizes? My shopping for clothes involves several hours of searching and digging.  In our area, we have two ...

An incident occurred yesterday that I am not free to mention here but would like to ask you to pray about. In the wee hours of the morning when sleep failed me, the Lord gave me the following lesson that I taught in my Ladies' Sunday School class this morning. This is an abbreviated version. Luke 1:49 “For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.” How could Mary say this? She had just received word that she was expecting a child although she was unwed. Because of this condition, she could have been stoned (Leviticus 20:10). No doubt, many of her friends shunned her. Perhaps mothers even prohibited their children from speaking to her. Why would God bring such “humiliation” on someone who was in His favor? God had a gift of honor hidden beneath the wrapping paper of scorn and embarrassment. Honor that would last for centuries. Mary looked upon this as a “great thing.” Great things come in different forms: * To the street child, a meal ...

It is very rare that we are away from our home for more than a couple of days at a time, so when we returned to Masaka yesterday from an 8-day absence - - oh...Home Sweet Home!  It had been about seven years since we last visited the ministries in Soroti, so there were many changes that we saw during our visit.  We were blessed by the hospitality of the Pittmans and enjoyed the fellowship of all of the missionaries there.  Cool Princesses - Savannah & Micayla Pittman It is amazing how different one town can be from another, although they are in the same country.  Because Soroti is flat, bicycles (or boda-bodas) are the main public transportation.  Here in Masaka, motorcycles (or piki-pikis) are used because of our hilly terrain.  We saw just as many women as men riding bicycles up there, while down here it is socially unacceptable for women to pedal a bicycle, although they do ride "side-saddle" when being transported.  Most of the people in t...