The Passion Conference

One Incredible Night

Last night was one of the most amazing things I have seen in Africa yet!  I have to be honest when I say that I never expected to hear Chris Tomlin sing and Louis Giglio preach right here in Kampala!  What a night!

The Passion World Tour is touring the world with the overwhelming message of “How GREAT is our God”.  My buddy Josh, our school Chaplain, arranged a couple of busses for us to go to this awesome event as a school.  When Abbey and I first heard about the event we were so excited to go, and then were completely shocked by how cheap the tickets were.  For adults the price was 10,000 Ugandan Schillings (UGX) and for those under 25 the price was 2,000 UGX.  Translated into dollars meant that adults paid $3.98 and the younger ones paid $0.80 for a ticket!  At this same event in North America the tickets ranged anywhere from $60 to $180!

There were around 60 of us that went with the school to the event.  We had a great mix of students, teachers and parents that went.  We arrived at the Makarere University campus 3 hours before the start of the event because we knew that it would be packed.  We wanted to have a good spot kind of up close to the stage where the group could really feel like a part of the event.  It worked out really nicely because we were all really close to the stage and right in the center!  As more and more people packed into the field, it was amazing to look out and see so many Christians gathered together to celebrate our Lord Jesus Christ!  By the end of the night there were thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people who gathered together on that field… Christians from all over Africa and missionaries from all over the world; each with their own story of how God had led them to Uganda.

I have heard a Chris Tomlin concert before in the States, and it was powerful then.  Africans, though, REALLY know how to worship with their full voices and hearts!  During most of the songs, I could hear the voices of thousands of people singing just as loud as the sounds coming through the sound system.  EVERYONE was involved and singing and praising our Lord.  I especially liked when Chris sang his songs “How great is our God” and “We raise our white flag”.  Maybe the coolest moment of the Tomlin part of the night, though, was when he started singing “Indescribable”.  As soon as he played the first note of the song, the crowd erupted in one of the loudest cheers I have ever heard.  The cool part is that Chris Tomlin’s face (along with his band members) was so genuinely surprised and shocked by the volume of cheer that he had to step away from the mike and stop the song.  He just kept smiling and smiling until he finally gathered himself and started anew.  The hills were echoing with the sound of so many people singing “You placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name, You are amazing God”!  All this was sung under a perfect Ugandan sky and a beautiful full moon.  Christy Knockles was also at the event and she sang her unbelievably beautiful song “Waiting here for you”.

When Louis Giglio preached it was also VERY powerful.  If you have never seen his videos called “Indescribable” and “How Great is our God” I would highly recommend it.  He is very excited about nature and the solar system and how all the heavens and earth cry out praises to our Lord.  He read the words of the Psalmist and then proceeded to share some amazing ways that the universe cries out worship to our Creator.  The highlights of the sermon included playing some unbelievable noises that come from stars that have exploded and then drawn back into a spinning mass called a pulsar.  We have radio wave high powered telescopes now that record sounds coming from space and to hear the sounds that come out of these pulsars was quite spectacular.  It sounded like a symphony was playing music to praise our God!  In a brilliant twist, Giglio combined the sounds of the pulsars with the beautiful songs of the humpback whale to give an example of how all of nature is in a constant state of worship to Jesus Christ.  The sounds were so overwhelmingly beautiful that I cannot imagine the kind of sound that our God gets to hear on a constant basis coming from all corners of the universe.

We made it back to the school around midnight and were pretty worn out but what an amazing experience.  The timing was perfect, also, because spiritual emphasis week just ended at our school and there is a continually growing presence of the Holy Spirit on our campus.  The reason that hearts seem to be opening more and more to His Word is that the movement is being led by the students themselves.  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.  Students are starting Bible studies, sharing their testimonies and witnessing to their peers in a way that no teacher or parent could ever do.  Please continue to pray for our school and for this nation.  Jesus is showing His presence in a very powerful way here and I pray that nothing will hinder the continued growth of His followers.

Goodnight my friends!  We miss you all and think of you often.  I’m sorry that I am so horrible at keeping in touch with all of you and that we don’t update this blog very often.  Life, as usual, seems to be spinning around so quickly!  God bless and we will talk again soon.

In Jesus Christ,

Ernie

Meet the new neighbor…

For weeks we’ve been looking across the wall at our pregnant neighbor knowing she’s about to give birth any day and wondering when we’ll get to catch a glimpse of the newest neighbor.  And yesterday was our lucky day! 

Meet….

Oscar!!!

Yes, Oscar is a baby goat!  Did you think I was talking about a human?!?!?!  Silly you!  I love all the little goats, chickens & cows living by our home and singing us to sleep at night (well they keep talking morning, noon and night!)

Today I got some pictures of the many faces of Oscar…

The "Don't mess with the goat" face

The "I'm tired" face 

1

  The “Don’t take my picture” face

  The “Are you serious right now” face (this one is my favorite)

 The "Are you talking to me"face.

Here is Oscar's Mom (I named her Oreo)

Hope you enjoyed meeting our newest neighbor as much as I did!

Here’s  a little picture of the outside of our apartment too.

We're still here!

Hello Blogosphere!
I confess, yes, again, that I have been LAME at blogging.  Not because I have nothing to blog about, but quite the contrary.  I feel as if I want to bear my whole heart and soul to you and share every detail of the day!  Alas, I arrive at the end of the school day with a mound of papers to grade, lesson plans to refine, meeting, coaching swim team or helping with youth group leaves me so exhausted that I know I would ramble on and on and probably not communicate a single thing.  It has been two weeks (I think) and here are some of the highlights-

• Two young men have shared testimony in chapel about how God has and is changing their lives! PRAISE THE LORD!  It's amazing to see peers evangelize to peers.  The school is abuzz talking about and tackling tough faith issues.  I praise God when I get to overhear a snippet or two of what the students are thinking.  Please continue to pray for spiritual growth.  A number of our students are not Christian and it's amazing to see what God is doing on campus!
• Boy's soccer (or as they call it here football) won their first game 5-3!  Woo Hoo!  They trounced a much larger program and the win felt sooooooo good!  Equally exciting was the first ever Heritage Lion's Ladies soccer team game.  I know it might not sound exciting but it was a close game 1-2 and the girls fought so hard!  They were right there with the other team & many of our girls have never played soccer before!
• The Oasis: a gathering of ex-pat ladies this past Saturday morning met, prayed and fellowshipped.  I felt like there was such a neat community of believers!  It was a blessing to me for sure.
• Saturday night we had pizza with our friends the Mburu’s, & the Koivuluoma’s, at the Hallahan’s home and played some Wii bowling, baseball, and wake-boarding.  What a blast.
• I tackled my gas oven this weekend with success!  I am used to an electric oven.  AND an oven with a temperature gauge.  This oven has no temperature gauge, no heat settings, nada!  But I persevered and successfully made a pineapple upside-down cake! YAY!Life is beginning to feel more normal everyday!
• I had an ultra-sound and doctor appointment this week & all looks great!  Not to brag but my blood pressure is “perfect” ha ha!  J
  Here are some pictures of a rain storm we had and of our Wii party!  Thanks for continuing to read!
  -Abbey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Last week's update...a little late!

So I realized today that I hadn’t posted my thoughts from last week so here they are!

Well, school is off to a fast & furious start!  It has been challenging & wonderful!  Even in the first few days we’ve seen students with attitudes & a wall up with us new teachers warm up and start sharing their lives with us.  I am really excited to be back in the classroom!  I feel like God is already using me to connect with the students.  Yesterday, at the end of class I thanked the students for working hard and then I said “Kamsahamnida” (thank you in Korean) one of my students who is struggling to speak English.  He turned and gave me the biggest smile!  It made my whole day! 

There have been challenging moments as well.  I have the 12^th grade students for devotions first thing in the morning!  They are ALL asleep I think! J Kind of like my high school Sunday school students!!!

My classes range in size, the 8^th grade is the largest classes with 18 and 10^th only has 7 students.  I am really excited about the 8^th grade curriculum studying prehistory thru the 1800s.  It is really fascinating and I’m already thinking up all sorts of fun learning activities to do with them.  The 8^th graders have such a positive attitude and are so excited about learning!  I love it!

On another note, my belly is growing by the day and I can never eat enough!  Sheesh!  It is so fun to feel our little boy swimming all over.  

The other day Ernie came into my class to make an announcement about soccer and as soon as he started talking the baby started moving.  He knows his daddy’s voice!  Made me teary!  WOW!  So all is good with the baby.

Here are a few random pictures from the past week:

Dinner with teachers at the Samurai Restaurant

A Kampala Sunset

Me and our friend Florence

2 weeks ago we had movie night!

First day of school!

As I looked around the room this morning, I could tell that all the other the other new teachers were feeling the exact same things that I was… nervous, excited, terrified, pumped up, full of butterflies, elevated heart rates... you name it we felt it!  It was go time!  School has officially started!

The cafeteria was full of children as we opened up the school year with an all school assembly.  I was amazed at what my eyes were taking in as I looked around… the students were every shade of color given to mankind!  When they say “International School” they mean it!  Wow!  I believe that every continent except Antarctica was represented in that one cafeteria today.  It didn’t take long, though, to realize that students share a lot of similarities no matter what part of the world they come from.  Over on one side of the cafeteria all of the grade school children were filing into the room in single file lines.  Each of those children had smiles on their faces and were SO EXCITED to be in school.  Whenever the speakers would ask questions from the front, little hands would shoot up in the air begging to answer the questions!  When we were singing praise songs to our Lord the little ones were shouting out to Him!  No wonder Jesus challenges us to be like little children… so full of life and passion and trust.

On the other side of the spectrum, though, were the middle and high school students.  Ever concerned about appearance and acceptance, these young people were a little more hesitant to volunteer an answer or to sing loud.  The funny thing is that deep inside teenagers want so bad to sing out and to not care what people think of them… it’s just a really challenging time of life.  They put up protective shells around themselves at first, but the amazing reward is that when they decide to trust and to buy in there is no one more powerful for the Lord’s kingdom than a teenager.  Abbey and I love working with these age groups and willingly accept the challenge of helping them reach their God-given potential.

As usually happens, once the school day started it flew so fast that I still can’t figure out what really happened today!  Before we blink it will already be Christmas break and my son will be getting ready to make his grand entrance into the world!  Our classes were pretty much just introductions today and to give you a little taste of the international flavor of our school (and to show how hard we are going to have to work to learn how to pronounce names) here are a sampling of a few of the first names of our students:  Uwe, Fanuel, Kang Hyun, Sanyu, Immaculate, Chedie, Efrance, Heron, Neamin, Batseba, and Njeru!  Awesome and beautiful names! 

Abbey and I finished off our first day of school by making an always exciting trip to the Uchimi grocery store to fill up on some supplies for the week.  We decided to splurge a little and buy some cheddar cheese tonight!  J  We had a wonderful dinner of spaghetti with tomato sauce (the best we have had yet… it has taken awhile for us to figure out how to make the tomato paste less paste and more sauce!), green beans, sweet bread rolls and some amazing Fanta soda!  We are actually eating surprisingly very well here… the meals that they feed us at the school are unbelievable!

Anyway, we love and miss you all back home.  We appreciate your prayers more than you will ever know.  We also pray for all of you and hope that everything is going ok in your lives.  Please know that we are being treated wonderfully here and are making some amazing friends.  Each one of the staff members are wonderful, committed Christian people and are just a pleasure to be around.  We have already made some awesome memories and we haven’t even been here a month yet!  Goodnight and God bless you all.

In Jesus Christ,

Ernie

International Worship

Well folks, sorry about the radio silence but I’m back.  This is Abbey today. We’re actually working not just at summer camp!  So we’ve been lesson planning and in meetings all week.  Still having a great time but that’s why you haven’t heard as much from us lately.

But let me back up to the awesome weekend we had.  We went to two church services this past weekend.  On Saturday we went to Bunga Central Seventh Day Adventist Church.  We walked in and we were the ONLY two white people in the whole church of over 450 people.  It was awesome!!!!  We sang some great hymns that were familiar.  It was also Children’s day so the children did the whole service.  They sang and danced to special songs in English and Luganda (I think), did a drama and presented a message.  It was really neat.  After church a man who lives right behind our school invited us over for a snack.  Not only did we not have to walk home we spent some time getting to know a new friend & neighbor!  It was really a special day.  *I'll try to post pictures later, I'm struggling to get them off Ernie's iPod.  I need Stacia or Mark's help!

On Sunday we attended the church that meets at our school cafeteria.  The place was filled with people from all over the world, joining together in worship songs to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It was amazing to think that in heaven all believers, from all nations, will join together in worship and what an awesome day that will be!

I think that is the amazing thing about being a part of the Heritage community here is being in such an international community.  Last night we had a staff dinner and at our table at one point we had people from Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Kenya!  Amazing!  We laugh when we try to pronounce things in each other’s languages (like Ernie trying to say “good night” in Dutch).  It has been so rewarding to journey with each other as we go through the ups and downs of all the idiosyncrasies of living in a new culture and doing things in a new way.

This week I’ve been feeling more of a purpose and more confident about living here.  At first there was the excitement of everything new and then the frustration of doing everything differently than I’m used to.  But little by little I feel small victories are being made.  We successfully navigated the Matatus, grocery shopping and the stove top.  (Not the gas oven without a thermometer though.)  So I think we’re going to be okay.  Though I do reserve the right to panic later!

So some of you have asked how the pregnancy is going…here’s the update.  I’m 21 weeks now and the baby (according to babycenter.com) is about 10 ½” long, as long as carrot.  He weighs about ¾ of a pound and he’s moving every day now.  No more vague fluttering but more like swimming motions in my belly.  I am just in awe. 

Thank you for all the prayers you’ve been sending!  Please keep them coming as we begin school on Monday.  Please pray for the staff and the students to have a great year and for the Lord’s name to be lifted high.  I haven’t gotten sick at all and Ernie had a little bout with tummy sickness but is better now.  If you could continue prayers for health (especially for the baby) as well it would be appreciated!  Also, if you could pray for some of the staff that is having a tough transition and some with illnesses that would be great too.

Boda-Bodas and Matatus!

Hello everyone!  I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!  We have been in Uganda for a little over a week now and are having a wonderful experience so far.  There is so much to get used to and so much to learn but we have great support and are making some awesome new friends.

We have quickly realized once again how much we take for granted in the States.  The list of luxuries that we all have is long but the one I want to tell you a little about today is transportation.  At home it is expected that most of us have a vehicle of some kind… and not just one per family.  We are expected to have at least one vehicle per person that drives.  In Kampala only the very rich have vehicles of their own.  Even most of the expats that are here seem to only have one vehicle per family if they are lucky! 

So, needless to say, the roads have a very different feel here!  Instead of the roads being filled with cars and trucks in a very organized manner traveling down the streets, ours are crazy!  There are people walking everywhere (including darting through the streets), some personal vehicles darting through, but mostly the roads are filled with boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis) and matatus (van taxis)… and it is chaos!  Motorcycles are darting in and out and between cars and the matatus are honking and then pulling over everywhere to pick up new passengers.

Abbey and I (with a whole lot of help from the staff at the school) have taken on the task of figuring out the boda-boda systems and the matatu systems this week and are having a lot of fun doing it.  In a nutshell, here is how the system works… the boda-bodas will take you from anywhere to anywhere.  The drivers are everywhere and just about all of them offer you a ride.  It costs about 5,000 Ugandan Schillings (about $2 U.S.) for a one-way ride from our end of town to downtown (and the price increases or decreases based on the distance).  There are a lot of scams and bad drivers so the school has introduced us to some boda drivers who are trustworthy and safe.  We have a list of their names and phone numbers and we can call them and they will come wherever we are and pick us up!  My boda driver’s name is John and he is a very nice guy and a safe driver.  Here is a picture of us today after he brought me back from picking up some groceries at the Super Supermarket (I know… great name!)  Obviously, with Abbey being pregnant we have decided that the matatu is the much safer option for her.

The matatus run pretty similar to a public bus system in the U.S.  They have set routes and you have to give them the signal that you want them to pick you up when they pass by.  They are, by law, only supposed to carry a maximum of 14 people per matatu but we have figured out pretty quickly that this law is ignored.  Matatus will routinely have 17+ people in them.  It is the cheapest form of transportation as a ride from here to downtown will cost around 1,500 Ugandan Schillings (about $0.60 U.S.).  The matatus come from all over the city and converge on one massive taxi park downtown.  When you are ready to go back toward your end of town you come back to the park and overlook thousands of matatus all waiting to be filled with passengers.

Abbey and I took on the task today of finding our way to the correct matatu.  There are signs above each section of the massive lot and we kept asking drivers where the section of vans that go to “Kansanga” were and they kept pointing us further and further to the back of the park.  To add to the excitement, we were carrying groceries and packs in an amazing Ugandan downpour!  Oh, the excitement!  Finally, we found the correct matatu and waiting for the other 15 passengers to pack in like sardines and off we went!  It was actually all very exciting!

Well, there you go!  Appreciate your cars and your motorcycles and your garages… but every once in a while try to imagine what life would be like without them.  It’s a whole different adventure! 

Your brother in Jesus Christ,

Ernie