New Blog Site

After spending several hours uploading photos and trying to publish here over the past two months, to no avail, we have changed our blog to an aimsites blog. Our new address is: www.alaskanwildfowlers.aimsites.org. Please join us at our new site and I sure hope to be able to get more posts done now! Happy Thanksgiving!

Septemberish Things

A few weeks ago we met Rhonda, who is an AIM missionary in Uganda as an art teacher. She asked if we would be interested in art lessons for the kids and before we knew it, the kids were having art lessons every Wednesday afternoon from 1:00 to 4:00. She officially just teaches the three oldest, but the younger ones are getting in on some of it too. Art is definitely not my strong-suit so it's wonderful the way God has provided in this area!


First art lesson with Miss Rhonda


The kids met a friend a couple of weeks ago. Her name is Tracy and she's 13 and lives close by. It's been an interesting sort of friendship and Tracy has been here pretty much every day since they met her. She has no problem telling the kids what to do or not to do... We've had to set some boundaries but I think it's good for the kids and we're thankful for a local friend here. Tracy came over during art lessons and joined right in.



A couple of weeks ago, Leo called me at 5:00 from work and said, "We're supposed to be at Michael's wedding. It starts at 5:00." Thankfully, this is Africa, so we made it there by 5:30 and beat the bride and groom by about 20 minutes. Michael is our day guard and I knew he was planning to get married but hadn't heard the date! It was a very fun wedding. I've never seen the wedding march literally danced down the aisle before. Unfortunately, not many of our pictures turned out, but we were glad to be able to go and celebrate with Michael and Sarah.

Purpose Baby Home

As I've uploaded photos for this post, all that is appearing on my screen is a bunch of letters and symbols, making it impossible for me to comment under each picture, so... I will just tell you that ever since we arrived I've been asking people if there is a baby home in Entebbe. Most people I've asked told me that they didn't know of one. Then a few weeks ago my friend Kelly, found out from her friend, Ivan, that there is indeed a baby home here and we went to visit! The first time we went our whole family joined in the fun. The home is only about a year and a half old and is called Purpose Baby Home. It was started and is run by two amazing Ugandan ladies, Remi and Barbara. They currently have 19 children, from one month old to four years. The second time we visited, we met a couple from the U.S. who had just arrived to take their little girl home to adopt her! I've gone back twice since our first visit, each time taking two or three of our kids with me. These precious little ones are well-cared for and love to be snuggled and played with. We are thankful to have the opportunity to pour some love into these little lives.

Snakes Past Snacktime

Last week Isaac decided that he wanted to be an artist and a writer. He has been reading the "Magic Treehouse" books which inspired his first story, Snakes Past Snacktime... I typed it for him, just as he wrote it (because I thought it was super cute!). I told him I would put his story on our blog. He's very excited about being "published" :)

Snakes Past Snaktime

By Isaac Reid Fowler, Age 6

Jack and Annie were so hungrey they thot they cold go for a walk in the woods and look for acorns to eat. Allofasudden they lookd up they saw a rope hanging from a coconut tree. They thot they cold tak a look what was up there in the tree house. Then Annie ran as quickly as she cold and Jack came running up behind then annie stardid to clim up the rope then they were both at the top then annie picked up a book that sade snakes of Africa. Then annie said I wish we were in Africa. Olusadin the tree house started to spin uround then it stoped then there were lots of trees then they new that they were in the jungle then they saw a green momba in a tree then they saw a pythion was slisering up the tree. Then they were so scard and they didind no wat to do then a bird came to the rescu then the tree went in sercoles. They went throu the woods then they were home.

Day at the Zoo

For the last few days the kids have each been researching a different animal that can be found at the local zoo here. They had to write down their facts and today we got to go on our first field trip! We met up with some friends and had a very fun morning at the zoo. Rylea chose to do her facts about zebras, so here she is in her zebra glasses (with a real zebra bum in the background!)

Here's the gang checking out the river otters.

Isaac reported on the Nile Crocodile. I must say his toothless grin really fits his personality :)

One of the "wild" animals at the zoo, not in a cage! The spiders were huge and plentiful.


There's a neat chimpanzee exhibit there. Here's the whole group near the exhibit. The kids cracked up at one of the chimps who was showing off for us, hitting the water with a big branch and "talking" to us!

We had fish and chips for lunch at the zoo restaurant. When they say "fish" they mean the whole caboodle :) Thankful for a fun day and for kids who are enjoying learning new things :)

Last Week

Last week we had some really good days and a really bad day... one day Mr. Phil took the kids sailing! They got to take turns going out with him in this small sailboat he rented at the sailing club. They LOVED it!

While the other kids waited for their turn, they got to swim. Since Leo works at the sailing club on the boats, we have a family membership there. It's only a 10 minute walk from our house and has a great pool for our family. What a blessing!

Miss Linda took some of the kids down to the beach to play in the sand too. We had a perfect afternoon!

On the way home from our afternoon at the beach, we picked up our new kitten, Tana, from our neighbors. She was such a sweet little thing. Here she is looking in the window while we ate dinner that night.

In spite of her cat allergies, Rylea couldn't leave the kitten alone! All the kids fell quickly in love with her, which leads us to our really bad day. Less than 20 hours after we brought Tana home, the kids all watched as our dog attacked and killed her. It was really tough. I know these things happen, but it broke my heart as all my children were sobbing their little hearts out. We were really thankful for Judy that afternoon as she took over the "funeral arrangement" for the kitten. The kids noted that just after the kitten died, there was a big thunder and rain storm (just like in the movies). It was a good opportunity to talk about how God cares about all the details of our lives, among many other discussions. We are now looking for a new home for the dog as we don't know how she'll do with any other small animals we want to bring home. This is difficult for the children too, as they all really like "Angel".

Mr. Michael has been teaching the kids how to model clay. They call it "pottery class" and they absolutely love it!


Here are some of their finished products, complete with a bunch of bananas, a papaya and various other creations! It's so neat how God continues to provide people to invest in our children, teaching them things I could never teach them. He is so good.

LAMP

I'm a couple of weeks behind in this post, but the same day that the kids started school, Leo and I started our one week of LAMP (Language Acquisition Made Personal) training. That week, we were joined by our facilitators, Phil and Linda Byler, and other new friends, the Breckenridges and two great gals who are working as nurses in Tororo for a time, Kelly and B. Here's our whole crew. We met as a group in the mornings and then for an hour had language helpers who would come to the house to work one on one with us.


The kids really enjoyed having everyone here too! Kelly and B were great with them and are actually coming back this weekend to hang out with the kids one night so Leo and I can go to dinner :) What sweet girls!!! The kids have been counting the days ever since they left!

Here is Leo with his helper, Pastor James (we have a Pastor James here too!)

The last day of our training, we invited our helpers to bring their families for lunch. All of the children enjoyed the legos and riding bikes in the yard. What a special week of learning and building friendships.

birthdays and school

August 25th was Samuel's 5th birthday and also his first day of Kindergarten! He got to open one present in the morning, one at lunch and one at night :)

The kids were all very excited for school to start. Here's Sam with Miss Judy! She is doing a wonderful job with the kids. This was also the first day we started our language classes, so she's been doing all the school with the kids so far.

The whole class (plus Malachi)! We have an extra bedroom in our downstairs that we've turned into the school room and it's great!

This is how Samuel ended his first day of school. Kindergarten must be exhausting!

The next day, the 26th, was Nezzie's 7th birthday! She got a new snorkel set for her birthday and then got to go to the pool and try it out :) We're thankful for these fun first birthdays in Uganda!

Abba House

Last weekend we had the honor of visiting the Abba House Children's Home here in Entebbe. When we arrived a group of children met us and excitedly showed us their new bore-hole, where they can get fresh, clean water!Leo quickly had several new friends :)

This is their old water hole, which they shared with the cattle.

It poured rain during our visit, but we were warm and cozy with all the cuddles and fun with the children. I got a glimpse into my girl's hearts as they quietly asked me several times if we could bring the kids home with us. At one point Rylea said, "Mom, how much money for these two girls?" I cracked up and then quietly explained that we don't buy children! It was pretty cute.

Leo was the human jungle gym for a bunch of the kids!

Rylea and Daphne. While we were there, the kids helped sand the walls to get ready for painting in the boy's dormitory. We hope to go back soon!

More ABO

As I type this post, there are only two days left of ABO. Hard to believe. We have learned so much, our heads and hearts are full as we begin to process all of it. Above, Malachi is enjoying the last bit of Coke at one of our meals in the dining hall.

Part of our curriculum has to been to learn some about Islam. Africa is home to many Muslims and no matter what our ministry focus, we will have some interaction with Muslims. The more we learn, the more we come to know that there are SO many differences between our faiths, but that we can still have meaningful (hopefully leading to salvation!) relationships with Islamic people. At the end of two days in the classroom, we were able to visit a local mosque.

Here we are on our way to the mosque. I wore a silky headscarf, which was just a bad idea. It kept slipping off and was quite awkward trying to adjust it :) The women's section is at the top and back of the mosque. We could just get a small glimpse of the men below as they said their prayers. Afterwards, the imam came up and we had a Q&A session.

One day last week we had a scavenger hunt in Machakos town. There were teams and we competed against each other. Since town is a ways from where we are staying, we took public transport in. Leo and the kids rode bicycle bodas. I took a matatu instead (mini-van). We felt sorry for the little guy hauling Leo on the back of his bike!

One of the places we visited was the butcher. yummy! Our team didn't win, but we had a fun (and entertaining) day :)



There is a family here who offers laundry service. They collect the laundry in the mornings, watch it by hand and then put it on the lawn to dry. Here's a picture of "the dryer". Since it's been so cold here, the laundry has never been dry when I've gone to pick it up, so we can hang it on lines in the back of the dorm, where it dries eventually. The picture right above is the dorm where we've been staying.


Yesterday we did home visits. We were with another couple and a single guy from our group and met up with this really sweet Kenyan couple. We then walked to their house, which ended up being at least a couple of miles away! We walked to town, through town, out of town, down a valley and up the other side... Malachi walked the whole way and did great.

Here we are in the home of Martin and Faith (and their friend, Lillian, in green). They were very strong Christians and after sharing porridge with us, we sang a song, heard a sermonette and had a prayer time. The kids were pretty wiped out by the end of the visit. We had a "family debrief" last night about how we can do better next time... :)

Kenya

A lot of this may be old info. for some of you, but I didn't want to leave anyone out, just in case! It's been almost three weeks since we loaded up the Land Rover and left Entebbe. Here is Leo loading the roof-rack by the light of the moon the night before we left.

We were on the road by 5:50 am. The sun was just coming up as we left Kampala.

The source of the Nile River in Jinja.

The car over-heated coming up a long hill so we pulled over for about 45 minutes. I thought I'd share some fruit snacks with the group of school children who thought we were especially interesting to look at. I was pretty much mobbed once I brought out the snacks. I can only hope everyone got one...

14 hours after leaving Entebbe, we arrived in Nairobi. Friends fed us dinner and had our place all ready for us! The next day we went to Java House for lunch. It's SO yummy and the kids still love to play on the rock slide.

The children really wanted to feed the giraffes at the Giraffe Centre, so we had a fun Sunday afternoon with friends, doing that.
After one week in Nairobi, we met up with all the other new AIM missionaries and drove about an hour East to Machakos for our orientation. We are on the Scott Theological Campus, representing the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, Ireland... There are about 80 of us and half of those are children!

We had a half day off last weekend and some of us went to a game ranch not far from here. After a yummy lunch we went on a game drive. The kids had the best seats in the house :)

We saw giraffe, zebra, impala, ostrich, thompson gazelle, wildebeest, all kinds of birds... it was a great day away.

When we arrived there was a trail of ants going across one of the steps on the way to the dining hall. They've since moved to another location, but you've got to be careful. They pinch hard!

Here is where we're eating our meals. Some people are concerned that they are losing weight... I'm concerned that I'm not...


Somehow, Rylea got "invited" to help in the kitchen. Here she is making chapatis.
The kids have an awesome program and do all kinds of cool crafts. Here is Samuel in our dorm hallway with his home-made car and trailer.



Often in the evenings before dinner, there is some sort of sports event. The big one was last week when some of our folks played a Kenyan "football" team. Of course, the nationals won but it was a fun game :)



A view of Machakos from the top of the hill.

This morning we had 17 of us in the Land Rover to go to church. Everybody splits up and goes to different churches. This week was so much better for us than last week. The service was only 2 hours long and it was in English!!!

Ready to go!

Hard to believe we've only got about a week left of ABO. We are learning so much and really enjoying the friendships beings formed. God is so good and we are excited to see how He will use all these things we are learning.