Mwebale Mwaka Gwayaka!
This is how you say Happy New Year in Lubwisi!
Blessings to each of you for the New Year 2012!Christmas in Bundibugyo!We had a busy and exhausting Christmas in Bundibugyo! We arrived in Bundi on the 16th Dec. and found our dear friend Joyce Kamakune not at all well after having suffered from a kidney infection in the prior weeks. She needs your prayers. Yesterday ( 9th Jan. on our return visit) we found out that her estranged brother, a medical officer came to Bundibugyo and took her to Kampala for care and treatment. Please pray for her full physical recovery and for the restoration of relationship.Since it was my first time back in Bundibugyo after 10 months I had many people to greet and meet. Sincerely, it was a sweet reunion with friends and I thoroughly enjoyed reuniting with many people. I found one New Life Church Elder had broken his ankle and was receiving treatment by the Bundikyola bone setters, the Orthopedic Specialists of Bundibugyo. A week later his wife produced their 6th baby. An older gentleman, our neighbor, Mzee Akulimpi was still able to walk to the Myhre house to greet me though he had suffered being hit by a motorcycle before I left last March! Our dear friend Alikanjeru, who irons clothes, introduced to us by Betty Herron in 1993 also came to visit. He must be at least 75 years old. His precious wife Suferoza was sick with bronchitis. I went to visit them and begged her to visit the Nyahuka Hospital to get treatment from the current Ugandan Doctor who is in Charge of the Hospital. When I returned a few days after Christmas she'd gone to fetch drinking water from the tap. I took this to be a good sign that she was on the mend. I also enjoyed getting to know the new Bundi Team members, Ann Kieser, Jessica Ankney, and Pamela Stephens. (Another Stephens Family will arrive in Bundi this week!)We went caroling in the village with the Bundi Team on Friday, then a Christmas Eve Advent celebration and the Christmas Day Cook out! The days were sunny and blazing hot a sign that the important days of Christmas had fully arrived! When Kym and Lydia arrived at Grandmother Edronas their family and neighborhood friends welcomed all of us with great joy! Again on Christmas night I was called to Grandmother Edronas for a Birthday Celebration for her son, the girls step-uncle Emmanuel. Though I never enjoyed the Christmas feast laid out at the Johnson's home or the usual Bazungu fellowship with Bundi Team, it was a fine Christmas celebration with a Chicken and rice feast with my other family. Sadly the cake I'd baked for Uncle's Birthday didn't rise. But in spite of my tears it was devoured and admired by all!Move in to the Busoro HouseBefore our departure for Christmas in Bundi we packed up all our worldly belongings, which weren't much and "shifted" as they say, to the NEWLY painted rooms of the Busoro House! So when I returned to Fort Portal (the girls returned to Fort Portal a few days later with Bundi singles en route to Kampala)I bought mattresses and mats for the floor and set up our bedrooms and for our visitor Maureen. We have a single gas burner to cook, a small table and locally built reed hutches to store our kitchen supplies and utensils. There were a few items I'd left behind in Bundi that I hauled in my trusty Nissan Patrol stacked and packed out to Fort Portal, which came in quite handy.With our two bedrooms, a portion of the corridor all freshly painted, a toilet!! Thanks GOD!, running! (cold) water in bathrooms, Solar Lights (put in the very day i came out from Bundi, YAY GOD!) and electric solar outlets our house is cozy, peaceful and bright. In fact, two solar panels on the house during the fire, survived and still work beautifully! (Thank You GOD!) Although only 1/3 of the house is complete we feel so at home living in our "Beauty from Ashes House"!All the glass has been installed in repainted steel window frames, all exterior doors and bedroom doors are fixed. What's remaining? Doors on a few more rooms, complete kitchen, ceiling in sitting room and finishing in few other rooms, completion of the Solar electric, install Uganda UEB Power, paint inside and out, furniture for the entire house, appliances for kitchen, and Solar Hot Water System*.I am deeply grateful for all of your generous giving to restore this house! It is God's money and His provision, neither I nor any of the visitors that have seen or witnessed this restoration had ever imagined such a feat by God!Busoro Village and church family feel like home! Thanks, Thanks, Thanks be to God!Maureen Hall's visit &THANKS for Gifts from NC!!For my New Years Gift God brought my dear friend Maureen Hall to visit in Uganda. She came to encourage me in the development work of "Women of the Proverbs" project, encourage me as a Mom and enjoy new and old Ugandan friendships! Maureen works long hours at her business, Woodbine Advertising Agency and a visit to Uganda seems to brighten and lift her spirits far away from the demands of her work. Though she talks to her family every other day and misses them dearly she hopes her next visit to Uganda will be as a family unit. It has also been a time that she has used to sit quietly with God and seek his presence, love and wisdom.Along with her she brought a trunk and suit case packed with gifts and goodies from friends in the USA! I can't thank you enough for the great gifts and things you sent through Maureen. Spatulas, peeler, new clothes, colored markers, dvds for kids, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!" one of my all time favorites, shoes, doors strips, yarn, sewing tools!, embroidery thread, DECAFE COFFEE! a Coffee grinder :), Books, and well lots of other stuff!Thank you dear friends this seems so trite to say only thank you! I am deeply grateful for your giving and your kindness to Kym, Lydia and to me!Give them GraceAs a new mom on the scene I've realized how inadequately equipped I am for such the task. Most of you concur with this cry of weakness, this thing called parenting is no joke! Many of you make it look so easy, but it's not. So in my desperation I cried out to God and to those with more wisdom than myself..."HELP!" I cried, and God heard and answered! In fact, he gave me a friend who agreed to mentor me in this role as mother. She is a godly woman I have know for a few years. In fact her son told me..."You are just like my Mom!". And it's true I think we do have similar temperaments and dispositions. We both grew up in the Pittsburgh area and graduated the same year from different High Schools. We think we attended some of the same Rock Concerts at the Civic Arena in downtown Pittsburgh but we never knew each another. United years later, God has blessed me with her wisdom, honesty and sincere heart to know Him more fully and seek him in all things. She has been available to me on more than one occasion in emergent situations to talk on Skype with wisdom and out of dependancy on God the Father. I am grateful for her encouragement and love. Though Christmas has been a busy time I will be back in touch with this friend and mentor before January ends! I am deeply grateful for God's provision of her friendship, humility and wisdom.Please pray that I will learn to give my children God's grace and teach them to love his Word and know him intimately.Ideas for WOTPMaureen and I held a project day with the Women of New Life Presbyterian Church in Busoro. (Busoro is the Village located in Fort Portal where the House I live is located, you know this, right?) Well we met about 15 women and affirmed their talents in crochet and gave them ideas for a few different pieces to make and market in a local craft shops. Several women created beautiful headbands with a flower. Maureen demonstrated embroidery on to African Kitengi Cloth...lovely! Some of the women really enjoyed this design and Maureen hopes to have the samples sewn in to a small cell phone bags when she goes back to "our designers" in NC. This was also the second time the BUCWA women made Tortillas that we pray will be marketable in Fort Portal at Andrew and Brothers Super Market. After making the yummy Tortillas we ate them accompanied by a healthy tomato salad with green pepper, Cilantro, onion with lemon juice & salt dressing, cooked beans, cooked pumpkin and fresh Avocado! Women were amazed by how satisfied they were after our delicious and low fat meal! Many more ideas and creative projects are brewing to make lamp shades, chandeliers, sewing projects, crochet projects and much more! We hope to join the women of BUCWA- Women of the Proverbs again this coming Sat. for more creative time together!Upon Maureen's departure we will visit a project called "Font f Mercy" founded by Tara Hawks Nyanga in Jinja, Uganda. Tara has blessed the people of Uganda with Sewing Hope and business projects in that area of Uganda and we hope to gain wisdom and fruitful insights for development ministry from this amazing young woman.Please Pray for God to bless our meeting and inspire us to love and good deeds for His Glory and the good of the World! My new friend and partner in ministry Robbinah, will join us on our journey to Jinja.It's been a rich time with Maureen and Kym and Lydia have enjoyed her as much as I have.Please pray for safe road travel to Jinja and then on to take Maureen to Entebbe for her flight back home and our safe return to Fort Portal.Please pray that God will give Maureen God's wisdom, courage, faith and discipline as she returns home. Pray for her to bring energy and creativity to Women of the Proverbs project and God's grace, love and inspiration to those to who she tells her stories.Please pray for us as we say good bye to Maureen, it's so sad when family or friends leave us.I know i could not live here or love here with out your prayers, love and support. Please know how deeply I appreciate your support and prayer.God bless you in 2012,patP.S. Please be on the LOOK OUT for a Quilting Machine that could be donated to Women of the Proverbs!!If you want to send us a package please send, stickers for kids, small size crochet hooks, cross-stitch embroidery floss, regular old Kool-aid, Starbucks Instant DECAFE packets!Link to my blog; http://womenoftheproverbs.blogspot.com/"Risk or Rust - it's time to walk on water. " Matt. 14.21-32 DHpatricia abbottP.O.Box 330East AfricaFort Portal, UgandaCell phone# 011-256-772-622-330
