June 11

It is amazingly easy to get really dirty!  We worked all day today at the building site and we are covered with mud.  All the rain that we had last night really made a mess of things.  We are at the point where we had to set scaffolding, and when you put scaffolding on mud, it sinks—especially when you pile bricks on it!  We had to redo the setup several times and ended up propping up most of it with spare bricks and bits of board.  But no one fell off or was hurt. 

We are starting to get better at bricklaying, although none of us are planning it as a future career!  It is hot, dirty, smelly work, but we just keep thinking of the children that will be helped by having a home and someone to care for them. 

We are working on setting up our church to sponsor the mother of the house we are building.  We can do this with the contributions we received beyond the required amounts.  How rewarding it will be to be able to keep up with the mother and children that are placed in the home we constructed.

Tomorrow we will finish the inside walls as well as the outside walls, and will probably get done early enough to exchange more money and do a bit of shopping.  Wednesday afternoon, we have been challenged to a soccer game against the team from

Minnesota

that is building the house next to ours.  We have lots of youngsters, so we’re sure to win!  The architect of the project, Dave from

Australia

, thought it would be fun.  Fortunately we get to have our Ugandan workers on our team, too.

We are becoming more familiar with the city of

Kampala

but will never get used to the difficult conditions for most of the people here.  The markets are outdoor rows of little shops with fresh meat or fish hanging in many of them.  Most of them have a little charcoal burner and are cooking something—sometimes grasshoppers!—and so the smell of smoke permeates everything.  There are fruit and vegetable stands everywhere, but we have been advised not to buy anything from them for the safety of our digestive systems.  There are little booths along the streets where a person will sit and sell you a phone card and then let you use the phone he has right there.  A lot of the stores have their clothing hanging right outside, and even the furniture is outside.  Yesterday when it rained, not all the furniture was overed with a tarp.  Glad we don’t have room to bring home a recliner!

We know that God has brought us here for a reason, and we appreciate all the support and prayers of everyone back home.

Comments

[Beth R]

Sounds like you all are having a once in a life time experience...can't wait to hear from you all and see all the pictures.
What a blessing you are!!

[Mark]

Brenda the blog master-ess... Awesome Job!!!
The photos are great... keep'em comin'
Can you share some of the most profound cultural differences with us??

[barry]

It sounds like you could have really used my construction skills, especially plumbing! We can't wait to hear all the stories when you get back!