Scoop on Ft. Portal

Most of you may know but we have moved from Kenya to Uganda and are adjusting to our new home. Here are a few details about life here...

We have a big yard and house. There is a really nice front porch that has a railing so i can let Yahoo out in a scooch mobile (the lord provided one from another missionary). It is four bedrooms, kitchen, living, dining, 2 bathrooms and garage. We put all three kids in the master and then Yahoo in the master bath. On the compound is also a servants quaters where fred and susan (our Kenya workers) and there 2 kids are living. I was a little worried about them living on the compound but it is working out better then had hoped. Franklin their oldest is 9 and is a really sweet boy and not much bigger then nemo which is nice. Yesterday all the kids were out in the yard playing soccer. It is nice for my kids to have some structured experiences with african kids. We are having some problems with the school kids looking into the compound (one fence is just bush with thorns) and teasing the kids and our new dog (old collie -- looks like lassie -- from another missionary) but every place has its down side.

As for the church home... one of the main reasons we came here was to come along side an existing Calvary Chapel church (same type as our home church in FL). So the teaching is NT on Sun and OT on thurs .. verse by verse by an american guy Doug from CA.
The worship is also english with the same style that we are used to (ie chris tomlin songs). Since the kids dont stay in the big kids church after worship on Sun i am in the sunday school with all the children and have already begun to assist the teacher (who is Dougs sister in law charity). It is so refreshing. Mom then watches the kids on thursday night and i get to go and get filled without any kid distractions. It is very nice.

In Ft. Portal there is actually a good number of missionaries... We are even starting a womens bible study on the book of Ester next tuesday. There is about 10 ladies. There are 2 ladies that have kids that are older than mine and then one lady that is just out here with her husband. 2
of the them are single and then others all have small ones (2 are prego with second). dougs wife Destiny has a boy Jotham who is 3 (very much like Zeek) and Audrey with is 6 months. It is nice to have a lot more kids around that are the same age as mine. I am really happy about the
2 with older ones because they have homeschool material that they said i could borrow. God is good to provide.

The weather here is nice. It is not quite as cold as Kitale but much more mountainous. There are hills everywhere and we have a beautiful view of the Rwenzori Mountanis. The other day in the morning you could see in the distance snow on some of the peaks. One of the biggest difference
is the unpredicability. The weather changes very quickly. It can be sunny one moment and 5 minutes later it can be pouring rain. Kitale you could almost always bet on rain in the afternoon. here you just never know.

just as unpredicable as the weather is the power. Most days it is off from 8am to 8pm. it just takes adjusting to. I also am really missing the selection of groceries. We dont have a meat lady here (was a lady in kitale that we could buy safe meat- hamburger, fish, lamb, chicken etc). Most all the missionaries buy their meat from Kampala and then store in proprane powered freezer so that is not an option for us. I have bought tiliapia fillets in town they were good. they say you can get beef fillet from the market and pressure cook it but i have not been that adventuous yet.
Most of the time it is just VERY simple (also only have 2 burners and no oven). Bean rice cabbage pasta tortillas repeat. a lot of the fresh produce is cheaper than kitale but then EVERYTHING else is a good bit more. Many of the items are imported from kenya and thus more but everything slowly by slowly.

OH i almost forgot. yesterday i found that Ft. Portal has its own public LIBRARY. I even checked it out and they actually have childrens book. The selection was even surprisingly good.
What a blessing. you can only check out 4 books at a time but at least it is something and for that i am very grateful.

I guess that is the basic info on what life is like here. Most of my day is spent doing cooking, schooling the kids and household chores. My ministry does not change no matter the location.