Christmas Activities

Merry Christmas! Celebrating Christmas in another country has been a similar experience, yet different. First of all, Uganda is heading into their dry season, which means that the weather is getting hotter all the time (not your typical Christmas weather). That makes it especially strange to me to see Christmas trees and blow up Santas being sold by street vendors as we are driving around. Some stores are playing Christmas music and selling the typical Christmas decorations: lights, tinsel, ornaments, etc. The selection is notably scaled down from what you’d find in the States.

At my house, my roommates and I have put together our own Christmas trees. One was more a Christmas bush, the other is kind of like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, but they’ve got character!



The Christmas Bush






Charlie Brown Tree







I’ve been part of several Christmas celebrations over the past week: Children of Hope Christmas party with the kids, COH staff Christmas party, and the Kampala WorldVenture missionary Christmas party.

At our Christmas party with the kids of Children of Hope, we helped decorate the church. Ugandans like lots of color in their decorations…and we definitely made the church colorful!











I also baked 4 dozen sugar cookies for the kids to decorate and eat. When we were telling the kids what to do, we discovered that they had never decorated Christmas cookies before! It was fun watching them pile frosting on and get creative with how they decorated.






At our staff Christmas party we sang Christmas carols, played a game, and ate a ton of food! I always like hanging out with everyone outside of the office. It gives us a chance to connect on a different level and enjoy each other’s company.

The highlight of the WorldVenture missionary gathering was decorating Christmas cookies. Each person drew a name out of a bowl and then had to decorate their cookie to look like that person! It was quite entertaining!


Here is me with my cookie look-a-like.




We also played some games, sang carols, ate food, and watched, It’s a Wonderful Life.

On Christmas, I went over to a friend's house for breakfast, and then I attended a Christmas service at church. Afterwards, I spent time with my roommates and other friends. We made a ham dinner (quite a feat I'd say!). We opened presents, and had a nice time just being together. I also got to talk with my family in the evening.


Holly, Jonathan, Catharine, Kate, Megan, and Phil


Being away from family has caused me to look closely at why we celebrate Christmas. As nice as it is to spend time with family and friends, sing songs, give & receive gifts, decorate like crazy, and eat a ton of food, it truly is about the birth of Christ. God valued humanity so highly that He came to earth as a baby—to experience life as a human. His time on earth, culminating in His death and resurrection, made it possible for us to have a relationship with God. On Christmas we celebrate the fact that Jesus was given to us by God—such a supreme act of love and provision of hope. I pray that the peace and joy of the Lord may fill you on this special day!

Gulu

On December 3-7 I traveled up to Gulu with five other members of Children of Hope in order to put on a training for the Mentors up there. Gulu is about 200 miles north of Kampala, and because the roads are so bad, it takes nearly 6 hours to get there! The roads are filled with potholes and speed bumps. In some stretches the potholes are so numerous and deep that you have to slow down to a crawl to get through them. You are constantly driving on all sides of the road in order to avoid as many potholes as possible! Speed bumps are used to control traffic. Often, at the beginning and end of towns there will be a couple of HUGE speed bumps to make sure you don’t fly through. Unfortunately those speed bumps are not well marked, and we have hit a few at full speed—talk about getting jarred a little! One part of the road has almost 200 speed bumps (my roommate Megan counted them), each spaced about 30 feet apart. I’m not sure why there are so many, but it definitely adds to the adventure of driving.

Gulu is a town that has been deeply affected by the rebel group, the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). The LRA has raided villages, kidnapping and killing many as well as stealing all the food. Thousands and thousands of people have fled their homes and been relocated to IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps in pursuit of safety. The IDP camps are crowded places to be. Huts are built nearly on top of one another. Clean water, food, medical care, and other basics are not always available. Thankfully, the situation has greatly improved in the last couple of years, with the LRA involved in peace talks. People are hoping that the fighting might be finally over at last and some are thinking it might be safe to begin moving back to their homes. I am praying that they are correct.

Children of Hope has a site in Koro Abili, one of the IDP camps located about 3 miles outside of town. We have about 170 kids who are sponsored in the project, half of which come from child headed households (families in which the oldest child is taking care of his/her younger siblings because their parents have died). Children of Hope owns a piece of property in Koro and has built a feeding center there. This feeding center serves the kids two meals a day: breakfast and dinner. (The schools give the kids lunch each day.) On the weekends the feeding center and its surrounding field is used for a Saturday program for the kids. Each day, the area is open to the kids to come and hang out, play football (aka soccer), and relax.






Some kids hanging out at the feeding center.




We did a two-day mentor training. Mentors are at the core of Children of Hope.




Here is Catharine, the director of Children of Hope, sharing with the mentors the background, history, and vision of the project.





They spend the most time with the children and have the most influence on them. We want them to be able to do the best job possible to affect the kids for good. We talked about things such as: what Children of Hope is all about, how to have a personal relationship and personal devotions with Christ, mentorship, the Biblical view of children, how to communicate with children, and some basic health/first aid training.





Here are some of the mentors discussing things in a small group.







Practicing how to wrap a sprained ankle.





The mentors drank in all the information and were excited about all they had learned. I enjoyed meeting the mentors and getting to know them a bit. They taught me some Luo, the language that is spoken up there. A couple of days after Christmas I will be heading back up there again, and I’m looking forward to meeting the kids and spending time with them.

Driving

Yes, that is right, I have started driving in Uganda! Very cool! I had my first driving lesson on Sunday, December 2nd. My roommate Holly took me to a quiet neighborhood so I could get used to things a bit. Driving on the left side of the road is strange! When you make right hand turns you have to cross traffic, but with left hand turns you don’t. The blinkers are located on the right side of the steering wheel and if I’m not careful I turn on the windshield wipers instead! After driving for awhile around the neighborhood, I drove home. It was a light traffic time of day, but even so, I think I did pretty well. I didn’t hit anyone or anything at least. Look out Kampala, here I come!