Preparations are being made for our new children!!!

I’ve been searching through old photos of when I first met Phiona and Julie. These photos are precious to me. We never would have known then what God would do to connect our lives as he has now. Kira was a baby that Phiona used to visit at her baby home before I ever met Kira. They had a love long before me. Kira was nine months old in these photos.

If it were possible to get on a plane and arrive in Uganda tomorrow, I would do it. There is so much happening there, and as Phiona says, it always happens faster when I am there. I move move move. Besides the trial in session right this minute (for the first time since I was there in February) the children are on break from school. The temporary house is being readied for our new children to come live there. Phiona and Julie are stocking it, beds are being built, and linens bought. We are hoping they will be able to move in and start school when the second term begins. We have found someone to begin cultivating on our land so we can begin growing food. It should have begun months ago by some of the benefactors of this food, but that’s another story and part of my red tape that binds me to my desk. Though school starts soon and, I am still in need of five sponsors for our new children, I just know God will provide open hearts willing to love, pray for a child and send him to school.

When the children move into the house there is going to be a big celebration, a get to know you party and Auntie Julie is going to take all that good training she got from Harriet and cook for these kids. She loves to be in the kitchen and she was so happy to learn from the best. I know Mama Ellen is going to miss her hard working, happy attitude at her guest house. I feel so blessed to have Julie on our team. She is a good godly woman.

Sometimes I just marvel at the sovereignty of God. Julie watched over the house where we came to stay for our adoption, and Phiona managed the office for the guy who ran that guest house. That’s how we came to connect our lives. It’s the mutual passion for orphan care that thrust us together to serve God in this special way, and connect our lives now to help children who need it most.

I cannot wait to meet these new kids. I feel like a new mama all over again. I look at the photos and I memorize their faces, and learn their names so when I hug them for the first time they will be more than familiar to me. God asked us to help the fatherless children in Uganda, and he has given us these children to care for, and we are so honored to be of service to Him.

All the red tape we must untangle to make a comfortable, joyful, God centered home for these children is worth the trouble. There’s enough of that tape to keep me busy all day every day. But the children will soon learn that they can wake up in the morning and not wonder if they will eat that day. They will have shoes to protect their feet. They can go to the doctor when they are sick. They will have a mattress to sleep on and a blanket to keep them warm. There will be clothes to cover their growing bodies. They will be disciplined when they are naughty.  They will attend church as a family. They will have the responsibility to feed their minds with good knowledge so some day they can be responsible Ugandan citizens, working and providing for their own families. They will do chores together and learn the lifestyle of a Ugandan, helping to grow the food, take care of livestock and wash clothes in plastic basins. Most importantly they will be taught the bible, and they will grow to know Jesus the Savior. And they will grow up knowing they are loved. I will grow old calling them my children.

God had all of this designed before I ever knew where Uganda was on the globe. I am so in awe of this God I serve that I will go wherever he sends me and do whatever He asks. And isn’t it so funny that when I first became a Christian at age 22 my worry was that he would ask me to go work in Africa. Now I am begging him to send me there as often as possible. I keep learning that His plan is always better than mine. I am surrendered to His sovereignty. Phiona was teaching me how to do laundry like an African.

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