Merry Christmas From the Paechs!

(Photo above - left to right: Abbey, Joshua, Brian, Sarah, Simon, Aggie, Sharon)

Merry Christmas from the new Paech family clan in Uganda! Finally a blog update! There's so much to tell you about! God has done it!: I (Simon) arrived in Kampala on October the 14th and Aggie and I were re-united. It was SO good to be back together again after more than seven months apart. During the following weeks, we were extremely busy planning for two major, back-to-back events: a “Kwanjula” on November the 9th (my formal introduction to Aggie's relatives), and our wedding on the 11th. It was as tiring and stressful as you hear from everyone who is organizing a wedding, but we continually saw God at work, and both events went beautifully! Aggie and I then headed off for our honeymoon to Kabale, a beautiful location in far SW Uganda, arriving back in Kampala at the end of November.

Before our wedding, and with amazingly minimal effort (God again), we found a place to rent within our budget that exceeded what we had imagined! A four bedroom house in a good area, complete with furniture and appliances, AND a backup power system and solar hot water heater! It has some issues that need to be worked on, but we are very happy with it and it is now starting to feel like home.

All the (now Paech!) kids are home for Christmas holidays (Dec-Feb), so we are getting to spend a lot of time with each other and are starting to settle in together as a family. Mealtimes have been excellent with everyone sitting around the table talking and laughing. Everyone has been working really hard around the house - Aggie has raised an amazing family – they all work together as a team (a big change for me after being single for so many years), one that is great to join. Brian built a multi-level house for our (seven I think) chickens and I can hear the roosters crowing as we speak. Sharon has taken over Aggie's cleaning job at IMFC for the holidays, and Abbey, Joshua have been heading out early almost every day to play soccer. Sarah (and everyone else) has been enjoying watching movies I brought from the U.S.

Aggie took a break from IMFC ministry work for the kwanjula and wedding, and for us to get settled in together. However we are really looking forward to getting to work with the IMFC team and doing what God has put in our hearts!

God is faithful – 100% of our first three months of financial support (Oct-Dec) was raised before we left! Our longer-term support (January 2008 onwards) is currently a lot slimmer at only 25%. But we are confident that God will provide for us and we look forward to telling you how He does this (more amazing stories)!

When we have better internet access we hope to update this blog with details & photos of all the events of the past few months but for the moment you can go to http://www.ugandajourney.org/ and click on "Wedding Photos".

Again, merry Christmas from all of us!

The Paechs.