Amazing Story #1

Not that there hasn't already been a string of these and that the whole thing isn't one in itself, but THIS is an amazing story! When I landed back in the U.S. on March the 3rd, I caught a shuttle van service from Atlanta to Birmingham (about a 2hr trip) before being picked up by a friend in Birmingham and driven to Huntsville. A guy called Jess was driving the shuttle van, and his wife, Denise, was keeping him company. They asked me where I'd been etc, and I told them. They were REALLY excited about it all, and we talked for the whole trip. At one point Denise asked me "What kind of dresses do they wear for weddings in Uganda?" and I told them that for a lot of weddings there, they wear the same sort of wedding dresses as we're used to. She said that she had a beautiful wedding dress that they had bought a year or so ago for their son's fiancee, but the engagement was called off and they'd been wondering what to do with it since. They said to find out what Aggie's size would be, and if it was a match, they may be able to help us out in some way. In addition to that, they asked how they can go about supporting us financially! WoW!!! My feet had barely touched the ground in the U.S. and God was already showing me that He was at work! If nothing else came of it, I thought, I'd made 2 new friends.

Back in Huntsville, over the course of a few weeks, I gathered some information, called a bridal dress alterations place, and emailed back & forth with Denise. It "turned out" that the size that was estimated Aggie would wear was the same size as the dress!! Wow! I emailed Aggie some photos and she loved it! It also just so happened that it was very much like a dress we saw in Uganda that she really liked, only way nicer! So what was left to find out was how much Denise & Jess were prepared to part with it for. I wasn't sure what they'd meant by "we may be able to help you out in some way" - it ocurred to me that they might even give it to us, but I didn't want to assume or expect. They came up to Huntsville this past Saturday so we could catch up and spend some time together, and they asked if they could bring the dress to show me (even though I'd seen it in the photos - being a guy, that was enough for me). The 1st thing they did when they got here was to get it out. It was phenomenal! Not overdone, yet ornate & amazingly beautiful. I could picture Aggie in it - she would look incredible. "So..." I said, after exclaiming how beautiful it was, "I have to ask...how much are you guys willing to part with it for?". They said "Well we've prayed about it and we'd like to GIVE it to you and Aggie". Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan! How amazing!! I called Aggie and she was over the moon and got to thank Denise & Jess in person over the phone. Jess & Denise left the dress with me - it's now hanging up in a massive bag in my room (it looks like I'm marrying a giant!).

Aggie and I both agree that this is 100% a God-thing. One thing we had planned was for me to try and find a dress for her here, since they're even more expensive in Uganda. My feet had literally barely touched the ground back in the USA, and there it was! Wow! Thankyou Denise & Jess, and thankyou Lord! The photo for this blog post is of Jess, Denise, and the dress. I have more photos but we'll save the full glory for the wedding day!

Stay tuned for Amazing Story #2!

Back in the U.S. of A!

Well I've been back in the U.S. for almost 2 weeks now, back at work, back into normal life things. My biggest culture shock can be summed up in one word: COMFORT! Sitting outside the house on a beautiful spring day I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven. Compared to Kampala, the air is so clean, everything is so orderly and flows and works, and I can drink water from the tap!! Driving around in my own car is a luxury. The power doesn't go out for hours every couple of days, and I don't have to soak fruit & veggies in water with bleach before eating them. I can eat salads at restaurants (not recommended in Uganda). Fast internet connections! Uganda toughened me up - even my feet. I'm going to go soft again! "The Projects" - the government housing here in Huntsville are luxurious compared to the places so many people in Uganda live: running water, plumbing, electricity, heating, air-conditioning - roofs that don't leak, insect screens on the windows... And it's nice to not see poverty like in Uganda - but I know it's still there.

On the downside though, #1: I miss Aggie heaps! She is an amazing woman. We are back to 3 x 1/2hr phone calls a week, but it's so much better now that we know eachother well. She is doing well & sends her greetings. I'm missing the joyous Ugandan atmosphere (I'm listening to some Ugandan music online as I write this - http://www.ugandaonline.net/mp3 - from the list, choose "Nkuweeki - Iryn" - my favorite!). I miss the friends I've made there, the boda-boda motorbike taxi rides - even being packed in a taxi van with heaps of Ugandans I think! I'm back to Muzungu food too, which is good in some ways (breakfast cereals are way cheaper here), but I miss the Ugandan food - and Aggie's cooking!

Ok, down to business! It looks like it will be longer until I return to Uganda than planned. Aggie and I won't be getting married in early June. Before I left, I went to the Ugandan Immigration Service and it appears that staying in the country for an extended period of time is more difficult than I'd though. Marrying a Ugandan doesn't grant you that, strangely enough. The bottom line is that it looks like I'll need to go back to Uganda under a missionary organization, and get a work permit/visa through them. The organization that I went to Uganda with on my church mission trip back in July, and the one I worked with this time, is looking into this - which would be ideal, since it's the one Aggie works with, and the one her & I want to continue to work with. My best guess at the moment is that it will be about 6 months or so until I go back. That has actually relieved a lot of pressure on us - it will give Aggie & I time to raise financial support back here in the USA, and we will only begin to plan our wedding after I return, instead of trying to plan it now, along with everything else that we would have needed to get organized. So I'm thankful for this!

I've already seen God begin to provide for Aggie & I - I have some amazing stories - some of you know them! Maybe I'll share them in future blog entries - that would give me something to talk about actually, *grin*.

Alrighty then, until next time! I'll leave you with today's feature blog photo: me in Uganda after the typical "woman-braids-man-with-long-hairs'-hair" photo.

The Karamojong

Hi everyone - the trip to the Karamojong region in north-east Uganda went really well and was an amazing experience for me. The bus trip was AMAZINGLY grueling - I consider myself pretty tough when it comes to travel, but man....it was amazingly long, amazingly rough, and amazingly crowded. I didn't realize the Karamojong area was so remote - for the last 2 legs of the trip we travelled on dirt roads for a couple of hundred kilometres - it was awesome. It reminded me a lot of central Australia - very dry with stunted trees & bushes. I didn't know there were going to be mountains (well, HILLS for you Americans, mountains for us Australians), but there were, and some really cool rock formations and stuff. I saw my first chicken transition from life to death & to the plate (prepared by Aggie's sons), saw the arc of the Milky Way galaxy all the way down to both horizons for only the 2nd time in my life, bathed in an outhouse with a small plastic tub of water & candle (with a cool breeze & to the sound of insects - very relaxing), was served a plate solely of meat, liver & kidney for breakfast (to my horror - but had to eat it all so I wouldn't offend - that cliched thing you hear about happening to other people! I thanked God for the bowl of peanuts on the table!), met the Karamojong people (beautiful) & Aggie's oldest son, Brian, and her father, was given 2 chickens as gifts and smiled and thanked Aggie's relatives but thought "how the heck am I going to get these back alive on a 12hr bus trip!?" (we did! Barry & Freda are now happily pecking around Aggie's Mum's place in Kampala). Aggie's relatives were great & I really enjoyed it. Aggie's kids are now in good schools up there as well, which is excellent. The photo here is of a group of Karamojong girls we came across who were excited to have their photo taken. Amazing photo!

Click here for more Karamojong trip photos!

So 2 weeks today I leave to go back to the US, planning to be back here in late May for our wedding in the 1st week of June! Aggie & I have a lot to organize! So blog posts may be few & far between in the next few weeks, but this is not the end of the blog (although I'll have to think of a new title when I'm back in the US - "Simon Paech's a Series of Fortunate Events" maybe?). I'll use it to keep you all posted of future developments.

Thankyou all for your thoughts & prayers!

Simon.

P.S. I'm feeling better than I was 2 blog entries ago - thankyou Lord!

A Wife of Noble Character

"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies." (Proverbs 31:10)

Ok, in this blog I haven't revealed *all* of the goings on here in Uganda! As a lot of you know, I came here for 2 reasons - to see where God would guide Agnes & I in our relationship, and to see where he would guide me as far as the possibility of working with the Kampala Christian Church Network (KCCN) and International Missionaries For Christ (IMFC) - 2 things that He put in my heart to pursue when I was here for 2 weeks last year working alongside these teams with a group from my church. After about the 1st week of being back here I already knew I wanted to marry Aggie. She is an amazing woman - beautiful inside and out, and truly a woman of noble character! After spending a lot of time together over the last 2 months, the desire to marry her didn't change, but I felt I needed to wait for God to make some other things clear (or clearer). One of these was the place he might have here for me with the KCCN and IMFC. He did speak to me about this - to start out small and be faithful to use the gifts he has given me - the strongest ones being serving and mercy - "Those who can be trusted with little will be trusted with much". So that was the direction that I needed.

The other thing I felt I needed to see was his provision for us - for me & Aggie and her (to be *our*) children. I didn't feel that I could ask her to marry me and plan to come back to Kampala until I knew that this provision was in place. We would both really like to work full time in teaching & training and evangelism with the KCCN and IMFC here in Kampala, but we need to have some way of supporting ourselves. So at that point I felt that the ball was in God's court. Over a period of a couple of weeks, God hit the ball back into my court - I felt that he was leading me to do the reverse - to move ahead with plans to marry Aggie, and trust him to provide. Yikes! But the truth of it is that all of this has been his thing - so he is going to provide!

So this past Friday evening I took Aggie to a nice outdoor Thai restaurant - and I asked her to be my wife. She said yes! I already knew she would - she has been patiently waiting for me to ask this question, *grin*. We are planning to be married in the first week of June. I go back to the U.S. on the 2nd of March, will get everything ready to return to Uganda to live in late May, and we will trust God to bring together the provision.

Wow - what an adventure! I have to be honest - I've stuggled with fear and anxiety along the way, but God keeps reassuring me and guiding me and encouraging me step by step. So I know we'll continue to see him do that!

I know a lot of you will be really excited to hear this news! Aggie and I will be away until the end of this weekend - we're leaving Wednesday to take her kids to school up in north east Uganda - which will be an adventure in itself! So I'll catch up with you all (with lots of photos I reckon!) when we get back.

Simon &:-)}

(P.S. The photo at the top of this blog entry is after I asked Aggie to marry me, *grin*)

The Kotolis have moved in!

Hi everyone. It's been a few days since I've written because I'm still not feeling well. I think the whole cold/sinus thing is starting to go away, but I think the thing I had for about 5 weeks before coming to Uganda (feeling out of it in my head when I start to do things physically or mentally) may be back. I'm hoping it's just a side-effect of the cold thing. Trusting (and re-trusting, and re-trusting) God - He knows exactly what it is & what's going on. It's a shame because I haven't been able to do much with the volunteer team that's here at the moment. God is in control.

I've been meaning to tell you that Agnes and her family have moved out of their rented place & into the house that was being worked on - they've actually been in it for a couple of weeks now. In this photo you can see that the front wall has been plastered, and the porch area cemented. The inside also has been plastered, and floor cemented, so this is excellent. It feel so much bigger in there - and it's a much cooler place. What's left now is some iron sheeting to form a gutter of sorts on the right side (where at the moment rain from the place next door pours onto the outside wall and soaks through to the plaster inside), glass (& hopefully insect screens) for the windows, plastering the side walls, having the wiring etc for electricity installed, putting a door and window in the store-room, and painting the inside and out. That's quite a lot still, but this place has been built on faith & God's provision from the beginning when Aggie expressed to God that she needed a new place, and believed He said to go ahead. So in faith she had her old mud place knocked down & took on the extra cost of renting another place. And now, about 3 months later, she is in it, and looks around at what God has done, and in faith knows it will one day be finished. I believe it too!

Holy Giant Snails!

The snails here are another thing I wanted to tell you about! The first time I saw one, I exclaimed to myself quietly "Holy CRAP!!" and started grinning and wanted to run off and tell someone! I'd been waiting to come across one again (hopefully not in a dark alley, *chuckle*) so I could get a photo, but the dry season has pretty much set in here, so I think they went into hiding somewhere in the bowels of the earth. But the past few days we've had some impressive rains, and so they've emerged again. This fella accosted me & begged me to scratch him behind the ears as I trooped up the steps here in the compound. How could I say no!? I hoped his slime (or he) wouldn't eat through my hand, or that I wouldn't hear later "WHAT - you picked one UP! You can catch [insert name of exotic African disease here] from those!! What were you thinking!!?".

There are some other critters here that I'll tell you about in future blog entries, including, but not limited to "The Pirates of Kampala City" - the Marabou Stork - a bird with the 2nd biggest wingspan in the world! Stay tuned!

For the 2nd half of this week I've been resting, I've caught an African cold or something (huhhhhhhh - the snail?) & haven't been feeling too crash hot. John Barnett said to keep an eye on it, as us Muzungu's aren't used to some of the "tropical colds" here. If it hasn't gone in a couple more days I might go and get some antibiotics - you can get them without a prescription here.

In other news, last night a volunteer team just like the one I came with in July arrived from Alabama. They'll be here for 2 weeks & I'm hoping to get better soon so I can go out and be involved in what they're doing. It's been interesting seeing things from a different perspective as the guys here planned for them to come. I wanted to go the airport last night to see the looks on their faces when they got off the plane, *grin*, but thought I'd better stay "home" and rest.
Kaale - tu jakulaba gana! ("Ok, we will meet again" (literally, "we will see eachother continuously)).

P.S. I've been watching the first season of "LOST" with Aggie and others since I've been here - cool! Didn't expect that! John & Rebekah have it on DVD.

Monkeys!

When I was here in July, I saw some baboons, but no monkeys. I was told that they were around though, and that there were even some up on Tank Hill. A couple of weeks ago I saw some for the first time! They're really cool! Just like you'd expect monkeys to be, curious and pretty intelligent. In this photo, I accidently used the flash, and the monkey was a bit shocked right after I took it, but didn't run away. Yesterday I saw one holding a tiny baby but didn't have my camera - d'oh! I'm not sure what kind they are - spider monkeys maybe? This guy was about 1 ft tall.

The Source

Today Aggie and I and our friends Benon and (his wife) Betteth travelled to Jinja, the next largest town in Uganda next to Kampala, and about 80 km (50 miles) the east. We were going to a wedding, to see Jinja, and to see the source of the Nile River. On the way, we almost went to see THE Source! We hired a special taxi with a driver for the day, and we had entered a forest area about 3/4 of the way to Jinja when we hit a big pot-hole in the road, and I thought "Maaaaaan, that's SO bad for the car!!". I heard a noise like a wheel out of balance, and was wondering if I'd heard it before, when a couple of minutes later one of the rear tyres blew out. We went straight into the oncoming traffic lane and then fish-tailed back towards our lane and I thought "MAN I hope we don't go into those trees!", and then in the other direction again and I thought "MAN I hope we don't go into that ditch!", and then we went sideways and started to go into a spin and I thought "We're GOING into those trees!!". Aggie yelled out "Yesu!" in Luganda, Betteth yelled out the word for Jesus is in her tribal language, and I yelled out "Jesus!", and we stopped, in the middle of the road, facing the opposite direction. This all began at full highway speed! It was a miracle that we stayed on the road, a miracle that it didn't happen about 2 seconds earlier when a truck went past in the opposite direction, and a miracle that there wasn't any oncoming traffic, or traffic behind us. On top of it all, Betteth is pregnant! We were pretty shaken up afterwards, as we changed the tyre and proceeded on to Jinja, thanking God for protecting us, and reflecting on life and how it is in His hands! (I reflected more on that as we
returned back to Kampala at the end of the day on the tiny "doughnut" spare tyre, still at
full speed!).

I guess that's the dramatic highlight of the day, but the source of the Nile was beautiful! The source is Lake Victoria, the 2nd biggest freshwater lake in the world, and where we went was where the river begins. Men were out fishing in long wooden boats, the water was a deep, clean green, and there was a beautiful cool breeze blowing. It's estimated to take water 3 months to complete the trip from that point to where the Nile empties into the Mediterranean sea! Wow!

Click here for more photos, accident and Nile River source!

Tank Hill

I've mentioned it, but I've been wanting to write more about Tank Hill for a while. I'm living on the side of it. It's one of the 10 hills of Kampala. It's called Tank Hill because there are 3 pretty big concrete water tanks up there that are part of the citys' water supply. There's a road that goes to the top that I like to slowly walk up early in the morning, and up there, there's usually a beautiful breeze to complement the view - complete with Australian eucalyptus trees! The photos here are panoramas from the top - the one with the wetland valley is my favorite view from up there.

It's interesting that in some ways I feel very out of my element here, but at the same time there are things that resonate deeply with my roots - like the eucalyptus, bottle brush, and other Australian trees, banana, sugar cane & pineapple plantations, obsessive tea drinking (I just had a cup myself), biscuits (the type I grew up with), Cadbury chocolates, Milo, British spelling including "Zed" instead of "Zee" for "Z"). Like Australia, Uganda was colonised by the British, and I find these familiar things nice, as well as comforting. I don't know how the Australian plants got here though...I think they're native to Australia, so maybe were introduced from there, unless they're native to Africa as well??

Click here for more Tank Hill photos.

The new year begins...

Hello & happy new year! December was a quiet month here, as far as the work with the Kampala Christian Church Network (KCCN) team goes. This turned out to be really good because Agnes & I were able to spend a lot of time together getting to know eachother. Over Christmas things shut down completely for 2 weeks (including easily accessable internet service) but now things are picking up again. Today I went with Agnes to a district of Kampala called "Salama", a city/village area to the south of Kampala. It took us about 30-45 minutes to get there, changing connecting taxi van services twice, and travelling over some back-jarringly rough roads. Here a group of about 10 men & women from the KCCN Salama house church meet every Monday for "T4T" - Training for Trainers. This is a 3-level training course designed to empower Christians to live a supernatural life (a life that walks daily with God) by equipping them to evangelize (share with other people the good news about the forgiveness and new life available to us through Jesus), and to make disciples (to train and teach others in turn). It is based on the scripture of 2 Timothy 2:2. In the photo here, Aggie is teaching. 95% of these groups are taught by the Ugandans, which is awesome. This is the plan of John Barnett (the team stragegy leader) and the team here - for the Muzungus (white people) to work themselves out of their jobs by equipping & empowering the Ugandans to build God's Church and look to God themselves, rather than depending on and looking to the Muzungus. An excellent plan I reckon! Tomorrow I start level 1 T4T myself.