Almost Live from Uganda (Episode 9)

Visit our Ugandan church with us!
(The 9th in a series of videos made for our church back in the U.S.)
For more about why we are here in Uganda, what we are doing, and how you can help us & the people of Uganda, go to www.ugandajourney.org

By the way - we are now on FaceBook - search under "Simon Paech"

Photo of the Month

This was really cool - the cow was bending down to let the chickens peck inside it's ear, & was closing it's eyes in enjoyment!

Meet the Paech Kids

This is LONG overdue!

The Boys



The Girls

Photo of the Month

There are heaps of signs saying this here & Simon never fails to get a kick out of each & every one. Maybe it's reverse psychology...(?)

Almost Live from Uganda (Episode 8)

Recently we had a nice surprise for our Aggie's Arts ladies! It's been amazing to see how God keeps expanding this ministry!



P.S. To learn more about Aggie's Arts and to hear some of our ladies' stories, go to www.ugandajourney.org & click on "Aggie's Arts".

Almost Live from Uganda (Episode 7)

(a series of videos made for our home church back in the U.S.)

Visiting the Manna Ministry food recipients in their homes is such an amazing thing - It's so personal! We're continually blown away by how much people appreciate us just coming to talk to them. We've had the joy of seeing many people receive Jesus as Lord during these visits too.

Meet Livingstone, who has been bedridden for 1 year. When we shared the gospel (gospel means "good news" by the way) with him, he warmly said "yes" to Jesus. And that puts a warm smile on our faces &:-)}

For more about why we're here, what we are doing, and how you can support us & help the people of Uganda, go to www.ugandajourney.org

Photo of the Month

Gaaba "beach", Lake Victoria, Kampala (not the type of beach us Aussies are used to, but still...). Standing on the light-post is a Marabou Stork. Sharing the largest wingspan of any land-bird (with the Andean Condor) - up to 3.2m (10.5 ft), and weighing up to 9kg (20 lbs)! These are very common in Kampala. They look like dirty old men when they're on the ground, like terradactyls when flying low overhead, and beautiful & peaceful when soaring in the thermals. Pretty amazing stuff! (the snails here are HUGE too - see Jan 20, 2007 post).

And now for something completely different...

Last week we took some time off & went to a small town called Jinja ["Ginger"] - about 2hrs drive east of Kampala. Jinja is on the banks of the White Nile River - which joins with the other Nile branches to eventually form THE Nile. The segment of river in this area is world famous for it's white-water rafting and kayaking - a big tourist attraction in Uganda.

Upon visiting beautiful Bujagali ["Boo-jar-gar-lee"] Falls, we saw something incredible - locals going through the rapids holding onto nothing but a 20 litre (5 gallon) jerry can! It turns out that these guys are not only crazy, this is their career - tourists pay them to do it! They grew up on the river and have worked their way up to negotiating Class 5* rapids like this one (called "Overtime").

Not to be out-done, see Simon perform his own matching daredevil feat - something he's always wanted to do (and unlike the jerry can guys, will most likely never do again!)

*Appendix: Whitewater rapids are classified according to their degree of danger or difficulty - Class 1 to 6. Class 6 rapids are considered to be so dangerous as to be effectively unnavigable on a reliably safe basis. Read here for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafting

Why we do what we do

We showed you an aerial view of Katanga (March 11). This video is an unedited walk along the main street - from one side of the community to the other, ending at the IMFC tent and truck set up on a Manna Ministry food distribution day. Yes, those are open sewers.

This type of footage (and photos) are really difficult to get here - if you want to be sensitive to people. This is actually the first time I (Simon) have tried it, and I was nervous - even with Aggie by my side. Ugandans are extremely friendly people, but when it comes to this, they can get extremely annoyed and indignant. Many Ugandans don't understand why the Mzungus (whites) want to take video and photos like this. They feel that we are ashaming them, and only show the bad/ugly side of Africa, and even that we do it with bad intentions. Aggie - my Ugandan wife - thought the same, until after we'd talked about it many times.

What we really intend is to raise the awareness of people in western countries - to wake them up to the reality that there are millions in the world who live in poverty like this. We intend to be ADVOCATES for these people - to cry out for help for them, on their behalf. That's why we do what we do.

For more about why we are here in Uganda, what we are doing, and how you can help us & the people of Uganda, go to www.ugandajourney.org

Photo of the Month

I read this in the news recently: "Doctor Close to Cloning Human: A US doctor claims he has cloned 14 human embryos and transferred 11 of them into the wombs of four women." That's pretty amazing, but it seems that although they have a lot of work to do on things here - like the roads - Uganda's biotech industry is streets ahead of the rest of the world. A couple of weeks ago Aggie bought this stuff in the taxi park for 50 cents. Since testing it on our chickens, the kids now enjoy chicken for almost every meal. We haven't tried it on them yet (the kids), though Aggie would like to. I still feel 5 kids is enough for the moment. Hang on, what's this cream on my arm...?