Yea we made it through Monday of Week 3

A big shout out to Sandra Thomas and the rest of the etc. girls for working so hard while I am gone. In the picture below I was hearing your voices. I can't tell you how excited I was to hear all of you. I miss you all so much!! Thank you for all that you are doing!

I am not sure who Derrickey was talking to but he was doing a lot of it. He takes after his mother!!

 Can you tell that we are homesick by the title? Ready for a BigShotz burger and a real mattress-all the mattresses that are bought here are sold on the streets. It is a 4" piece of foam with a decorative cover on it. 


 Today we visited a craft market and purchased some souvenirs for home. It is a nice opportunity to see the local crafts and to meet the people who make them. They love to see the mazungus coming because they spend money. "How much?" and by the end it is half of what they said. We were able to get a few nice things and had a lot of fun. Edith got a fabric doll and Derrick got a wooden car. They were both happy and had fun.


  Derrick is beginning to feel better and tonight something exciting happened. He grabbed my face with both hands and gave me 2 of the wettest sweetest kisses on my lips I think I have ever had. He also said Mommy and Daddy to us both today. When you have to fuss at him he really pouts and turns his eyes from you. He can't communicate to us otherwise. Once he gets over it he is his sweet happy self again. He torments Edith and honestly she takes it pretty well. I am waiting for her to knock him out but she doesn't. He accidentally bumped her lip tonight with his head and she cried. He kept stroking her cheek telling her he was sorry and then hugged and kissed her when she stopped crying. It was really tender. 


 We arrived back home this afternoon and the power was out. It gets dark quick. We ate dinner by candlelight and prayed for the power to return. It finally did when we finished and we were thrilled. You also don't have warm water when there is no power so we were really happy we could take a shower before bed. 


  Edith had a bad dream last night and woke up crying at around 4:30. She said someone was in our room and she was not able to go back to sleep. Tonight during bath time she started referring to "night dancers." I thought for sure Abbey had exposed her to some inappropriate movie. I sought the help of Olive who can speak to her in her own language when I have something important I want explained. I thought for sure I was going to satisfy her questions and it would end. I asked Olive to reassure Edith that there was no such thing as a night dancer and she quickly replied..."No madam there are night dancers and they come out and kill people in the cornfields and chop their heads off. They also dig up dead people and eat them..." I was stunned and wondering how in the world I was now going to convince Edith that at least if there were night dancers they wouldn't get us. Olive did say one thing right...this practice wasn't done in the city only in the villages.
   
You are probably wondering what in the world I am talking about. Witchcraft is widely practiced here in Uganda and they still do child sacrificing as well as many other practices associated with that. One of which would be the night dancers. I was horrified that a child as young as 4 would have been told about the details of such a practice. Edith told me that when she was a younger child and Derrick was a baby that she saw a night dancer and he was killed by the neighbor. She also said they have to know who they are because they are at risk of being stolen. I realize that this is shocking for those of you that are reading this. You should hear it coming out of a 4 year old. We were able to reassure her that she would be safe with us and that when we get on the plane that we could tell the night dancers- Goodbye- because there are not ANY in America.


 Christianity is the minority religion practiced here. Five times a day we hear loud horns calling for prayer by the Mosques. The muslims greatly outnumber the Christians. Pastor Robert gave his testimony to Steve the other night. His father was a witchdoctor and he can tell you many stories of this practice. He left home at a young age and through many God ordained relationships he became a "born again" and is now a Pastor. They refer to "born again" as a way to identify themselves as believers as opposed to just Christian. He expressed his concern over the zealousness of the practicing witchcraft society and has made it his life mission to reach people before the cult does. There are many people here who can't even afford a bible and so badly want one. The people in the villages generally don't speak or read english and the Ugandan bibles are $7 instead of $3 so it makes it hard for them to get one that they can read. We spend that on coffee. It makes you really stop and think how fortunate we are in many ways. These are a few shots of the road leading to our house. 

Look carefully- our dinner is in one of those!

Edith with her new lip gloss!

We miss everyone soooo much! Thank you for all your loving emails and your prayers!! Remember Wednesday is the court date for the ruling! We will post as soon as we know something. Goodnight!!