Unexpected Love

We went to a large hospital in Kampala to pick up a new girl who has special needs to come join our family at GSF.  When you get calls like this, you have no idea what each situation will bring.  We walked in and met the nurses, social worker, doctor, and others. You could tell that she had been well taken care of during her time at the hospital.  She was dressed in clothes, was clean, and smelled good.  The people there taught us what she liked, didn’t like, what to feed her, and how to feed her.  There were some children around the ward who looked extremely healthy, but I just assumed that they were one of the workers kids who did not have a place to stay since school was out.

When we got home with this beautiful little girl, we were talking about our day, and I was asking a Ugandan with me about the people in the hospital ward I saw when we were there.  I asked them if the lady who had the children and taught us how to feed the girl was her nurse.  Their answer was no. NO?? Then who was she? She knew the most about our little girl and how to care for her. If she wasn’t the nurse, then what was she?

She was the mother of another patient in the ward. 

This confused me because her children looked healthy and fine.  Why were they there? I was told that her children were healthy and fine because they had been released two days earlier.  They were staying there to take care of our little girl until we could come pick her up. 

This blew me away. Who stays at the hospital extra days? It is bad enough in America, but HERE??? Even in America, I would have felt sorry for someone who had to stay at the hospital longer than me, but I NEVER would have contemplating staying around.  By the time people are done with hospital stays, they usually cannot get out of there fast enough, especially with stir-crazy little kids of her own. 

Here I am supposed to be the “missionary;” yet, here is a woman showing so much love and compassion to a little girl with special needs. It was a beautiful reminder of God’s love for me, the good in the world, and my own selfishness. 

So when you go back to reading about all of the terrorist attacks, crime, and depravity in the world, remember that there are people like this mother who loved a “less than” more than I could ever imagine. 

Prayers:

Wisdom with decisions for the children

Strengthen our relationship

Finances

Safety for daily travel

Praises:

New Car

Special Needs Schedule Working

New supplies for Special Needs Center Purchased

5 months successfully living in Uganda

December Update

Special Needs Update:

The special needs program is really growing thanks to what God is doing here.

·      Physiotherapist 2 days a week

·      Occupational Therapist has returned after being very sick for a long time

·      We now have 2 full time staff who work with the children who have special needs.

·      Converted building called the Agape Childcare Center for Medical clinic, offices, therapy, and sensory room.

·      Sensory Room filled with ball pit, trampoline, sensory items, cd player, and tent.

·      We are blessed to have experts in special needs and physiotherapy who we can call, come by to visit, and who love and work with our kids!

·      Met with other groups working with children who have special needs in the area

·      Had a staff meeting for GSF about our children who have special needs where 8 people attended! There were 2 physiotherapists, an Occupational Therapist, Childcare director, a Nurse, and 2 special needs assistants.

*In January we will start a full day schedule for the children who have special needs from 8 to 5 including social skills, work, academics, behavior, life skills, self-help, and more!

Some of the children with special needs playing in the new sensory room

Missionary Kid School Update:

·      They have finished their second 9 weeks and are in their 3^rd 9 weeks of school here. 

·      He just finished his 2^nd round of parent/teacher conferences which is different since all the parents are coworkers at GSF.

·      They will take 2 weeks off for Christmas just like they do in America. 

·      Katie is excited to give Cody a honey do list during his time off J

·      The other teachers are seeing a difference in the way the students are writing and their grammar since Cody has come which is really exciting!

·      Cody has been spending time with a missionary kid who is here for a long break from boarding school.

Cody reading with his youngest class of missionary kids

Prayers:

Kids on holiday in the villages visiting extended family

Cody is leading Team Building Activities for the Older/University students from GSF on Monday

Continued prayer for safe travel daily to and from work

Our hearts as we are away from family and friends during the holidays

Communication:

The communication from home is such a blessing to us! We were so excited to receive cards from our home church, E3, a care package from some dear friends, and to receive Facebook messages and emails is always a treat! The best messages are life updates! We just want to know what is going on at home. The little stuff, the big stuff, and the in-between. J It is just nice to know what is going on and to feel more connected to our home and the people we love. 

Christmas in Uganda:

·      There are Christmas Trees and lights in the shopping malls.

·      Some stores are decorated for Christmas.

·      We celebrate Christmas with the kids going on Holiday before and after Christmas.

·      The hardest part is that it is not cold here!

·      We play Christmas music a lot to remind ourselves that it is Christmas time J

·      Our house is now decorated for Christmas.

·      The missionaries drew families for Christmas, and we are working to put together a gift basket for our “family”.

                    

Our house ready for Christmas            

Funnies:

The neighborhood ladies were peeking into our house to see the Christmas lights, and they called them “smart,” which means fancy or very nice. I have never thought of Christmas lights as “smart.” J

The childcare missionaries are practicing a dance with all of the housemoms for the Staff Christmas Party. The dance is new to most of the moms because it is from Eastern Uganda, and most of them are from the west. I practiced with them for the first time, and they immediately said that I am from Eastern Uganda. J

When we were setting up our Christmas lights at our house, we both got seriously shocked by the strands of lights. We will not be touching them when the power is on again!

One of the Missionary Kids is working on photography, so she offered to take family pictures, so we took her up on that. This picture is one of my favorites…Yes…He does have grass in his mouth.

 

Our relationship summarized...

                       

Uganda Be Thankful

31 Things I am thankful for – Since I cannot post everyday here!

Uncle Cody is fun to wrestle with in the afternoons after school

1. Cody is not sick/ Our health

2. The school year is almost over. Ugandan School year is Jan-Dec in three terms that have month-long breaks in-between.

3. Cody gets some time off for holidays and can do honey-do lists for me!

4. Friends to cook and eat thanksgiving with.

5. House help that makes living in Nyenga possible!

6. Rosh for DVD supplies and entertainment.

7. Power for running fans and electronics in the evenings and weekends.

8. Friends and coworkers who make working here fun.

9. Friends and family who write/email/ and tell us what is going on in their lives

10. Having supporters who make it possible for us to serve here.

11. Getting to spend our days around such amazing kids and learn to love them well.

12.  Having an amazing husband to do this adventure with and has the same calling.

13.  Having motorcycle for transportation and how much we like it now.

14. Watching and learning from Ugandans as they love, care for, and serve the orphans of their own country.

15.  Seeing God working in Uganda to change hearts and seeing people fully devoted to following and serving God.

He has escaped from their clutches :)

16. Having beautiful weather and views that make living here that much better!

17. Feeling safe in our home and with our neighbors.

18.  Blogs to share what is going on in our lives here.

19. Facebook to keep up with friends back home and family!

20. Family— both my side and Cody’s— that completely support what we are doing and understand why.

21.  Our favorite places to go for internet, to relax, and get good food.

22. Thankful for our local shop keepers who provide our daily breakfasts, snacks, and vegetables.

23. Neighbors who take down our clothes when they are dry and it is going to rain and help me start a fire when I am struggling.

24.  Care Packages from America full of letters, crystal light, and food!

25. Agape childcare center for the moms and children to play, learn, and bond together.

26. We were able to hire a physiotherapist to work with the kids 2 days a week.

27. A church home that loves and supports us from America! Thanks E3!

28.  Boiled water for warm showers!

29.  Opportunity to learn the local language and understand some of what is being said around me!

30.  To live in a another country and learn about another culture and experience life from a different perspective.

31. Having jobs that we absolutely love and that fit our strengths and skills perfectly!

Craft time with Auntie Katie and Nurse Kim

 Quick Life Update:

Agape Childcare Center is open and sensory room is working daily!

The kids are doing things we have never seen them do.

The mothers are bonding well with their kids even more through their time together in the sensory room.

Physiotherapist is coming weekly for two days a week and stays overnight.

He is treating our kids and also able to see the kids we have on feeding program who have special needs.

This Wednesday, Nurse Kim and I are having a spend-the-night party with the older missionary kid girls, (7^th grade and up, so 6 girls) at her house. There will be chick flicks, cookies, ice cream, and popcorn.

We are spending Thanksgiving at the Gwartney House with all the Jinja Area Global Outreach Missionaries. That will be a big day of cooking, games, and family fun.

I am making gravy. Cody is making a cheesecake. I am also helping with my first turkey :/ We will see how that goes…

Cody just finished his first FULL 9 weeks of school here, and they are having exams this week. He is excited about the progress they have made. He has implemented new spelling, grammar, and vocabulary programs school-wide. He also got a Kindle that the older students can “check out” to read books so that everyone does not have to buy copies of the same book. 

Cody DID (PAST TENSE!!!) have malaria, but he has recovered very well and is doing fine. Thankfully the medication he was taking as a preventative also works to fight off the Malaria, so he had a milder case than many.

Since this post is full of praises/things we are thankful for, 

here are our prayer requests:

Two of my girls with special needs getting some help from a friend. 

We figure out good holiday traditions here to make it “feel like the holidays”.

That we will not miss home TOO much during the holiday season.

Continue to rely on God for strength, guidance, wisdom, and future plans.

Put God first, each other second, and others third.

We are able to hire another worker to assist with the care and daily schedules for the children who have special needs.

Care Packages

People have been asking what we need or want sent to us here. We appreciate these gifts so much! These are some ideas of the stuff we really like and cannot get here. Thanks again!

How to address a Care Package:

Cody and Katie Fox

P. O. Box 1570

Jinja, Uganda

Timeline:

 It takes about a month for us to receive boxed care packages. Padded envelopes seem to arrive more quickly. Just for your information.  J

Sugar free drink mixes (Red flavors and Lemonade flavors are preferred)

Beef Jerky

Pretzels

Sour Patch Kids

Cheez-its

Sweet tarts

Mike and Ikes

Chili Chocolate (lindt makes one)

Chocolate Chips

Low Calorie Hot Chocolate

Kind Bars

Spiced Apple Cider

Sermon Series

Episodes of the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

Music (Worship, The hits, anything you like)

Book recommendations

Movie recommendations

Growing

Happenings:

We are opening the Agape Childcare Center, which has the medical clinic, childcare office, meeting room, special needs therapy room, and my office/sensory room/classroom.  I cannot wait to start using it and posting pictures!

John playing with blocks for the sensory room

 

We hosted a Leadership conference at GSF that we were planning for 50 people, and 120 people RSVP’d and came! We had some amazing speakers from Tallahassee, FL, Greensboro, NC, Kenya, and Uganda. We watched part of the Global Leadership Summit, which had a Ugandan speaker!

 

Just a few people at the conference

We have been house sitting and babysitting a lot lately, which has given us some opportunities to find out a little bit about what living on campus is like.  It has been weird going back and forth between living on campus and in Nyenga. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Cody with the Warfield kids

Halloween happened to fall on the last Friday of the month, which is our missionary game night. We had a big dinner; the kids went to different rooms of the house to trick-or-treat from the adults, and we played bingo for prizes at the end of the night. It felt like a family celebration.

Katie dressed as a hobbit

Cody dressed up as Mark

Growing:

A theme for us lately has been growing. We are learning a lot of new things, learning how we react in new and different situations, and how we function in a whole new culture. What does the new “normal” look like? How do we go from surviving to thriving here? The truth is…it is a very hard life here. Not in a complaining way but as in things take longer, have four extra steps, are uncomfortable, or are difficult to accomplish.

Some of the keys have been increasing our prayer life and the amount of time we spend in God’s word. We both know that we are growing in strength and dependence on God.  Another part has been celebrating all the little successes and seeing the good in the days. I list my prayers and praises in my journal, and I don’t allow myself to stop until my praises are as long or longer than my prayers. Now…sometimes my praises are having water or power, but these make me remember what is important and how much I have to be thankful for.  I try to take notice of the little moments and how much they matter.

I joked a lot before I moved here about how separate my life was in America. I worked in one town, lived in another, and went to church in a third.  I didn’t do this on purpose, but it allowed me to know a lot of different people.  Well, I am now NOT in America, and my job, church, friends, neighbors, and activities are almost all in one place and are the same people.  I didn’t realize what a challenge it would be for me to have people see so many different parts of my life and me.  It is very good for me to have to be vulnerable, have my flaws show, make mistakes, and see people love me still. I now have a fully integrated life!

I am also growing in my leadership, knowledge of Uganda, and my ability to accomplish tasks. This week I led a trip to Kampala to pick up a medical report, take a child to the neurologist, and take another to have AFO braces fitted. I was able to direct the driver around Kampala, got us to all appointments, understood the information presented, paid correct amounts, and navigated a large hospital I have never been to before. We were home by 3 pm. I felt very accomplished (having a good driver helps!).

 

Matthew in Kampala

Both John and Matthew were a little tired :-)

Needs:

I recently found out that many of the children who have special needs do not have any or enough sponsors. Sponsoring a child is $35 a month. These children are rarely picked because they cannot write their own letters and communicate as well as general education children.  We have been gaining the number of children that have special needs at GSF, and our number is now at more than 20 who have special needs.  Many of these children have 1 or no sponsors. You can check out our website for more information. If you’re interested in sponsoring a child, you can go to this link to sign up: http://www.good-shepherds-fold.org/about-sponsorship/sponsor-a-child. Thanks!

 

Kenny with a house mom

Funnies:

The children here do not understand my role as special needs coordinator. I live and work here, so I am called Auntie Katie. I work with the medical aspect of the children who have special needs, so I am also called Nurse Katie (I was called in to look at a sprained arm the other day). I also work as a teacher here and that was what I was called last summer, so I am also Teacher Katie. The toddlers also think it is SO funny to call me Uncle Katie anytime they see me. It is really cute and funny. So I am Auntie/Teacher/Nurse/Uncle.

Best costumes:

One of the missionaries wore her hair in pig tails, put on a school uniform, wore a pink backpack, and painted on freckles. She was Big Sister and went around looking for Little Brother who was also in uniform all night. 

Big Sister and Little Brother

One of our couple friends dressed up as each other. She drove the motorcycle, and he rode side-saddle in a skirt to the event.

A wonderful sponsor sent stickers to share with all of the toddlers. This is what happened: