We love you Artie and Rusty!!

Artie:

Dad!

Happy Father's Day!! I love you sooo much and am so proud, honored and blessed to call you 'dad'! Thank you for everything you have done for me. You have always been so faithful to support me in everything I set out to do! I am so thankful that we have been able to step forward from daughter to father, to friends! It is so true dad! I love getting to spend time with you, sit by the fire and just read with you or sit on the porch and have one of our "talks" which you are so sweet to endure! You listen to me (even when I'm talking a million words per minute and in twelve different directions) and you are so patient with me! You are so honest with me which I love! And thank you, thank you, thank you for being a father who I can trust. I have no fear in coming to you and honestly seek to be so transparent with you! I love you so much, dad. Thank you for being who you are and even choosing to be more like Jesus. I am so proud of how you walk so humbly...and in that I have seen Jesus transform you in the ways that we (our family) so need in this time! Your life is marked by the grace and mercy of our sweet Jesus! I Love you!

B., 445

Rusty:

Happy Father’s Day!!!! I love my Dad. I really don’t even know where to start with how incredibly awesome my dad is. There are so many things that I love and adore about him. One of the things that I have begun to truly love about my dad over the past few years, is that my dad is so much fun. He brings life and joy to almost any circumstance or situation. I LOVE family vacations and even just being at home with our family, and one of the reasons I love it so much is because my dad is so much fun. He makes me laugh unlike anyone else. If you know him, you can probably relate. He is the life of the party, an entertainer, and absolutely hilarious. Another thing that I love and cherish about my dad is his incredible work ethic. He is such a hard worker. He pours all that he is into whatever is in front of him, whether that be work, his family, church, or who knows what. He is going to give every ounce of what he has to make it the best. I love that about him. He is a supporter and encourager. He has loved and supported me in anything and everything I have wanted to do, whether that be soccer practice, or spending 8 months in Uganda. My father continually pours out love, encouragement, and support in every area of my life. He has pushed me and challenged me to be a woman of God. He has shown me through his life what it looks like to live a life serving the Lord. He has provided and lead our family with love, integrity, and ultimately to the feet of the cross. I am so thankful and blessed to have such an incredible dad. I love you so much. I wish I could be there for sing Happy Father’s Day!!! I love you dad. I couldn’t ask for a better father. Thank you for all you have done and continue to do for me and our family!!!!

Macy

It's Friday, and I am unbelievably blessed...

For those of you that are unaware, Macy and I are teaching the 'Top Nursery' class. We teach from 8am to 1pm with a thirty minute break in between, at which time we all take tea. I have taken on the math portion of the class and Mace is teaching English (and extraordinarily well, you should know).  We are at the end of our third week teaching and we have absolutely loved it thus far! We have twenty students, all between the ages 9 and 12. (All the students have been placed at levels according to their understanding of the material, not necessarily their age. For instance, we have a fifteen year-old boy in P:1, which is first grade level. It's sad, but necessary!)

Well, today Macy went to Gulu with the Conally's (the new family that moved here at the beginning of May) and I took over our class for the morning. And really all this entry is about is the experience that I encountered this morning...

I walked to the school at 7:50 this morning to prepare a few things before class began. As I opened the door to the class room, all of our twenty students were dispersed in the class room with their eyes closed and some with extended hands, while one of the sweetest girls to exist-- Fiona-- stood at the front of the room and led the class in worship. No adult was in the room, no exciting song was being sung...it was just an old praise song that they knew. Every kid was singing in perfect harmony (something that I believe is just a natural gift for Africans....not once have I heard an African sing out of harmony!). Even as I entered the room no one looked up, everyone was so engaged in with the Lord it was unreal! I walked to the back of the room and joined in as quietly as I could and recognized how tangible the presence of God was in our classroom! After the song finished they all burst out into passionate, independent prayers that proclaimed so much trust in their friend, Jesus! As they prayed allowed I heard several different voices praying for Macy and I, others were praying for Restoration Gateway as a whole and the mom's of their houses!

Honestly, as I stood in the back I just started laughing to myself...overwhelmed with joy! I thought about how ridiculous it is that we concern ourselves so much with experiencing things in religion, elevating ourselves in our knowledge and even comparing our closest friends' walks with Jesus versus our own! And then there are the children. The children of God. The ones who Jesus himself told us to be like in faith. I was laughing because these children, who are just now learning English, are standing in this room...on their own accord... praising their sweet Jesus in English! Everything was so unbelievably simple! Their vocabulary is small, there were no instruments to create the atmosphere....only their hearts were there and their sweet voices as an offering of themselves in humble submission to their Savior, the only Father they have ever truly known. And the presence of God was SO there!

How simple it can be and how complicated we make it on our own.
Hope you are blessed by this in the way I was, have a great weekend!

Mb

The trip to the big city!

Update! So this past weekend Macy, Whickey and I ventured to the big city (Kampala) to send Whitney off to the States! It is has been so sad for Mace and I to say goodbye to Whick...we feel like a piece of us is missing and it has been even the tiniest bit awkward trying to do things as two instead of our normal three. So Whickey if you are reading this....know that you are missed!!

Well, in our "vacation" to the city it was quite a culture shock even though it is only four hours away from RG and Karuma. We never really understood how much of the bush we actually live in....but it is about as bush as you can go! Kampala had all of these things that to you are basics and I would guess that you don't even notice them in your daily life..but to us these things have been non-existent in the past three months.

napkins
cold drinks (still no ice, but at least cold)
women wearing makeup
knees being shown
a grocery store
cheese
grapes (which were fifteen dollars)
a light switch
hot water
a fan
high speed Internet
indoor shopping
place mats
a salad
lattes
us not being the only white people
johnny cash playing on the radio
a radio
stairs
soap dispenser
paved roads
houses instead of huts
a sink in a bathroom
mirrors
and a million more things that I cant even think of right now!

And of course on this trip we had another AFRICAN EXPERIENCE...we rode Bodas! Bodas are motorcycles that serve as taxis here in the Ug. But let me start off with our night: Harriet, our African friend who works as the social worker here at Restoration Gateway, made the trip to Kampala with us. We separated ways during the day but met up Saturday night for dinner with her boyfriend and cousin. This was when the adventure began... we hopped onto a taxi (a van taxi) which in Africa they fill to the brim and we literally had Africans sitting on our laps! We took the taxi for a short trip to a Boda corner (which is just a group of boda drivers hanging out on a corner) and two of us hopped onto the back of one boda and two on another. In all honesty it wasn't as scary as I had imagined and am now almost fond of riding on a motorcycle (I'm sure my parents love hearing that! ) but it was for sure my first ride ever on a motorbike! Exhilarating! We rode the bodas to the restaurant where we were to meet the boys and it was called "Hakuna MaTata" (Lion King reference) where we had a very Ugandan meal of pork on a stick and casava, metoke and avacado. We felt like young Ugandan women hanging out with our Ugandan friends at our favorite restaurant on a Saturday night! We felt very much a part of the culture. It was awesome! It was for sure an unforgettable adventure!

All of Kampala was a great trip, but we are glad to be back in life here....as simple as it is I might have to say its the best place to be!!

Mb

Practicing the Presence of God here in Uganda!

Since our first weekend here in Uganda we met Beatrice in the neerby town of Karuma (where we walk 7miles to get our food for every week)...Jesus basically shined a light on her, not in a literal way for clarification, but in that she is one of the few people in the town that can fluently speak English.  Getting to know Beatrice over the past 3 months led us to meeting and becoming friends with her sister, Agnus, who lives in the same town. Agnus has led us to several people who needed prayer for healing so we have gotten to do that with her over the course of our time! She had invited us to go "pray with her" at her church for several weeks but always deferred the offer until this last week. We walked the distance early Sunday morning and entered the village consumed by the booming sound of African voices in passionate, powerful prayer! It was awesome! Almost scary because it was so driven....anyways it turned out to be our friend Agnus, who basically is one of the heads of her church. She led us in prayer for Uganda, for the redemption of Karuma, for the eradication of witchcraft in Karuma and for the healing of the parts of the body that are sick. From there we went into worship, which Agnus also led, and it was then that the girl infront of me and Macy and another girl a few seats to the right of us started convulsing. From my OneThing and WorldMandate experiences I obviously assumed these people were jerking in the Spirit (which was so tangibly there) and maybe just being filled. Then the convulsions started, the girls fell back onto the floor and started kicking and screaming at the top of their lungs. This obviously wasn't normal for my Baptist, Waco, Tx background and Macy's Southern Baptist, Henderson, Tx background... so we started stepping back from the event to keep from being hurt by they girls flailing limbs. The Ugandans weren't the slightest disturbed...they were keeping with the rhythm of the drums as they danced and sang the songs while they stacked up chairs and tied the girls legs together to keep from injuring themselves! Again...it was ridiculous! Macy and I were literally staring in awe of what was taking place before us...but no one else seemed to be bothered. The church began casting out the demons that were manifesting in these girls, still keeping rhythm mind you, and the girls were carried outside to finish the process while we continued worship. Things became humorous to us by this point! Minutes later they came back inside, dusting themselves off and sat right back down as if nothing had happened. By the end of the service the pastor called out those who have been fighting demons to come to the front and get delivered. This process was as common to the Africans as the alter call for Americans! Obviously as they, it was three girls getting prayed for at his pointnow, were getting prayed over for deliverance they began to manifest the demon. Again the convulsions, the tieing of the legs was happening (if you have ever seen a rodeo where they rope the calfs...its basically the same process) and by the end these girls were delivered! They stood up at the front and gave their testimonies...all three of them didnt know of Jesus, didnt know how they even got to the church... even one of them said that she contracted the demon a few months ago while she was getting water at the well, because the demon had been living in the water. Praise Jesus, by the end of the service they all gave their lives to Jesus!! And it doesn't even stop there... as we left the church to get our weekly Coke at a gas station/ bar/ restaurant a friend, named Herbert, we have made who works at the shop came and sat down with us to tell us that he has noticed something different in us. He has been between Islam and Catholicism his whole life and has never been able to stick with either one so he had given up until the week before when we invited him to our church at Restoration Gateway and he had come. It was his first time to a protestant church and he proceeded to ask us about who Jesus was and what made us different and how he can see God as a Comforter but didnt know where his place was in Christianity because he was never very good at following those other paths of faith. We got to share the heart of God with him and that what he sees in us is the joy of Christ and how he desires so much to have relationship with each one of us....and basically the Gospel...it was glorious! We are meeting with him this upcoming week to answer questions he has and talk with him more about who Jesus is and what he came to do! So please please pray for our time coming up with him! 

Great Great Great things are happening here! We have seen healings, demons casted out and lives transformed....and its only been three months! God is moving here in a powerful way....the beautiful thing about Africa is that the Holy Spirit is so much more understandable and received than it is in the States....so spiritual warfare is all over this place! Its a battle field and its a glorious day getting to be in the midst of it when you know that you are on the winning side! Literally! Its unreal!  Would we be a people who walk in the Spirit who truly live out Love and who speak Life over ourselves instead of rationalizing evil in this world! Let us walk out harmoniously in the love of God!  Be encouraged by the work that is going on here! Please pray for us and for the people of Karuma! 

Lubanga Ber (God is Good)

mb

TERMITES for LUNCH

So I just wanted to let everyone know that MB, Whit, and I ate termites (a.k.a white ants) for lunch today. I don't really know what else to say besides T.I.A. (this is Africa). We were invited to lunch by one of the children, so of course we said YES!!! Little did we know that we were having a Ugandan feast which consisted of mashed cassava (pretty much mashed potatoes, which was WONDERFUL), white ant balls (a mashed up glob of termites that had been boiled), and beef (which tasted really good if I could think past the REALLY disturbing image of the raw meat from the market. The image: raw meat sitting on a piece of muddy wood with about 1,000 flies swarming around it. Not to mention the uneatable, bloody, cow head resting beside the meat.) The termites actually tasted a little bit like bacon, so you can think about that next time you go to IHOP. Lunch ended up being wonderful though. We were able to talk with the house mom, Josephine, for a couple hours. It was such a time of laughter, joy, and friendship.... I am beginning to feel more and more connected with these incredible men, women, and children as each day passes. What a blessing and answered prayer.

I wanted to update you on a HUGE praise from last week. Mary Beth and I walked to Karuma last Saturday for our weekly trip. We ran into a boy, named Dennis, on the road who had a HUGE swollen eye. It was swollen shut. He told us that he had been whipped, and that is why his eye was hurt. We prayed over him and went our separate ways. The next day, which was last Sunday, Dennis randomly showed up at Restoration Gateway with a completely healed eye, less than 24 hours after our prayer. Praise the Lord for He is a healing God. He is working in this place. He hears a prayer in faith and is quick to answer it. Thanks for your encouragement, love, and prayer. We are so thankful!!!!

-Macy-

We LOVE our MOM's

Devo-

SOOOO it is Mother’s day and I am halfway across the world from my mom. I just wanted to say a few nice things about my mother, who I love VERY MUCH!!! My mom is an absolutely INCREDIBLE servant. Many of you have probably never met her, but if you have, you know that this is definitely one of her gifts. She loves to give. She constantly gives of her time, money, encouragement, cooking skills (she is a REALLY AWESOME cook), and anything else you would ever want or need. She is an incredible comforter. She is the type of mother who always knows the right things to say and the right time to say it. I know I can approach her with any issue, problem, struggle, sadness, or who knows what, and she will wrap her loving arms around me and comfort me with the perfect words. She has been an incredible comforter these past couple of months. I have been walking through just about every kind of emotion (loneliness, sadness, homesickness, feeling worthless, useless, purposeless, and a million other things) but she has been so faithful to call and encourage. She has been so faithful to pray, send emails, letters, goodies, and send constant love my way. My mom is a woman of humility. She serves, never to be seen or praised. She serves with a heart of humility. She serves the Lord, not man. I literally could probably write a novel about how incredible blessed I am to have a mom like I have. I hope and pray that I will grow to become a woman like her. Happy mother’s day!!!! I love you and miss you very much mom!!!

-Macy-

Luana-

My mom... only one word is really applicable: ridic! (that's "ridiculous" for those who aren't with me on the abbreviations). When I say that my mom is "ridic," that constitutes a myriad of things of which I would love to share with you. I love my mom's giddiness! She is the absolute best at receiving phone calls and hearing my stories that everyone else would consider silly but mom always gets equally excited with me! She will let me tell tidbits over and over again just because I get so excited talking about them and she gets just as excited hearing about them! Its the greatest thing! Mom is such an incredibly humble servant. I am continually charged by her actions that are minial to her everyday life but to me stick out to be the greatest acts of service. I pray that I would inherit this gifting because it blows me away how she loves people so well, without any resentment, judgement, condemnation.....she sees people the way that I believe Jesus sees us. And that is a gift unlike any other! I love love love that me and mom share so many hobbies and interests! I love that we can sit on the floor in the quilt room covered in fabric and just be ecstatic with the endless possibilities that surround us! I love your passion to create and to use what you create to bless us! Mom, there are literally thousands of things I could say that make me love you so much, but in the end just know that I LOVE YOU and that I could never want, expect, or even imagine a greater mother than you! Happy Mothers day!!
Your daughter, 445


MeMop, 
HII!! I wish I could be there to give you a hug, to go on a run with you, then go to starbucks with you with a piece of dark chocolate in our hands. I LOVE doing errands with you, Mom. I love Cheap Thrill's and garage sale runs. I have a lot of fun with you! My favorite thing about my mom is that (well, now that I think about it there are a lot of favorite things) she is so understanding. I can tell her anything and she will understand how I am feeling. My mom is super compassionate and is so good with people. Mom, thanks for being excited everytime I call or see you! I can always say you are my biggest fan, because I really believe this is true!! You are so encouraging. I really appreciate that. I have learned so much from you, Mom. Your love for people, your compassion, your understanding heart, and your encouragement are all things that I hope I can have one day. You never meet a stranger, and you are gracious to everyone...this is such a wonderful quality. And for sure one of my fav things is that we both can't get enough parmesean or popcorn. I LOVE you, Mom. You are so special to me!!! 
Whitney

I hate rats

SOOOOOO you never really know what each day will hold here at Restoration Gateway. Last week was for sure an unexpected surprise. The children are out of school for three weeks. They are on “holiday” and will begin school again on May 23^rd. Since the children are on a break, many of the moms are getting time off too… So for the past week, Whitney, MB, and I have been substitute moms for one of the houses. Little did we know what kind of adventure was to come…

Our first night, Whitney and I were the moms for house two. Mamma Florence left to visit some of her family and we were in charge of the children for the night shift. We arrived at the house around 7:30 pm to all of the kids (eight to be exact… there are four girls and four boys in each house) eating dinner. Our night began with two rats being caught in a mousetrap all before the clock even turned 8:30. When the trap would snap the kids would run over to it, show everyone the dead rat, open the trap, twirl the dead rat around by the tail, and quickly reset the trap. Needless to say, this was only the beginning of our night. We put the kids to bed around 9:00… When I say “put them to bed,” that means that we told all of them to get into bed… they all ran into their rooms, stripped down naked, and climbed into their beds. The cutest thing and probably the best part of the night, was the kids each said their prayers out loud before falling asleep. What a wonderful sound!!!

Well Whit and I finished setting up our bed in Mamma Florence’s room. We climbed into bed, tucked in our mosquito nets, and tried to fall asleep to the sound of what seemed like a stampede of rats running above us. Before falling asleep, a rat ran out from under Whitney’s bed. So we opened the door to let out the rat, however, another one ran in… this went on for several hours. Around 3:00am Whitney and I awoke to the sound of a rat climbing through the window…we shined our flashlight onto the window just in time to see the rat jump from the window onto Whit’s mosquito net. About thirty minutes later, a rat climbed up Whit’s bed and was simply resting only inches from her head. Needless to say, sleep was not really experienced for either of us during the night. We ended up switching to a house 5 for the rest of the week. We couldn’t handle the rats!!!

We are staying in house 3 next week. You can shout out a little prayer that the rats would not be a problem… it would be greatly appreciated!!!! Just wanted to update everyone on our rat attacks!!! T.I.A.

-macy-