I've decided that i'm moving this blog over to Captured Moments (my photography). So if you'd like to continue to follow on what i'm doing click HERE :)

For $ale!

Our wonderful house-help Mama Benna is looking for other ways to make money so she can support her 3 awesome children. We’ve been thinking and thinking of ways that she can earn money. Then one day our neighbor showed us some jewelry she’s made. She had a BEAUTIFUL bracelet, something we’ve never seen before and very unique. You know how you see the paper bead necklaces and bracelets that are made here? Well, this bracelet was totally different! So we bought it for Kate for her birthday. She loved it :)

Then we came up with the idea to ask Mama Benna if she could make them! A couple of days later she came over and showed us one that she made. It was so perfect! So she started making more. We told her that we’d send them back with some friends so they could try and sell them for her. But I came up with the idea to try and sell them on my blog! :)

So you can help Mama Benna and get a beautiful, unique bracelet at the same time!

All you have to do is email me at artaddict96@gmail.com and tell me what you’d like to order. Then you can send payment ($20 per bracelet) via paypal (to packoracks@sbcglobal.net). If you’d rather pay by check…just email me and I’ll tell you details.

Now since the mailing here is totally insane - you are going to have to pre-order.

We have friends coming throughout the year, and we’ll send orders back with them.

You’ll get what you order…but I can’t guarantee that they’ll get there in a jiffy (we have friends coming over next week, in June, and October).

So we’ll send your order back with them and they can mail it for us.

Here are your choices

|

|

V

Computer Classes

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to post! I keep meaning to then I don’t and forget all about it. I’m such a terrible blogger :) Life has consisted of a lot of school. Doing school at home, teaching at the school, going home and finishing my school!

I’ve started teaching computers! It’s so much fun!! I teach 5 days week (if there is power at the school, or if they have the keys) from 2-3.

When the parents of the students found out that there was going to be a computer class they started cheering! Then when they saw the computers they started crying. This is the first time that most of the parents, children, and some of the teachers have ever seen a computer. So on the first week of teaching I had teachers and parents coming in and out of the computer room. I love seeing the children’s faces light up when they walk into the room and see the computers. They get so excited when I go to their classes and call their names for computers :) I started off teaching the children how to turn the computer on, not the touch the screen, or to slam on the mouse and keyboard. Then I opened Wordpad and had the children write their names, which was easy for some and hard for others. I had them type their names for the first couple of weeks.

At lunch, the children come up to me and say “Auntie, am I doing computers today?” Then I had the children type the alphabet. I have one boy in my class who doesn’t know English or Luganda (which is the main language here other than English) so my mom (bless her for it) wrote a chart of the alphabet for him to copy off of. Once he got the hang of it he does great :)

This week I’m having the children type 1-20! It’s gone pretty good; I have classes who totally get it, then other classes who look at me utterly confused. But they don’t totally get the concept of writing double-digit numbers, they don’t get writing 1 then 2 for 12. So they search the keyboard for the key 12. And what TOTALLY confuses them is uppercase “I“ they expect it to look like this “I” but on the keyboard it looks like I (just a line) so that gets confusing.

After numbers, I’m going to have them start writing words, then writing sentences with the beginning being uppercase and have a period at the end. Then I’m going to have them write a color and have the text being that color, and then I’m going to teach them about the mouse, by having them do paint :) That will be exciting. Hopefully next term we’re going to have video cards in the computers so we can run Jumpstart Kindergarten. The kids will LOVE that!

One day I was teaching and one of the teachers came in. She watched for a minute, which I was used to, then she asked me if I’d teach the teachers computers. I told her to talk to Aunt Cari, who agreed, and so on Tuesdays I teach the teachers computers from 3-5 after I finish teaching the children. The teachers catch on MUCH faster than the children, so I was having them type and they looked at me and said “Merisha (they think that’s my name), teach us more.” I asked them what they wanted to learn, and they told me they wanted to learn how to upload pictures on Microsoft Word, how to change the color of the text, how to change fonts, the size, how to underline, and how to make a list. Thank the Lord I had my mom there to help :)

One day our neighbors’ house help (Teddy) asked Laura to teach her computer and Laura told her that I taught at the school, so she asked me to teach her. So now on Sundays I teach her computers :) It is much easier teaching someone 1 on 1 than teaching 4 kids at once or 4 teachers at once.

So that’s what I do most of the week!

I promise I’ll try to be a better blogger!

yes i'm alive :)

I just wanted to let you know that i'm working on a blog post! So don't worry, i'm still alive :)

Faith and Hope

The most encouraging words for me lately are ‘faith’ and ‘hope’. So I flipped to the back of my Bible, and looked up those words in the concordance, and I read through the verses that they had list, and here is what I found when I looked up ‘faith’

2 Cor 5:7 We shall walk by faith, not by sight.

That one of those verse that I hear all the time, but when I read it, it hit me. Even though I don’t see why God is doing certain things to me, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a meaning. Even though I think God has forgotten all about me, doesn’t mean He has! God is in control! No matter how big the situation is! No matter how hard you cry, no matter how bad it hurts, no matter how scared you are, no matter how confused you are. God does it all for a reason, and it will all be clear soon. So even though I don’t understand, doesn’t mean it’s not happening for a reason.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God much believe that he is…

Lately I’ve put God on a shelf, and taken him down only if I wanted some. I found my prayers ended up just being ‘Dear God, I thank you for the beautiful day, and keeping us safe.’ Then I begin asking for Him for things. But when I read this verse, I began to think, why do I have such little faith, I thank Him for doing what I wanted, then give him another long wish list. But then the next day I fear. But I need to step back, and tell myself that God is in control, and He is who He says He is. And that I can’t change what He has planned.

Now this next verse caught me off guard.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.

Which pretty much brings me back to 2 Cor 5:7.

Now ‘hope’,

Psalms 71:5 For You are my hope, O Lord God; You are my trust from my youth.

Rom 5:5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

1 Tim 1:1 …God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope.

All of these verse are pretty much saying, God is my hope. And if I want I hope, then I need Him.

I really like Psalms 139:7 which says ‘Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

And

Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

God is with me everywhere, on the highest mountain, to the deep sea, in Arkansas or in Uganda.

And lastly these verse have really helped me through some hard times in my life.

Psalms 2:12 …….Blessed is all those who put their trust in Him.

And

Psalms 30:3 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Next week I’ll try to post some more stories :)

Hi Mzungu!

HI everyone! I’m so sorry that it has taken me so long to post, but I’ve been really busy. But yes I’m alive! Uganda is amazing! I can’t even put it into words! It’s..amazing! Life is crazy, but good! I miss my friends and family a lot!

Oh and the title mean 'Crazy white people' which is what the kids yell at us whenever we walk by (they mean it with affection! haha)

Nothing really eventful happened on the plane, so I’m going to start from when we got of the plane in Entebbe, Uganda.

We all got off the plane, exhausted. (3:00am Ugandan time, 12:00pm Arkansas time) And huge sign welcomed us saying “Welcome to the Pearl of Africa!” I got chills when I saw it. Then while our parents dealt with visas, us kids sat down with our bags. It took an hour or so to get visas dealt with. Then we went to get our luggage. Then we headed out of the airport, where a man held a sign say ‘Scott and Kelly’ (Aunt Cari the lady we are working with here, had him come get us) so we followed him out to a van. And put our stuff into the van, and piled into it. And as we drove away from the airport it hit me. There were no more planes. Not more packing for Uganda. No more goodbyes. No more. We were here. We were in Uganda. We ARE in Uganda! So sitting in a van, bumping across the dirt road, Annie on my lap. The Uganda scenery passing by my window. I cried. I asked God ‘Why do you want me here? Why did I have to leave my friends? Why did I have to leave my family? Why did I have to say goodbye to my big brother and sister? Why me? Why?’ We drove for 40 minutes, to Kampala. Once we arrived at our house, we all made up our beds, and went to bed (or laid in our beds not tired at all, because it was like..3:00 in the afternoon to our bodies) But we did finally go to bed. But before I knew it my dad was shaking me awake telling me the Aunt Cari (we call everyone here Aunt or Uncle) Aunt Ruth, and Courtney where over to take us out to eat. So I slowly (but surely) got out of bed, got dressed, and we left. We got to the mall where we were going to eat. (it was 12:00pm Ugandan time, and 9:00pm Arkansas) There were like 4 restaurants, and once we turned the corner to where they all were, different people, from different restaurants, came around us, handing us menus. Asking what we wanted, and until we ordered, they finally left.

Nothing really else happened, until Monday. Which was when we went to help with the Holiday Program, at the school we’re working at. The Holiday Program is pretty much VBS. We did sports, bible, and music. It involved older kids and younger (from ages 6-14) which was nice because I got to meet the girls my age too :) That was so much fun! Those kids are so talented!!

After the Holiday Program was over. A week before school started. My mom helped the teachers with getting ready for school. And somehow, the teachers found out I could draw. So they had me come up to the school, and draw all of the posters for there classrooms. And I guess I didn’t say my name clearly, because they think my name is Merisha. Haha! They had me drawing, mangos, huts, yams, zippers, doors, apples, oranges, bananas, pineapples, jackets, igloos, rats, snakes, kites, and much much more! But they all turned out really nice ;)

Now that’s just a bit of what we’ve been doing. But I’ll post more later

Check out the pictures of our house, and around where we live!

I was walking around with Courtney, Benji, and Laura. And i had my camera out. And these kids came running out of house all around, screaming "Photograph!"

This is out wonderful house!

Uganda!

I just wanted to say that we're in uganda!! It's amazing a beautiful! The flight was great. We're finally over jetlag! God is indeed awesome! I'll try to post stories and pictures later :)

I just wanted to say....

This post is just for saying that we move to Uganda...TODAY!! I'm so excited!!

only 3 days?!

So we leave in 3 days!! 3 days left in America! 3 days left with my friends! 3 days until we leave for Uganda! 3 DAYS!!! It's so weird to think..in 3 days we're going to be on our way to Uganda. God has been totally awesome, by providing for my family, and using us in amazing ways, and building wonderful relationships. I'm sorry that i haven't been posting recently, i''ve been super busy! But yes i'm alive. I can't wait to post about the fun adventures we're going to have in Africa! I won't be posting as often, because of the internet in Uganda, but i'll try :)
Now that moving is coming so fast, i'm now rethinking about moving, about leaving America and my friends. I keep asking God "Are you sure you want me to go??" But i keep reminding myself that this is what God wants us to do. And we can't run away form what He wants.
Nest time i post i'll be in Uganda! I can't wait!!

Trip to CA

So last week my dad, Benji, Laura and I took a 21 hour trip to CA! It was so much fun!! I got to meet my family over there, and make some great memories :)
I got a long really great with my family.
First we went through Texas.
Man, i do NOT miss that place! It's flat and ugly haha!!
Then New Mexico - now that place is beautiful! It looks like God took a paint brush, and mixed a bunch of colors, and went all out! It's wonderful!
Then Arizona, that's where we started getting into the mountains and that's what i love! It's wonderful! It was like the crack of dawn when we got there. It wasn't like foresty mountains, it was more like deserty mountains, until we got closer to California.
But before we arrived we got to see the Grand Canyon! It is beautiful!! God is awesome!! That's all i can say.
Here are some pictures that i took.






Then we arrived at last! (sorry i didn't get a picture of us next to the CA sign). It was so nice. My dad took us around the little town of Hanford, California (where he grew up). He told us his memories, showed us where he went to school, and where he used to live. It is such a cute town, i would love to grow up there. But i loved just getting to know my family. It was so much fun to get to know them! We got to go get ice cream at Supreme Dairy!! Best ice cream ever. That picture is their SINGLE scoop!!
Then we got my dad's favorite pizza, the wonderful Me -n- Ed's!! So great :)

And we got to hang out with my uncle's family, and they spent the night. My dad told me that my aunt and i were separated at birth haha!!
So it was so much fun!! Here are some pictures of us playing with our cousins.

My cousin Sarah

My cousin Luc

My aunt got this new beautiful camera for her birthday while we were there :)

My uncle Gary

They played catch all the time! Everyone did, baseball was how we got close to each other
Here is Benji and our cousin Justin playing.

Justin

Laura and Sarah playing a hand game we taught them.

My grandpa, we call him Poppy :)

My grandma, we like to call her Kay-Kay.
Here she is showing Laura and Sarah some pictures.

Asian District

A couple of Saturdays ago, we had a Boot Camp "challenge" to go to the China Supermarket. We all expected that we would have to find the weirdest food in the store, then eat it. But we were wrong!

As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw John and his dad standing in the grass. They motioned for us to come over so we did. All of us went over, and John said that one group would go to one side of the Asian District, and the other team to the other side. The challenged us to learn how to say 'Hello' and 'Thank you' in Vietnamese, which is Gam an (Thank you) and Dow (Hello) Then learn the background of the people. I thought the first side we went to wasn't very exciting, except above one of the doors was a mirror that we learned was a anti-demon mirror. When the 'demons' looked into the mirror they would get scared off.

Then the teams traded sides, that's when the fun happened. First we went in to a bakery (which wasn't really a bakery) Their specialty was duck, and...pork i think. They didn't have ANY sweets.

Then we walked past a jewelry store and we tried to open the door but it was locked. We looked through the windows and saw people inside, as if it was open, so we tried to open the door again but it was still locked. My dad walked away with Benji thinking that might work. So The Eskimo and I waved to the people inside, and in just a few seconds we heard a beep and the door opened! We walked inside to another door. The store people waited till the door was closed until they opened the other door. We walked inside to a quiet little jewelry store. Behind one of the counters stood an older Vietnamese couple. 'Hello!' they greeted 'Dow!' we greeted back. We looked around for a second and then asked about their life. We asked if they had a store in Vietnam and the man showed us a picture of their store. It was a cute little store, nothing like you'd see in America. We asked him if his customers in Vietnam were any different then the ones in America. A smile appeared on his face, and he chuckled under his breath. "America wants (some type of gold..i forgot) and in Vietnam they want (a different kind)." The Eskimo and I both laughed, although we didn't really know what was so funny. We asked them a couple more question before we said "Gam an!" and left.

We met my dad outside, and told him about what we learned, before we went into the next store. The next store wasn't a Vietnamese store, is was African (the lady who owned it was from Ghana). The lady there told my mom that she was a Christian (which is AWESOME!). We looked around the store for awhile. It was a cute little store, with food and clothes from Africa. I loved it :) If i had money i'd totally shop there. When we left she told us she would love if we came back and visited with her some more, and we told her we'd love to!

Next we went to a Vietnamese alteration shop. We didn't go in, just looked in windows, not wanting to bother anyone if they were working. We started to walk away when the door opened, a little Vietnamese women came out. "Hello!" she beamed "How are you?" Her English wasn't very good, but she was trying. "Oh we were just looking around." we said. We asked her how long she's been in America. She thought for a minute then answered "About 15 years." She looked sad. "Have you been back to Vietnam since?" we asked. She shook her head, "No." She sighed "My son come, he married! Many of my children married!" We asked her a couple more questions, before we headed back to the Supermarket.

All of our stomachs turned as we turned the corner and fasted..IT (haha a bit dramatic :P). Mr. John and his dad stood out front with a list. They put us into teams and told us to find everything on the list. My team was me, Pony Girl, and Benji. I was prepared for them to say "Then eat it" but it never came. When they said go, we all raced inside (i'm sorry i don't have pictures...the store had a sign that said NO CAMERAS, so no pictures.) i don't have the list anymore, but it had some weird stuff on it:
Dragon Eyes,
Duck heads
Ant eggs
Headless ducklings
Full ducks with heads (do they have something against ducks??)
And so on..

After about an hour, our team finished first (It was a big store)!! We learned more about their culture (gifts they make to the dead, incense, anti-demon mirrors, etc) then went out to lunch with Mr. John and his dad :) The food was amazing! i got to know Mr. John, and his dad better (fun stuff).

Then Mr. John told us to follow him so we all got in our cars, and followed Mr. John to a Buddhist Temple. Now that was interesting. We learned about their different gods and we got a tour inside. They had a room just for praying for your ancestors (with music playing in the background). Then we went into a room where the worshiped. They had a big Buddhist, surrounded by flowers. There were also the guards of the doors. Our guide said they would be scary, but i didn't think they were. We asked questions and stayed for about 1 hour, then left.

So that's pretty much it..talk about a fun Saturday :P.

My family..this should be exciting

This is me having fun with Picnik
my siblings (and me) and our ages.

Oklahoma City National Memorial

So we went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial last night..If you ever just want to cry, go there. It takes a lot to make me cry, but as i stood in front of a fence that had stuff that parents hung in memory of their little girl who died, because of these two men's anger... Or stuff that a daughter hung in memory of her father... I sat there and cried. I couldn't control it. I was angry. For those of you who don't know what happened, on April 19, 1995 Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh drove up in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The back of their U-Haul truck was full of fertilizer. A bomb. The reason these two men were about to do this terrible attack was because they were angry. So as they prepared the bomb, they raced off, dropping the key to their truck in their carelessness. Because of their anger, the bomb took 168 lives, including 19 children under the age of 6. It injured 680+ people. Now imagine THIS

9:01 am-You're complaining about having to get up early, as you get a cup of coffee with your co-worker, after dropping off your 2 year old little girl in the daycare downstairs.

9:02 am-You're walking back to your office when suddenly the building you and your daughter are in explodes...taking your little girl's life, but sparing yours.

9:03-You're laying in the ashes, in complete pain, the only thing on your mind is your little girl. Is she ok? Is she injured? Is she alive?

Now in those 3 minutes your life would totally change, and 680+ lives did. When i thought about it that way last night, i began to cry.
Because of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols carelessness, they got found...ONLY because of the key found outside of the building. And so those two wicked men were sentenced to prison for life. And so that's what happened on that awful day.



At the memorial center, you walk in, and there is a reflecting pool to represent where the truck parked. On one side of the water is an arch that says 9:01, and then on the OTHER side, is an arch that says 9:03. So it's like 9:01, just a normal day, 9:02, this awful thing happened, 9:03, the world is completely changed. Then they have 9 rows of chairs, for each person that died. 168 chairs. The have bigger ones for the older people that died, and smaller ones for the children. At night the place lights up. Another thing that was really sad (well all of it is sad) was they have this statue of Jesus crying and at the bottom of the statue it says, 'And Jesus Wept' then in front of the statue it has this walk, that is missing some bricks. And all of the bricks represented the people who had died. 168 bricks missing. Then surrounding Jesus are pillars. Each pillar represents a child that died. 22 pillars (three of the women who died were pregnant).

The wall missing bricks, representing people who have died.