It is Saturday morning and we are trying one more time to send a video to Chardon United Methodist church to give them an update on our projects.

We are in our last week, in fact our last few days, here in Masindi. Our time in Masindi ends Tuesday morning. Our time in Uganda ends Tuesday evening. With your prayers and God’s travel mercies – we will be back in Ohio on Wednesday evening.

The trip has been quite full of adventures and excitement and most of all it has been full of God! This place has found a home in our hearts. Our morning devotional time this week had lots of teary eyes – I have a feeling it won’t be the last time on this trip.

Thursday, we finished a project in the library. For awhile now, the library has been closed. We were able to take everything out of the library, clean, paint, and re-organize. It was humbling to open the suitcases of school supplies, books and medical equipment - then place them on the shelves for easy access. Things that we take for granted are now avalible. What an answered prayer! Hopefully, the video will upload and you will see what we were able to do for the students.

Yesterday morning, we decided to use the library to do art projects with the students. One of the projects was helping the students place their handprint on the bottom portion of the library wall. Another fun project took place outside of the library. Each lower level student had their body traced onto a large piece of paper and then they were given crayons to color. This may not sound like a big deal... but it was! Many of the students seemed to be holding a crayon and coloring for the first time. Their smiles shined brighter than the African sun.

Yesterday afternoon, we organized a field day for the students. Remember the African time Nick told you about... Well the field day was scheduled for 3:00-6:00. At 3:20 a different school let their children out for a break - those students were the first to show up at the field. Then around 3:35 our secondary students began to arrive. By 3:45 the other school students left and finally by 4:20 we had all of our students for field day. The event did not go as planned, however, everyone had fun participating in: frisbee toss, 3-legged race, book balancing, whiffle ball, jump rope, airplane making and flying, relaying fruit on a spoon and trying to keep an OVERSIZED beach ball in the air. As Nick says, “It was a crazy-fun success.”

The boarding students have really warmed up to us and essentially now ‘swarm’ us in the evening as we gather outside before our evening tea and dinner. It is our last few days here together that we will all be trying to take in as many memories as we can… and I am sure it will be many days – even months – before we will be able to process everything and truly see what God has done, is doing and will continue to do in our lives and in the lives of the people of Masindi, Uganda. How bless are we that dwell in the presence of the LORD!

We continue to thank you for sharing this journey with us and we pray that God is touching your heart this day.