Random thoughts

Seems funny to call this blog post random thoughts because I think that is about all most of the posts that I put up are. However, you might have noticed the title rarely fits - the last post was meant to be short!
Life continues to be full of different things. Some of these quite challenging, many quite mundane but different because it is Africa and then the fun and exciting things. We continue to always need prayer. We always need wisdom in all that we do. It is hard to believe that so many days we are confronted with choices. Some of those choices are whether to give money or not, how best to help people, when to interfere and when it is just that we do things differently in Australia. Sometimes, you don't even think you have made a choice because the thing you do seems obvious. This happened to me this week. At Women of Hope there is a lovely little lady who looks quite young. She comes carrying one twin and the grandmother who is even shorter comes carrying the other twin and the little 3 year old walks himself. This week they came and it was obvious that one of the twins was unwell. It was obvious that she needed prayer and so I, in part initiated it. Then, the ladies were discussing in their own language what should be done. It seemed that the baby could not have treatment because of money. So, how much? 2000 shillings - of course since this is about 80 cents I went and got some money, a little more in case it was needed - the sort of money that falls down the sofa at home. Then, there was a big clap and blessings given to me. How embarassing - it was not even a choice! But, how awful, if I had not been there would this baby not have been able to have treatment - for me 5000 shillings is not much at all, but there may not have been another person there who had 2000 shillings let alone able to give it away. Money is such an amazing thing here. This morning I had the privilege to preach my first sermon! Afterwards, the pastor had people greeting and some brought money up for him. I thought - oh that is how he gets paid, no they were bringing money to give to the preacher! It took me more than a few seconds to realise this when he said, that the money would buy some jerry cans of water for the preacher (I just put pastor in there) - then I realised! How humbling!
During the week there was also a need for us to travel to an orphanage a distance away to take some food. Circumstances have meant that there was no food for the children. Unfortunately by the time we could make it there it was dark but it was so good to be available to meet the need. Thank you so much to those who support us in prayer and financially. Our financial needs on a personal basis are very few. However, we do get many opportunities to give our money away or buy things for people and so appreciate the fact that God is abundantly meeting our needs.
Photos are always good so let me include some so that I can explain what they are about. These photos show two different views from the same position. The beautiful view of Lake Victoria and what is positioned there - homes that are of extremely poor conditions and people who are barely surviving.This was at a visit to a place to check out about some children that may join the village when the next houses are built. It continues to amaze me how much I love going and visiting these places. The conditions are terrible but the people lovely. I just wish I knew more of the language - this is a bit tricky because some places it is Lusoga that is needed and some places it is Lugandan.
This is a random photo I took. The children were not set up, they were just hanging out together on the rock. I am thinking that the next group photos might be here. Speaking of group photos, I liked the fun this house had when their photo was taken. Also, this is a couple of photos of a couple of the children for no particular reason other than it was fun to have good photos of them. Then there is a photo of an iguana that happened to be on the property. Of course Trudy was able to pick it up and show off the fact that it changes colour.I will try and write another blog post tomorrow to let you know all about our Easter. In particular today has been a good day. As the pastor said this morning that there would never be another Easter Sunday like it, and for us it certainly contained many things that probably make that particularly true. I preached my first sermon for starters!