WUNDERLI WANDERINGS

We have had a bit of a quieter week on the work front which has been good. Simon has done three flights this week including taking out a lady from a place in Northern Uganda who was suffering from seizures. Thankfully she didn't have one on the plane and was able to go and seek some medical attention once she reached Kampala. Due to Simon having some time off this week he was able to do some fix it jobs round the house. It seems like one thing gets fixed and the next breaks. Praise the Lord I married a handy man. He is also in the middle of making Zara a bed. Once he is finished I will be sure to post some photos on the blog. My workload has also been reduced this week due to key people in the programme being in Kenya at a conference. This was a good opportunity to catch up on other bits and pieces. David, our part-time gardener, has been supported the last few months with driving school lessons and English classes. Today is his big day as he takes his driving test. Pray that it wo...

As you will notice from the amount of photos below we are now in the possession of our new camera. Graeme and Elaine (friends from home) came to visit us on the tale end of their trip to Kenya and brought it with them. Joshua and Zara enjoyed having Graeme and Elaine around. They were also able to bring some of Joshua and Zara's books which we were unable to take with us when we left Scotland. I think Joshua had Graeme read them all in the same afternoon. Joshua was in his element. We went to the Zoo on Saturday and enjoyed seeing all the animals. Zara was not impressed when one cheeky monkey came up to her at lunch time and took away her biscuit. Thankfully I had a plentiful supply in my bag. Enjoy the more up to date photos!!!!

Ten new family members joined us on Wednesday. They are of the fluffy kind....you got it...chickens. We started out with 15 but sadly 5 of them didn't make it. I think the bumpy ride from the "Chicken shop" to our house on a boda boda (motorbike taxi) didn't help things as well as being extremely hot. Joshua and Zara are loving them as you can probably imagine. The last chicken to die was given a brief sermon on where he would be going from Joshua. As the wee chicken lay on the cardboard ready to be disposed of Joshua kindly informed him that the angels would come and pick him up and take him to heaven. Joshua wanted to stay with the chicken until the angels arrived but I convinced him that he wouldn't seem them as they would be invisible (please don't judge me on my theology :)) If you have any better ideas on explaining the presence of angels to a three year old I would gladly hear it. Thankfully the remaining 10 are looking very healthy - long may...

As I write this next update my ears are sensitive to what is going on in the dining room. Joshua has his friend, Jack, over to play this afternoon. At the moment they are eating popcorn but when it gets too quiet my motherly instincts take over and then its time to check things out. Zara enjoys Jack coming over too as they all laugh, shout and generally be crazy together. This week I had my new boss over from England checking up on how the training is going. It was a positive experience as we chatted about the past, present and future of training. I am very much looking forward to working with her. As I might have mentioned before we have a new couple working in the program. She is from Brazil and he is from Angola. Her English is very limited so I plan, with the help of CD's, to help her improve her understanding of the language. My portuguese is non existent so pray as we embark on this new challenge together. Simon continues to be busy with flying. He had an interesting...

Since arriving back in Uganda we have virtually hit the ground running or flying in Simon's case. Simon has had a busy flying schedule with two flight exams. Thankfully he passed them both so is now free of exams for a while. One of his flights included taking a dead body back to Sudan for burial. He was greeted by the extended family who were at the airstrip to receive the body. The journey by road to get the body back to the family would have been days of ardous travel. The flight only took about 2 hours. Today and tomorrow he is at a safety seminar run by MSI (Mission Safety International). This is mostly a technical seminar but the wives are encouraged to come to the "Managing your marriage in ministry" on Friday afternoon. I will let you know how that goes. I have been busy getting the kids into a routine again with school runs and keeping Zara out of trouble at home. She is into everything. If she is quiet then we worry. The other day she came to Simon and said...

In case some of you think we have fallen from the face of the earth you are mistaken. We are still here. We are having problems with sending emails at the moment although receiving them seems to be no problem. Also some emails that we have sent in the past week actually have never gone although they are logged as going. Mmmmmm only in Africa. We hope to get this problem sorted on Monday via the IT department. Look forward to communicating more soon. Thank goodness for blogs!!! :)

It is difficult to believe that this time last week we were still packing our suitcases to return. The week has gone by really quickly. It hasn't been without its interesting moments. On Saturday night whilst Simon and I were watching a movie I heard a thud followed by a quick thud thud. Something wasn't right. I went to investigate as Simon hadn't heard anything. When I opened the hallway door there was a noise of an animal making a hasty retreat into the bathroom. At this point I shut the door very quickly, recovered my composure and entrusted the situation to Simon. He went into the bathroom to investigate only to find a rather large rat. I gave him a broom and then he shut the hallway door. After that there was a lot of banging and running sounds from both Simon and the rat. When the hallway door opened out came Simon, the winner, with a trophy in his hand....a dead rat. The broom handle has now seen better days but it came in very handy. Joshua and Zara are ...

Dear Family and Friends, Welcome to a different kind of Weekly Update. We are moving with the times a little and have created our own blog. This should help in that you can go onto the internet and view our blog any time you like and will cut out the problems we have had in the past with emailing it. We are going to try it for a month or so and see how folks like it. If most folks prefer the email addition we can always do both :) Onto other news..... We arrived safely back in Uganda after having a wonderful flight. A BA pilot that we know managed to get us an upgrade into Business class. As it happened we ended up having the whole area to ourselves. We felt very special and were treated like royalty. Joshua and Zara did very well and slept most of the night. God gave us a special treat that's for sure. We arrived back to warm temperatures, one suitcase missing, a bouncy dog greeting us out of the taxi and a broken fridge. Thankfully our dog Chewy has got over the excite...