A big OUCH!!

Simon and I play volleyball twice a week, once on a Saturday afternoon and once on a Monday night. The Monday nights tend to be a bit more serious and is held at the international school so we have a lot of high schoolers play who are on the school team. Yikes can they hit a ball!!!
Anyway this past Monday Simon and I went off to play volleyball as usual. There were a lot of people there about 25 people so we had 4 teams on 2 full size courts. It was a really competitive evening and our team had won every game until the last one. We were in the last couple of points of the game when I went up for the ball as well as a team mate and we collided. I fell badly on my right foot and landed in a heap on the court. To say it hurt a lot was an understatement. Thankfully Simon was able to give me a "piggy" back to the car as I couldn't walk. Anyway to cut a long story short we spent most of the next day at the clinic and the hospital getting my foot checked out. It looks like I have crushed some cartilage in my foot and possibly torn ligaments. The x-ray was inconclusive as to whether I had a fracture or not. The English Dr. thought it wasn't a fracture. Anyway the treatment is the same..keep it up and stay on crutches for 10 days....a bit of a challenge for me as I don't sit on my bottom for very long at the best of times. Thankfully my mum is here at the moment so she has been a great help. I guess my body is not as flexible as I thought!!!

Flight updates

It has been a while since I have written any flight stories. After being in Uganda over 6 years now a lot of it is "normal" life for us. We notice this when MAF UK or one of the other MAF's ask us for a story. Often the pilots will say its just been a typical day in the "office". Then in casual conversation later on in the day you will find out that the flight consisted of flying people who couldn't drive on the roads because of land mines or flying in a team of doctors to do some medical work for the day which would have been impossible to do by road because of the time factor.

Yesterday, as you know, was Sunday and usually a day we can count on as being a non flying day. On our way back from Church we got a phone call from our Programme Manager to ask if Simon would do a medevac flight (medical evacuation) to Kisoro (border of Uganda/Rwanda). A missionary Pastor was unwell and couldn't make the trip back to Entebbe by road. If he was to make the journey by road it would have taken many many hours. By air the flight was only about 1.5 hours. Just the journey from the local clinic to the airstrip was ardous enough for this sick man. Simon said he looked pretty rough by the time he arrived at the plane. Thankfully he didn't have to go any further and Simon was able to fly him straight to Entebbe where he was connecting with an International flight the next morning. It is a good reminder for us that MAF does make a difference to people lives.

The MAF Uganda programme is now doing some regular flights into Congo now. The MAF Congo team are slowly relocating back into Congo after having to evacuate some years earlier. Since the evacuation they have been serving the people of Congo from Uganda. MAF Uganda is now doing the shuttle runs for passengers from Entebbe into Bunia. This enables the team in Congo to do longer runs within Congo and serve the people there more efficiently. As we enter into a new era with MAF International we really see it happening between our two programmes. For those who don't know MAF US, MAF Europe, MAF Australia and MAF South Africa have just recently joined together creating MAF International. There is a lot of work ahead to make it work but we hope that by joining we can better meet the needs of the people we serve.

Joshua is 5! Zara almost 3!

At the beginning of May we had a combined party for Joshua and Zara seen as their birthdays both land in the month of May. How long we will be able to do that time will tell but for now they are happy to share the day. Above are a few pictures of them with some of the presents they received from family back home. We bought Zara a bike for her birthday but after not too long it had to go back to the shop to get fixed. We hope to see it again in about 3 weeks. Joshua also learned to ride his bike without stabilisers. It took him a couple of turns on the airstrip before he was tearing up and down. Quite amazing although he was very determined. I am sure it took me a bit longer :)