5Crawfords

The boys are overall, doing really well here so far. Kids are resilient, so we kind of thought they would transition easily. Brodie is doing ok in school, but we're still dealing with figuring out some of his weak spots - namely, lunchtime and unstructured times. So Alisha has been going to lunch with him to try to help since he was getting in trouble a lot during that time. We've also been battling some diet issues with him, which always makes things interesting. We have introduced a few new foods so we're now trying weed out the ones we need to eliminate. But Brodie plays soccer at recess and whenever he can find a ball and someone to play with - he tries to coax Jonah into playing every day. (Jonah says he doesn't like it as much as Brodie - he likes Baseball, which he's never really played!) Other than his stomach being bad due to the food issues, Brodie has been the healthiest one of us so far. Jonah is doing well too, and decided that he only wanted to attend...

On this past Wednesday, one of the eMi interns, Jeremy, and I, drove North 60 miles to a small village called Kasana, about 10 miles West of the town of Luwero. We went to meet with the director of an organization called ‘New Hope Uganda’. The director and his wife and family moved to Uganda in 1986 and started New Hope Uganda out in the middle of the bush. Their mission is to bring the love of God the father to fatherless children of Uganda. This project will be somewhat atypical for eMi, since we won't be sending a team - I will likely be the only one from eMi involved since they're only looking for structural help. But on the project property, they have boarding houses for families, a baby’s home for abandoned children, a primary and secondary school, and a church. It really is an impressive place they’ve built o ut in a very remote area. Their compound is huge, feeling more like a village with a central park-like area that serves as the hub for different ‘spokes’ that offs...

We are finally connected with a permanent internet connection! ...sort of. It is really a minor miracle that we are connected now, but we'll take it. It has been a long process, but just over 6 weeks after arriving, we finally are connected. I have had access at work, and for the last month we've been borrowing someone's dial-up box, but that was only a 1-month thing that we knew wouldn't last. Well, that ran out on Monday, but the process began last week. I'll tell the story because it's a good example of how things sometimes work here. A week ago on Monday, I went down and signed up and paid an exorbitant connection fee to give us a wireless connection of up to a "blazing" 128 KB/sec! (The monthly fee for this is about 4 times what the basic Charter (cable) connection rate for TV and internet was back home. The setup fee was just under $1,100 US dollars! I'm sure most of you probably thought things were "cheap" over here - the truth is,...

Well, we’ve completed our first month here! It really feels more like 6 months because of all we have done and accomplished – first having Alisha’s dad here, getting all the stuff bought and set up in our house, getting a car and motorcycle, learning how to drive a motorcycle, getting the boys settled into sch ool, and I even managed to work a full week’s worth of time during the month of February, which had been scheduled to be off. So my first tasks at work are to start assembling standards for the Structural department, which has been vacant now for over 4 years. It is quite a task and will be an ongoing work in progress for the duration of my time here, I’m sure. I will be contacting whomever I can think of around town to try to get any information I can about what materials are available and which construction practices can be employed. One complicating factor is there really is no useful phone book, so I’ll be looking in the classified ads in the paper, and maybe stopping by cons...

So to date, I have been mainly blogging about us and getting set up here in Uganda. I apologize that it seems a little ego-centric that everything I have written has been about us, our feelings, and how we’re doing. Of course we realize we didn’t come here to just transplant our life over here and continue on like it was just a move across the state, but really, all we’ve had capacity for so far has been to try to figure out how we can make our life manageable and sustainable for our family here. Once settled, we figure we’ll then be equipped to begin our ministry here, which essentially will be: first, my job, and second, building relationships with the people around us. But it’s a hard balance to find, to build a comfortable home life while living amongst and even relating to people who are the poorest of the poor. So within reason, we have purchased things that have made our family life manageable, with enough creature comforts to allow us to stay long term. Could we have done witho...

We took Alisha’s dad to the airport last night and said goodbye after an eventful and fast two weeks. What an awesome blessing it was for us to have had him here. It is an impressive list of all he helped us with: from watching and playing with the boys to fixing the locks, buying the boys’ bikes and putting them together, taking trips to town on the boda-boda to run errands for us, lending advice on certain aspects of life like buying our car and appliances, helping the plumber fix our widespread plumbing issues, cleaning our cupboards, fixing the doors on the cupboards, setting up the washing machine, stove, dryer, TV and DVD player, taking us on a ‘day-off’ trip to Jinja that was a much needed respite from getting settled, fixing the guards door latch – and then locking himself in the room after he was sure it was fixed! (me and the plumber had a great laugh about that one!), and so many more things big and little that he did to help. But really, that amounts to only about 10% of hi...

Here are some pictures from our first two weeks in Uganda. The first one is Alisha in our kitchen - looks pretty normal eh? The only thing missing is dishwasher - yuk! The blue tank is the propane for the stove. the next picture is of the boys watching a video in our newly furnished family room. The only piece of furniture we have left to buy is a dining room table and chairs. Also, see the family pictures on the walls in the background? Alert to the Bret Crawfords, the Bart Crawfords, the LaBrie's, and Mom & Dad C. need to get an 8x10 of your family made up and sent to us - please! Mail it mom & dad C. or to the Berry's in Castro Valley as they are sending care packages fairly regularly. The next one is Grandpa reading a story to the boys at bedtime. Note the mosquito netting in the background above Jonah's bed. We haven't really had to use the nets yet, but last night I was itching pretty good so that may change soon. Finally, Brodie and Jonah at Herit...