Lubangakene Collin

It has been another good week. Big news from this week is that I am an official Acholi now. I got an Acholi name. It is Lubangakene Collin Schultz. It is pronounced Lew-bong-a-ken-eh. It means God Alone. It is the namesake of Kinyera Geoffrey’s kid too ☺

10-1-10
Do some Internet and then hang out and read before lunch. After lunch I head out and help Kinyera Geoffrey with the fence that is being put up around the land. After that we get back just in time for the new team from Hawaii to arrive. The Hawaii team includes Susie’s parents; Rich and Margie, Pastor Mike and his son Mark, Les and his wife Lisa, then Helen and Carol. They are great people and we take them to the office to open up the suitcases they left on Wednesday. After the opening all of the suitcases and seeing all the stuff I actually felt a little bit culture shocked from just the shear amount of food and stuff. Just have not seen anything like that for a long time. But we are very happy for the food and the notes from home. Great to see mom’s handwriting ☺ After we open the Christmas presents, I mean suitcases, we have some dinner and I talk to Les, who is a sound guy for a new station in Hawaii. After an hour or so we head to bed.

10-2-10
Wake up and eat with the new team before they do a program with the kids in the new church building. It goes well and they give all the kids journals, which is great. After the program we do lunch. Then we get to bust out a huge 25-person parachute and play with the kids after lunch. It is super fun. The kids just love it and they love having a beach ball in the parachute and just trying to keep it in. It’s the little things in life. The kids are split into two groups and one group is learning a song while the others are playing with the parachute with us. After the groups switch we do some dancing. Dancing is always unbelievable how much fun it is. All of us from us Brynn’s team and Mark from the Hawaii team join in the dancing. Charles driver shows me how to play this hard pumpkin instrument for the girl’s dance. Getting a little music fix. ☺ We shower, eat and head to bed. Brynn talked to our friend Adam and he might join us tomorrow.

10-3-10
Church day! Pastor Mike from the Hawaii team does the sermon. Adam arrives right at the end of church. Really good to see him post his Malaria bout. After church we sit down and discuss what the afternoon will hold with Cindy and the Hawaii team. We have lunch after lunch we do a few crafts with the kids including puzzles, seashells glued on paper crafts and some other things. Hit up some dinner and then Skype session with Scotty ☺ before bed.

10-4-10
We wake up and do some English lessons with the kids. They go well. After the second English lessons we go to their prayer session before lunch. After prayer Pastor David shares that his sister was murdered last night so to pray for her. During lunch we pray for Pastor David and give a “Love Offering” as Pastor Mike calls it. Meet and plan our day tomorrow in the afternoon. The teachers have a teacher’s day tomorrow so the kids don’t have school. They guys; Mark, Adam, Tom and I play soccer with the staff that night before dinner and bed.
10-5-10
Wake up and Adam leaves to head back to Adoc. Very sad to see him go because he is a lot of fun and also balances out some of the estrogen in the group. ☺ After breakfast we do some relays with the kids. First one is with oversized clothes and the next one is a water relay, which turns into a water fight. Momma Cindy gets sneak attacked and gets soaking wet. We setup the Volleyball net before lunch but it takes while so we resume after lunch. Brynn and I do some dishes and then eventually join the rest of the crew who have transitioned the kids into crafts again. Hit up some dinner and do some reading in a book called “Radical” by David Platt. If anyone has not read that book, read it. It is very convicting.

10-6-10
After breakfast the team leaves and it is very sad to see our friends go. Cindy goes with them but has a new plan that she might be back in November so we are hoping for that. Tom and I clean out the room and I am just about to go and help Kinyera Geoffrey with the fence when I see him leave for town to get more nails, so I read instead until lunch. After lunch, I go out with Geoffrey and work on the fence. We get back and it begins to rain pretty hard so we have dinner in the kitchen, which is nice and cozy. That night I get my Acholi name from Geoffrey, Solomon, Kenneth, Agie and Grace. Lubangakene, God Alone. After that I head to bed.

10-7-10
Wake up at 5:30am to a large mouse, that is latter deemed a baby rat, sitting about a foot from my head. Tom and I wake up to try and hunt it down but somehow it is gone. After breakfast I head out and do some fencing with Geoffrey and come back after a half-day. It is Uganda’s independence day on Saturday so the crew gets a long weekend. Have finished “Radical” so I start reading “Half the Sky.” After lunch the work crew leaves and it really quiet around. In 72 hours we have seen 10 white people and around 40 workers leave the site. We play some Nertz and then hang with the kids before dinner. After dinner we help them with their school work and pray before bed. Make plans to sleep at the kids’ house (I will sleep in Mercy with Simon and Alex) next, next Saturday so we are pretty excited about that.

That’s it. Fun to have the crew here and the next few days will be very quiet with all the crews gone but will be good to be rested up again.