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Thursday, March 24, 2016

There's a Cow in our Garden, Dear Noah, Dear Noah...

It’s been a long time since we last updated our blog (sorry!), and a lot has happened.  A presidential election was held (along with the obligatory accusations, mainly warranted, of corruption, including a three day social media blackout for the whole country).  A little girl learned to walk (Emily!).  A small and slightly feral boy (guess who?) joined a new nursery (which he LOVES).  And a sister visited Masaka (Nicki, Sarah’s sister).

The election period was actually very peaceful, but since we are not clairvoyants, we were a little disconcerted during our “emergency evacuation plan” preparation when we had a look at our passports and discovered that our work permits were due to run out just the week before! It was a bit nerve wracking to have our passports stuck with the immigration department in Kampala so close to the election but there was no need to worry as the passports came back in time, and were not needed for a break for the border in any case!

It’s been an eventful past few weeks for animal encounters as well… (come on, it wouldn’t be a Crow blog without it!).  The most recent occurred today, as Sarah returned from picking up Noah from nursery, full of deluded hope that he would have an afternoon nap, rather than spending an hour jumping up and down on his bed and shrieking.  Well, his head never managed to hit the pillow as we weren’t able to get into our house at all, instead being greeted by a particularly angry large horned beast, who was patrolling our garden, busy trying to spear his caretakers through our fence.

Excitingly, the other day we met an extremely rare animal: the scaly anteater or Pangolin, which is the “clan animal” for the Katende family…. As you can imagine, our friend Katende (who lives on the same compound as us) was delighted (once he got over the initial fear, since he didn’t have a clue what it was).





Much less pleasurable was a nasty hairy caterpillar that stung Sarah in the crook of her elbow, currently healing as a deep pink itchy scar.


For Tim and Synergy it has been a busy time with the start of the second round of Big League, the beginning of the school year and also the progress of our 10-week discipleship course. We have had a difficult start to the second round of Big League, with only 4 points from 5 games, but as always we embrace the difficulties on the pitch as it always tests the character of our players and also helps us to focus on the wider goals we are trying to achieve.


Off the pitch this has involved acquiring a whole new raft of school bursaries for 2016. 35 new bursaries added to 74 renewals means that now 109 of our players  have access to an education which they would have struggled to afford otherwise.


Within these figures there are some amazing stories. Take that of 17-year-old Lawrence Ssekyewa. This is a lad who came to us recently with great passion, but not a great amount of natural talent. His grandma took Brian aside and offered him 300,000 shillings (about £60) to find him a bursary to school. Brian explained that he is not involved in “buying” bursaries for players, but told her to keep her money and let him work with the boy and see what he can do. Having worked with him and seen his ability and attitude, he took Lawrence to one of the top secondary schools in Masaka , where we have many players with bursaries. Brain explained to the Head master that he may not the most talented player, but has passion and discipline and a desire to achieve. Such is the high regard for Brian’s opinion, Lawrence was given a full bursary that very day. The grandma, wanting to show her gratitude to Brian, again put 200,000 shillings in his hand. Did he put this in his pocket as he so easy could have done? No, Brian took this money straight back to school to pay for some of Lawrence’s requirements not covered by the bursary. The grandma’s response? “I never knew that in Uganda there are still honest people like you alive today! Young man you have surprised me!!” Take a bow Brian – what a man!

Finally at Synergy we are reaching the end of our 10 week “Talk Faith” discipleship series with our senior players. It has been a great time, looking at things such as glory we seek, who Jesus is, the Bible, self worth and eternal life. These sessions have often been followed by some very searching and interesting questions, not least from our Muslim contingent. We hope these sessions will bear much fruit for the future!


to finish off today, it's been a while so here is another example of...

LOST IN TRANSLATION!


Don’t be alarmed if you look at an NGO budget in Uganda, and see a specific budget for escorts!  In fact, it just means something like a samosa or a chapatti (something to “escort” your morning tea) – less racy, but arguably much better for your health!

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