Sarah's Gap Year

18/06/2008 

Hey all!!

Well I've arrived back safe and sound and am now sitting in my study - internet at the touch of a button - incredible! Its cold and raining outside but I'd expect nothing less.

The last month in Uganda was amazing, so great to get thoroughly stuck into the school and focus solely on the Christian work there. Despite the serious lack of any form of luxury - running water, toilets, my own bed and edible food I can safely say its been the best experience I've ever had. I couldnt have asked for a more welcoming school with so many opportunities to tell the teachers, children and street kids (by kids I mean 16 - 25 yr olds!) about Christianity. 

 Thankyou so much for your thoughts, prayers and emails while I have been away. Do get in touch - I assure you I could talk for hours about my trip (dont all ring at once!) and I would love to hear all your news as well.

I'm heading off to Romania on June 28th for 2 weeks to work in a HIV orphanage and then as usual spending half of the summer in North Wales at Glod but I would love to hear from you.

Thanks again and God Bless,

Sarah x

Tuesday Jan 29th - Day 1

Leaving from Heathrow to Entebbe Airport in Uganda! The excitement begins! 

-Bit of banter!

Feb 3rd!

Hey all! After 16 hours of flying we arrived on wed afternoon and bussed it to our house in a village called Makyndae which is about 30 minutes outside of Kampala! It's amazing! Dirt tracks, amazing wildlife and its just an incredible place to be! Every morning I wake up and think 'where am i' - then I realise Its the birds that have woken me and... ahh i just cant describe how much i love this place! Have been into the village a few times and have been chatting to some people and earting some rather interesting African food! (havnt had chocolate or meat since England!!!) (or yoghurt or peanut butter)!

We went to a church this morning called Calvary Chapel and it was incredible - sang and danced twith a gospel choir for over 30 minutes and then had a great sermon on Romans 5!

Loving it so far and cant wait for the schools to begin! We begin work with the street kids on tuesday which will happen rugularly at weekends and then start in schools on wednesday - teaching sport, RE and crafts mainly - it sounds brilliant! \

Very weird walking down a street and having Muzungu shouted at me everywhere! Imagine if we did that!?

Hope your all well,

Lots of love and God Bless, Sarah x

FEB 24th!

Wow life here is amazing1 I dont have long to update this section but have been teaching ina school called Kiti now with Rosie and Dave - been there for 3 weeks and everyone is so welcoming - feel like its been 3 years! Teaching sport, music (basically singing!) and art and doing 2 christian groups a week on wednesday and thursday at whcih i did the talks at last week but due to a huge down pour of rain i had to shout to be heard and then we had to sing with the kids (300 in one classroom) for an extra 30 mins as they werent allowed to leave because of the rain!

The street kid work is in full flow now and we are doing 3 main projects run on friday nights, first was 2 days ago and it was incredible - we went to the boys home and the conditions were horrific! I gave my testimoney and amongst the children were boys as young as 6!  We are also going on saturdays and sunday mornings to run their sunday school, the intellectual ability is pretty low so we played a game where you go round and say dog, cow, goat - with the thinking that some one will get it wrong - having said this of course i managed to embarass my self by getting out much to the amusement of all the kids!

ITs really great to get comments from everyone on my guestbook - a real ecnouragement every sunday - please do email as well as then i can reply!

Biggest challenges so far are cockroach infestation - longdrops! - 140 kids in a games lesson and only 1 ball! - the younger kids speaking little english - being overwhelmed by the sheer poverty of the street kids but then it is great to think that we can help out and we can see a difference already!

Hope you're all well! Lots of love, Sarah / Houghts xxxx

2nd Prayer Letter  24th Feb!

To everyone!

After being here for nearly 4 weeks life in Africa is starting to feel normal -though I still am overwhelmed by the beauty and hilarity of this country daily! had a week at the start to arrive, settle in and get used to our surroundings with various outings into Kampala (about 30 mins away) and some language lessons.

We have been teaching in the schools now for 3 weeks and it’s brilliant! After visiting all 3 schools and prayer and discussion we decided which team members would go to which school. I am teaching with Dave and Rosie in a school about an hour away called Kiti Parent Primary school for 4 days a week. It’s a school right in the heart of rural Uganda, its just stunning! We are taking all years for sport, music and art and then taking top class (their equivalent of reception) every morning. A real blessing in the schools is that the Child Evangelism sessions of which there are two a week, one for each half of the school, have been given totally to the three of us – although the subjects are pretty tricky – I gave a talk on Thursday to 300 5-10 year olds on the passage of Abraham and Isaac with the central truth being how God tests us to strengthen our faith – how do you make that relevant to five year olds!? 

Sport lessons are just brilliant but it is a real challenge because the class sizes can be up to 70 pupils and having two years at a time for an hour, and one netball or football proves a big challenge for planning lessons! But we are gradually getting used to it and had a brilliant game of ‘Glod Ball’ at the local football field for the whole afternoon last week!

Other highlights have to be going to Jinja and having lunch practically on the river Nile and then having a boat safari afterwards seeing monkeys, water lizards, amazing birds and the source of the Nile from Lake Victoria.