Rh team visit and Remnant beginnings.

The past two weeks has been busy, but great. Sorry for the delay of blogs once again. We haven’t had consistent power, and no power means no internet. We spent most of our time with the Rock Harbor team. A few days ago, we did some medical work with them in Amuru, which was about 2 hours away. The first medical day was not the most productive. We got sent to an already existing clinic, so there wasn’t much for us to do. Instead of going back there the next day, we went further into the middle of nowhere and set up there for the day.

I started out in the pharmacy, labeling and counting pills, but I moved on an hour later. I noticed Moses, our awesome driver, sizing kids from wound care for shoes. I began to help him pass out the shoes. Most of the kids had bandages all over their feet; they don’t have proper shoes, so they get cut up pretty badly.

I was shocked to see that the kids needed help putting on their shoes. It never occurred to me that they have never had actual shoes before; if anything, they have only had flip flops. None of them knew how to tie their shoes. It is heartbreaking. So I started kneeling down and slowly tying their shoes, hoping that even though we had a language barrier, they could learn from my quick example.

I continued to help Moses for a few hours. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw him give food to a kid who was starving. It is so cool to see people like Moses go above and beyond what is expected of them, especially when they gain nothing in return. Moses didn’t give the boy leftovers; he gave him a whole meal. That boy was so happy. We got to watch as his stomach started forming again.

The Rock Harbor team left the next day. It was a particularly outstanding team, and we will miss them. When we come back in May, I’m sure we’ll all hang out again.

Other than that, we’ve been putting our business, Remnant, into place. We had some issues with shirt prices going up, but other than that, we are doing well. We will be training the women next week, and starting business the week after!

Although it can get stressful, we have been so lucky to see such wonderful things happen to these women. Take Martine. She is the woman who I blogged about earlier (she is a 23 year old who came from Congo to find her mom, her mom and sister left her with all of the kids in the family, she has never been a prostitute, and she is so amazing). Since Martine does an excellent job for the church’s Sunday school and takes care of her nieces, we thought we would ask her to do childcare for our workers. She was so happy to be offered a job. She somehow reached her mom on the phone, who happened to be in Sudan. Her mom, thrilled by the news of her daughter getting a job, came back down to Gulu and decided to follow Jesus. Incredible.

We are so excited to start. Keep us in your prayers, we have a lot to do in very little time.

busy busy busy

Sorry for the delay of updates. It has been busy over here! We have been running around trying to solve our business dilemmas. We finally purchased inks and signed our license papers in Kampala a few days ago! We’ll be up and running before you know it!

Other than that, we’ve been hanging out with a sweet team from Sandals church in Riverside. They were here for about 10 days, and it was so great to have them. They left yesterday, and we were bummed to see them go, but I’m sure we’ll hit them up when we get back in May. The Rock Harbor team is around now and we’ve been hanging out with Garrett and the team. They have been graciously buying us pretty awesome dinners! We’re going to their crusade tonight at Gulu University. It should be fun!

dust.

“For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:14.

Last night, Angela got a depressing phone call from her boyfriend, Ryan. His friend, Greg, passed away. The background of the story is even sadder. Last week, Greg’s younger brother who suffered from depression tried to kill their mother. Their father, a cop, had his gun and shot the kid. A few days later, Greg was drinking with his friends and popped a pill. He never woke up. These parents went from having two, 20-something year old boys to none in one week.

It’s moments like these that wake us up. Life suddenly gets so real that it feels unreal. I don’t know any of the people involved, but it is still heartbreaking. Thinking about all of this is just a reminder of the possibility of death. It’s funny that we often forget that it happens. God remembers that our frame is dust, but do we?

ANNOUNCING REMNANT UGANDA!!!!

Dear family and friends,

This is going to be a long blog, but the information in it is important. I would love it if you took a few minutes to understand what I want to share with you. As you know, I have reached my halfway point in Gulu. It has been great to come back and see so much more than you could see on a two week trip. Angela and I have learned so much by being here, and we are excited to share some plans with you. After a lot of God ordained experiences, we are starting a business in Gulu for abused and neglected women. I will briefly share with you about the things that have been confirmed for me.

In May, I felt led to this passage in Isaiah 37:31-32, which says, “And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go out a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.” I thought it sounded cool and I knew it was from God, but I really didn’t know what it meant for me. A few months later, I felt led to 2 Kings 19:30-31, which happens to say, “And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go out a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD will do this.” I was really confused as to why God kept bringing this up with me.

After experiencing a season of feeling like I was barely surviving, I began to take root in God. Before I left, I wrote my friend Pam a letter talking about these verses and about how I feel like it is my time to bear fruit upward while I will be in Gulu. Little did I know that it would get even more confirmation! A few weeks into our time in Gulu, we were at our morning devotions and our director, Carole, spoke about taking spiritual root in God so that we can grow upward and bear fruit. I couldn’t believe my ears!

The same night, we stopped by Pastor Ron’s house and talked to him. I told him about the verses that God spoke to me before I got here, and how Carole’s vision was exactly the same. He loved it. We decided that we would go with him and his wife, Joy, to a region called Kisubi, a slum where a lot of the Congolese women live. These women have been through so much. We prayed with Pastor Ron and Joy before we left, and Joy kept referring to the women as “remnants” in her prayers. She didn’t hear about the verses I shared with Pastor Ron. When she wasn’t in the room, Pastor Ron asked me if I noticed it. I asked if he told her what I shared with him, and he said no. When we arrived in Kisubi, Pastor Ron and Joy asked me to share with the women, and I ended up sharing about the verses and some personal experiences. I knew that God spoke to me about personally being the remnant, but I had no idea that they were the remnant as well.

That week, Angela shared her idea about starting a screen printing company for the women to generate an income. Many of these women were prostitutes, but after hearing the gospel, they need a new source of income. They are abandoned by their husbands and their children are starving. We were compelled to help, and this seems like a great way to do so.

So to conclude this background, we are starting Remnant Uganda, a screen printing business for the women of Gulu! The business is twofold: one, it will be the first quality screen printing business in Gulu for organizations and churches to get legitimate shirts made. Two, we will feature shirts that are created by artists who donate their work to us to help the cause. We will also have a sewing project of purses and headbands to keep the women occupied during spare time.

We keep getting incredible confirmation on this project. For example, I was led to Zephaniah 2:7 a few weeks ago. It says, “The seacoast shall become the possession of the remnant of the house of Judah, on which they shall graze, and in the houses of Ashkelon they shall lie down at evening. For the LORD their God will be mindful of them and restore their fortunes.” The most interesting part of this entire experience is that we haven’t found these verses when you look up “remnant” in any concordances we have access to!

It is thrilling to see all of this happen before our eyes, and since you are important to me, I wanted to let you in on it. We haven’t officially launched our website yet, but there is a paypal link there right now. If you are interested in helping us start Remnant, we would love your support. Any amount of money would be incredibly helpful. Just follow this link: www.remnantuganda.com.

If you are unable to help us financially, an even better way to help us is through prayer. We need prayer for:

- The women who will be employed

- Funds to help us begin the business

- Supplies to arrive with ease in two weeks

- Paperwork to be completed quickly and easily

- The right managerial staff to be hired

- A good location

- Protection from an inherently corrupt society

- The remainder of our time here

- And of course, for God to lead us in everything that we do in regards to this business.


All of you have helped me so much already, and I don’t want to ask you for more help. I wholeheartedly believe that this is what God wants of me right now, so I am happy to continue. I appreciate all of you so much and I’m excited to hear from you and see you in May!

Sincerely,

Yvette (and Angela)

birthday in paradise.

We were having a pretty long week last week and we needed a break. Since yesterday was my birthday, we decided to go to Murchison falls and stay at a pretty nice hotel for the night. We saw an awesome sunrise and drove through the wildlife park. We saw a bunch of animals and a giraffe was about six feet away from us! We got to the hotel, relaxed, ate great food, swam in the pool, and enjoyed the gorgeous view of the Nile right outside our window.
This morning we had breakfast and checked out, then headed to our boat for a 2 hour safari cruise, where we saw a ton of hippos and crocodiles. At the end, we got off of the boat and hiked to the top of the waterfall. It was INCREDIBLE. I will put pictures up, but they won’t describe how amazing it was. This experience was definitely the best birthday of my life. So cool.
We’re back in Gulu and back to reality, which basically means that we have no electricity again. Surprise! It was expected, but it still kind of sucks. When I get back to California, I’m pretty sure I’ll be AMAZED that there’s always electricity. The good news is that they finally got us a generator so we at least have power at night.

Jinja and Kampala

Yesterday, we got back from our retreat in Jinja and a few days in Kampala. Jinja is amazing! We attended a retreat called “Transformation of the Heart” at Mto Moyoni (www.mto-moyoni.org). The campus is directly on the Nile. We even went swimming in it. I was surprised at how clean it was since it is disgusting in Egypt. We have to take bilharzias medication just in case, but it was so worth it. I will put pictures online as soon as possible, but you should know that pictures won’t express how beautiful and calm it was there. It was definitely the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

However, the day we got there, it was raining pretty hard. Our buddy Richard traveled with us to ensure that we made it safely. We took a bus to Kampala, where the woman behind us bought two live chickens at the beginning of our 5 hour trip! It was pretty funny. After we arrived to Kampala, we had pizza and took a microbus to Jinja. We got dropped off on the main street and had to get bodas to get to Mto Moyoni, but the road was too muddy for the bodas. We stopped and walked on the muddy road, as we were falling over in the mud and laughing because there was nothing we could do about it. When we arrived, we were stunned at the scenery and we relaxed on a hammock that overlooks the Nile.

The retreat itself was wonderful. It looked at issues such as inner vows, soul ties, generational sins, bitter roots of the heart and more. Two amazing women from Holland run Mto Moyoni and conduct the teaching. We got to hear a lot about their experiences since they’ve been in Uganda. It was a great learning experience. I would love to go back there.
On Saturday, we drove back to Kampala and stayed with our friends Coryn and Jamesdon. We went to church with them on Sunday morning and we went to the children’s home that Coryn volunteers for. They are actually adopting a baby, Daniel, and they might have him next week! We got to see Daniel for the second time and hang out with the other kids, who were really entertaining. I spent most of my time with Cherish, a really cute newborn baby.

After that, we went out for lunch. We went to this place called Java City, where I had an amazing mushroom cheeseburger and seasoned fries. We actually went back the next morning for sandwiches because it was so good. You know that restaurants are good in Uganda when they are packed with white people! Then we went back and played wii, which was really fun. It’s weird to play video games after being here for a while! It was fun to spend time with Coryn and Jamesdon, and to top it off, we were able to get a bunch of groceries.

We made it back to Gulu around 6pm yesterday, and we have water and electricity, thank God. It was a long long long drive, so we didn’t do very much today.

time to relax!

Hello family and friends, we haven’t had running water in over a week, and the electricity has been cutting in and out. We’ve done a lot since the last blog, but I’ll have to fill you in later. I have to go pack for our trip to Jinja for a retreat on the Nile. Sweeeeeet! We’re taking public transportation to get there, which they call “the post office bus.” I don’t understand why they call it that, but I think it’s pretty funny. Anyway, I won’t be able to blog again for another week. Have a good week everyone!