Signs and Wonders at the Refinery - Adaptability, flexibility and trust

The Lord is teaching us to handle varying local interpretations of the support we’ve committed to offering. Also:

- to adapt to the dry season and unexpected guests;
- to better appreciate the progress and challenges other base team-members have experienced in 2009 and and their expectations for 2010.
- to be more flexible when bad weather, sickness, meetings at short notice or an incident frequently interrupt our plans.

We’re realising more that God craves to show us unexpected blessings or mercy or if only we’ll turn to Him, in the opportunity and the temptation as well as the crisis.

We are thankful for His and your continued support:

Wisdom:
valuable specialist advice given enabling Maria & Jerome to fully recover from Malaria
unity of mind/spirit in our family as we plan home-schooling (h/s)

Fresh Insights and Timely Reminders:
- our Maker is taking us through regarding good practice in many day to day dealings/priorities,
- recent insights from visitors on recent developments in neighbouring Sudan and DR Congo.

Resources Received:
- offers of additional h/s resources
- to complete the funding of our first community sign workshops at Eruba
- to build pit latrines that will lengthen the time our water harvesting system lasts as we won’t need to flush the loo during the dry season
-to help provide IT training for deaf youth committed to co-producing improved USL resources
- Willing deaf facilitators for our Eruba and forthcoming Ugandan Sign Language workshops
- sponsorship for a deaf woman to attend a residential , year –long, building and concrete course

“Spiritual blindness is believing that good things are bad and that bad things are good”

- Allan, our deaf and partially blind pastor explained.

He was sharing his thoughts on the man born blind that Jesus healed. This was much to the annoyance of the local religious of the day, and the trepidation of the blind man’s parents . Allan , left, organised this trip to a Convention on People With Disabilities at Maracha , a bumpy 90 min drive from Arua.

The song ‘Oh, you’ll never get to heaven….’ comes to mind as I reflect on how tightly packed we were in this pick up, trying to find something/someone solid to cling, requiring the qualities of Heineken.In my case it was a grip on a seated person’s armpit that stopped me falling out on more than one occasion!

Allan encouraged all the disabled there to recognise that God wanted to show his power through them despite the many negative value judgements they have made about them. Then a quadra-plegic polio victim sang whilst playing two stringed instruments with his feet!! Wow.

February 2010 update

Commmunity Ugandan Sign-language Workshop at Eruba Primary really enjoyed and appreciated by all.

The staff were given wall-diplay material and asked to mount it prior to the start of term. This will be visible to both hearing and deaf students as well as staff.

Photos clockwise from top left are Ugandan signs for rat, buffalo, meercat and fish.

I plan to visit the school as students return to observe their reaction at the beginning of February.

Headteacher , Sebastian and local dignitaries attended the final workshop and asked for the workshops to be extended to parents and other schools.