Recovered and Rejoicing

Just wanted to thank everyone that has been praying for me and my health! Last Tuesday night I woke up extremely sick. The next day we went to the local clinic where I was tested for malaria. As we suspected I did in deed have malaria. Praise the Lord, we don’t live 100 years ago when there was no treatment for malaria. They gave me my pills and I returned home to rest and recuperate.

Now, a week later, I am thanking the Lord for my returned health! Even when I was sick I could see that the Lord was with me and protecting me from becoming as sick as I could have been. After three days I was feeling almost back to normal and a week later I am having a hard time believing that I even had malaria.

All that to say I am blessed  and won’t be taking my health for granted any time soon!

I am also thankful for all of you who were praying for me and for all of the encouraging notes that I received from friends and family telling me that not only were they praying but that they had been notifying other people to pray for me. I was even on a few church prayer chains! Praise the Lord for the Body of Christ and the power of prayer!

As always, I love and miss you all and hope that you had a blessed Valentines Day

P.S.
To update you all, Emma is doing amazing!

He is walking and even starting to say words now.

His continued improvement blesses my heart!

Here is a picture of him that Summer took a few days ago at a Birthday party.

He is such a peach :)

Good Ol' American Pass-Time...

We had been thinking and planning on it for several days...

 

The time had finally come...
 

We were going to gather all the children together for an epic event...
 

One to tell their children and grandchildren for generations to come...
 

We brought baseball to Kitgum, Uganda.

That is right everyone, we decided it was high time that all the kids learn how to play one of America’s favorite pass-times.

To prepare, we had traditional baseball food...

Or...

As close as we could get living in the middle of Africa...

So hotdogs were replaced with chapati’s (kind of a thick tortilla)

And soda was replaced by fruit punch...

But we called it good and everyone was happy!

Now for our field...

The pitchers mound and bases were marked by bright blue jerry cans laying on their sides...

A blue and a red bat were placed in the “dug out” a.k.a. the cement slab that goes around the house...

The baseball a.k.a. a bright yellow tennis ball courtesy of a nice road side vendor was moved out to the pitchers mound...

Teams were selected and lined up for the “rules” of the game...

The Pitcher, a.k.a. Summer, a.k.a. Mom stood up to introduce the various rules for this game...

Then out to the field one team went and the other team lined up in the dug out awaiting their turn to be “up to bat”. The Pitcher walked to her mound and I took my place behind the batter as the batting coach/assistant batter (for the smaller children) and also as the Catcher (my favorite!).

Everyone was ready.... The two 2 year olds and the 3 year old were sitting on the trampoline as our own personal “crowd” cheering us on. The players ranging in age from 4 year olds to the oldest who is 10...

We were all ready...

The Pitcher winds up and throws...
 

Swing and a miss, the game has officially begun!

As a side note, can I just say that it is awesome playing with kids who truly love one another... Even though most of them are beginning to become competitive, they were all cheering for one another and jumping up and down when someone came “home”.

Back to the game...

The kids LOVED it...

There were a few moments of confusion...

At one point one of the four year olds who was running to second base went and got the ball and handed it to the second baseman who promptly tagged him “out”.

The third-baseman ran “home” leaving the runner still standing on third confused as to why we were all jumping up and down screaming “run home! run home!”.

We had to pause the game mid-inning because Zippy the dog was chasing the chickens around the Pitchers mound... Entertaining :)

At the end of our time, we were only one and a half innings in. The sun however, was setting and although our field was wonderful, it hadn’t yet been fitted with our lights for night time playing so we had to tell the kids we would pick up the game tomorrow night...

The score currently stands at 3-1

But the game is young :)

Gotta love good ol’ baseball!