Dan and Jodes… in Gulu, Uganda

Well. Drumroll please ladies and gentlemen. After waiting four hours in the court house… during this time of course there was reading, games, storytelling when we ran out of games (by both mummy and a policeman who told a great story about a rabbit), we got to see the judge, and received our ruling! Myron is officially adopted and we are officially his parents! Just some paperwork to follow.

An enormous thank you to everyone for being so supportive in many ways. And thank you so much for all your prayers! Can’t wait to one day introduce Myron to you guys in the flesh!

With much love,

Dan, Jodes & Myron xxx

Lounging out in the courtroom…

Reading time…

Playing a board game

A family photo taken by a reluctant police officer outside the court house

Let’s see… a pile of children’s stories, a game Myron could play for hours and we are dressed quite smartly (if we do say so ourselves)… must be court day again.

We want to say goodbye to 3 and 4 year olds sitting for hours copying from the chalkboard into their little exercise books and… sleeping at desks. Our new revolution to stop this and to help equip and empower early childhood teachers started today with our new training on age appropriate reading activities for early childhood teachers. This is a new training afternoon we have planned for around 50 local schools and we were quite happy with how it kicked off today!

Following the outline of the letter s with a bead in local clay.

Tracing with flour

Searching for letters to match

Tracing the outline of a letter with a paintbrush and water

The treasure we dug up…

Tracing names with brushes and water

Sandpaper letters

Letter formation with local clay

local clay letter formation

Sand – letter outlines

sssss-sand to make the letter ‘s’.

Picture/name jigsaws

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
Leo Tolstoy

Today we waited outside the judge’s chambers for our adoption ruling. Five stories later we were told that the judge had not prepared the ruling documents so we should return next Friday, 23rd March. Learning a lot about patience during this time.

Reading material: check! Ready for waiting…

When there is nothing that you have to do and there’s no work pressing, what do you think about? And when you are in secret, what do you do with your solitude?

Those two questions kept on surfacing during a cracking (and challenging) sermon by Timothy Keller. Nope he didn’t make a guest visit to Gulu; it was courtesy of iTunes in our cosy house group.

One of the central themes of the sermon was the primacy of praise and how praise/adoration frames our thinking. I could talk more about it but… listen for yourselves (click here), it’s outdated in recording but not in content. And Keller says it way better than I ever could (I need to listen to it a couple more times).

And when I had a whole day to myself today what did I do? Crank out three lesson plans and take some notes for a new training. Great use of my time, well… in some ways. I’m challenged to look at my priorities and how I balance them. It starts now! Thanks to a recommendation from Ellie Tatton and a long-overdue Diane Parsons’ recommendation I finally got a Kindle version of  this devotional book: Choose Life: 365 Readings for Radical Disciples by Simon Guillebaud. Only three months in but… let’s go!

Jody

Many of our friends and relatives have given us advice to change our weekend – and this week we finally did it properly! Dan and I both teach on a Saturday (I teach at our nursery teacher training college and Dan teaches the piggery course at The Recreation Project); so instead of having a Saturday and Sunday weekend, we are having a Sunday and Monday weekend. And what do you do on a Monday in Gulu?

• I went for a jog this morning
• We went to the abandoned train carriage (which locals call scrap metal) at the Gulu Railway Station (which potentially hasn’t been used in at least a couple of decades)
• We go out for ice cream at our favourite ice cream place in town to find there was no ice cream left (still on it’s way from Kenya). So… had cupcakes instead.
• We pick out a few children’s DVDs from our favourite DVD shop in town. Just after we pick them out and the lady goes to copy them (only way to buy DVDs in Gulu); the power company cut off the shop’s power for not paying their bills. We tell her we will return later to collect them…
• Dan and Myron head on a bike ride.
• Myron and I bake some biscuits… and the day is not over yet!

It’s a flexible lifestyle living in Uganda 🙂

Jody

So: The date/calendar journey continues.

We have another court date for our adoption ruling: this coming Friday, March 16. Our patience level is at optimum level, so… will see what happens 🙂

Also had a very positive meeting with Gulu District government officials and some big education partners. Having another meeting this coming Wednesday on the possibility of starting a trial working with some schools in Gulu District. Very promising! Keep you all posted!

Super blessed to be able to ‘attend’ my brother’s wedding in Sydney thanks to FaceTime and internet that was actually working to a quick enough speed between 2.30am and 3.20am this morning 🙂

Isn’t technology flipping awesome! However I clearly was not dressed for the occasion…

Congratulations Glen and Bron and thanks Jono for being my FaceTime buddy!

Just a quick update for those following. The judge for our adoption hearing has been caught up with other business in Kampala so he won’t be returning to Gulu tomorrow for our ruling. We will be issued with another date. Let you all know soon when that will be…