End of Semester Party

This last week we had our final meeting for King's Daughters and Real Brothers for the semester. Students are spending most of their time studying and finishing papers for their classes and so the bible studies end a couple of weeks before classes do. To close out the semester, we had a party at our house for all the women. Erin took several pictures of the event which you can see here.

Dunkings

This past Sunday was a baptism service at UCF.  I have always loved baptism services, maybe that comes with growing up in a baptist church but in my adult years, I just can't help getting choked up when people get baptized.  It certainly doesn't help that I have some extra hormones pumping through my system that make me especially prone to some tears.  In the group getting baptized, we had 5 women from King's Daughters and 2 guys from Real Brothers, and that was really great to see. 

UCF is really intentional with the baptisms.  Each person has to go through six weeks of class to make sure they understand what they are doing.  With Anglicanism, Catholicism, and other "isms" a good understanding of Baptism is hard to find.  Most Ugandans have been sprinkled as infants by the Anglican or Catholic Church and therefore claim that they are "Christians" even though they may have no understanding or real relationship with Jesus.  In addition to the class, the sermon on Baptism Sunday always includes a biblical perspective of Baptism.  Elder Patrick (in green above) taught the classes and delivered the sermon.  It is exciting to see students and other members of UCF grasping this biblical understanding of baptism and following in obedience. 

 Our good friend Dorcus got baptized that day.

This is not an uncommon reaction after being submerged because many Ugandans are not so familiar with swimming or water, being that there aren't many swimming pools around.  I think this is a good picture of new life we receive that is being symbolized by coming out of the water.

We tried to get some pictures after the service with some friends, here I am with Rhona and Reba. 

Kyle and Edgar

DTP

On Saturday we will be having our last of six Discipleship Training Program meetings for this semester but we will be picking it back up when the new semester begins at the end of January. Kyle and Trey have done a great job teaching and we have been blessed to hear some encouraging feedback from those who have attend. Last Saturday, Kyle began teaching a survey of the New Testament and will be finishing that up this Saturday. We will take some time over the break to evaluate and search for ways that we can make DTP even better. 

Here Kyle was probably talking about how the Kingdom is already here but not fully, saying things like "Inaugurated Eschatology" and "Already but not yet." 

I think here he was explaining the Holy Spirit coming in Acts and how this fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies. 

Home Intruder

One day last week when Kyle headed downstairs to make coffee in the morning, he found that there was a breach in security. The covenant between man and beast had been broken by this frog. 

I was glad cause I had been craving frog legs lately, so we cooked him up for dinner! Just kidding he was way too little and ewww! We have just been watching too much Duck Dynasty and they are always talking about frog legs. 

Quarterly Newsletter

This is a few days late, but here is our quarterly newsletter.  

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Communal Living

Many people (mostly Americans) ask us how we can manage living in a house with another couple. Even though our house is plenty big for the four of us to live very comfortably, it is different from the way most Americans live. I have never considered myself someone who would be good at physically living in a house with others that were not my family. If you ask my husband and siblings, they will agree that I can be very particular about things, close friends and past roommates would probably say the same thing. There are many other opinions that claim that living "in community" is best, people will even argue from scripture that we should all physically live "in community." I will not give my reasons at this time for why I am not convinced by those arguments, I will jut say that I have never been convinced by them. To be clear; I am a huge advocate for sharing life with people and being in intentional relationships with a community, however we all do not need to move into communes to acquire such relationships.

In Uganda, living together with several others, is the norm and so we are never asked how we manage living with other people in the same house. In fact, a few weeks ago a friend was over at our house and asked if we got lonely with just the four of us. She suggested that we fill the house with more people, and she was aware that Erin and I are both pregnant! Believe it or not, it's not the first time we have heard that opinion form one of our Ugandan friends. Ugandans, and many East Africans, think far more communally than your average American. They possess a remarkable sense of belonging and watching out for one another. There is much that the body of Christ should emulate from good communal living like what we see here in Uganda. 

So how is it living in a house with the Allens? It is great. It doesn't come without challenges or differences but we are glad that this is where the Lord has us. Specifically, in the last few weeks Kyle and I have been especially thankful that we share a home with them. I haven't had morning sickness the entire time I have been pregnant but in the last month or so, the nausea and vomiting has been too frequent for my taste. Due to the sensitivity of my nose and non-existent appetite, the Allens have carried most of the responsibility for meal planning and cooking. This has been a huge gift to me and is one of the reasons I haven't lost more weight than I already have. Kyle is always such a help around the house but since I have not been doing well, he has hugely "upped" his game.  All that to say, we are thankful to have a deep relationship with the Allens.

Living with others is not for everyone, but in this current situation the Lord is sharpening us, growing us, helping us, and hopefully making us look more like him. 

Meet Baby Fox

This week we got to go for our second ultra sound. We were excited and had great expectations to see baby Fox, but by the time we left, we received way more than we expected. They told us this was a normal scan to rule out chromosomal abnormalities and so Alice (the ultrasound tech) was going to take certain measurements and that was that.  Alice could not get the baby to get into the right position to get the best measurements so she just said she would just look at other things while we waited for baby to move. 

When baby finally moved some, Alice casually asked us if we were going to find out the gender of the baby. We responded "Yes, we will come back at around 20 weeks to check." "Well," she said "I think I just saw something lets see if we can get a better look..." The way this baby had turned had given us a perfect view to see that baby Fox is... a boy!! We couldn't believe what we were seeing and hearing! Alice was kind of laughing at our disbelief and so she showed us a few different angles for assurance. We were under the impression that we had to wait a few more weeks to find out the gender, Alice told us that you can tell by 13 weeks but you do not usually get such a view.  It was an incredible surprise!

Then, right when I thought we were done, and Alice got all the measurements, she switched to show us the 3D picture. Again, we were surprised to see this. We paid less than $50 for this appointment and it will be fully reimbursed to us, and we got to see our son in 3D.  Bottom line: everything looked healthy and Alice gave us a great report. We hope you enjoy these pictures as we have been enjoying them!