Mukama jebaziwe!

Yeeha, i am FINALLY online again for all of 5 mins - i think young fred is itching to lock up the office so i'd better not waste time, i don't want to take advantage of his niceness! i am so happy, hence my title - it means "Praise the Lord" in Luganda (probably the only good and uselful phrase i have learnt here, although actually "i'm hungry/thirsty" (enjala enumma/enyonta enumma) also counts, but otherwise the only things i seem to tell people are jakula ga! or kambala ge! which means "i'll show you!" or "i'll show them!" (as in, the threatening way of saying it!) or even jakukuba nyo, kakati!!! (i'll beat you lots, right now!) by the way, those spellings are phonetic, i'm sorry for any of you Baganda that read this, maybe you can correct me John, I know you're reading!!!!

Ok, so these past couple weeks i have learnt to make chappatis, met safari ants which basically are highly organised evil ants which march along in a long string and chase after you to bite you if you disturb them - somehow i have escaped their wrath so far but i'm sure they'll be back to get me soon! also my good friend Sarah Nigeria (as opposed to Sarah USA who is still here) left to go back home, and everyone misses her so much and is fighting back tears (i hope you're reading this crazy girl!) we had a mad packing day for her last tues as she found out that afternoon that her flight had changed to 5am weds, and i'm guessing she's back in panic mode today as she's headed off to ghana tomorrow for her next YWAM school.

Class has been going well for me, i feel like we're getting to know each other better and i have clarified in my own mind what prayer and intercession are (intercession is standing in the gap between us and God, so not only does Jesus do this for us, but we can intercede for those that don't know Jesus yet by praying for them and helping them to see his love) we had so many definitions of prayer that i can't list them all here, and we also talked a lot about feeding the spirit on a balanced diet, just like feeding out bodies correctly - so basically we need to make sure we aren't just praying or just reading / meditating on the Bible, singing praises to God or appreciating His creation, but all of those things. And in church yesterday I was reminded of what i learnt in my orientation at Holmsted, that there is a huge difference between "guilt" that we feel - there is condemnation from Satan, which tells us that we are horrible and useless and generally bad and there's nothing we can do about it but we should hate ourselves and lock oursleves away; and there is conviction from God, which is specific about one or more things that we have done wrong but can be put right with His help, and He tells us how. Hope that is helpful for some of you too, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted now i know i don't have to feel guilty about half of what i used to worry about!

outside of class, we have been playing cards a lot, watching movies and i have been playing with the dogs and talking to the cows as usual....and yesterday after church i went with another good friend, John, to check his charcoal - he is making a load this week, and when it's ready he said i could watch it be harvested (he said it was a man's job and i couldn't really help, but i'll be the judge of that, mwahaha!!!) i will go down in a bit and take pictures, and maybe one of these days i'll manage to post some up - it just takes time, and for the power and internet to be working, and those things rarely happen at the same time!!! for now you can go to katy saunders' page on www.facebook.com, she has most of them up already.

the sad thing about this place is that even here, where we have our basic needs met, there is still such a lack of money for things like school fees, phone credit to contact home, and even important things like medical bills - one of my teachers has a horrible rotten tooth that has been causing her pain for a week, and we only just got together enough money for her to go to the dentist today. So although i don't want to write begging letters too often, if you feel you can give even £1 then please either get in touch with my mum or send a cheque payable to YWAM, to YWAM Jinja, PO Box 739, Jinja, Uganda. This is also the contact address for me if you want to send me a snail-mail letter - i might even get it before an email!!! In case you have any doubts, the money will go straight to whatever you ask it to go to - in my next post i will write more about the projects going on here. There are no admin costs - money for admin gets collected separately, so it's not like other charities.

i think that's all for now, hope you're all well and thank you for reading this and for your comments and emails, i am trying to reply to as many as possible! by the way, my mobile is much more reliable - you can text or call any time, it's +256773075192. It's quite cheap to text, cheaper for you than for me anyway, and i really love hearing from you so please get in touch when you can! Big thanks to Kym for your regular updates, you're such a star and i miss you loads! : )

love to y'all,
alex xxxx : )