And it begins....

Jess started playing Christmas music this morning, and I love it! We're listening to Alan Jackson sing "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" I just can't believe it's that time of the year. I love it so much!

My ode to Ocean Spray

So I already mentioned this in my last blog but I think a little more time needs to be spent on this... it's a subject that's very close to my heart: the joy that Ocean Spray cranberries bring to my soul. Some people grew up with fresh cranberry sauce, but for me, it's not a holiday without that glorious can-shapped (or those times when you try and make them look fresh) gelatinous mass on a plate. Normally you can't get cans of this beautiful product here, but the people whose house we went to planned ahead and had some people from the States send it to them. That is truly another thing I'm VERY thankful for.

My Ugandan Thanksgiving

Today was actually a pretty cool day. I had class this morning and then we headed over to Jim and Dianne Claire's house for thanksgiving with about 40 other missionaries and ten army guys who are stationed here. It was absolutely beautiful as we were overlooking the Nile, yeah, that's right the Nile and it was about 90 degrees. We had all the Thanksgiving necessities: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and even Ocean Spray cranberries. Afterwards, Jim, Diane, Kieth, Ellen, Jess, Bev, Ryan, and I just sat around a fire outside and had such a nice time talking. It truly was an awesome day considering it was my first holiday away from home. I'm so thankful that God has given these experiences that I know I'll never forget and how much He's taught me. Our God is such a great and amazing God and the greatest thing is how He put Himself in skin in order to die for our sins and endure that pain for us, so just to get on a little spiritual soap box, don't forget to thank God today in the midst of all the food, as every breath, every heart beat is a gift from Him. Oh yeah, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

winter?

It's always funny hearing from people about how cold it is right now back in the states, when here it's starting to get into the dry season and it's ridiculously hot all the time averaging between 80 and 90 degrees, this picture shows what our weather is like pretty much all the time. Most of the time it's awesome, but I really love the snow and the brisk fall days, but oh well.

Not my calling

I'm thinking cake decorating isn't quite my calling, but oh well. I made this cake for little Bev, she turned 8 on Saturday. It's a chocolate cake with oreo pieces in it, it doesn't look too pretty, but hopefully it will taste ok.

I need discipline!

I have about 3 weeks left before my outlines are due of the Old Testament and I'm only on 2 Kings, it always seems like something "more important" comes up. Please pray that I get them all done, this is going to not be a very pretty 3 weeks.

The other end

I'm seeing pictures of people in Montana and ABQ doing stuff with OCC shoeboxes, and I totally used to rock those little shopping sprees, it's funny though being somewhere where come a couple months from now we'll be receiving about 1,800 of them to give out to a couple of our villages. Wow, I never thought I'd be on the receiving end (well, kind of) of those little green and red boxes of wall-mart goodness.