From a portal to a portal

As some of you may know I came down from Karamoja on Friday with the Wrights.  The original plan was to come down like on the 1st or something but a free ride availed itself.  I weighed in my mind the difference of comfort, deciding between a landcruiser vx and a Marble glorified dump truck.  Yes I can read your mind, there is no rel comparison, so I moved down country with friends.  The interesting thing is how Jinja has become like America to me.  In some ways coming there is like going on furlough.  I would call it a series of portals.  The trip from Karamoja to Jinja town is like jumping from the 50's up till Modern day.
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From Portal to Portal

cool AD

 Would want to share this with all of you

Have fun,
Sarah


http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/stethoscope.html

Everyone loves a story

.......and everyone thinks of their lives in narrative terms (whether it's the romantic "three-act resolution" form of western cinema, or not, it's still some kind of narrative). No one pops from their mother's womb knowing how to read and write (much less 'figure'). Everyone who has these skills and their inherent perspectives had to work to learn them. Thus, humankind is naturally "oral" and "literacy" is an acquired blessing. Humanity's relentless orality may help explain why wordy movies starring Meryl Streep don't translate so well across the globe while those of Stallone, Schwartzennegger, and Chan do; why Gilgamesh, The Iliad and Odyssey, and Beowulf are the earliest 'great literature' and contemporary surviving texts are laws and economic record keeping; why a centuries long tradition of lecture-oriented education so easily falls before the depredations of narrative-based media (TV, cinema, MTV, YouTube).

 
- So, if someone, or some ethnicity, has not passed through the transforming portals of literacy, what do they do? More to the point, what do "we" do? Answer: we do whatever they do, re. communication, learning, and perceiving. By in large, that means storying, presenting a persuasive counter-narrative and calling for a "new birth" from one to the other, to adapt their lives and lifestyles to its parameters, to shift their identity from one basin of (narrative) attraction to another, the gospel. Every new-born baby lacks a narrative with which to locate itself under-stably in the world. They receive this from their Father, perhaps an older brother and certainly a community, all of whom have a work or mission, and share a defining tradition. This is as true for those born of the flesh as of the Spirit, with the difference being that adults of the former chose to shift (by grace through faith, within the sovereign election of the loving Creator) to the latter and start again.

Cluck, cluck

The chick chicks have all been selected by their own communities- they're currently busy making their hen hutches for the 10 birds they'll soon receive after Friday's training. This training that Rachel, Valentina and I have will focus how to care for hens and how to keep records. On 19th May, one of the chicks became a hen, we've had one egg a day ever since- and Eve is only 3 1/2 months old! All of the women selected are widows, except one, and each has 7+ kids and care for orphans, too. We are all very excited about how having fresh eggs daily will really help out their health. Pray that all goes well with the training and distribution this Friday.

 

Our survey trip to Kaabong (northern Karamoja) was great, all signs are directing us to Lotim (hairy mountain)- Tom will share more on this. Thanks for your prayers, Miriam is doing much better. Pray for Ryan as he soon heads to USA for furlough

Here and there

So KKAB, the team of 4, is scouting out Kaabong district this week. Tom, Ryan and Miriam arrived today –stopping en route to Matany Hospital to diagnose Miriam with brucellosis, or Malta fever – ouch. Pray for her as she endures treatment for the next 6 weeks, and praise God that she didn’t have meningitis. I’m still down country nursing tennis elbow, probably from digging our 1meter deep trenches for our foundation last September. I remained in Kampala over my birthday to see a Danish physiotherapist – immediately after the Italian orthopod recommended surgery!

I’ll fly up to Kaabong on MAF on Wednesday and we will continue to search out where we will settle in after our learning phase in South Karamoja. Kasile, Karenga are subcounties that we are feeling called to. Pray for KKAB unity as we continue to grow and stretch as a team. It seems that God’s slowing us down, seemingly frustrating us with building and language to allow time and opportunities to continually shape and mould us together to be one as He is one.

A day

 Hey everyone, last week I got this idea of spending a day in the life of a shepherd boy.
More on

http://ugandaryan.blogspot.com/2011/05/day-in-life.html

Dr.Dr. Jean

This is awsome, the way Dr.Dr. Jean is:
http://mosesschwester.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/dr-dr-in-action/#comment-289

thoughts

Well today May 1, 2011 I learned that I would have to take public transport home.  I was of course thrilled cause there is a bit of adventure involved in Ugandan transport.  like for instance coming in and out of Karamoja isn’t always easy.  It used to be that I would take the rock trucks, but they became a bit unpredictable so last time(or at least one of the times) I went down to Mbale I rode with another passenger on a motorcycle.  While it was not the most comfortable I found that it  did the job.  So anyway I went down today on a bike.  Most people in the world outside of say Africa, India and Italy have not spent too much time on a motorcycle or the back of one for the case of this instance......

More on http://ugandaryan.blogspot.com/