Mrs.O's writing room.

Continued At 7:04 am on June 5th, Nziiza was born. Nziiza is the attribute of God being beautiful. The nurses asked Sam and I if we wanted to see him and we said most definitely. They cleaned him up and brought him to us. He was alive, the cutest, He looked just like his dad. I held him in my arms, it was a surreal moment, almost unbelievable. I felt like I was looking at God Himself, it was as though I left my body and was looking down at me from above. It was scary, it was awesome, it was heart breaking, it was shocking, it was everything. You know how you blink and hope you will see something else when you open your eyes?, yeah it was some what like that. I felt like I was in another realm. I gave him to Sam, we cried and prayed and gave him Jesus. God's presence was so real in that hospital room, I can not tell you how much. Sometimes words can not do things justice. At the end of it all I was exhausted, I fell asleep. I woke a few hours later and oh! how it sunk tha...

Continued We flew into Dallas on a Thursday, got into our apartment on Friday and headed to Memphis on Saturday morning. Memphis! the city of Elvis Presley. This is where Sam studied for his first masters degree, so we thought it would be nice to catchup with his old friends. The weather was fantastic, the houses were beautiful and well looked after, it was a very nice place. We were hosted by Jim and Barbara Pendleton, they were Sam's host family while he was at school. It was wonderful to finally meet them, they welcomed Sam and I like their own children. Mich had a blast!, they had a cat and a dog that he was constantly chasing and being chased by. Melody, Jim's daughter loved Mich and so they played together from time to time. We spent much of our time visiting with friends, driving through the town to see where Sam had lived and worked those many years ago. We attended service at his church, visited his school, had dinner with his pastor. It was a busy and fun time....

Continued I began by introducing myself and which country I come from. To give a bit of perspective, I shared a little about my background. I come from a family of six children and I got the lucky ticket, I'm the last born. For those of you who don't know what that meant, I will try to elaborate. It meant, a good life, no stress, no worries, everything was sorted. I will give you a good example. When I had just joined elementary school P1 to be exact, my brother Peter was the head prefect. One day some boy wanted to take my pencil, I tried to fight politely. Then a friend of his asked him if he knew who I was and the boy had no clue. His friend said "that's the head boy's sister, she can report you to him. He will write your name in the black book, take you to the headmasters office for spanking, then they will call your parents". I don't think I saw the boy again, I just recall marvelling at what his friend had said. I had no idea I was so privileg...

About a month ago, Brad (my pastor) asked me to share with the church how I saw God work in my life since coming Philadelphia. At first I thought he was kidding, I almost said "huh?? you talkin ta me?", (with the Robert Deniro face and accent), he was dead serious. I wondered what gave him such a weird idea, but truthfully I will tell you I saw it coming. I knew at some point I would have to share about the way I experienced God but I was hoping that day wouldn't come. It's complicated. Addressing a group of people isn't easy, I mean even two people is tough and we were talking about 100 some. I have trouble with this, my mind tends to go blank and then I end up saying silly things that are incomprehensible. I tried to wiggle out of it, I said "you know, I could write it down and then have Sam read it to the congregation" (lame excuse right?!) . Nah, he wasn't about to barge, then I said "let me pray about it", what I really meant w...

This past weekend has been so much fun. We spent it with Lilian and Rose coming from Baltimore and Temple respectively. Lilian is an old friend who I met through Olga and from spending time with the navigators. She is studying for her masters degree at Johns Hopkins. I met Rose here through a mutual friend, Jackie, she is also studying for her masters degree at Temple University. Both Lilian and Rose are part of the Navigators. I invited Lilian for the weekend and found out that she knew Rose, it was fun having both of them over. Because it's really cold we were not able to do much outdoors. That wasn't much of an issue, being Ugandans, sitting at home and talking is just as good or even better. It was a coincidence that they came the very weekend I was scheduled to share my testimony in church. It was so heartwarming to look into the congregation and see their faces, it made me feel more at home. Earlier in the month, we had lunch with Mark and Eva. Mark is a first year stude...

Mich resumed preschool this week and this time round he was clinging on to me. He didn't seem too thrilled to be back. I thought this would wear off after the first day but he continued to insist that I stay with him. Strange. I decided to pursue this behaviour further by asking him what he didn't like about school. He said "my friends at school don't want to play with me", I thought, how can that be? all the kids play together. On my quest I spent a few extra minutes at the school after dropping him off just to see how he settled in and I saw what he meant. He is three and the kids who he would like to play with are a little older and much more aggressive than he is, so he doesn't quite fit there. The other kids are a little younger and so he doesn't seem to fit with them either. You would think, "kids are kids right? they can get on with other little people without any problem". Well, that doesn't seem to be the case here,I hope my eyes are...

My life and relationships at this point are going through a metamorphosis. Kinda like the butterfly. I pray I get to be a butterfly, with it's beautiful colours, the freedom to fly and bless the flowers with the pollination process. This might sound like greek but let me explain. When I left Kampala, I said bye to friends near and dear, I thought I would be back and life would continue from where we left off. Well that was a cute idea but sadly it doesn't work that way in real life. People move on, it's like a job, colleagues are sad to see you leave but a week later they can't remember your second name. Like wise you make new friends and acquaintances at the new station. If one cultivated true friendships you can meet up for coffee and catchup. The catchup sessions work well to put everybody on the same page. Being on the other side of the globe has complicated my situation. I always feel close to family whether or not we communicate, friends are different (or so it se...

This child pretty much summed up what it took me the whole of 2007 to learn.

A very Happy Happy New year everybody. We get to see another year woohuuu!!! How exciting is that?! I’m thrilled to see what 2008 has in store, just looking at those numbers brings a smile to my face. I think they look splendid together 2 0 0 8, maybe it’s because they are even and I like even numbers.Can you imagine we've closed the chapter to '07? and it's Never coming back again?, wow! I’m thinking damn! another year down, girl is getting older, but luckily these days they say, 40’s are the new 30’s, 30’s are the new 20’s and my favorite 20’s are the new 10’s. So the Common Wealth Heads of Government Meeting (what a long title) was a success, congratulations to those who were there to see it unfold, put UG on the map you know?!. That was shortly followed by Ebola but hey, we can't get things good all the time. ‘The Last King of Scotland” , go UG go!! Something else to make the world remember we exist. I know there are countless things that happened over the year, I...