A special note for Jan Trautman

Prayers for little Zuri

Hello faithful friends and family,
We have some things we could use your prayer for. First of all Zuri is sick again. She came down with a fever today and feels terrible. Her eyes are very watery and every now and then a tear will just fall straight down her cheek. I was able to just hold her today and take care of her but my heart was breaking because of feeling helpless. Claudia is treating her for Malaria because the treatment is much better for her than letting her ride it out and actually having Malaria. Malaria is tricky and can "hide" inside you with false readings when tested. It is very serious and can get into your brain even and cause seizures so I am for treating her anyway even though it could be a bad cold. We are reaching the end of our trip so if we can just get her well, then we won't have to worry about Malaria carrying mosquitoes in the states. We couldn't get her medicine in her because she kept throwing it up tonight, so please pray her fever will be healed and her stomach will settle so we can get her medicine in her so she can start feeling better.
On the adoption note, our attorney has submitted Zuri's passport, but without a certain paper that was supposed to be signed by a certain person who went out of town last week. He is hoping it will still be done even without the paper so we will find out tomorrow. We can't get the visa processed and the rest of the embassy stuff until we have the passport in hand. So we really need the passport to be done tomorrow so we can submit the rest of the paperwork. At this point, I am not feeling very positive that we will be on time to travel next Tues. So please pray that our Embassy representative, Nathan Flook, will have mercy on our case and process us quickly. A lot is up to him and he can be hard to work with. We met other families in Uganda yesterday that were flying out tomorrow for L.A. They have been here 6 weeks, so if our paperwork doesn't get done this week, we are at least hoping it will only be a couple of days difference. The offices are closed this Wed. and next Tues. for holidays so we only have a few days to work with. Little Gayla (the baby) is doing better. She is so small. When you pick her up, its like you are picking up bones. She is beautiful though and I can't wait to see her after she is well loved and fed!
I am going to wrap this up. We are hoping to go to Kampala tomorrow if we hear the passport is ready (we are praying). So we will let you know what we find out and how Zuri is doing. I miss you all very much. Schultz's, I hope Hanna is still welcome and not the guest that has stayed too long! We really miss her!
If anyone has American Idol recorded and would let us borrow the last couple of shows we would appreciate it. We left for Africa the day after the last 3 performed so we don't know who got cut and who were the last two. We are trying hard not to find out the results because we would like to watch it as a family when we get back. We will let you know how Zuri is doing tomorrow. If you get this early you could keep her in your prayers throughout your day since it is the night here (9:00pm). We hope to see all of you soon....Trusting Him, Gayla

A day of visitors...

We were blessed with visitors today from North Carolina. A group from Caroline's Promise (an adoption grant agency that has helped us financially) came by to tour GSF. It was so neat that we were both here in Uganda at the same time and it was fun to see some familiar faces and show Zuri off to them:) We were also greeted by a mini-mouse in Leia's hand and an unwelcomed guest that I called SATAN!

Pastor Jimmy...

Since I have been here I have been blessed with the opportunity to teach in several different venues. My first week here I taught the youth Sunday School Class for Bob and talked about God's Kingdom being upside down. Later that week, I took a group of students through a four hour (2-day) lesson on the drama of redemption where I covered the entire Bible - they learned it in an amazing way. I taught youth group one night and shared my story and connected that to the heart of God being parent like and how we can distort the authentic nature of God because of our distorted view of what a parent looks like. Today, I spoke twice to the entire GSF school (all kids and faculty) for a day of prayer and fasting. I talked about how the Jewish Scriptures have the story of creation, tragedy, and hope and then how the Christian Scriptures have the same story in Jesus and we are a part of a new creation. I have really grown to love the kids and the staff here at the school and the orphanage. Oh yea, and I also led the devotions for the staff team here and tried to bring some water to their wells as it is a place that will suck the life from you quickly.

I spend my free time trying to practically help by working on computers around the campus and trying to make the best of what they have. I have been able to restore a computer for the youth pastor, David, and put some Bible software on it for him to use and just clean up some others to make them run smoother. Bob and Carolyn, the directors, are incredibly busy and full of responsibility and Gayla and I are trying to wrestle them to dinner to talk about how our community at 5:14 can partner with them here at GSF. We see all that they are doing and the lives that they are touching and it is inspiring and exhausting at the same time - lives well lived.

Life at GSF

Please look in the older posts section and get caught up if you are not current:)
In this blog I wanted to show you some things that are different about living here in pictures, and a few other random photos. You will see pictures of Katie Davis at the pool with her 13 children that she is taking care of, the clinic that GSF runs, a guy cutting the lawn (this is how they do it here - no kidding), living with mosquito nets (sometimes they fall), a termite mound, a nightly sunset at GSF, washing clothes, and a few pics of Zuri (we keep her full time now except for night-time sleeping and she is learning to walk).

Moses, dead sea scrolls, and three months on the Nile

Jinja, Uganda is the source of the Nile River - the single longest river in the world. The Amazon is wider they say, but the Nile is longer. Here in Jinja if you were to spit in Lake Victoria at the mouth of the Nile (see stone marker in pictures) it would take three months until it reached Egypt where baby Moses was rescued in a reed basket. It is easy to see the materials that his basket was made from living in this area for the past three weeks. Reeds are plentiful as is the papyrus tree. This tree thrives in fertile wet ground like is found around the fertile soils of Uganda and along the banks of the Nile (see pictures). These trees were eventually made into a type of paper that some of the first writings like the Old Testament were written on. These rivers are still fished in much the same was as they have been for thousands of years. We were able to see these fisherman with nets and one string and a hook (no pole...see pictures). Uganda is also known for their birds and you will see many in this blog, but the small colorful ones are the King Fishers and they are some of the most famous.

Meet little Gayla

Hello friends,
So today, I was at the guest house where we are staying, just getting some chores done, and I get a call from Carolyn. She tells me that baby Gayla ( yes you read correctly, Carolyn named a baby after me that came to GSF last week, I was honored! ) was sick with Malaria and they needed someone to hold her so they called Gayla to come hold Gayla. It is pretty weird hearing her name when I’ve only even heard of about 3 people who share my name in the 38 years I’ve been alive. She was so pitiful! When I picked her up she was blazing hot. Two of the first symptoms of Malaria are a high fever and a headache. I have never felt anyone as hot as this baby Gayla. I would have called an ambulance if it had been in the states! But here, they are use to it. It is still very scary and life threatening but you have to be strong and do what you know to do. She couldn’t be given motrin until the Malaria medicine had been in her system for 3 hours. They are unsure how old she is and normally you can tell but she is so little you can count her ribs and touch your thumb and forefinger together around her wrist. She is between 18 months and 3, and is smaller than Zuri. I took her up to Claudia’s to try to cool her down. I stripped her and gave her a tepid sponge bath….she screamed on and off but I had to keep soothing her long enough hoping to cool her some. We gave her a cracker and she grabbed it out of my hand and ate it like it would be taken from her if she didn’t eat it quick. I tried to give her juice, but she wanted more crackers first. After about 4, we heated up some beans and she ate the whole bowl, then agreed to the juice. Carolyn said she found her this morning by walking into the baby room and she was sitting in the floor crying, with nobody around caring about her. When she picked her up, she knew immediately she had Malaria. As I rocked her back and forth, I prayed and wondered….God, what do you have for this little girl? Who will care for her? We want to adopt again, do we pursue her because she doesn’t have anyone, or do we wait for sirens to go off and the official word. It is so hard to see so many kids in need and know there are so many homes, including ours, with enough room to give them love, food, education, medicine, and security. Update: We just learned 3:45 p.m. on Thursday that she has been taken to the hospital with pneumonia. UPDATE: SUNDAY (May 31): She is back at the orphanage and is still sick and very clingy, but seems to be improving.

Things we, and maybe you may, take for granted

Dishwashers: Mac says that he cannot believe that we get upset at home for having to unload the dishwasher. Here we have to boil water and place it in a dishpan, wash the dishes, rinse them in the sink, dry them, and then put them up.

Electricity: Gayla says that she has taken for granted electricity and a dryer. Several times, we have been washing clothes and the power has gone out in the middle of the cycle – it takes about two hours to wash a very small load as it is, so when the power goes out you have to start over. We just figured out how to get Gayla’s

hairdryer to work here in Africa and this was met with great delight. We also cannot dry our clothes, so they get all stiff.

Wi-Fi and high speed internet: Jimmy says that he has taken the internet for granted. You have no idea how long it takes to do something on a computer around here. The connection is slower than dial up in the States and we have lost many e-mails and to update the blog is a 50\50 chance of it uploading on the first try. We have started to type things on my mac and then just transfer it to the pc so that at least we have the information when the internet stops working and the 10 times daily that we get the blue screen of death.

Transportation: Mac really misses a car. As it is now we have to wait for someone to take us anywhere and this means paying someone or inconveniencing one of our friends to stop what they are doing and lug our family somewhere. Furthermore, since we are way out in the bush, the drive to anywhere is troublesome. On that note, we have taken for granted good roads. The roads in Uganda or filled with holes and there is much more dirt than pavement – we have taken for granted our beat up, no air-conditioning about the fall apart Previa.

Our bathrooms: When we get up in the middle of the night we have to go outside to another building to use the toilet and we have to fight off the bugs and the fear to do so. We moved into another room at the guest house and now we have a sink! This means that we do not have to go there to brush our teeth – amazing.This is the journey from our room to the other building.

Water: Jimmy remembers the day he first saw a bottle of water FOR SALE in the States. “Are you kidding me? Who would ever pay for a bottle of water?” Jimmy asked the driver if he had always had to pay for bottled water and he said all of his 41 years he has had to buy water. We have probably spent $75.00-$100.00 in water alone. There are certainly no water fountains.

Speed of service: It is common for it to take 45 to 60 minutes to receive your food, but everything is fresh. Our fast food takes at least thirty minutes. There is a lack of refrigeration here as well as a lack of electricity, so there are few times that all of the food is hot when it comes out because it has to sit out while the others are ready – although they really try and do a darn good job of it actually.

Other random things: Hot Showers, eating anything you want, vegetables(we are trying to keep the parasites low so we are eating less veggies and even the kids are saying they miss them), things are so easy to get to back home, our gatherings on Sundays and our church, bathtubs, carpet and clean floors, ESPN and American Idol, ability to control the temperature, no fear of dusk and what it brings, being sick less, no mosquito nets, and clean bathrooms practically everywhere.

Completely silly and just for fun

The Storm really was amazing and we would not have seen it if we were staying at the hostel. Watch the response of the ladies about their nights sleep in the hostel:)

Scenes from Queen Elizabeth Park - this is not a zoo.

This enormous herd crossed our path at just the right time, the house is the hostel we abandoned after one long night, the boat ride was amazing, the lions were not in cages (trust me), the sunrise was perhaps the most beautiful few moments of my life, the sunset and the animals was breathtaking, and all in all it was a survey of God's splendor and his creative design - both unbelievable and worshipful.