At the end of September we carried out a medevac from Matany in Northern Uganda for International Hospital Kampala.
Moses had been involved in a motorbike accident in which he sustained head injuries and needed urgent medical attention.
Pilot, Dave Rogers helped load him onto the plane so he could be brought back to Kampala and quickly receive the treatment he desperately needed that was not available in the small hospital at Matany. He also received a quantity of blood that we had transported up to Matany hospital earlier in the week. Moses was unconscious and in Intensive Care for a couple of weeks but last week was released from hospital and is making a good recovery.

The year is flying by and Christmas is fast approaching. Normally I bake my Christmas cake in September so with October  almost over I decided I needed to get baking…

For those not from the UK, the traditional Christmas cake is a very rich fruit cake which tastes best if baked a couple of months before you want to eat it .  That takes a bit of planning in the Uk.  Here in Uganda I also have to ask visitors to bring some of the ingredients out for me so I need to get planning even earlier !

Joshua struggled with the whole concept of baking a cake but not eating it, so we all baked some buns/cup cakes too. You can never have too much cake…

Occasionally we have a week or two when we have no scheduled maintenance – but don’t worry there is always plenty to do!!! Recently I have been working on a couple of projects. One is to build an Oxygen Cart. This will carry four oxygen cylinders and an oxygen booster that will enable us to keep the Cessna Caravan’s oxygen system filled more efficiently – but more about that in a later update!

The other project was to build a Generator Control Unit (GCU) Test Box. A GCU is a ‘box of tricks’ that controls the electrical charging system on the Cessna Caravan. The test box that I made enables us to fault find the entire system just by plugging in the box. As you can see there are a lot wires in there – thanks to my BAE System’s apprenticeship for teaching me to solder!!!

Many of you will have received MAF UK’s recent letter appealing for help with fuel costs due to rising aviation fuel prices. Rising prices have forced MAF Uganda to increase fares this year. Such increases can seriously affect the ability of some of our mission partners to afford to fly with MAF to the remote and difficult to reach areas where they serve.

Worldwide, MAF is having to make some difficult financial decisions, partly because of rising fuel costs but also because many of MAF’s donors have also reduced their contributions because of the present economic situation.

We wanted to take this opportunity to ask you to pray for wisdom for the leadership of MAF who are having to make important decisions at this time.

We also wanted to write and say a special thank you to each of you for supporting us through your prayers and finances at this time. We know that for some of you it is a real sacrifice but we pray that God will bless you for partnering with MAF in this way. We pray that God, our provider will raise up people who wish to support individuals, like us who are serving with MAF or give to MAF in other ways.

I guess we all have weeks where the stresses of life seem to be too much for us.  I had one of those weeks last week.

Nothing major, it has just been a busy period with visitors, work, family demands and dealing with fumigators to get rid of the bats in the roof !  Yes, bats - they look cute but they are noisy, smelly and attract the insect I hate most - cockraoches!

Satan is very good at attacking us in subtles ways though.  Last week, we also found out that a substantial amount of money had been stolen from our bank account by fraudulent means.  I just felt so drained and frustrated.

I am so grateful for the promises in his Word.  He never tests us beyond that which we can handle and He is always there for us. I have just started a new Bible study with the other MAF wives on the book of Philippians - I love Gods timing.  It is one of my favourite books of the Bible and in it Paul commands us to “Rejoice in the Lord always” yes always! “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”. There is always plenty to rejoice in.  As I started to focus on those things instead of the things of this world that so easily clutter my mind life became a whole lot brighter.

When you think of us right now please pray that the situation regarding the stolen money would be resolved.  Also pray that on a daily basis we would know Gods will - that we would do those tasks that God wants us to do and that we would not be easily distracted by the many things that can make us too busy.

baby Sarah

This year our home has felt a little like a nursery at times.  In January my househelp Margret had a baby girl, Megan who she now brings to work with her each day.  Joshua adores Megan and while it does make the house very busy I have felt it is important for mum and baby to be together as long as they need to be breastfed.

So many babies do not make it to their fifth Birthday in Uganda and often because of poor healthcare and hygiene.  If babies are left in the care of someone else they are usually fed cows milk as formula is too expensive.

Because Margret was trying to care for her baby and work at the same time, I hired Harima to also work part time.  In June I had a surprise when Harima announced that she was 7 months pregnant!  Harima had a difficult few months as her husband left her when he heard the news.  She is not a Christian but I have had a few opportunities to pray with her and we were all excited when her new baby girl arrived on 24th August.

In Uganda a baby is often named after someone the parents honour or respect.  I was therefore very touched when Harima named her baby girl after me, Sarah.

I am writing to ask you to remember me in prayer over the coming weeks.   I believe I am one of two qualified Speech and Language Therapists here in Kampala.  I have limited my work to Rainbow school because of family and MAF commitments. However, every now and then the Lord leads someone else my way.

This was the case last week when a missionary family working in a remote area of north eastern Uganda called me asking for help.  They were concerned about their daughters speech development and had been praying that God would lead them to a Speech Therapist in Uganda if possible.  They drove five hours to Kampala in order for me to assess their three year old girl - the NHS is not so bad after all!!!

This little girl has quite severe difficulties.  Please pray for me as I teach her parents to understand her specific needs and carry out therapy with her (5 hours is a little far for weekly therapy appointments). Remember her parents as they try to absorb a lot of new information and learn to carry out therapy.  Pray that this little girl would do extremely well and make really good progress.

Also thank the Lord that he puts us each in specific places at just the right time so that His name can be glorified.

On 7^th August Mark & I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. As I looked back I realised how much we have done in the past nine years. There are so many happy memories but also some difficult times as well. In each memory I can see Gods blessing, grace and faithfulness to us individually and as a couple.

Mark has always been really good at remembering special occasions and I received a wonderful bouquet of flowers. When I explained to Amy what they were for she got so excited about the fact that we are married. She ran off and put on her ‘princess’ dress and wanted a photo of herself with the flowers; “Just like mummy and daddy’s married photo” she said.

We celebrated our anniversary with a weekend away in the crater lake region of western Uganda.  Some good friends kept the children and we had a really relaxing time. A highlight of the trip was an afternoon chimpanzee trek in the Kibale forest, when we were fortunate enough to watch a whole group of chimpanzees in the wild for an hour.  An anniversary to remember!

Recently I got the opportunity to visit the MAF program in Juba, Sudan.

The program bought a large generator here in Kampala. Rather than transport it by truck and risk damaging it, we decided to disassemble the generator in order to transport it by MAF aircraft.

This is where I came in. I worked with Aaron (a Canadian guy helping out short term in Kampala & Juba) to disassemble the generator and prepare it for transportation. Loading it was quite an event, requiring careful planning that the floor loading of the aircraft wasn’t exceeded, even disassembled the actual engine/generator assembly still weighed 780kg’s (1,719 lbs).

Two days later Aaron & I arrived - our mission; to reassemble!

The reassembly went very well with most of it being completed in the first afternoon. The generator’s final resting place, a concrete pad, was still to be completed, so onto mixing cement!!!

By the time I left the generator had been run, most of the concrete had been laid, the Canon’s generator next door had been wired in and a burglar bar designed for some of the houses windows.

It’s always great to get to see another program and have the opportunity to get to know the team. The MAF Sudan program is especially interesting because of the relative newness of the program. Their work differs from MAF Uganda’s, in that there is no a/c maintenance performed there yet. But there is tons of work to do organizing, developing and securing the compound. In the near future the program will hopefully have an aircraft based there that they will operate themselves. Exciting times!!!

Whilst there, I was also taken on a tour of Juba. It is an interesting place with few tarmac roads. The poverty of people struggling to exist and the clash of ‘high end’ 4×4’s being driven around seemed to stand out more than in Kampala. It is a wonderful country which really needs peace and stability after many years of turmoil.

One of the delights of being a parent is watching our children learn to talk.

Most days they say something which makes us smile.

Joshua is more of a doer than a talker.  He only has about ten words which include important vocabulary like ‘aeroplane’ and ‘car’.   Our favourite and his most useful word is ‘Amen’.   We would like to tell you that our son is a very spiritual child but unfortunately that is not the case.  Amen can mean a multitude of things such as ‘I’m hungry’, ‘give me food’, ‘ make the food come quickly please’ and ‘It must be time  to eat soon’. You never knew one word could be so useful, did you!!!

Amy, on the other hand is the one who make my ears sore by the end of the day.

Last week Mark decided it was time to teach her the phonetic alphabet.  After all, she is growing up in an environment surrounded by aviation.  It started well, with Amy repeating after Mark; ‘alpha’, ‘bravo’, ‘charlie’. At this point Amy shouted ‘ooh, Charlie & Lola’, which is a favourite cartoon show.  Mark laughed so hard that they never did get as far as ‘delta’.

Over the years some of you have given monetary gifts for us to spend on the children.  There is little we can buy for them here so instead we saved the money and recently built a climbing frame in the garden.  They love to go out and play on it, so thank you.

Children on climbing frame

Generator for Juba

A generator has been purchased in Uganda for the MAf team in Juba, Sudan. It has been disassembled in our hangar and will be flown this weekend to Juba and then reassembled in a building (which is currently under construction).
Pray for this process. Mark has been involved in dissassembling the generator and will go up to help build it again. More news and pics to follow.  Also remember Sarah at home with the children and pray that all will run smoothly there too.