Today was a very significant day in the life of Henry, the Uganda boy I met during my first trip to Uganda. Today, the national test results were released – Uganda’s version of the SAT. Before getting to the results, here is a quick primer on the Ugandan school system: Children start school in Uganda […]
As many of you know, I am involved to some degree in two appellate cases currently pending before the Ugandan Court of Appeals. I have previously written about Henry’s case and that of Sara and Andy Ribbens. With respect to the first case, Henry is a boy I first met during my initial visit to […]
On Sunday morning, we got up early enough to attend the 8:00 a.m. worship service at Watoto Church, and then headed to Jinja for the day. While Jinja is the seventh most populace city in Uganda, it is the second largest commercial area. Its attraction, however, is neither its population nor its commerce, but rather […]
It doesn’t take particularly good vision to see the undertaker’s gravedigger busily excavating a place for the American newspaper business in the graveyard of history next to the plots occupied by the payphone, the VCR, and the 8-track player. Modern technological advances assure that change is the only thing constant in this world. At least […]
After a full day of running various magical retrieval-of-lost-computer-files programs on Wednesday in an attempt to retrieve all of my data files that had been accidentally deleted by his colleague, the Ugandan court IT wizard informed me that he had some good news and some bad news. Some sayings are apparently universal. The good news […]
While still a bit jetlagged, I was eager to get started working on the various projects that brought me to Africa in the first place. We had previously decided that Joline and the kids would wait until next week before beginning their visits to the orphanages and the juvenile prison, but that I would go […]
We crawled into bed at around 2:30 a.m. on Friday evening/Saturday morning hoping that our erratic and poorly planned sleep-catching on the way over wouldn’t doom us to a long adjustment period. Joline and Joshua were up by 7:00, while Jessica, Jennifer, and I slept in until around 9:00. A bit about our accommodations — […]
The day we have been anticipating for more than a year finally arrived. We had very much enjoyed the three weeks since we left Southern California, but our collective sense of anticipation had been building and we were eager to begin the African phase of this sabbatical. Joline artfully quarterbacked the final two days of […]
Answers to prayers come in many shapes and forms – sick people are healed, loneliness is alleviated, jobs are secured, those in harm’s way are protected, etc. More often than not, God uses people to deliver these answers – doctors administer treatments, new friends enter our lives, others come to our rescue, etc. Occasionally, we […]
Kids are impressionable. They come into the world with virtually no preconceived notions about anything. Most of what they learn originates from their parents; most of what they learn early lasts a lifetime. Accordingly, parents bear a heavy responsibility for teaching their children the difference between right and wrong, and teaching them to love and […]
