Christmas

..21st today and as we sit in shorts and teeshirts, feeling a little warm, we have christmas carols on, with many singing of snow, chestnuts, donkeys etc....still a little difficult to feel that it is christmas with the weather being so good, but we try and keep our traditions up, advent calenders, christmas pudding, carols, mince pies...no turkey but i think it might be pork...which is roasted over an open fire! similar to the chestnuts?
on tuesday i am taking some of the young people to Luwero prison, we'll take some food, clothes etc and takes some time to display what christmas is all about, songs, skits etc...there will be lots of people about 180+ prisoners and there are normally overloaded , 35+ to a cell!!..
From the last Blog, Tony is now back in Luwero as we did not have enough money to continue the treatment, he is doing ok, and i will see him again this week.
.Happy Christmas and New Year

Uganda: Christmas 2008. After a fantastic time in England : friends, good food, hot baths, 24/7 electric, seeing family, smooth roads, and a family wedding….we are getting used to being back in our Ugandan home….boy it’s hot and so dusty…the heat is proving to be entertaining in our car as the windows don’t work… we can’t open them and so when sitting in traffic (which you do a lot in Kampala) we are drenched in sweat, or Steve is at least….how pleasant!? Kathryn loves school so much that she doesn’t just do it in the week, she leads the team which does Sunday school for the 6-13 year olds(about 80 of them!!).. Sitting under trees, doing everything in 2 languages, very little resources but the children are fun and it is lively!
It is so hot here but I like the feeling of being back and seeing my friends again, (Jensen, Ibra, Jeremiah, Sebufu). It was hard to come back and say bye to my friends in England. With Calvary family us as boys celebrated setting a new “bop it” team score……we danced in celebration. Banda School has started again, we made a circuit. I am getting used to school being just Anya and me with some interruptions from Silas. Joel

I am happy to be back seeing my Ugandan friends, but I do miss my English friends. I so loved going to school in Derby and wearing school uniform. I had a gr8 time in England seeing family and going to the beach. I like being back on my pink princess bike in shorts and tee-shirt….it is so hot but very nice…..Anya
Before we left for England, we had a young man, Tony, staying with us….Tony had been part of new Hope some years ago….He had been abusing drugs for a few years and was staying with us for help and support him but unfortunately this couldn’t work out long term .…the first week we were back Steve picked him up from prison in Luwero - he had been there for 2 months. We took him to a drug rehabilitation centre…this is proving to be very expensive and it looks like we will have to find another place, there are not that many options in Uganda….Tony is a young man crying out for help but going to the wrong places to find it, we pray and hope that he will find the peace and support he needs. We are involved in mentoring another young man, Moses, who was abandoned very young by his father and then over the following years by different father figures in his life. He is really struggling to relate to any father or authority figures and it is affecting every other area of his life…friendships, school, and family. Steve is meeting regularly with Moses to demonstrate positive Fatherhood and work through some of his difficulties.

This Christmas spare a thought for these 2 young men…

I am Loving the freedom of being outside, in just a nappy and sometimes not even that!! It’s Gr8 seeing Ava again. (They arrived at baby house same time and shared a cot together for the first 6 months) silas … ..We used to have 1 mop but after being back for only for a few days Steve used it as a defensive weapon, against a HUGE (6inch!!) snake, the snake and the mop are now both dead!! …As a family we love Christmas with all its trappings… especially as it reminds us how much God loves us all, may you experience that this Christmas…..have a great one and a Happy New Year. Thanks for all your love and support. Lots of love, Steve, Kathryn, Joel Anya, Silas.

browns@emcf.net blodsblog.blogspot.com +256774131671 (Steve) +256775669429 (Kathryn)
P.O. Box 16, Luwero, Uganda

..back..

..well after 12 weeks of lots of food, friends, excitement, good roads, etc we are back in sunny and hot Uganda...the last 3 months has been a ball, and thanks to all who fed and watered us, it was so cool to catch up with so many people. Joel and Anya loved being back at Emmanuel school, thanks to all the team there..

we all have lots of great memories from our time in UK, freezing cold water at the beach, fish and chips, weddings (brother), real ale, REM, ccd youth, FRIENDS, lots and lots of gr8 food and company, westfield centre in Derby, driving a volvo!school assemblies/lessons, silas loving baked beans and sausage and beans in a tin, McDonalds, etc....

Now we are back in some ways its like we have never been away...since we were away our wing mirrors were stolen, so driving once again in Kampala has been fun especially with the extra challenge of no mirrors!! Also all our wires in the drivers door were cut!! and that means we can't open the windows.....(the A/C doesn't work as well!) so lots of sweating in traffic !!(i still think that is preferable to being cold....just!).

Back to New Hope tomorrow, think we are ready...are they??

..house building

Orphans build houses for widows
Publication date: Sunday, 7th September, 2008



Orphans construct a house in Aweru Village, Amuria district
By Rehema Aanyu and Harriette Onyalla ORPHANS under the New Hope Uganda, a Luweero-based Christian non-governmental organisation, have built houses for widows in Amuria district. Jennifer Adit, a mother of six and a resident of Aweru village, was among the beneficiaries of the project. The youth use funds collected from bazaars, selling chapattis, soda, auctions and donations to fund the programme. Adit, 30, said her husband, Charles Ogwal, was killed by the LRA rebels in 2003. Since then, she has been living in Ojenit Internally Displaced People’s Camp with her children. “Even though we lack many things, I am grateful that we now have a house. I am very proud of it,” she said. For a week, a total of 45 orphans camped at Ojenit and donated stationery, clothes, shoes and sports gear to children orphaned by the LRA conflict and HIV/AIDS. James Kavuma, one of their leaders, said they were showing God’s love and mercy to the beneficiaries by sharing with them the little they have. “Because I am an orphan, I know what they are going through. We came together to encourage them to continue living, believing in God and not despair,” he said. Jonnes Twebaze, the coordinator New Hope Uganda, said apart from living and sharing with orphans and widows, they were also spreading God’s love. “At the end of it all, we are bringing hope to the hopeless and love and courage to those in despair,” he explained. The youth will also build homes for widows and orphans in Rakai and Gulu districts.

This was so exciting to read, this was in one of the national newspapers of Uganda (New Vision) about some of our children in New Hope, Very proud of them.

...UK

..hi there, well we've been back a month, during the summer!!! and we have only had 2 days of sunshine, but we made the most of it and swam in the sea and an outside pool!! it was sooo cold. had a great time with family and some friends who saw us (bowens, coopers, and lorna and ken) my brother got married which was excellent and particularly good for joel as they played MC Hammer at the disco!!..Now in Derby and it is great to see lots of friends and eat lots of food and spend lots of time talking and catching up, funny how you jsut slip into the old routine....hot water, very nice, good phone network and no popt holes all a joy......

..off we go

..well after months and months of trying to sort out different types of paperwork and collecting a variety of signatures, we finally have all the relevant paperwork for Silas, so we can now travel...we received the visa on Tuesday morning to great celebration and noise..think the people passing the car wondered what was happening and what all the noise was about.
So we leave here on Thursday (7th) and we are all very excited about it....the last 6 months has certainly been a trial and test of patience which we haven't always passed!!
the blog will continue over our time in UK, (hopefully) so don't go away..what are we looking forward to....nice cheese, friends, real ale, washing machines, friends, hot baths/hot water, friends, cricket on the tv, the cold(only joking!!), friends, etc...
see you soon

..water @ the equator

...Ok, the equator and water going down plug holes...does the water really go down the plug holes different ways down depending where you live, north or south of the equator, or even on it. Uganda is on the equator and at the equator they do a demonstration to show in the north it goes clockwise and in the south anti and on the equator straight down....and it really does!! so for you science people, is it true??(I never was very good at science!!)

...passport fun

passports are wonderful things, but sometimes boy the effort!!! the last few (6-8 months) has been the process of getting Silas a passport, he still needs a Ugandan one. Before you put an application in, you need signatures and letters from so many people (LC 1, 2, 3. Police(special Branch..is that the Sweeney?, probation etc...but before we could proceed we needed the court order..finally after 2 months that came through, and off we confidently went to the passport office, knowing we had everything we need......until we got there and were told we had 1 letter missing from a commissioner!!!! he wasn't in the office...over the last 2 weeks we have spent a lot of time in kampala and the passport office, kathryn went in for a day and ended up spending 2 nights....during this time she spent a lot of time waiting, waiting and......waiting until she was told they had lost the folder....you can imagine our thoughts....but with some help we managed to get a passport (HOORAY!!!!) kathryn even ended up in the strong room where they make them....so now his new passport is in the visa office, and should take 3-15 working days to process, hopefully not 15 as we plan to leave on 7 th August??!!

....hail..

you learn new things every day they say...well i think i always thought it didn't hail in Africa..but lo and behold last night we had one of the biggest storms i have ever seen and it sounded like stones hitting our tin roof and as you can imagine fairly deafening!! As you can see from the photo they were fairly large and i think probably hurt if they hit you on the head!!..off to court tomorrow to see if we can encourage the judge to sign the piece of paper....

e
well it's been ages, but yes we are all still here, and all alive and well, saw ben and ian the other day, thats for those who know them!. the last few weeks have busy with lots of things have been happening, a few week ago a double wedding which was lots of fun and very long, finally having lunch at 6pm!! one of the couples to marry were 2 former children of New Hope which was very cool. Next weekend is a 20 year celebration as New Hope has been caring for orphans for 20 years, so next weekend is a homecoming with all former children and staff coming to celebrate as one big family, should be fun...I have recently become the expert on Tug of war as we had Sports day at the primary school and i was judge and jury for the tug.....lets say very competitive`. even with one of the mums collapsing at the end of her team pull with over exertion!!
Even though the judge has approved the legal guardianship for Silas, we are still waiting for the paper!! we cannot get his passport without it..and we have booked our tickets back to the Uk, so lets hope and pray the judge gets a move on>>>>

...Hooray

Hooray........at last the judge has granted legal guardianship to us for Silas, which means, he is now officially a part of the family, he can go nowhere, as you can imagine we are very excited and now means we can all come back to England...well we can when the judge signs the paperwork....this is how it works, the lawyer talks to the judge, the judge gives the court order, the lawyer types it out, returns to the judge who reads it, gives it to the clerk, gives it to the lawyer who gives it to the judge....who signs it (hopefully!??) we were just about there, when the judge decided to go on holiday and so we are still waiting.......well its at least good for the patience.....but hopefully this week and then we can get his passport and look to come back in August....

well where has May gone, as a family and with the Investment Year students, we have been away for half of it...we had a great time, just very tiring, the first 4 nights we were in Jinja at a retreat centre, on the banks of the Nile and as you can see it had a trampoline which Jole and anya loved and with a fairly impressive backdrop of the Nile....there is a rumour that there is a picture of me on it, but unfortunately i don't have it!! the week was designed to give the young time to deal with hurt, pain and unforgiveness and to experience God as their Father, it was a good time for all....After we went up to Kobwin, near soroti, for those who know Uganda, to work with the small new hope team there, we are setting up a new childrens centre specifically for those children taken by the LRA during the war and working through the trauma as well as continuing the vision of Bringing the fatherhood of God to the fatherless. we went to weed the maise and to do some youth work in the afternoons....as you can see i look like an expert.....but looks can be deceiving! 5 hours of digging in the heat of the day...safe to say not the most fun i have had...in the afternoons we took on the local young people at sport, after losing narrowly to a controversial goal in football! we had a convincing 8-7 victory in the netball (golden goal decider)..it was great for us as a whole family to be able to go and for the kids to experience another part of Uganda,..drive home was alittle matter of a 10 hour epic, with the bus loaded up to the brim and even with a live chicken wandering around the back of the bus!!
all good fun and a great experience.....

..trip away

..still no news from the judge regarding silas, meant to have heard monday now told its tomorrow, friday!! we will see...well we are off for a week with the investment year students for 4 nights in a retreat in jinja "transformation of the heart" and then 4 nights in Kobwin in the north of Uganda, where we (new hope) has some land where we are constucting a childrens centre specifically for those children affected and traumatized by the war in the north...we are going to serve the team there by digging, weeding etc as well as do some children and youth work in the afternoons...last time we were there..we got about 200+....we are going as a family and the kids are very excited about going away with the "big young people"...so an early start tomorrow...and just to let you all know we will out of contact for a week....

....a tad warm!"

...well there i was last week thinking i was suffering from a little cold/flu, you know sweats/chills...(reminds me of a song..." i've got chills they're multiplying and i'm losing control....) on thursday after my own personal diagnosis was off, my temperature decided to climb to 108!! is that right? well it certainly felt that hot!! thought hey we are in Africa why not a malaria test and lo and behold yes it was....but before you can find that out, they need to get blood out of you!! we tried (kathryn and me) and both failed!! so our local clinic ma (Roger ) came and did the deed!!
The treatment consists of 6 tablets in one go and the 2 tablets for the next 4 days...those days being feverish, no appetite and banging head....better now, thankfully and it is certainly something i don't want again....well it took nearly 2 years for one of us to get it...

..school days

..maybe Anya is the next Monet? who knows? Joel and Anya continue to enjoy school and even though it is very different from their experience in England, they are more than used to Mum being teacher, head teacher, playground monitor, secretary, care taker etc..and interruptions from random birds, bugs, bats, people as well as if the wind in the wrong direction the distinctive aroma of the nearest latrine!! how nice is that? The other day we had a day learning about Maise and following the process from ploughing, planting, harvesting and then visiting our maise mill to see it turned into Posho, it was cool...on another note, we are in court with Silas on 14th, he hasn't done anything wrong, i don't think? it is for the next process of legal guardian ship and then adoption so we are very excited about that...maybe not about spending a whole day in court, waiting, waiting.........waiting............................................................................

.coach brown...

..hi all, once again a bit of delay in writing but here goes...Football here is just about the most popular thing in Uganda and here at New Hope the boys love it so we thought hey lets start some coaching..so thats what tim and i and have taken on, at the moment we have under 13's and over 17's and the secondary school team..next plans are to set up a 14-16 year old team..we have developed the field which we are very proud of and we also have nets...one of the biggest challenges is to keep the footballs in one piece, punctures are a common/daily occurence..big african thorns being the culprit..always looking for kit/shoes etc as most of the boys play with bare feet and are amazing with it!

..here they are...

..all well here...just thought i would put some pics of the chidlers ...as you can see all doing well..big news is that Silas is now walking (HOORAY)..now means his clothes will stay a little cleaner for a little longer!! Joel and Anya doing well and enjoying school. the head teacher is too!! ..well here are myh kids and they are great!!

...frog chorus

..hi all! the last couple of weeks have been so much fun as well as busy...P7 week has just finished, a youth week with our top of primary school (yr 7/8 in Uk) it a full on week og fun and games and challenges as well as having a theme, ours being 24/7...thinking about God being with us every minute of every day.. the young people are split into 4 teams who compete for everything...reds won!! we even had peop[le offering to clean for others people at 5.30am!!! thro the week i developed a throat infection and got the closest i have ever come to losing my voice...didn't lose it though, just croacked a lot which gave everyone great amusement. It really was a privilege to serve these young people, who made it a fantastic week.....

...bats & computers

..well it's been an age since i last posted...what can i say except computer problems and internet access has been a real nightmare..but we are now back on (hooray!).. one nightly event we have in our house during the night bis the pitter patter of tiny feet....no its not another baby, but the sound of bats (running) in our roof space...yes i didn't know bats ran i thought they flew!! but bats it is and 2 intrepid adventurers (silver and moses) entered to take on the bats...and ultimately to win....i think they were about 20+ of them...The approach seemed to be to hit them hard and hope you kill them or at least knock them out, while this was happening the other bats were trying to escape...all done i a small space under iron sheets in the heat of the day...one way to spend a Saturday.....

...life begins @....

....so they say that life begins at a certain age!! well i have now reached that magic number...40!! difficult to believe and also a little scary, so on my big day thought i would try and hold on to my youth by playing on Joels game boy, playing frizbee, watching movies and eating chocolate...maybe it's not so bad being 40 after all...i wonder if i can do that all year?..Kathryns dad is with us here at the moment and the 3 kids are really enjoying him, he likes to do some practical work while he is here...think he despairs of my tool box, which has to be the smallest in the world....with very little if nothing in it!!?? well it has screw drivers, string and super glue and a hammer..i've always found that is enough for me....nothing wrong with a bit of brute force and ignorance..
...well here's to us 40 year olds and a whole new life beginning....(wonder what i've been doing for the last 40 years???

..new year

..well 2008 has started in style here in Uganda, with a fuel crisis due to the Kenya situation...the other day we were coming back to kampala from the far west of Uganda, and it had just been announced that there was very little if any fuel...we had over 250 miles to travel and less than a 1/4 of fuel left!! every petrol station was empty so we ended up buying on the black market 60 litres of fuel at double the price (5,000/litre instead of 2,200/litre!!)..well at least we weren't stranded!!...Even though its a little in convenient for us our thoughts are with those in Kenya, friends and family and hope and pray that peace comes quick..
Happy new year to all....