You Are Asking - We Are Finally Answering!

A lot of you have asked questions about our home, our food, the people we are here to serve, etc. 

This is our attempt to answer you all:

1. We are in Kisoro, Uganda. It borders Rwanda and the District of Congo. We are in the middle of the Virunga mountain chain and have the gorgeous view of an inactive (supposedly) volcano. We live in a quaint tourist town. This is one of the last places that people can come and see mountain gorillas. No,  we unfortunately have not seen any primates since we have been in Africa, although we are keeping our eyes open for them. 

2. We are renting a home! We had three to choose from in the entire area. Only the wealthy have spare homes to rent. Apparently everyone who took the time and effort to build a hut decided they wanted to keep it for themselves and not have a guest house for random missionary mzungus (white people).! Who'd a thunk it? Ha! 

Our home is inside of a compound, or a family's yard that is surrounded by a large wall made out of volcanic rock. It is a completely cement building with two bedrooms!  We do have a small kitchen- meaning a room with a sink- and two bathrooms - meaning two toilets. Yes, we do have water that comes through pipes into the house. A water retention tank that is held about 15 feet in the air outside our home uses gravity to feed the water through the pipes.  There are no showers and no hot water. We boil water and mix it with sink water in a bucket to bathe. We also wash our clothes in buckets and hang them to dry. It's pretty sweet!!  We bought the hardest pieces of foam ever created to use as a mattress. We put it inside of our tent, which is inside our room and functioning as our mosquito net bed! It is absolutely perfect! 

Because of the high crime rates, nearly every home and business has metal bars on the windows and doors as well as high walls with either spikes, broken glass, or barbed wire on top. We do have the barred windows and doors! Our wall has nothing on top of it though because the people we are living with have two guard dogs (which, terrifyingly enough, had never seen white people and at night they circle our house). The guard dogs keep us much safer than anything on top of the walls ever could and we are thankful for them. No, we have never felt unsafe in Africa. Because we are white we are pretty bizarre, therefore, we are mostly just ogled at constantly. 

We have been cleaning, painting, and fixing up our rental home in the hope that when we leave, the family we are renting from will be blessed with a nice place that they can rent again for a higher price or use to give to others in the community. 

3. Yes, we are eating! Before we left the Kampala area we bought 2 enormous bags of rice that should last us months. We are buying our food from shops on the streets near our new home. For example: a few days ago we purchased 16 tomatoes, 5 onions, 16 bananas, 16 eggs, and a loaf of bread for just over $6 USA. (We actually kind of feel bad for you all not having access to these awesome, local, organic goodies at these prices.) No, we are not buying meat off of the side of the road. We actually don't have much access to protein. We have continued the Thursday night date tradition so we do go eat at a local tourist restaurant that is trustworthy. It has some pretty awesome hamburgers and cold colas. We drink a lot, A LOT of coffee! Their coffee is grown locally too and it is spectacular! We buy bottled water for drinking and brushing our teeth. We are also taking vitamins everyday to make sure we stay healthy. 

4. We are here to help serve the Batwa Pygmies. They have been relocated to Kisoro after being bullied in the District of Congo. They were given governmental housing inside the boarder of Uganda, however, they are a people group that were jungle natives. No one taught them not to have a fire inside a building so they burned down a lot of the housing. The other housing was fled because they were terrified of the sound of rain on the metal sheet roofs. They are also despised by the locals. There are some other details but the main point is that they are unreached and homeless. Our mission is to show them the redemptive grace that only comes from salvation through Christ. We hope to build disciples that build disciples. That is the point. Secondary to that, we want to partner with the Pygmies to help them build new homes for themselves and support one another as future brothers and sisters in Christ. We are also praying that from a transformation through Christ alone, the local community will see how incredible the change is in the Batwa Pygmies and desire a change toward Christ for themselves. 

5. No, we do not have a mailing address. They literally do not deliver any mail in this area. None. Our minds were blown too. 

6. What is it like? It's cold! Not what we really expected of Africa. The temperature is getting down to the mid 50's and it is rainy season. Sometimes it rains all day and all night. The area we are in is absolutely gorgeous; however, there is trash littering nearly every ounce of ground you can see. There are tons and tons of people and livestock everywhere you look! EVERYWHERE! A lot of tiny children just walk in the sides of the roads by themselves at all times of the day. The driving is as ridiculous as it is in other areas of Africa. It's terrifying to say the least. Unlike the areas near Kampala and Jinja, the people of Kisoro actually utilize the ground well to grow their own crops. On almost every hillside you can see lage squares from their agricultural pursuits! It is pretty neat! 

We know that many questions are probably still left unanswered but hopefully we put a dent in the amount!  If you have any questions that you just need answered that we did not cover - please ask!