Living Room!

We have the beginnings of a living room! Many thanks to Imago Dei’s Global Mission fund for some extra money this month, enabling us to make the trip to Uganda we’d hoped to take in June and buy some living room furniture and a bed for Innocent, who’s coming to visit next month.  

(I had a photo of our furniture to put here, but I can't find the cord that connects the camera to the computer. Too bad...it was going to be a rare photographic insight into our life here!)

It may not seem like living room furniture is particularly missional, but I’ll tell you, in Africa, it is. Hospitality is such an important part of life here, and until now, we simply couldn’t have anyone to the house, even for a chat, because there was nowhere but the kitchen or bedroom to invite them into. Both these locations are problematic culturally. In Luo culture, it’s very much not done to invite a visitor to hang out in your kitchen, so my only visitor thus far has been a young co-worker of Fred’s named Goodluck. He’s from a different tribe which doesn’t have such stipulations against sitting in kitchens. Actually, his being from a different tribe and excellent English are two factors that have made us friend-ish. I think he often feels as much an outsider in Shirati as I do, since neither of us speaks the Luo language.

Our plans for the coming weeks are such:
21st July – Travel to Nairobi
22nd – 23rd July – Nairobi, visiting with some of Fred’s family and Edwin’s family
24th July – Travel to Kampala
25th – 26th July – Kampala, meeting up with Mama Susan, Tim Bata, and Jaclyn Konczal
27th July – Travel to Kisumu and Sindo
28th – 29th July – Sindo, picking up Innocent and Dadi (Inno’s cousin)
30th July – Return to Shirati with the two boys
Inno and Dadi are going to stay with us for several weeks in August, after we return them to Sindo, we’ll travel to Dodoma for a week or so.