At my school there’s two friends that are in the same class as me. There’s another two friends in another class. There’s ten kids in the team. One goes to the school where my Dad will teach. It’s fun, I think, to be a missionary kid. My good friends in Uganda are Lianna, Louisa, Acacia and Julie. I know all the people on the team, it’s really fun there for the things I like to do. I like to ride my bike, play outside, do lots of other things. I can’t explain them right now, it’s too busy. And my best friend and me and my other friends will get to play every day there I think. We’ll have bike races and bury treasure and dig it out again and make treasure maps all the time. It’s very fun in Uganda. I wish I was there right now. It’s so fun, I really want to be there. And I hope we have a fun time in Uganda and please pray for us that we’ll have a good time in Uganda and be safe. I hope you have a nice time while we’re gone and you call us a lot.

In 2006, on April 4th, it was my birthday. I was turning six. So, it was really fun at my birthday in Colorado. I had so much fun at MTI, I got to meet lots of new friends there like Joy, Emma and Becket and Alexis and Mila and Katie and Annie and Joy’s little brothers.

In Uganda it will be jungly and we’ll go over the Mountains of the Moon and we’ll go into Kampala which is the city and it’s going to be really fun there in Uganda because I will always be making new friends of the people who are there.

by Naomi, typed, un-edited, by her mom

Working hard towards our quickly approaching move, towards deployment,
towards a better understanding of the culture we approach, towards getting
the word out to others about what God is doing. Working on communicating.
Working on friend-raising as we fund-raise. Working on leaving memories of
ourselves with others and making memories of others as we walk through these
final months here. Working on the dirty must-do’s that make up an
international move to a third world culture.

Waiting on God, on what He wants us to learn, on what He wants us to do, on
His timing. Waiting on funds, waiting on schedules and timelines. Waiting
for doctors appointments, for counseling sessions, for replies to our
questions. Waiting for time to work, waiting for clarity, waiting for
things to become clearer, for a better picture of when/what/how. Waiting to
be “in the know” on God’s exact plan. Okay, so it’s not going to happen . .
. Doesn’t mean we’re not waiting for it!

Watching . . . . For “God-sightings”, for “God-bumps” on our skin, for what
amazing and ordinary things He will do next. Watching for Him in the midst
of the working and the waiting. Watching.

We arrived home late Friday night and spent Saturday sleeping in, having endless fun picking out our OWN food at the grocery store (the kids have never before begged to go grocery shopping!) and enjoying a barbeque with friends.

Sunday at church I was amused to find people asking what I was doing home, since my blog had said nothing about coming home!! So here it is folks, a few days late. We were so grateful for the hugs and smiles from so many at church, some we never remember having met before. Going to church felt like returning home and we praised God for it.

Now it is, Tuesday, my birthday. I feel I have yet to accomplish anything significant since our return home. We are resting, mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally. And we need it. We still have lots to do before we head off for Uganda, but somehow it all will get done. The best thing we can do is to stay calm and focused on relationships with Him and with others.

Coming back we are filled with mixed feelings. We feel very much in transition, but have no idea how long this will really last. We are hoping to deploy at the end of June but have such a significant amount of money still needed. We have our house to sell and one car - both promised to buyers already. We have lots more that needs to be packed up, or given away, or carefully stored. We have list upon list to make to determine what will be coming with us, then more shopping and packing.

We know God is telling us to focus on relationships, to make time for each person who crosses our path for they are divine appointments. We know that getting the word out about what He is doing is presently our biggest task. And that our purpose is to continue to immerse ourselves into the people He has given us to minister to right here, right now; be they friends, relatives or neighbors. Some who know the Lord and some who don’t.

We are deeply peaceful and pray that God will continue to give us rest in Him and grace for each day; not looking towards the future, but knowing our needs for today have already been met.

We spent the day looking at lifestyle choices that missionaries make and followed that up by talking about stress.

Lifestyle choices: this includes everything from what you wear, to what you eat, to how much of the language you learn, what you house looks like, etc. What a sticky issue. There are few “right” answers. With the myriad complications added by crossculturation, much prayer and insight of the Holy Spirit is needed.

Then we were amazed to learn the levels of stress that most missionaries live with. We took something called the Homes Rhees scale for measuring stress. Scores above 300 on the test indicate a severe level of stress with an 87% chance of contracting a serious medical condition within the year due to the stress. We were informed that most on-field missionaries who are tested with this scale score between 800-1000. Wow.