Pictures from Safari

Picture #1:  We had just returned from dinner after a day in the car traveling around the park and looking at animals when these two warthogs walked up.  We watched them from our porch for over an hour before they left to find other food.  They are great at mowing the lawn.  They walk on their front legs bent on their knee so they can almost crawl and eat grass and a decent pace.  We were all amazed they were this comfortable with us after seeing them on safari and having them run off as soon as we pulled up in the car.

Picture #2: This is a close-up of the warthog at our doorstep.  Literally the kids were just feet away from them.  Joshua ran after one to pet him and Uncle PK went out and grabbed him a foot away from the hog!  Thank God for Uncles!

Picture #3: This is a herd of elephants that we saw on the shore of Lake George in the evening getting cool.  We saw many elephants on safari and literally you would b driving on a game trail and an elephant would step out and start eating tree leaves!  This herd was rather large and just getting water in the afternoon heat before heading back out to the Savannah.  I have video of a couple of the teenage elephants having a pushing match with their tusks to prove who is boss.  How are we different from elephants again?

Picture #4:  This is a herd of Cape Buffalo getting cooled off in the water.  They are extremely dangerous animals who will charge you if you get close.  We were approximately 100 feet from this herd on a boat, so you can see the "stink eye" you can see we are getting from the lead men in the herd that put themselves at the head of danger from the crocodile for the sake of the herd.  Don't you love chivalry?

Picture #5:  The nile croc, need I say more.  This is the world's largest croc!  They grow to almost twenty feet long and can easily take down one of the Cape Buffalo or most any other animal that gets close to the shore of the Nile.  This one is close to the source of the Nile and is much smaller than it's relatives that grow larger down stream.  At the head of the Nile they eat mostly fish and grow bigger and stronger as they go down stream.  This croc is approximately 12 feet and is cooling himself by keeping his mouth open.  It is awesome to see only a few feet away.  It is better than a defibrillator!

Picture #6:  The hippo!  This animal is responsible for more human deaths in Africa than any other animal!  It is an amazing creature!  Every night the hippo leaves the water to go eat grass, and will travel 45 kilometers and then return to the water in the late morning/early evening to cool off from the heat.  If you are unfortunate enough to get in between the water and a hippo, or a baby hippo and a mother hippo, you are in trouble!  They can run faster than people can and the strength of their jaws is enough to snap a person in two!  They are incredibly humbly beasts, and a reminder that our God has a sense of humor!  How can an animal that funny looking, that fat and that weird, be so fast, agile and aggressive?  What an animal!

Picture #7:  This is obviously a picture of our five kids.  It is taken in one of the last sets of elephant tusks that were legally allowed to be taken from an elephant.  It is sad that the elephant was killed for these tusks, but terrific that people, though as sinful as we may be, can look past profits to see that is better to keep the elephant alive and save a future one from being killed for the sake of his tusks!  They make more money on tourism to see the live elephant, than from the hunters who come to kill them, or the black-market value for ivory from the tusk.  Praise God!!!

Picture #8:  This is a picture of the patriarch Baboon from a herd of the that we stumbled upon.  He was in the road blocking his extended family from danger as his lineage ate leaves in the tree and went on with life.  Incredibly intelligent animals and extremely fierce, you simply look into their eyes and know there is something more going on inside them.  I have plenty of video of their behavior which is intimidating and incredible at the same time if that makes sense.  I promise more when we get home, thank you for all your prayers and thoughts.

R & H + 5

Back to Kampala, Sorry for Delay

Okay so here is what happened... Uganda is having their elections for President next year and right now they have just finalized their final 8 candidates for election.  That finalization of their primaries sparked an impromptu meeting of all high courts to discuss potential fall-out and changes.  That made all court hearings on Tuesday (our scheduled day) get delayed until Wednesday.  To make the plot thicken our assigned judge is in her late sixties and has had a stroke in recent years that has left her with debilitating right side paralysis.  The way their system works is every four to six years a judge is rotated from each division in which they served within their court system.  Our judge has been serving in the "Family Court" division for almost twenty years because of her stroke and proximity to care!  If you ca believe this, after twenty years they have decided to re-assign her to another division of court starting November 1st.  What that means is that she was unwilling to see new cases within her court that would require her to conduct work beyond that Nov. 1st deadline.  Now to the God part... She initially refused to see our case and wanted us to be re-assigned to another judge which meant to us another two to three weeks, just for a court date (another 3 weeks of paperwork after that!).  Our lawyer, a christian man in his early forties with a son about Joshua's age, pleaded with the judge to hear and rule on our case without re-assignment.  His pleading work and not only did she hear and rule on our case on Wednesday, she gave her short ruling before 5 pm that day (usually takes 3-7 days) and will give us her long ruling (usually another 7-14 days) by Monday November 1st!!!  After the short ruling you are allowed to proceed with US Embassy paperwork for VISA (which we did Wed. afternoon) and begin requesting for a health physical (scheduled for Monday), passport pictures (done Wednesday) and ministry of gender letter (scheduled for next week).  All told God shortened this trip tremendously by re-assigning our judge and giving us Isaac as our attorney!  To celebrate we scheduled an impromptu safari to Queen Elizabeth National Park.  The downside was a 9 hour drive with 10 people in a mid 1980's caravan complete with crazy roads with pot-holes, 5 children and ants all over the seats (you do the math).  The park was amazing and we saw incredible amounts of cool animals that could kill and eat you if they wanted to just a few feet away from us (all on video for those interested).  There are too many stories to share of that adventure to spell them all out here (bats above doorway to room, beetles the size your hand, mongooses, chasing baboons, warthogs within two feet of our room).  We have most on video or pictures and can't wait to share them with you. 

Joshua has not missed a beat.  I mean this without exaggeration that this young man was made for our family.  He is gregarious, kind, out-going, fun loving, rolls with all the changes and is an endless source of smiles for all of us.  Blessed be the name of our Lord!!  More to share, but all is wonderful for a family of seven plus three in a hotel room in Kampala.

Today we went to church at Watoto.  I wish I had words to describe the spiritual experience we all had.  My chest was ready to explode from the Holy Spirit within.  All I could think of was when the Pharisees asked Jesus to quiet the crowd and He simply said, "If they were to be silenced, the stones would cry out."  Watoto church has 8 places of worship (churches) within the surrounding Uganda country.  Each church has two services on Saturday and five services on Sunday.  Each service has roughly one thousand people jammed into the building for worship.  That is 56,000 individual people each weekend.  It was nothing short of life changing.  They had a guest pastor from London who was incredible and inspiring.  We were all covered in sweat and tears from the service from all the dancing and singing and preaching.  The Holy Spirit is alive and well in Uganda!

Tomorrow we will take Joshua for his visa physical.  We are trying to secure a visit to the Watoto village for tomorrow afternoon and tour one of their facilities where they care for the orphans by sending them to school all the way through university.  At Watoto church today as we were worshipping we noticed that the woman who stayed at our house a couple of years ago, was one of the worship leaders on the stage singing.  We got to meet her again, coupled with hugs and tears and would you believe she remembered every one of our names and knew things about us and our church and home that I could not believe she could remember!  Our God is BIG!! and our planet is small.

We are trying to arrange a trip to the source of the Nile River and a trip to really cool waterfall!  More on this later.  I will post some pictures once I get them downloaded on the computer.  We can feel the presence of your prayers through the Holy Spirit, please do not relent until we get home!

quick update ;)

Hello from the other side of the world!  I apologize that I have not updated in several days… We need to get ready for church so I will do a more thorough update this afternoon. But here is a rundown of the happenings since the last update.

Went to court on Wed morning… went off without a hitch!

The Judge told us she’d get us the piece of paper that is needed to make any further progress, that afternoon! (an unbelievable turnaround!)

We went to the US Embassy to get the list of “to-do’s”

Got Joshua’s passport photos taken.

Came back to the hotel and met with a woman about the in-laws going on a 3 day safari

Decided we would regret if all we ever saw of Africa was the city, so at the last minute decided to take the kids and go on a safari in Queen Elizabeth’s National park with the entire family, and leave in a matter of hours!

Packed for 7 people for a 3 day trip in the middle of Africa.

Brought the computer so I could update when we got to the park.

Drove 8 ½ hours in an ant and roach infested non air-conditioned van with no seat belts, no A/C, and my children on laps!

Seriously questioned my sanity.

Got to the Lodge and unloaded the sticky troops & tried to log on to update ya’ll.

It dawned on me that we were in the middle of the Savannah and that internet access was really not an option.

Saw incredible African wildlife and landscape.

Drove 8 ½ hours back to the hotel, in the same character building vehicle.

Crashed in our beds like you can’t believe!

And here we are… now ready to go get my children ready for church.

I’ll fill in more later.

Love you all!!!!!!!!!!

I love you

I woke early this morning (4:00 am) to the sound of Joshua yelling “Jacoba” in his sleep.  Fortunately everyone else slept through it and all is quiet on the home front now.  But I lay there unable to go back to sleep wondering what he yelled out.  95% of the time he speaks  Lugandan, but he understands most English. (we just have to remember to speak slowly, because although he is used to English, it is with with a thick Ugandan accent).  Anyway I lay there wondering what did he just say, is he o.k.? What was happening in his little brain while he sleeps, how was his subconscious processing all that is happening to him? He seems to be doing remarkably well and adjusting with few bumps in the road. But he must have so many questions that he is unable to articulate. We are praying that God gives him a peace that surpasses all understanding during this transition.  

My first words to him at the orphanage were “I love you” and we have all repeated those words to him a million times a day.  I am not sure if he knows what we are saying but he is hearing it ALL THE TIME.  Last night while we were cooking dinner he popped his head in the kitchen and yelled “Mama!” and then as soon as I look over, he hid behind the door laughing in hysterics.  He wanted to play peek a boo and it was game on!  He’d peek around the corner yell “Mama!”, I’d gasp in surprise  and yell back with a big smile “I love you!”, hiding and hysterics to follow each time… that is until he peeked his head around the corner and yelled “Mama! I love you!”  My gasp of surprise was 110% genuine this time  as I got on my knees, grabbed him in my arms, and with tears in my eyes, I kissed his face and said “I love you too baby.”  Now, it was clear that I had abruptly put a stop to one of the most exciting games of all time and the look on his face said “are you done? Cuz I’d like to get back to the business of our game now.”   Although I know very well that he had no idea what he was saying to me, he said it nonetheless, “mama, I love you.” and it was amazing to hear!  That moment will forever be etched in my heart. 

Now about 20 min later he toddled back into the kitchen where Nana and I were cooking and touched the knobs on the stove.  I said “No touching Joshua. Owie!”   He laughed and did it again.  I firmly said it again “No Joshua!” and I pointed to the knob.   He laughed hesitantly and touched it again.  Much firmer I said “No touching Joshua. No No.” Then he looked at me with such determination in his eyes, as if to say “Bring it lady! I plan to win this battle” and reached out and touched it again. I wanted to stop and explain that he has 4 older siblings who have tried this and failed each time.  They all have wills of iron and yet mommy and daddy’s wills are always stronger.  I wanted to say “Sweet boy, you can attempt to overpower and bully your parents but you will never win.  Therefore, life would be significantly easier if we could just establish right now that we are in charge and avoid any future battles.”  But unfortunately he is 2 years old and too much would be lost in translation anyway.  So I attempted the next best solution.  I grabbed his hand that was touching the stove and squeezed it.  I looked him in the eye, not 3 inches from his face, and again firmly said “No.”   What happened next reminded me of those little handheld toys that I got as a child. You know the ones where you push the button under the standing animal and the whole thing collapses at every joint. And as soon as you release the button the animal springs back into its original form.  Remember those?  Well, that was my son, a pile of collapsed limbs on the floor, like a mess of Jello, wailing at the top of his lungs.  I thought “Well, looks like the honeymoon is over.  Here we go!”  (note: we allow our children to be sad and disappointed when they are punished, who wouldn’t be?  But they are not allowed to throw tantrums and collapse in the middle of the room to scream at the injustice if life.)  All I could see was a little mini Nelly Olson on the floor (minus the blond ringlets) and I said “Not my child”. So I scooped him up and put him on a chair in the other room and walked away.  More wailing followed, which again, is illegal in our house because the intent is to punish others by making them uncomfortable by your screams.   I gave him a minute to try and control himself, but as the screams got louder I went back in and said “Enough.”  He instantly stopped crying and I squatted down with open arms.  He hesitantly came to me and I kissed him on the cheek and said “I love you Joshua, no touching the stove.” He looked at me with a huge grin and hugged my neck.  We were friends again and it was a fairly quick lesson on “who’s the boss”.  A few minutes later he came back into the kitchen and pointed at the knobs on the stove and said “No.”  I smiled and said “Good boy, no touching.” He smiled with pride and the he was off to play with his siblings.   Oh, if only it could be this easy 14 years from now! 

              

Take 2

Well, we are in Africa.  We were told before we leftto expect delays and just embrace the laid back culture.  We went to court today for our scheduled appointment at 10 and were told we need to come back tomorrow. No one seemed to blink an eye or have any concern so we will follow suit. We are going to head to the market this afternoon and experience that side of this beautiful culture! 

more precious faces

We are off to court this morning but I wanted to share a few pictures before we head off.  Love you all!!!

Pictures of our first meeting

The top picture is the first time Heather held Joshua, words cannot describe what a picture shows.  The second picture is a car that I (Russ) brought for him because I was told he liked cars.  His smile confirmed it.  The third picture is about 3 minutes after Heather first held Joshua and another little boy named Mitshuna (sp?) asked me if I would hold him (extremely outoing and gregarious, an amaizing little boy, I wanted to take them all home).  The 4th picture is of Joshua doing his school dance.  Everyday at school they sing a little song welcoming everyone to school and during that song Joshua created this little dance and then everyone else does it.  The dance will live on with his legacy at Open Door Orphanage.  The fifth picture is of Joshua playing with his car on my leg.  Joshua is extremely intelligent (they nicknamed him the professor), he is pensive, organized and often very serious.  When he is uncomfortable he bottles up and has a very concerned look on his face.  On the flip side he is the life of the party, extremely extroverted and comic relief when he is comfortable with you.  This picture of him running the car on my leg is after about fifteen minutes of him taking a more "serious" approach to my presence and I got him to feel comfortable and play with me.  The 5th picture is of our family the first day together, about 4 hours after first meeting and on our way to dinner.  I wish I had words to describe the experience.  The only common words I know to share is that we have a big God, and our hearts were sewn together even before we each entered to world.  The Koehler family is finally complete!  More pictures coming later, and I am sure that Heather will be back on soon for more updates.