Many of you have been with our family from the very start of this journey to Uganda, but others have joined after we moved here. Some people have not seen photos of our home, our town, Adalyn’s school, and the mission property in Mbale, Uganda. This post is for YOU! I want to give you an update of everything, so maybe it will help you visualize when we talk about our life and ministry.

We live at the foothills of Mount Elgon, under a ridge known as Mount Wanale. We have spectacular views of sunrises, sunsets, and waterfalls when walking or driving through our neighborhood and town. It is easy to sing God’s praises when we look at THIS every day!

We live in Mbale City, which is a great place (Leland’s favorite city in all of Uganda). The city center – where are all our shopping takes places – is relatively similar to small cities in Texas. There are banks, small grocery stores, an open-air market for fruits/veggies, video stores, pharmacies, restaurants, photo/print shops, electronics and appliance stores, fabric stores, and street vendors selling miscellaneous items. There has been so much growth since we moved here 10 years ago, and we can get more items that we used to, so that’s exciting (bacon is a necessity). When we first moved here, you had to travel to the capital city (5 hours away) to pick up certain food items like cheese and meats, furniture, appliances, dog food, or electronics, but now you can find these things right here in town. There are more fresh produce available now than when we first moved here. You can now get butternut squash, zucchini, broccoli, lettuce, and colored peppers in the local market. We can get second-hand clothing and shoes in town (decent quality), as well as some import products like TRESemme shampoo and conditioner (that’s the only brand we can get).

Our home, where we have lived all ten years we’ve been in Uganda, is made of concrete blocks with a tin roof (we call them iron sheets here) and screened windows. Many houses don’t have screens on their windows, which is why mosquito nets while sleeping are so important. Malaria is common here, but manageable if you get tested and treated quickly. Electricity is irregular (on and off constantly) but our solar panels and back-up batteries help keep it somewhat consistent. We have a water tank that collects water from the city for sinks, showers, and flushing toilets. Sometimes water can shut off for an afternoon, a night, or a few days, so the water tank helps us have a reserve when city water is turned off (plus it adds a little bit of gravity “pressure” for showers).

Most of the houses in our area have large yards with a wall surrounding the property and security guards 24-7. In the village, most people don’t have walls, fences, or security, but thieves are much more common in the city and it’s a necessity for safety. We have 3 dogs for protection (2 outside and 1 inside at night). Praise God, we have never had a significant break-in or security issue in almost ten years (please pray this continues). There is always someone working at our house, both during the day and at night, primarily for security. These guys also help us take care of the dogs, make sure our compound is secure, help keep the yard maintained, and be a presence to deter any issues. We also help a few guys with work at our home/garden so they can pay school or university fees. With a lot of windows in our house and with the windows always open, sometimes it feels like we like live in a fishbowl, but we have adjusted. And the guys who work here have been with us for several years, so we are very thankful for their stability and presence. (The picture above is with the people who work at our house.)

We have also been blessed to be a part of the Tyler Homeschool Coop since Adalyn was in kindergarten. The school is in a house within our neighborhood, and has a huge yard and plenty space to play. Teachers usually come from our home countries to help prepare our kids to return to their home curriculum whenever that occurs. (AND we are always looking for more teachers to join us…HINT HINT!) There have been so many cultures represented at Tyler through teachers and students: America, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Amsterdam, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Monthly prayer meetings at the school have been essential to pray for the teachers, students, families, staff, compound, and future requests. We are so thankful for this community, and we have been blessed to be part of it.

Here is what we call the city church, Mbale Church of Christ, where our family attends most Sundays. Leland often spends his Sundays visiting local and long distance village churches. While Adalyn and I will join him usually once a month to go to village churches, most Sundays we are at MCC. We are blessed to be able to worship with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ throughout Eastern Uganda! Village church is very different than city church, and we never know what to expect church to church (and especially how we get to the church), so it can be an adventure. Below are a few photos of some village churches and the paths to get there.

The mission offices are near Mbale Church of Christ (the mission actually owns all the property) so it makes hosting conferences, trainings, meetings, and other gatherings very straight-forward. The mission has dormitories, a lot of open areas, classrooms, and its own kitchen, so that allows us to provide housing and meals for special events, Messiah Theological School classes, conferences, disciple-making groups, and generally anything we want to host. We have been blessed by the previous missionaries who came before us 30 years ago to develop the land and the buildings that allow us to meet so easily these days.

Another thing people ask about is food. Our family loves Ugandan food! It typically comprises of any of the below options, but not usually all unless visitors are there: beans, boiled beef or chicken with broth, cabbage or greens similar to a combination of collard and mustard greens, rice, posho (maize flour boiled with water to make a thick mashed potato-like consistency), matooke (a cooking banana that tastes more like a potato than a banana), g-nut sauce (ground peanuts mixed with water to make a savory sauce), and various potatoes. Different areas of Uganda eat some additional foods, so I won’t write everything down, but we enjoy the food. At home, we have learned how to adapt our American recipes with the ingredients we can get here, so we eat American-type dishes most nights. Everything is made from scratch and the vegetables and fruits are literally from someone’s garden, so they have to be cleaned/prepared more thoroughly than buying produce in a US grocery store. We like to think we eat cleaner and healthier now, but who knows.

Some of our favorite fruits are bananas that grow in our own garden, mangos and pineapples that are the sweetest we have ever tasted. We also love the giant avocados.

As I’ve done this refresher, I also looked back at our past posts when we started this journey more than 10 years ago, and our observations about life when we first moved to Uganda. Here are a couple of fun posts I wrote as we were figuring out life and trying to adjust…

A Glimpse of Life in Mbale, Uganda – from March 2016 when we first moved to Mbale.

Days in Africa (Part 1) and Days in Africa (Part 2)

I hope this has been helpful and enlightening to those of you who have read this far. Even though we would LOVE to host each of you here in Mbale, Uganda, we realize that isn’t possible for everyone. So, if you’re ever interested in visiting, please send us an email and let’s get to planning. If it’s not in the cards, then we hope these posts give you a picture of what life and ministry is like here in Eastern Uganda.