Karamoja Okkens

Thank you for all of your prayers for Megan and her therapy. I almost forgot to mention! Right now she is doing therapy through the county (a free 10 week program) and also meeting with someone privately once a week. She was shy in the beginning, but is now opening up and things seem to be going well. God is so good!

Where did the last month go!? Forgive the neglect to this blog. I guess coming home to the States can do that. Just sucks you in! Having said that, we have so been enjoying our time with family and friends. It has been great to be at our church home and see familiar faces. We also have enjoyed meeting new ones. We even have gotten in a trip to Legoland with grandparents. What a fun treat! When Caleb was too scared to ride on one roller coaster, Mom and Dad went anyway. David just left for his first trip away. It is quite a different story to be single mom with 3 kids here than it is in Karamoja. I actually drive here and have places to go and grandparents to see! Yes, and some occasional shopping to be done. :) Caleb has begun second grade; a slightly rough start, but a start. Jacob is now a two year old. My baby is gone and a little boy has appeared. We hope we can spend some time with some of you and please forgive us for the 7 (now 6) months going by way too fast.

It has been our longest stint in Uganda (almost 2 years) but we are finally headed back to the states for a 7 month furlough. Our flight leaves Uganda tomorrow night (technically, Wednesday morning) a half hour past midnight. Pray for our tired kids :( On our way home we will be making a 5 day detour through Barcelona, Spain to visit missionary friends! We have never done anything like this before and we are very excited. We look forward to soon spending lots of time with the grandparents, church family, and many of you. Here we come!

Often events do not turn out at all as we plan because the Lord has planned something even better. That was the feeling we had as we hiked back down the mountain late Tuesday afternoon. The week did not begin on such a positive note, however. We arrived in Namorupus on Monday morning to find very few people. We were told that the pastor had gone to Namalu for the day. We wondered what had happened. He had seemed so eager to welcome us and had promised to invite many to come out for the event. What had happened? Anyway, we spent a bit of time doing some teaching to the few men, women and children who were there. They thanked us and promised to inform the pastor that we had been there and that, as we had told him, we were planning to return the next day as well. We were also told, however, that we should come earlier on Tuesday because the ministry would have to be quick since the pastor had plans to be away in the afternoon. A bit puzzled and discouraged, we hiked back down the mountain...

At 6:30am we drove to Tokora Health Center (about 4 miles from us) where we left the vehicle and began hiking. It was about a 2 hour hike to reach our final destination. There was quite an unexpected turn of events. In an effort to find the best venue for our ministry, some locals suggested that we just use ‘the church’. Al and I were quite puzzled – ‘What church?’ We learned that there is indeed a church building built by the locals. We reached what turned out to be quite an impressive albeit very humble building constructed with wooden poles and a grass roof on a clearing high up in these hills at the place of a gorgeous view. We were told that ‘the pastor’ was away for the day. When we asked who this pastor was, we were told that he was associated with ‘Emuron’. Reverend Emuron is our friend in Namalu to whose congregation we regularly preach. I managed to reach him by phone to ask about this group. He told me that he had no involvement with them but that they had likely used his (w...

A community of Karimojong live up in the mountains not too far from us. To reach their villages one must hike about 2 hours from any main road. Our medical clinic has done a number of immunization outreaches in this place but we have yet to do any extensive evangelistic outreach there. Well, we are scheduled to be there a number of days next week (October 12-16). David and Al Tricarico plan to be hiking up into the hills before 7am each day in order to be with the people preaching and teaching and yet be able to make it back down before the heavy rains (which have been coming lately). Please pray for good weather and for ministry that will result in a great spiritual harvest in Namorupus.

Last week we had an appointment with Mrs. Newnham, Megan’s speech therapist, who had just returned to Kampala after being home in the UK for a few months. She was very pleased with Megan’s progress. Megan has made significant strides in recent weeks in her ability to produce sounds. There is still much work to be done. There are many sounds which she is able to produce when coached but which are not yet coming spontaneously and habitually. Nonetheless, we are very thankful for the progress made. Mrs. Newnham believes that if she continues to progress at her current rate, she should be on par with her peers within 18 months or so. Praise the Lord with us even as you continue to pray for Megan. For our entire Mission, the Karimojong language has been extremely challenging to get our arms (and tongues) around. We have continued to work and make slow progress. Well, we are pleased to report that, for a couple of months now, David has been doing a fair bit of preaching in Karimojong. He is ...