We're going to have a busy 5 weeks as we're meeting in UK my parents who are coming from Italy (so they spare us another flight), another Italian couple we met when we used to attend the English congregation in Verona, then obviously we're going to spend some time with Chris's parents, then catch a short flight to Edinburgh to meet a sister we met here in Uganda, then we're going to stay with a couple in Banbury we met always here in Uganda... then catch an 8 hours flight to come back here.
In the meantime many things are happening here.
For example, our congregation organized to do a Public talk and Watchtower not far from here and the first meeting had 35 in attendance! Imagine that.... So that was a success and we're going to do it every last Sunday of the month. But the problem now is that we're trying to find a place where to hold the monthly meetings so Jonathan went there last Saturday to find something decent that can accommodate more people. He found one for the equivalent of 12£. The owner is from Fort Portal so Jonathan came back to meet him and agree on the days and on the price. In the meantime though, someone must have called the owner and told him that the person looking to rent the place is a mzungo (foreigner). So when Jonathan got there, the price went from 12£ to 80£, which is crazy. So again we need your prayers to find a place to hold the meetings in this small village 40km from Fort Portal.
Then, a new brother from Alaska arrived. His name is Trevor and he's quite young but very adventurous. We were in contact for a long time and honestly although from his emails we knew he was a really nice and spiritual brother, we didn't know what to expect. You know, Africa is not for everyone. We were scared that maybe it would be difficult to adjust for him, being single in the midst of 3 married couples. We kind of expected someone like
... you know what I mean. Instead he's 
. So that was a nice surprise. Especially because I suppose you need to be like that to cope with a bunch of nutters like us.But I must say he's adjusting perfectly and he's loving it here (well at least I hope so). He lives with Brian and Rowena (the new couple from Kampala, remember?), which I suppose is nice for him as it can be a little scary to live on your own in a house in the middle of Africa...especially at night...
We're having a great time together, as we spend many evenings either at our place or at Brian's place, so we take it in turn cooking for each other and Trevor is always willing to learn to cook new things which one day can come handy. We also call him "dishwasher" because he doesn't even give you the time to finish that he's already at the sink washing and drying and no discussion with him if you want to help him. His mum did an excellent job in raising him.
While he was here, we had the District overseer and his wife as guest. They're long time friend, but we hadn't seen them for 2 years (since we left Kampala basically). They're crazier than us honestly, but that is what is the truth all about, especially for need greater. You need to be a bit crazy so that you see life from a different perspective.
As we often play a game which involves using a very unusual scripture to introduce a presentation and a very unusual object instead of a magazine to support that scripture, we decided to introduce the D.O. to this game.
It's a bit complicated to explain so let me show you....
I think he did well, don't you think? Anyway we were laughing our heads off. Especially when Christopher decided to play the part of the "lady" as a householder with Jonathan as a publisher.
I decided to play the part of the proper Italian householder and Brian didn't have an easy time with that. You know, in Italy we're often abused in the field so I tried to gave them a taste of that. And I must say that is not easy to be mean, it requires effort, so I don't know how the people cope with such anger in their every day life.
Anyway... were was I? Oh yeah! Did I mention that we're having Rutoro lesson from a lovely sister? No? Well, now you know. So, every Wednesday afternoon me, Chris, Trevor and Rowena take the car and go to this sister, who by the way is the older sister around here and she never misses a meeting even if it means taking a bodaboda, and spend one hour with her trying to learn how and why verbs and subjects get incorporated in a sentence.
I didn't expect it to be so difficult. I mean, Italian is not easy and I probably wouldn't be able to explain how it works, but at least a verb is a verb and a subject is a subject. In rutoro that doesn't work. Well, I suppose that slowly slowly (mpora mpora) we'll get there. What was really funny is that at the end of the lesson, we asked the sister how to say "Please leave me alone" or "Please go away" (sometime some people become insistent and annoying and they follow you everywhere). It's interesting that in Rutoro the word "Please" doesn't exist so your tone determines if you're asking politely or not. So at the end, after giving us a couple of phrases to learn, we were laughing our heads off because what came out was "Stop following me and go home or I'll beat you" or something like that. We will never use it of course, but still...it was very funny.
As for the field (and this blog should be about that right?), Chris lately found a mother with her son, Nora and Akim, that are incredibly interested. They already come to the meetings and they
Anything else? Let me see... well yeah, Trevor is house sitting for us so he has 5 weeks all alone. I'm sure he'll enjoy it. And Soda, my cat, can make you feel at home no matter who or where you are.
So as for now, we're in the stinking cold in UK, enjoying food and shopping and the sales obviously. I'll update soon. And please be patient...I'll put the video in as soon as I can.
