January 2015

Happy New Year!

We had a thoroughly busy December with school concerts and wrapping up the year, followed by a completely relaxing and re-energizing break. Both Jay and I had a 2 week break from work and we cannot describe how wonderful it was to be able to spend so much time together as a family without big plans or agendas. The other day, when the kids came and woke me up in the morning (as they do each day), I realized that I wasn't tired: I was fully rested and the feeling was pleasantly surprising. I had forgotten what that felt like, and I was grateful for that moment:)

Spending Christmas and New Years away from our families was challenging for us, but we were blessed to be able to Skype with all of our parents on Christmas morning. As you can imagine, the commercialization that marks the Holiday Season in Canada and the US is not so prevalent here. Some of the big malls here definitely decorate and hold contests, but the rest of the city is unaffected. With no TV commercials and daily fliers telling us all of the things we need to "make the Season bright" we found ourselves reflecting on what we wanted Christmas for the Whisnands to look like. And it was beautiful, although our families' presence would always have been preferable:)

Rather than share all of the details with you, we've decided to show you what it was like through pictures. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into our break!

Much love always,

The Whisnands

 

The Moms and Tots Group that meets at our house had a Christmas party! The kids are holding up a Christmas craft they made.

 

I made snowflake Christmas cookies this year: which was about all the baking I did:) Please note that there are only 6 cookies on the cookie sheet. This is not because the cookies are so big, but rather, because the ovens are so small! I refer to mine as "My Easy Bake" oven. Needless to say, I only made 1 batch:)

The finished product. I really enjoy piping the icing onto all of the cookies.

A sad moment for us this break was saying good-bye to our friend Paul, who lived with us on our compound (here with his sister Laia who came to visit with their mom). Paul has returned to the village where his mom and 3 sisters live. Because we may be moving in the next few months as the EMI office relocates farther out of town, if Paul continued to stay with us, he would likely have to switch schools part way through the year. Because schooling here is so privatized, schools don't recognize each other's assessments and so Paul would be held back if he changed schools mid-term. To prevent this, he will be going to school in the village. Please continue to pray for his health, as the last time he lived in the village he became very ill. Also, please pray for his dad, Moses, our guard, who misses his son very much.

This is Nathaniel as a shepherd in our church's Nativity production. It was done with a lot of enthusiasm, but definitely felt a little bit like the novel "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

This is our little sheep at our church's Christmas Nativity.

 Bethany and Nathaniel did an AMAZING job in thier preschool's Nativity production. They knew the songs and the actions and were so sweet as an angel and a stable cow. Nathaniel even added a few impromptu lines of his own that were pretty funny, particularly when the wise men brought their gifts and our little cow told them to "give it to me!"

Jay and I attended a Christmas concert with a small orchestra and a choir at a gorgeous church in town. It was a lovely experience.

We used a friend's sewing machine to make stockings! Here Bethany is with our friend Jenny, proudly displaying the beautiful stockings she made for her family.

At the start of our break we went out west to a town called Fort Portal with another family from EMI. We had a great time relaxing, swimming and jumping on the trampoline. Here, Nathaniel and I enjoyed a nature hike on the  property. He did great for his first hike! We'll see what he's ready to tackle when we're in the mountains of BC:)

At our guest farm in Fort Portal, we woke up early in the morning to milk the cows.

Look Mom! I'm milking a cow!

Over the break, Jay through a celebration party for the site workers of the MAF/EMI office project: a BBQ pork lunch for meeting a deadline. The guys had a great time and enjoyed the nice meal, and it was great to be able to reward them for a job well done.

Probably the best Christmas gift that we received this year was this family. They were previously unknown to us, but they were evacuated out of the DRC a few months ago and wanted to be with friends in Kampala over the break, and so ended up staying the empty-over-the-break guest house on our compound. They brought with them their 2 young sons (4 and 7), who in turn, brought their Legos. Needless to say, Bethany and Nathaniel couldn't wait to spend each day with their new friends! We were so blessed by their short visit!

Jay, proudly with his apple pie/tart he made!

With the Christmas tree at the mall. Note, the national representation.

This is our picture with Santa this year (look for him in the upper right of the picture). You will notice that this is Bethany's most happy picture of this variety.

Celebrating Christmas Eve at our friends' house. It was a beautiful evening with a lovely meal, presents and carols by candle light.

The kids on Christmas morning.

How I wanted us to look on Christmas morning...but this was actually taken a week later...after Jay had all the ornaments off the tree...and then we re-decorated it for these pictures...he is a good man!

Grilling yummy sausages for Christmas lunch!

Christmas Eve we took a road trip to the Equator! It was a pretty drive, and the first time the kids and I had crossed! We had a great time playing with local kids and getting tourists to take this picture of us...and the photo-bombing tourist behind us:)

So there you have it: our break! We hope you have enjoyed the visual tour! Here are a few other fun pictures from our December:)

He's calls it his moustache.

Mmmm...yummy crocodile!

We spent 2 full days playing in the kiddie pool Mom and Dad sent us. The kids (and Jay) got a little burned but had SO MUCH FUN!

They wanted to be Mary and Joseph. Note that Joseph has a light sabre behind his back...he he he!

Merry Early Christmas!!

Merry Christmas family & friends!!

I know it’s a bit early to be saying that but here at the Uganda Whisnand house we are in full Christmas mode already. So far we have: bought a Christmas tree and some decorations, put up an advent calendar that some friends sent us (thank you Amber and Jeff), and pulled out all the Christmas music we can find on our iPods. It’s been really nice actually. There nothing quite like hanging out with friends or playing with your kids to some Kenny G or Charlie Brown Christmas music. Here are some pictures of us getting ready for the season.

Jay setting up the tree

Nate & Beth helping with the decorations

Becky & the kids doing the final touches

We haven’t done an update in 2 months and I can honestly say we’ve been too busy to do one. The highlight of the past month has been my (Jay) unexpected trip back to Canada for 2 weeks at the beginning of November. To update everyone on the story, I came home from work on Wednesday, October 22 and Becky was talking to her mom on skype. I walk in the door and Becky says “My mom has some news for you.” I instantly thought that it might be news of my Canadian citizenship application and it was. Since Becky and I got married, it’s always been a goal of ours to try to get everyone in our family on the same passport. This way no matter where we live we don’t have to worry about having a “home” for us to come back too. No visas. Well, last year I finally met the residency time requirements and I submitted my Canadian citizenship application. From my understanding, the process would probably take 2 years and part of that process would be to take a citizenship test. So I thought it would be probably be sometime in 2015 that I would get a letter about my test. Well I got a letter on October 22 that I had to be in Vancouver on November 5 at 8:19am for my test. To say the least I was a little shocked. To sum up the rest of the story, I bought a plane ticket and flew into Vancouver on Halloween night and was there for about 11 days. I passed my test and am supposed to hear soon about the next step. I also got some much needed dental work done which I was soooo pumped about. It needed to get done.

The other part about me being out of the country for 2 weeks was that Becky was doing everything for our two kids by herself for that time. Becky was glad that the kids had school to go to but she was definitely glad to have me back. There’s no experience quite like being a young dad and you come back from a trip where you have been traveling for 30 hours and your wife tells you that she’s sleeping in tomorrow. Please know I am not complaining here. It’s funny.

I also wanted to share a passage that has encouraged me lately. I’ve been reading through Romans and I always get towards the end of the book (after chapter 11) and I love what it says. So much in there. Anyway here is Romans 12:9-21.

“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all! Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.”

Right now this passage really challenges me to let my light shine. In this passage Paul mentions specific things, actions, intentions, etc. and it reminds me of Matthew 5:14-16. The Romans verse kind of fleshes out the Matthew verse.

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

I hope you are encouraged by these verses.

Besides that, here are some recent past & future highlights:

• We had a Thanksgiving/Christmas party with my work this past Saturday. We had turkey and about 60 people including EMI people with their families. It was a lot of fun.
• Nathaniel & Bethany will be in their first Christmas program at church this coming Sunday. Nathaniel is going to be shepherd and Bethany a sheep. Becky did a great job with their costumes.
• One of the funnier things is that both of the kids have developed a Ugandan accent with certain words. They go to school with Ugandan kids and some of their teachers are Ugandan and those who aren’t are from Switzerland or the Netherlands so it’s natural to happen. It’s pretty hilarious to hear Nathaniel tell us he played in the “sand peet” today (instead of the sandpit).
• Becky’s semester of teaching is almost done. She will have a 2.5 week break for Christmas. She is really really looking forward to it. Please pray for Becky & her job. She wants to do it well and at the same time, be the mom she wants to be.
• My work is going well. The MAF/EMI building project that I am managing is doing well and I love the work I do. I have attached a picture below of where we are with the building.
• Also, not really a highlight but just a big prayer request. Please continue to pray for us as we are here. That we would let our light shine. That we would know Jesus more in the good and the hard days.

Nate doing a great job at the kids weekly swimming lessons.

A recent picture of the project Jay is working on showing a retaining wall to the left & a portion of the bldg to the right.

We love y’all and miss everyone.

The Whisnands

October 2014 Update

Happy October everyone! The time when fall is beginning and the leaves are turning or it may be even snowing in some parts of Canada. Or if you’re in Uganda, it’s mild and sunny like it always is. It’s great to live in a place where it’s nice all the time but we definitely miss the change in seasons. This coming month also has some big events for our family. October 13 is Canadian Thanksgiving and it’s our anniversary. I can’t believe we’ve been married 6 years already. I love you babe!

This past month saw a couple of big events as well. On the 12^th I (Jay) turned 31 and on the 22^nd Nathaniel turned 4. It’s weird to me that I have a 4 year old. Also, as I talked about in last month’s update, at work I got to go on a project trip with EMI to DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo). The trip was great and I have talked a bit more about it below. Last, we have started the construction of the building I am managing here in Kampala, the new EMI and MAF (Missions Aviation Fellowship) office. We were doing work on the site in August but now we have started with the building itself. 

Here are some pictures of the kids from this past month:

Bethany & Nathaniel proud of a coloring project they completed with Mommy.

 

Beth a bit dirty. The kids had a fun day with sidewalk chalk.

Nate loving his bike!

Nate holding his birthday cupcakes at school.

Some of older kids from the Moms group that Becky hosts.

Anyway as you may remember, I went on a trip to the DRC for 10 days in the beginning of September. The trip went well and was such a great experience. Over the past few days I have been wondering how I can convey how the trip was. What I’ve come up with is that I will share a few pictures and a story. I could give some statistics and information but you guys can look that up yourselves. I want to try to tell about the great people I met in the DRC.

Our team of 8, made up of architects, engineers and construction managers, made the trip to Beni, DRC to visit a university called The Christian Bilingual University of the Congo (UCBC). A few years ago, they had started the construction of a Community Centre which was a huge building (70,000 sf +/-) in East African standards, that from the start had some design challenges. The idea for this building was to have classrooms, a library, offices, a radio station, miscellaneous rooms and most importantly, a huge auditorium. They really wanted this building to be a symbol to the community, to Beni and to DRC of what Jesus is doing in DRC. A part of their idea also was that they would manage the construction of this building themselves while the architect (an American living in Wisconsin) came over a couple times a year to check-in.

As a sidebar please know that in this story I am generalizing for the sake of getting the story across.

Anyway, the plan was that UCBC would manage the construction themselves and involve the community while doing it. Get some skin in the game if you will. Well it worked. They had men and women from the community carrying buckets of concrete up eucalyptus pole scaffolding and many other tasks. The problem with this however, was that they ended up with a building that had some huge structural issues concerning the concrete.  While we were there we met a man named Honorey who is the Academic Administrator for the university. He is basically the #2 under the President and he runs the university. He is a great man who is probably around 40 years old, grew up in small town DRC, worked as a Bible translator for a while translating the Old Testament into his local language, speaks 7 languages (I think) and now has a huge heart to see DRC healed from all the wars and changed for Jesus. One of the first days we were there, he told us that the construction of this Community Centre had been such a success for the community even though it was such a failure in terms of construction. As a leadership team, they had wrestled with and come to terms with the fact that potentially some or all of the Community Centre would need to be demolished. It was a hard pill to swallow. It was hard for the leadership team to be looking at this building that is so loved, is so huge and has such great potential but at the same time that is so unsafe and messed up. The leadership realized that they needed to pause and have an assessment done on the building: to see what can be saved with some remediation and what needs to be demolished and built again. Maybe this is a picture of DRC: such a huge country with such great potential but years of war have really messed up the country. Well UCBC’s mission is to help DRC change: to be a place where the leaders of tomorrow are changed by education and Jesus so that they can help change DRC. I left UCBC with a real burden for what they do and really looking forward to see how Jesus uses them.

I have attached a few pictures from my trip to DRC.

The Community Centre Building

The EMI Project Team

One of our architects presenting options to a university leadership group. The other man is Honorey doing some translation.

Some prayer requests for us this month:

• Pray for Becky as she continues teaching. She is super busy (and at time stressed out) and at the same time loves teaching these kids. She wants to teach but wants to be a good mom as well. Pray for good management of the expectations of her job and energy to be the mom she wants to be.

• Pray for me at EMI. For our Construction Management team as we work together to accomplish why we are here. The men and the buildings.

September 2014 Update

Happy September everybody!!

As everyone in North America is celebrating Labor Day, we have entered the second rainy season of the year here in Uganda. It’s been somewhat cool here the past week or so, to the point that on Sunday when we got home from church Becky & I put on hoodies.  That is not the norm, for sure, but it’s given a bit of perspective to live in a place south of the equator (even if it’s only by a few kilometers) and have the cooler season in August/September.

Well we have been here for almost 6 months now and we are doing well. The past few weeks and the coming weeks have been and are going to be really busy but it is going well so far. Last week Becky and the kids started school. To recap, Becky is the secondary science teacher at a small Christian international school here in Kampala. She is only a few weeks in but loves the school and I think it’s been great for her to get out of the house, if only for 3 mornings a week. As a part of that, both Nathaniel & Bethany are in the school’s preschool. Nathaniel for 3 full-days a week and Bethany for 3 mornings a week. It’s been great for Nathaniel to be around a bunch of other kids his age and get some of that energy out.

1st Day in their new uniforms!

Also, just a note, Nathaniel & my birthdays are this month. Whoop!

At EMI, I am now super busy for a few reasons. First, the project I will be managing for the next year started at the beginning of August. It’s a new 2-story, 10,000sf office building we have designed and are building. The building is located next to an airstrip in the suburbs of Kampala that is operated by MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship). This new office building is going to be occupied by MAF & EMI. EMI has made an arrangement with MAF that we are going to be in this building together, on different floors, for the foreseeable future. It’s a very cool partnership that I am excited to have such an up close part in. In the coming months, I will go into more detail about this project and my involvement. This project should last at least a year so I will have plenty of opportunity.

The main topic I wanted to touch on for this update is about a trip I have coming up starting Friday. As you may or may not have noticed, this month’s update is out a bit earlier than what we have been doing and there is a reason for that. On Friday I will be travelling with an EMI team from here and the US to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC. Eight of us will be travelling by car 8 or so hours to this neighboring country for 9 days. We are going to be working with an organization called the ‘Christian Bilingual University of Congo’ or in DRC’s native French ‘Université Chrétienne Bilingue du Congo.’ I am going with a team of architects and engineers to do an assessment on an existing building and to start designing a primary school on the campus. You can find out more about UCBC and the organization that started this university at congoinitiative.org. They are an inspiring organization that has a huge vision to literally transform their country. Here is an excerpt from their website:

“Since its initial conception in 2002, the goal of Congo Initiative has been to provide hope and healing for the Democratic Republic of Congo through higher education, Christian leadership development and community transformation. Its core project is the Université Chrétienne Bilingue du Congo (UCBC) / Chrisitan Bilingual University of Congo, located in the town of Beni, in North Kivu province. Launched in 2007, UCBC is an institution of higher learning that intentionally integrates academics, work and service-learning, rooted in Christian ethics.”

I have attached a picture of where DRC is located in Africa and also I have given a few interesting facts about that country that you probably didn’t know. I know I didn’t.

• DRC is the 2^nd largest country in Africa by land area.
• DRC is the most populous Francophone country in the world.
• DRC is a country with a huge amount of natural resources. Over 50% of DRC’s exports go to China.
• There are 2 different countries in Africa with the Congo in the name. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (referred to as DRC) and the Republic of the Congo (referred to as Congo).
• DRC used to be a Belgian colony.
• DRC used to be called Zaire.
• DRC has a sad and hard past of civil wars, unstable political environment and a culture of corruption.
• Please check out DRC on Wikipedia if you are interested to check out more.

Here are a few prayer requests for our trip:

• Pray for the trip, that we would accomplish & complete everything the Lord has for us. That our team would work well together and communicate well. That we would slow to speak and quick to help where we can.
• Pray for relationships to be made and for communication (i.e. French, etc.) with the organization to be easy.
• Pray for the health & safety of our team, spiritually & physically.
• Pray for Becky & the kids. Becky will need all the energy & patience she can get. For their safety as well.

Nate & Beth enjoying some marshmallows beside our backyard campfire.

Thank you all so much. We love y’all.

The Whisnands

August Update

Hello friends and family!

I hope you all are enjoying your summers! It has been great to see many of your camping photos up on Facebook and we have enjoyed seeing all of the adventures you are having! Here is a recent one of us having lunch at the EMI office:

We are well here: school for me and the kids is starting up in a few weeks. I am nervous as I have a ton of planning remaining but the kids are SOOOOO excited! They have been asking to go to school almost every day, so I pulled out the calendar and we're counting down the days until school starts! We picked up their uniforms yesterday and they look so cute! The strangest part of the experience so far was receiving an e-mail from the PTA and realizing that I was getting it because I was part of the P not the T!

So, instead of a lengthy emotional update (to sum up, we're all doing very well) this will be a cultural piece about food here in Kampala!

First off, does anyone else see the face? It startled me while making dinner last night, then I felt guilty for mangling it for our sweet and sour pork dinner...

Firstly, I need to reassure you all that the local food we have had so far has been yummy! There is a big Indian influence in the cooking here, which is great because we love the variety of flavours! Rice and beans is a very typical dish here as well as posho and beans. Posho is an inexpensive starch that is boiled and pretty flavourless but works well with the bean sauces.

A few of our favorite local foods so far include:
- rice and beans
- chipati: a large and thin eggy pancake that can be eaten on it's own or like a flatbread with other sauces
 - Rolex: a chipati that is filled with scrambled eggs and tomatoes and onions and rolled up like a burrito
- Ugandan samosas: very similar to the Indian variety we had in Vancouver except that they just have ground beef and peas and greens in them.

Jay's friend and our local chipati and Rolex maker. The balls of dough are the chipati before they are cooked, and the finished chipati are next to the eggs. This stand is on the main road we live off of and that Jay walks on to work.

Despite all of the good things, there have been a few that were difficult to adjust to. One example of this is that the milk tastes really different here: I can't put my finger on it, but the first time I tried it, I thought that it had absorbed all of the smells from the fridge. The first time Nathaniel tried it, he called it "paint milk" and still only has it in his oatmeal or cereal...And because the milk has a tangy flavour, the cheese and other dairy products here also have a funny tinge to them. The GOOD news is, that we have adapted and I am now at a point where I can drink some of the milk plain!

New things for us:

- freezing everything to kill the bugs (flour, sugar, popcorn, oatmeal, rice, etc.) whether purchased from side of the road or from major grocery store and then having to sort through said food items to remove the dead bugs, small rocks, etc.

- the importance of sealing all food so that bugs don't get in...they will eat anything!!!

- lemons here are green and look like large limes, and limes here are also green but are quite small, like key limes

- bananas: we have never seen such variety in bananas before.  They have large bananas like back home, and red bananas which are HUGE and very sweet with a red peel. Most people, however, eat small bananas which are only a few inches long but which are SOO yummy and sweet. We eat about 4 or 5 bunches each week!


- Grocery Shopping: although there are larger supermarkets here in the city, they are not very close to our house and so our weekly shop has become much more complicated. We get most of our dry goods and dairy products from a local supermarket called The Embassy as they seem to have pretty low prices. Please keep in mind that this "super" market is maybe only slightly larger than your average 7-11, but they are able to stock most of what we need. They do not, however, have a meat department and so we head down the street to a delicatessen called Quality Meats where we are able to get things like chicken and ground beef. Once our dry goods,  dairy and meat have been purchased, all that remains is our produce. Produce can be purchased at the supermarkets, but the freshest stuff (and the most inexpensive) is at the local markets. Rather than brave the markets and foreigner mark-up, I send a list with my house help and she takes care of it all for me. I am pretty blessed. Overall, I enjoy our new routine and I am getting spoiled by all of the lovely produce, however, I do still miss the FABULOUS shopping carts at Superstore back home;)









- when we first arrived here, one of our team mates, who has been here nearly 10 years, told us that "after a while, you'll be able to make anything!" as she passed us her homemade ginger ale. To be honest, I thought she was a little crazy, but I have found that I am beginning to teeter off the edge myself. After nearly 5 months here, I am discovering that there are some things that I do miss from home and that I am willing to invest the time into making. Here are two of my more recent endeavours:

Can you guess what this is for?

Yup!

Yummy, homemade potato and cheese perogies! SOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!

We had a chili night at our house and we decided that Fritos Corn Chips needed to accompany the meal. They were a lot of work but they tasted AWESOME!

So there you are! As you all enjoy popsicle and freezie season, I hope that you have enjoyed getting a little "taste" of the food culture here in our new world!


Much love to you all,


Jay, Becky and the Kids

Nathaniel practicing his drawing skills. They like me to draw stick people pictures of our family and friends.

Nathaniel's handiwork: Daddy. Note the hat, mustache and goatee. Also note, those are legs and not a neck...we still have a little work to do:)

Bethany on her new "Boda." It has 2 wheels at the bike so it works like a trike but looks like a motorcycle! They have so much fun bombing around the compound on it.