House Arrest

Okay, house arrest may be a strong word but quarantine isn’t quite right either. Gabriel tries to keep me safe by being with me whenever I go out of the house. He says I am too bright and would be an easy target for Ugandans who would assume I had money in my bag. Although we know that not every Ugandan would make this assumption nor would every Ugandan want to steal that money from me, he does have a point. So, while Lauren was gone for three days I obediently stayed close to home.

Wednesday was spent running a crazy lot of errands and doing the Bible study with the widows. While running those errands someone stole the passenger mirror off the car Gabriel borrowed – these are not cheap things to replace here…$150 just for the mirror plate…all in the name of ministry work. Then the post office would not give me access to the box of dollies my mom sent because my name was not on the P.O. Box. (This is a picture of some dollies she’s sending to Laura for a fundraising benefit. Note that they’re wearing clothes made from Rick’s shirts.)

BUT we stopped to see a woman Gabriel called mom while he was at the Africa Foundation children’s home. She hadn’t seen him for 10 years and the look on her face when she recognized him was worth every other setback and all my mosquito bites put together.

Thursday morning Gabriel brought chapatti to go with the pineapple he selected for me on Wednesday. Augustine and Joel were charged with getting me out of the house to enjoy some lunch and fellowship and were specifically told to keep me in one piece. Henry dropped in after lunch and then told Annie I was alone at home when he saw her at the church. Of course, Annie came for a visit. That night, after watching three movies, Gabriel returned with dinner and to play Mancala. The day was wonderful even though I wasn’t allowed to go out alone.

Friday (today) morning Gabriel says he will check on me before starting some non-babysitting-Leslie work he has for the day. Pastor Phillip is coming to visit from Karamoja and we’re planning to talk about how Agnes (his wife) can start a business reselling food for a profit to the family. He’ll take some large sacks of food back via taxi when he returns. Lauren should be home tonight too, although with her broken foot she won’t be taking me out either.

I’ve still got quite a list of things to do so I’ll begin planning how to accomplish them all without the help of Gabriel at every outing. I have a few thoughts on that…stay tuned. Mostly I'm so thankful for all my friends and that they would give of their time for me. Thank you!