4th of July in Uganda

We and all of our white friends in Mbale (the missionaries and the people who used to live in our house...)

and some of our Ugandan friends and partners (which ended up being like 25 people!)

had an AWESOME Fourth of July. 

The FEAST!! So good.

The missionaries playing volleyball in the front yard!

It was a fun night full of American music, food, good friends and nice weather. The feast was complete with hamburgers, potato salad, sweet potato fries, a greek salad, corn on the cob, watermelon ( one of my favorite items), a pineapple and banana salad, and for dessert a friend brought brownies, pineapple upside down cakeand we made rice krispies. We played lots of volleyball, listened to American Music, and had tons of fun. At the end of the night, we realized we had a TON of leftover food. Which normally wouldn't be a problem in America, but our problem is our fridge is tiny and can't hold much. We were figuring out what to do, and Freddie (our Ugandan friend) said "better not waste any, there are starving children in Africa!" We laughed and told him that people say that a lot at home. And then Alexis said something like, well, since we are here how do we get the food to the starving children?... She said it sarcastically but Freddy took it seriously. And thats when the greatest idea began. Freddy said that last year he had gone with the other HELP team once a month to LITERALLY feed the starving children in Africa.They actually gave their extra food to what they call the "street children" (orphans on the street in a certain part of town) You hear stories here about people going out and giving food to people and the people getting very aggressive in getting their food and fights happenings. So  I was a little nervous about going, and it was getting late at night, but I trusted Freddy. When we got to where we were going to give out the food it was so great! Freddy told the children to get in a line and they immediately formed into a line. And then we gave them a paper plate and then they went down the line and we gave them food. The faces of these sweet sweet children. I don't know how to describe it. They would just stand there with they plates and stare at the food as we put in on. Then once their plate was full they ran and sat down on the ground and just started eating. It was so overwhelming to see just how many kids there were that were living on the street. Who literally have no one to look after them. Most of them had runaway from home because of abuse or other reasons.

There was a few of the boys that came up to us after they had eaten their food and in the most sincere voice said  "Thank You". These boys live on the streets, they don't go to school, and I just recently saw them riding in the back of a truck that was literally full of garbage that they rummage through to find any food that they can get. They don't have a mother to tuck them in at night, they don't even have a place to sleep that is protected. BUT they were grateful for the food that we were able to give them and came back and said Thank You. I wanted to take them all home and tuck them into bed, and give them the care that they need, and sent them to school and give them food so that they will be healthy. It was a great experience. It definitely was a great end to the Fourth of July and put the holiday in perspective!