Although it's hard to say farewell to Anna, we couldn't be more impressed with Rift Valley Academy.  Anna's dorm parents have been missionaries in Tanzania & Kenya for nearly 3 decades and understand very well our lives & how to look after teenagers!  Lisa & Doug Orner are kind, generous, loving & Godly people & we are so thankful for them & the staff & students at RVA.  We spent the weekend there for New Parent Orientation, where we learned about lots of different aspects of the experience of boarding school - for instance, how people deal with leaving their child yet staying in good communication with them.  Of course these days with the internet & cell phones,we've already been in touch with Anna every day.

Anna's roommate, interesting enough, is a Kenyan who spent most of her growing-up years in the U.S.!  Eunice's father is a professor at a college outside Nairobi, but she & her family lived near Chicago for many years.  Anna's other dorm-mates are from different parts of Africa, some American background, some African, including Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, the Commorros Islands, Uganda, & Rwanda.

We had a great time video-chatting with Rachel, who is at the Interconnect Program at Houghton College this week.  It's a special orientation Houghton offers to international students.  Amazingly enough, one of Rachel's classmates was in school last year in Nairobi with, of all people, Anna's roommate Eunice!  Another of Rachel's classmates came from a family Rachel had known in India when she was on her gap-year there.  We are very thankful not only to these schools  for taking care of our daughters, but also for the many helpful people along the way, such as Marian Stevenson, who drove our Rachel up to Houghton (NY) from the Boardwalk Chapel in Wildwood - thanks, Marian! 


Drs. Paul & Virginia Friesen, who have been doing seminars this week in Mbale have some books available: http://www.himweb.org/Bookstore/BookOfferings.html. They are the parents of one of our best friends here in Mbale - Julie Johnson, the wife of Cure Hospital Director Derek Johnson - and do family & marriage counseling, seminars, etc.  It was fascinating to hear them interact with Ugandan pastors & their wives about marriage problems in Uganda and the Biblical solutions.  In many ways, the cultures here are radically different from ours, but at the same time there are the same difficulties the world over.   Letters to My Daughters and Before You Save the Date are two of their excellentbooks.


Today we're waiting to hear back from our dear teacher, Erika Bulthuis, who wasn't able to get the standby flight to London she had hoped for - her father is a pilot for American Airlines, so she usually does fine with standby.  Just not this time.  In the meantime, Jon Rosenbaum & ministerial intern David Landow are on their way to Entebbe Airport with Pastor Dave Okken.  The lads will be flying out tomorrow morning, when our other dear teacher, Emily Pihl, should be arriving from London.  We're waiting to hear what Erika is able to sort out from California.  We were originally going to head back up to Karamoja Saturday - the two vehicles together to help pull each other if we get stuck in the mud! - but we may take a little more time in Mbale.

Here in Mbale, we've been taking advantage of a couple of days not driving anywhere to do a few things we'd been meaning to get to - for instance, to get bloodwork done at Cure Hospital.  Bob was recently diagnosed with brucellosis, and Mary & Kipsy had had some intermittent symptoms too, such as achiness, fatigue, occasional fevers, which are also typical of malaria.  They also tested positive for brucellosis & will be on antibiotics for about a month.  We may get the rest of us tested too, just to be sure.  We got to spend much of yesterday with our new Mission family, the Tuiningas, who just came to Mbale this past July.  You can check out their blog too  http://tuiningasinuganda.blogspot.com.  We had a big dinner with them & the lads on their way to Entebbe last night.  Most of them were still covered with mud from the trip down!

Bob has been recovering from brucellosis but is still feeling some of the symptoms.  It will take him probably another 4-6 weeks of treatment to be clear of it.  So today, before the rain began to pour, he was working on some of the Mission vehicles, all of which have problems because of the very rough road conditions here.  It's good to at least get a good idea - from an honest mechanic, Bob! - what they need to have done & which should be sold.  This is just one of the many things he has to look after for the Mission...

Thanks, everyone, for their prayers & encouragement.  
Please feel free to write!Alakara nooi (thanks much)!
In Christ,Martha


And Anna's correct address:
Anna Wright
PO Box 80
Rift Valley Academy
Kijabe, Kenya  00220
East Africa

Taking Anna to school, etc.

This is what's been going on with the Wright family. The following are excerpts from Martha's facebook page. Continue to pray for them as they adjust to life without two of the girls.

August 16:
Helping Anna Wright get packed to go to Rift Valley Academy - so excited for her to get to go, but sad to think of her not being here. Cheering ourselves up with Bruce Springsteen while Mary & Kipsy get checked for brucellosis at the clinic. Just another swinging day in Nakaale.

Kipsy, Mary, Anna, & Bobby with a bunch of their mates with the KIC youth group at the Hairy Lemon.

August 18:
Getting close to packing up for Kenya. Of course still not actually packed, although we've had two months to get ready. No news on what route we'll take to Mbale yet.

August 20:
It was good to see so many people gathered at the home of our neighbor & worker, Lucy, yesterday, to comfort her & her family as her husband passed away after a lengthy illness. Also good to visit with Anna, Mary, & Kipsy at Rose's home & play with many little kids and little goats! Nothing quite like a knobby-headed little goat on your lap. Hoping the bridge will hold and that we can head to Mbale tomorrow. Anna's last day in Nakaale for awhile!

August 21:
And the road was even worse than we could've imagined...Thankfully, the Warden at Amaler Prison had the prisoners clear a path through the marram & construction so thatBob was at least 6 inches away from the edge of the precipice. A little too scary. Then more incredible pits of mud, like ponds & lakes across most of K'ja, Kween, & Kapchorwa Districts. On the bright side - it didn't rain the whole way down, and there wasn't much traffic. Looking forward to great Indian food in Mbale!

August 22:

As you can see, we have taken to walking to Mbale. This was one of a dozen such spots along the way. However, at the time we were ecstatic because the kindly prison warden had allowed us to teeter through the culvert reconstruction.

The path over the culvert at Amaler yesterday. Just about wide enough for a Land Cruiser pickup, apparently.

After getting out of the quicksand off to the side, Bob ventured into the middle of the road to see how deep it got. This is when he started to worry about his new phone in his pocket.

August 25:

Our Anna is just moving into her dorm here at Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe, Kenya. Pray she will get over her case of malaria! Thanks to all the wonderful RVA folks for the welcome & introduction to the school!

August 27:

Back in good old Mbale. Wonderful trip to Kijabe, got Anna settled in at RVA once the Coartem worked & she mostly recovered from malaria. What an extraordinary community! We are deeply thankful for so many caring teachers, dorm parents, counsellors, and a friendly student body. Thanks also to all our RVA alumni who urged us to check it out!

Dad sends Anna off to her first day of school at RVA! — at Rift Valley Academy, Kijabe, Kenya.

In the lovely home of Anna's dorm parents, Lisa & Doug Orner, with Bob in the back and Anna's roommate, Eunice, in the foreground.

Great dinner at Delicious Dishes in bustling downtown Mbale! Rachel even called from Houghton College, where she's doing a pre-semester InterConnect program with other international students. The world is full of great providential coincidences. Pretty strange having our two "big girls" off living in dorms on different continents.

August 28, 2012

If you'd like to be in touch with our girls at their new school addresses, here they are:
Rachel Wright, 
CPO 1608
Houghton College
One Willard Avenue PO Box 128
Houghton, NY 14744-0128

and Anna Wright - Rift Valley Academy, Kijabe, Kenya, East Africa. or you can say hi to them on Facebook, too, of course!

Thanks, Derek & Julie Johnson, for inviting me to the Drs. Friesen's  wonderful seminar on marriage, the chance to meet so many Mbale pastors & their wives, and even chicken & chips for lunch! Hoping our lads & friends made it to Nakaale, or close - great to spend a day in such uplifting company in good old Mbale. Webale nnyo!

Looking out the door of Anna's room in Suswa Dorm at RVA. Isn't it lovely?

Anna's dorm at RVA, on a chilly August afternoon!

This is what I get when I ask for a nice family picture. Honestly. At least you get to see what an awesome lunch they serve on Sundays at RVA. In East Africa, we care a lot about lunch.

The gang made it to Nakaale in only about 5 1/2 hours. Hoping this will be the worst they'll find on the way down tomorrow to bring Jon R. and David Landow to the airport - and pick up Erika Bulthuis and Emily Pihl! Pray for safe travel for everybody this week!

August 5, 2012

It’s now several weeks since our family returned from a 2 1/2-month furlough in the US and Canada -and these have certainly been some busy times!  We really appreciate the work our colleagues in Karamoja did holding the fort down, especially the Okken family & Leah Hopp, plus some folks who have come over to Uganda specifically to fill in for furloughing missionaries. Nurse Heather Foss from Florida has been running the Clinic, while Jim & Jenny Knox are running around America! - and Pastor/Jack of All Trades Mick Knierim from Michigan kept an eye on Bob’s crew & workshop & the overall Karamoja Mission maintenance while our family were gone.

We really appreciated the fellowship of some visitors when we came back to Karamoja, too - intern David Landow, most recently from Wilmington, DE, going into his last year at Westminster Seminary;  our nephew Jon Rosenbaum from S. Jersey, doing some ‘gap months’ before he considers where to continue college;  Jesse van Gorkom, a recent engineering graduate who grew up in Ethiopia, where his family served with Christian Veterinary Missions;  Monica Rubingh from N. Michigan, who brings a lifetime of farming skills to our work - our workers call her “Monica of the Green Thumb” - she’s already got vegetables springing up in the greenhouse we’ve been meaning to put up for years!  We also enjoyed the company of  Leila Shelburne, an old friend who grew up in Mbale and is now studying linguistics, who came to do her senior research project on language & culture among the Karimojong.

A new couple has joined our mission, too, Christopher & Chloe Verdick from San Diego. Chris has gotten right into the work with Bob, and we hope he’ll use his skills in photography & design to help our mission communicate better with you all.  Chloe is in the process of taking over the accounting for the mission, which is a huge relief to the rest of who don’t enjoy crunching numbers!  Both of them have offered to help with teaching our children - math, art, & even Celtic harp! - so of course we’re delighted to have them here.

It’s always hard to say goodbye to our children - this time we left our eldest, Rachel, in the US, as she’s serving at the Boardwalk Chapel in Wildwood, NJ this summer, and will be starting college at Houghton in NY State this fall.  Please keep her in your prayers, as of course adjusting to a different country can have its challenges, sometimes in ways we wouldn’t expect.  After spending most of their growing-up years in East Africa, our children find America a rather foreign place! 

Our family will change again when we take our next daughter, Anna, to boarding school in Kenya.  She’ll be starting 11th grade at Rift Valley Academy, originally established over 100 years ago to support missionary families like ours who live in remote places.  We’ll still see her about every 6 weeks, and she will have a month off every 3 months, so we hope this will be a good way to transition to college in a couple of years, both for her and for us.

Bobby, Mary, & Kipsy will be staying with us in Karamoja for now - we’re looking forward to our teachers Emily Pihl & Erika Bulthuis rejoining our mission in a few weeks, too.  Bobby is in his senior year of high school and is Bob’s main assistant in the workshop, working on everything from metal fabrication to vehicle repair to well-drilling.  I’m not sure we’d be able to find anything around here without Bobby!  Mary & Kipsy are entering 9th grade and are doing great with their arts, studies, languages, cooking, music - we may be adding mandolin and concertina to the band this year!  You can pray that they will adjust to having their big sisters gone, as they have really enjoyed doing so many things together growing up.

Bob is doing quite a bit of work drilling boreholes (water-wells) and managing the hibiscus crop.  One of the drilling jobs went really great this week, at a small church just outside Namalu, the town nearest our mission.  These are always good opportunities to share the Word with people who gather. One of the biggest challenges these days, though, is the weather - there’s been so much rain that it can be hard to get anywhere, including to sites where they need wells, as the mud is simply unbelievable.  Recently on a simple trip to Mbale to prepare to meet a new missionary family, we spent 7 1/2 hours traveling about 45 miles. Please continue to pray with us that the government will fix our roads!

I’m also continuing to revise & expand the literacy & health education materials that I’ve been working on over the past few years.  We’ve recently had some very encouraging visits to our local primary school, so we hope to try out in the schools some of the alphabet books and basic literacy & numeracy materials we have, as so far there are none like these available in Karimojong.  We hope these will be a big encouragement to people who would like to be able to read the Karimojong Bible.  We have had a lot of requests from people in the community have a small nursery school for their children, but we need to prayerfully consider how that would operate and who could teach.  The Karimojong are very eager to have outsiders provide all kinds of free services;  however, in our diaconal work we want to help enable them to care for themselves in godly ways, rather than offer them handouts like many of the charity organisations.

We thank you so much for your prayers & hospitality while we were on furlough this year, too!  Of course we never have enough time to spend, but it was great to catch up a bit with old friends and get to know some new ones as well.  Please let us know how you are doing & if you got this e-mail OK, too.

Gospel blessings from Karamoja,

Bob & Martha Wright & family