The chicken coop is here!!

Hello Everyone,

Well for starters I got the results back this morning from the tests and I am fine. Just need to keep taking milk of magnesium for a few days and I will be fine. Thanks for praying, but don't worry so much(you know who you are ;)...)

Today after I got back from the test(and the coffee shop) we had devotions, and then I spent the rest of the day working on the chicken coop. Uncle Francis helped, and actually made some really nice stairs going up to the "executive suite". It was a lot of fun, and the kids had a blast helping to nail in some of the boards. I had to nail them in most of the way first, but they really enjoyed it, and had a hard time sharing the hammer with each other because they all wanted to keep swinging away. After dinner we caught the hen and the chicks(watching me run around the compound chasing the chicks must have been quite a site to see) and once we put them in the coop, the mother hen settled right in under the ramp in the back with her little ones. She seems to enjoy it so far. At some point I will have to put up a chicken wire fence to keep them in the corner of the compound, and more to protect the chicks from the children playing soccer.

Speaking of the children, today was a day when I realized that as much as we can learn from Africa, there are some things they can learn from us. Of course there is the obvious one, that men can........AND SHOULD.....help out around the house, and in the kitchen. Acholi men don't. Well not most of them. Not because they are busy doing "guy things", but they will just sit and watch as an acholi woman will jump through hoops to make there tea, make there food, and then serve it to them. Ridiculous!!!! Even more ridiculous, in fact its completely WRONG.......is how they cane there children. I'm not talking about spanking, I'm talking about beating there children with sticks. I was spanked, and am not opposed to it, but today when Emmy came home with a swollen bruise spanning one shoulder to the other from caning..........I was ......well lets say upset. He had been beaten, then had a fifteen minutes boda ride, then changed his clothes and came out to play. All of which taking over twenty minutes..........and thats if he was caned just before he left. I completely and totally believe in forgiveness, and when he showed me the bruise, I wanted to jump on a boda find the teacher........and when I was done I would have asked for forgiveness. Yes I know that its not the right thing to do, and we aren't. We are going to address it on monday with the head master. I'm just saying thats what I wanted to do.

Sorry for the venting tonight, but I really just need to right now. I have been trying so hard to just show these kids how much we love them, and just foster the gifts they each have; and then Emmy comes home looking that way. I know its going to be fine..........and we will take care of it on monday. Sorry again.

Love and miss you all,

Joe