The Garden

I'm loving my birthday gift from John this year: my garden doubled!

So, about half of my plants have something wrong with them, but I figure in about a month they'll all be mostly dead from the heat anyway and I've already harvested so many cherry tomatoes, yellow squash, bell peppers and green beans that I can count it as a successful year!

My green beans have some disease that's causing the leaves to get spotty and eventually yellow. I think the three meals-worth of beans I harvested are about all I'm going to get this year.

(If anybody has any tips for organically controlling whatever these diseases/pests might be, please leave me a comment. I'd love to have more knowledge!)

Another addition to the garden this year has been a drip irrigation system. I don't know why I never pursued this before! We thought it up Saturday, watched a YouTube video about it, went to the big box home/garden store, thought through all the parts we needed, and purchased everything in only one trip! Sunday morning before church we got up and installed it in about an hour!

I think my pepper plants came with a virus. Even so, they've produced some good sized bell peppers.

I am pretty impressed that all the flowers in the garden came up from seeds! Never tried that before.
Anybody know what kind of flower this is? I found some seeds in a tiny ziploc bog in the garage, planted them, and this is what came up.

Look! A watermelon! It actually has doubled in size since two days ago. (And yes, that is a roly-poly in the picture. They plague me. As do the aphids that LOVE the watermelon plants.)

The tomato plants are going crazy! Once it gets hot and humid and I have to cover the plants with bird netting, I give up on pruning anything.

There are also zucchini and yellow squash plants there in the middle of the garden next to the tomatoes. I've gotten lots of yellow squash, but just a few zucchini. I think the squash plants have blossom-end rot or something.

So, there you have it! I'll keep everybody updated on the watermelon - I'm so excited about having watermelon. I only hope it tastes as good as the expensive ones from the farmers market!

It's not even summer yet.

You wouldn't know from the weather we've been having lately, but the first day of summer is going to be June 21. That's still a week away. And while I don't enjoy the tremendous heat, I definitely like all the daylight! I love that it's starting to get light at 6 a.m. and darkness doesn't completely set in until 9 p.m.

I will consciously enjoy these long hours of daylight over the next week, because once June 21 is over the days will be getting shorter.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say I'm boycotting our local ABC station for weather coverage. (OK. I'll probably still watch the news, but I'm not going to trust the weather part.) Maybe you can spot the problem. Here was the most recent forecast for tomorrow:

"High 100. Mostly sunny skies, dry, hot and humid."

And I can guarantee you which of those adjectives doesn't belong because the mosquitoes are out in full force and I start sweating if I stand outside for longer than two minutes together.

In fact, I sacrificed and stood outside this morning way longer than two minutes taking pictures of my garden to show you (and to prove to myself in about a month that the garden was a success before it finally turned brown, curled up, and died in the scorching heat). If I wasn't so tired I would go find the camera and download those pictures right now.

But you'll all just have to wait until tomorrow. I have to say, digging, planting, and watching food grow and plants become large and green is one of my more satisfying hobbies.

Day 3: Mastering the Land

At the same time we were boarding the plane in Dallas, pastors and administrators from 50 churches all over Uganda were packing their bags and boarding buses bound for Mukono, the home of Uganda Christian University. Some were representing large, well established churches. Others could fit their congregations inside a small house. Their destination would be the two-day “Mastering the Land” conference organized by Pastors Discipleship Network, an organization founded by Compassion Leadership Development Program graduate and Moody Bible Institute Scholar Richmond Wandera.

While our friends at Pastors Discipleship Network coordinated all of the logistics of identifying pastors and getting them to Mukono (It remains a mystery to me how they were able to accomplish this feat), our group was responsible for the vast majority of the content, which focused on teaching Biblical principles of financial stewardship and introducing simple budgeting and accounting systems.

We started the first day with worship and prayer, and then got right down to business with a wide-ranging survey of the pastors the gauge their beliefs about money and its place in their lives and in their churches. Baylor students wrote the survey questions in an effort to tailor the content to the areas that would be of greatest benefit to the pastors. The 2009 and 2010 groups also met with pastors and were surprised to learn that many pastors do not even own a complete Bible with all 63 books intact. They also learned of a general disdain for entrepreneurial activities in some congregations because it can be viewed as inconsistent Christianity. This year, the comprehensive surveys allowed us to see a more complete picture of the pastors’ beliefs, which in many areas we found to be largely consistent with the message the Bible gives us. In other areas, we observed some challenging cultural differences which we attempted to address during the two days.

We divided the pastors into seven groups, according to the level of sophistication of churches’ accounting systems. Members of our team joined each group and facilitated discussions among the pastors. I was drafted to join the group of pastors of churches that had kept accounting records for five years or longer. We started as a group of around 20, and late arrivers came in throughout the day to bring our total to around 35.

It didn’t take long for us to get into some pretty intense discussion about all sorts of financial issues the pastors were facing. Although this group was the most financially sophisticated, most of them did not have bank accounts for either themselves or for their churches. Most of the pastors don’t receive salaries, but instead commingle church and personal funds. In some ways, commingling is inevitable because the churches aren’t set up as separate legal entities. The cost of this is an often prohibitive $150. The typical Sunday collection for many of the churches amounts to $10 or $20, which starts to explain the salary issue. There’s a downward trend in offerings that reflects the deteriorating financial state of the average Ugandan family.

The worldwide economic crisis is most definitely impacting Uganda. Foreign aid has decreased as wealthier nations are using more of their resources to address their own problems. This fact alone is somewhat of a hardship, but it is compounded by the impact on currency exchange rates. The reduction of inflows of foreign money (denominated in other currencies) means there is reduced demand for the Ugandan shilling, resulting in a lower value as compared to other currencies. This causes higher prices for imported goods and services, like gasoline and construction materials, which then results in increased domestic food prices, for example, because the cost of transportation is higher. The average Ugandan’s disposable income, to the extent that there was any to begin with, is now quite a bit lower because the cost of living has increased so dramatically over the last year or so.

Church members in need are increasingly coming to their pastors with requests for assistance, and they feel obligated to issue loans either from church or personal funds. Sometimes they get repaid, and sometimes the borrowers mysteriously disappear before paying back their loans. Some say they move on to another church to borrow more. Just about every pastor also plays the role of creditor, two roles that are very different.

“The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender's slave,” Proverbs 22:7. There are lots of verses in the Bible that say we should be generous to those who come to us asking for help. We think that it would be better for the pastors to only give money when they’re in a position to expect nothing in return (Luke 6:35). That way it wouldn’t be a severe hardship when the money doesn’t come back in. By setting aside church funds in advance for what we would call benevolence, they can plan for situations that will inevitably arise and maintain the integrity of other areas of the church budget. This is an easy principle to understand, but we learned that it’s much harder to implement when resources are so extremely tight and when the needs of some families are so great. These pastors have such a selfless desire to help their congregations that really leave no margin at all for themselves. This is a level of sacrifice that is uncommon among the people that I know, especially myself.

Our suggestion to these pastors was to form separate legal entities for their churches since most of them have not already done so. The Pastors Discipleship Network has established a program to provide legal and financial assistance to enable them to do this. Once the church funds are set aside in their own entities, finance committees should be formed to oversee the churches’ budgets and spending. These budgets need to include salaries for the pastors. If the salaries are not large enough to fully support the pastors, then they might need to supplement their incomes with other activities.

On the second day, we talked about entrepreneurial activities that pastors could engage in, as well as teach to their congregations, to help improve the standard of living of the churches. We also taught them a little about debits and credits. I’ll write more about that in the next post.

An Unexpected Day

Well, I don't know if I've mentioned it or not, but we are having near record high temperatures here for the beginning of June. At this rate, I cannot even imagine what the weather will be like in August. Also, it will be a miraculous feat for our air conditioner (that we've kind of thought we'd have to replace every summer since we moved into this house, but it's still kicking) to continue cooling our home in this extreme heat without spontaneously combusting.

So, what with the 80% humidity and 100-degree temperatures, I've been opting to wake up extra early to do all my garden work, or even just water, while the outdoors is still bearable. It's much easier to wake up earlier in the summer since the sun starts shining a little after 6.

I kid you not, just as I am opening the back door this morning I look out the screen door and see a gigantic opossum (why is there an "o" at the beginning of that word?!?) meandering, without a care in the world, across the backyard and right under our shed. At just before 7 a.m.! In the broad daylight! It is huge!

Since I assume it was going to bed for the day, I continue on outside to do my gardening, but it just freaks me out to know a creature of that size is apparently living in or backyard under the shed! There is a waiting list for animal traps from the city, so I see a trip to the home and garden store in our near future. While calling to be on the extensive waiting list for an animal trap just in case (apparently it's a rampant problem in our city...or people are never returning the traps), I verify that if I do happen to catch the opossum I could just call and have someone else come remove it for me.

I'm not sure I look forward to the day I wake up to see a large opossum in a cage in my backyard...then again, better a cage than roaming free.

I really think the rodent issue should have been quite enough for my day and I needed to get going. But then while cleaning myself up (because, while 7 a.m. heat and humidity is bearable, it is by no means cool or refreshing), I hear the doorbell. I peek out to see a white pick-up and a few people in orange vests and decide to quickly make myself presentable.

(For a second, I actually think maybe somebody walking by saw the giant opossum in our yard, called animal control, and somehow got them to come out whereas I was completely unsuccessful in accomplishing anything other than getting my name on a waiting list.)

Good thing I decided to go out there! I find the crew all in my backyard measuring the ground, about ready to dig up our lawn to install some fiber optic cable so we can have super fast communications service from a company that rhymes with "horizon" and sends us mail every other day pleading with us to pay them more money for more services we don't need...or promising they can save us money. The crew then tells me someone else will be by later in the day to do the installation in the house.

Ummm. What? I politely tell them they must be at the wrong house, but the guy then produces a work order with our name and address on it. After a quick call to my husband to verify that this was not supposed to be happening, I again tell the crew that it must be a mistake and we do not want anything done.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that we do not have cable. We use that money to sponsor children through Compassion International and provide them with family gifts, like a house. Also, our DSL internet is plenty fast enough and our home phone is through T-mobile. We have no use for packages or bundles that will "save" us money on our phone and cable.

Turns out my husband finally got tired of all the promotional mail from the company that rhymes with "horizon" and called them just to see what kind of deal they could offer us since they keep promising they can save us money. I don't know. I guess he thought maybe they'd offer us free internet since that's pretty much what the deal would have to be to save us any money.

However, the woman couldn't compete with the low amount we already pay and John even told her exactly why we do not have cable. No confirmation was ever made that he wanted to sign up for anything. I think he used the whole "I'll have to talk to my wife" routine and the woman said she would call him back. He never heard from her, nor did he call anyone else about it.

But here is a crew to install our super fast fiber optic cable that we haven't asked for nor do we want. Thankfully, they haven't unloaded their digger from the flatbed attached to their truck, so I send them on their way and delegate to my husband the phone call to make sure no one is going to show up later in the day to try to install anything in our house.

After all that I still manage to leave the house on time, though I keep wondering, "what's next?"

I'm happy to report that so far, that's been it. No other exciting news or stories for today. Unless the sweltering heat counts, but I won't write any more about that today...I'm sure I'll be writing more about that than you ever wanted to know by the time September rolls around.

Emily's House

John is back into the full swing of things at work now that the holiday weekend is over. He assures me there is more to write about the trip to Uganda, so stay tuned for more stories of his time there.

In the meantime, please consider following the group of Compassion bloggers that are in the Philippines right now. There's a handy sidebar link over there on the right.

I have followed other Compassion blogger trips before. However, Kat's post yesterday, and especially the video she posted of her trip to Emily's house, touched me in a different way. I completely agree with a comment Kat's fellow trip blogger, Emily, made. I've seen poverty. I've been in slums and one-room, dirt-floor shacks that house six people. You'd think it couldn't get any worse than that. As Emily says, "Turns out, it kind of can. If you add water."



We already sponsor two Compassion children in Uganda. I think I really want to sponsor a child in the Philippines now, too.

Maybe you could sponsor one as well.