Week 4

week 4 (So far):

This week our Speaker is a guy named James. He is great...very animated and interesting. We have been learning about relationships. Monday was spent talking about personality types and figuring out which ones we were and how to relate to people of other types. We used the DISC test.. I am an S CI. Sweet! Tuesday we talked more about the different types and Special relationships. Today we learned about communication and dating. All interesting stuff. Tomorrow we start Praise & Worship. sweet! This week also we have had to learn a long memory verse (Romans 12:1-2 NIV) and then be in groups of 6 and make a song out of it! So last night our group got together and wrote our song. (I offered the God Rocks version of the song.. but they decided to "take it in a different direction") we are doing it in a really funny way. Verse 1 we sing in a traditional hymn style.. then we bust into "in the jungle the mighty jungle.." tune for verse two!! I will try and get someone to video tape it!! They told us we could pick our own groups, but to "choose wisely" meaning (not all girls or not all Ugandans or whatever) So in our group we are representing 5 different nations (Holland, Uganda, Kenya, Canada & the US) woot woot.

Yesterday they also announced to us that the locations for mini outreach have been chosen and we need to pray about where God wants us to go. We are supposed to have the answer by Friday. A little scary... but they are all good locations.. so I really don't have a preference as to where. Besides, it doesn't matter where I want to go.. it is all about where God wants me to go. We will be either going to Fort Portal (in the West of Uganda) Wairaka (a small town on the way to Jinja) or.. one other town I can't remember the name of that's about 20km east of here. Please pray that I will find where God wants me to go.. and for our teams!

One of the biggest struggles we have been having here is disunity. With so many cultures and backgrounds.. it has just been hard. So today for intercession we prayed for ourselves... asking the Lord to remove any cultural barriers and to pray for our cultures themselves. As I was praying God really opened my eyes to cultural biases I have had for many years at home. It is rather popular while living in Whatcom County to scorn the Canadians... and living in Lynden (or close enough) what matters is weather or not you are Dutch. God has a really funny sense of humor, considering that on my DTS are two Dutch people and three Canadians!!! And in getting to know these people, they are all wonderful and have awesome hearts... and are nothing like the sterotypes! (I knew that already.. but getting that from my head down to my heart took some time!) So.. the moral of the story is... God loves ALL of His children, no matter what country they come from, and he wants us to look at them with His eyes. So as far as practical application goes.. no more Canada jokes.. and no more flaunting the "i'm proud to not be dutch" card. Who cares?! I challenge you to consider what stigmas you are holding on to... take them to the cross... it's amazing how liberating it is!

Tonight we are having coffee night to raise funds & prayers for Kottomore. And Friday I get to learn to make Chapattis! WOHOO! Ok, time to go. Worka duty is calling!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Miss you so much!

Week 3- Recap

week 3 recap:

This was a hard week. I was feeling sick.. still am a little (my digestive system is all out of whack.. quite possibly from the water being funny and the lack of fiber in our diets) and class was hard. We were learning about Prayer & intercession, a topic I was excited about. However, the first 3 days were really boring (they were mostly basics but apparently compared to here, we in the West get a LOT of basic teaching & discipleship) and then the last two days were hard, when we finally got to intercession because our teacher had some FUNKY doctrine that most of us disagreed with. His points were all valid, but the logic he used to get to them was totally wrong and had us all up in arms. Combining that with lack of sleep (my stomach pain wakes me up in the middle of the night) personality clashes and miscommunication in the dorms.. made us all VERY eager for Friday afternoon to arrive. And it came, PTL! Saturday was the FCD (Foundations in Community Development school)'s graduation.. so we went to graduation, which was supposed to start at 10 and actually started at noon!! And then we had a FEAST! Goat (which is AMAZINGLY fabulous tasting!!!) Pig, rice, carrot rice, and greens.. and Soda! SOOO SOOO good. We were all stuffed (lunch wasn't until 3pm.. so we were starving when it was served) and so for dinner we had the same fare as breakfast (two rolls and a cup of tea). My dear friend Judith also was amazing and braided my hair! It has been so much cooler and much more managable, It took several hours.. but has been great! Then on Sunday.. Kristine (Michigan) got really sick. They took her to the clinic. We found out that she has a bad bacterial infection and was dehydrated. We had been planning, and Kristine was keen to come, but obviously couldn't... to go to Kingfisher, a resort outside of Jinja on Lake Victoria for a day of rest and relaxation and bonding. So we went.. and it was AMAZING! First we all walked down to the main road and caught two taxis.. (Mirijam, Mathijs, Bernard & I squished into the back seat of this funny van taxi) and then met up with the girls (who took a different taxi) in Jinja. On the way to town, we ran out of gas, by the grace of Jesus, RIGHT in front of the petrol station!! Our driver, instead of making us get out and push, used the starter motor to drive the car off the road and next to the pump. Didn't know you could do that with a vehicle... but now I do (don't worry Dad, if I ever run out of gas, I promise not to do that!!) Anywho.. so we met up with the girls (Cady, Catherine, Kendra, Meg, Katy Saunders, & Penny) in town. Then we caught a private car to Kingfisher. (There were 7 of us, plus the driver crammed into the car.) 3 of us sat in the back and Cady & Bernard sat on our laps. Then we stopped for gas and the driver told us that we were going to go through a traffic checkpoint and apparently it is illegal to have more than 1 passenger in the front seat, but it doesn't matter how many are in the back seat. So Catherine ended up on our laps too.. it was quite hilarious. Kingfisher was GORGEOUS! I had never been to a resort before.. and let me just say.. wow! The swimming pool was amazing!! So wonderful! SO nice to cool off! We met and played with some kids from England who had been in Uganda for a year and 1/2! We also ate some AMAZING food and had time to just relax. Then we were waiting for the taxi to take back and we found a jackfruit tree!! (So cool!!)) and a play ground with SWINGS! (that right there was enough to make my day!) we took a million pictures so I'll upload some of them someday!

"day in the life.."

Hello!! Sorry it has been so long since I have updated. We have lost power once or twice but more than that things here are SO busy. It feels like nearly every minute of the day is scheduled with something. Speaking of that, why don't I give you a typical day in the life of Kati Rose.

6am wakeup (Meg is our amazing, cheerful, and gracious alarm clock!)
6:05-7:05 quiet time, outside the DTS classroom on the porch in my PJ's.
7:05-7:20 Get dressed and ready for the day
7:21-7:30 walk to dining hall and wait for breakfast
"7:30"-8:15ish Breakfast!
8:15-8;30 collect my things and go to class
8:30-9:00 Monday morning meeting with entire base (prayer & worship & announcements & short message) (Tuesday & Thursday is praise & worship which we take turns leading in teams) (Wednesday & Friday is Intercession) (Thursday & Friday we also spend time to recite/.present our memory verse)
9:00-10:30 Lecture
10:30-11:00 Break Tea
11:00-1:00 Lecture
"1:00"-2:00 Lunch
2:00-2:30 Rest/nap
2:30-3:30 M, TH, F :"Small" group (ours has 12 people in it.. and yes, they are mixed groups!) Tues: "Bible study" (so far we have only talked about how to do it... ) Wednesday (free time)
3:30-5:30 M,T,W, F : Worka Duty (I have been pulling weeds :D) TH: Sports (we all go play volleyball or soccer)
5:30-6:30 Volleyball/ bathing M: (one on one with Alex)
"6:30" -7:30 Dinner
7:30-10:00 worship or bible verse practice or movie or pineapple or meeting or game or, if the power is out: Stargazing!
10:00 Lights out
10:30-10:45 actually quiet in the dorm.. until someone's cell phone rings...

Saturdays are our free days... we can go to town.. or not. Sunday is church.. and usually time for homework.

On a sunny Monday afternoon in Uganda...

Hello!! It's Monday. Life at Hopeland is amazing, as usual. God has been doing SO much in me this last week, as well as doing lots at the base. We have had some crazy times, and some not so crazy times. We have had massive rainstorms, with LOUD thunder, HOT days.. TONS of mosquitos (who are eating me alive) some injuries: Guy from South Africa was playing rugby and tripped and broke his collar bone. Steve from Uganda was playing soccer and collided with a Tongan and ended up with a broken foot. We have also had some nummy Pineapple (which I carried around in my purse!!) (my new favorite fruit) which we always manage to eat after dinner when the power is out. We sit on the porch, in the dark, and by the light of flashlights, cut a pineapple with a swiss army knife. Glorious. Amazing pineapple! I also had a jackfruit, which is amazing and tastes like candy! We had CHICKEN.. which was delicious, but also was just like hello, the entire wing of the chicken was just placed on my plate! Power outages and internet outages are still quite common, though the water situation has not been bad. PTL! We are also reading 10 chapters a day from the Bible. today we are on Numbers 4-13. As well as reading "Is that really you, God?" and "Daring to Live on the Edge" both of which I have read, so I am waiting until someone is done so I can skim their copy. We have played Uno a couple of times, and I learned a new card game last night called "sevens" though it is really called "cheat" for obvious reasons.. hahaha. I did laundry, african style, all by myself yesterday, and it came out well. On Saturday I was cooking, which, if you cook on the weekends, means you cook all 3 meals... it was fun, but I don't feel like I did much. We peeled "Irish" (regular potatoes" for two hours with large blunt knives (So blunt the had problems with cutting tomatoes) without handles.. which was quite an adventure. Last week we learned about quiet time and Bible meditation and hearing the voice of God. Our speaker was Margaret, and she was amazing. I learned SO much. This week we are learning about prayer and intercession. Our speaker is a guy named Jonathan. He is cool. We (Hopeland) sent a team to Kotomore, an IDP camp in the north last week. This morning we heard testimonies from the camp, it was amazing. God did amazing things there, and many people were saved. We are continuing to support the "baby" christians there, and several of us on DTS are praying that we will get to go there (God has given us hearts for the IDP camps) for our mini-outreach (next month, we will go somewhere for 2 weeks, so I will prolly be out of communication for that time) or even for our big outreach. Please keep that decision in your prayers! Umm. what else? Mark from Canada finally got his luggage (it had been lost on his flight over, about 2 weeks ago!) God has just been blessing us in so many ways, speaking and breaking down so many things in me. It's been quite exciting. We also have had several birthday parties ( Mercy took video for me. so I will show you when I get home. because good luck uploading a 30 minute video onto youtube with this internet connection!) it was crazy and fun. Yes, yes. life here is good. I am enjoying it, and growing in the Lord. We also started work duty, so I get to pull weeds for 2 hours almost every day. It's actually pretty enjoyable. I was thinking all about DTS while doing my homework yesterday, and I was reminded of a Worldview analogy: "it's like drinking from a firehose". SO true. SO much happening at once.. and so hard to communicate it all to you folks back at home. I hope I am doing an ok job of it. But, back to the firehose analogy.. that reminded me of a movie clip.. if you have ever seen the movie, UHF, you should know what I am talking about!! :D Oh, what more can I say? God is so GOOD and I am learning and growing SO Much. I have uploaded a few more pictures.. more to come.. so check this link again in a few days, hopefully there will be more.. but other than that.. i only have 10 minutes left until class starts and i should do a couple things.. if you have emailed me.. I am working on a response.! http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29628&l=4105d&id=505165798 and I don't know if I already gave you this link yet.. so have this one too: http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28782&l=beae1&id=505165798

Prayer Requests:
* DTS Unity. We are 37 strong, soon to be 38, some guy arrives from Nigeria today (why late? not sure)
*Mosquito bites.. my feet are disgusting, and they are starting to hurt
* I will be ready and available to recieve what God has for me
* outreach & miniout reach destinations.
* Healing for Guy and Steve
blessings!

an update... finally!

Hello! Sorry that it has been so long since I updated.. we've been without power off and on for the last several days and every time the power goes out, the internet must be reset. Actually, apparently we are without power right now. (2:00 pm Friday). Yesterday we were without water, which made life interesting.

So, a review of my week. Monday we started classes, it was not too bad, we had a tour of the base, which of course we did not finish. We continued to receive students. Kristine from Michigan got stuck at the airport Saturday night and by the grace of God, was brought safely here safely Sunday in the middle of the night! Tuesday we spent learning the YWAM values. Then we went to Jinja town. That was exciting. It is quite large. We also played the African game of "Stuff the Taxi". Basically we put 20 YWAMers and the Driver into one "taxi" which was basically a glorified mini van. That was pretty sweet. Then we walked around town and got a tour, looking hilarious, a group of like 15 Muzungus (white people) and then some Africans. Then, I almost got run over twice. Once a taxi almost backed into me, and the second time I was a little too close to the road, and ended up with a car bumper 6 inches from my leg! Praise the Lord that I was safe. So we finally all pile back into the taxi and then suddenly, I look up and a random african man was sitting on my lap. Turns out he worked for the taxi company. So I am just sitting there feeling extremely awkward in a taxi crammed full of people, with my friends behind me laughing at me. Random African Man was there for quite some time until we got to a fuel station. He hopped out and pumped the Petrol, and then hopped back onto my lap. Eventually we discovered the reason he was there.. he was the conductor and was collecting all of our fares. Hahaha. Well, pretty much, TIA (This Is Africa). Wednesday after more YWAM values + all the DTS rules, I had another good African experience, Laundry! My friend Judith, from eastern Uganda, showed me how to wash in a bucket. She is a pro! This girl is amazing, she can do an entire load of laundry by hand in 30 minutes!! Thursday was YWAM's monthly international prayer and fasting day. We spent from 9am-3pm worshipping, interceding, and listening. It was pretty cool, minus the fact that I was desperately in need of some peppermint tea... it was an amazing day. Then we had an amazing dinner, complete with MEAT ( two bite sized pieces ) rice, and M____, which is this kind of mashed banana stuff. Not too bad.

So I've also played a lot of volleyball, and watched several movies. It rained last night and we had massive thunder and lighting, which I was blessed to wake up and see. They have also started us reading 10 chapters of the Bible everyday, which means that by the end of DTS we will have read the entire Bible! It's kind of intense, but it helps to get a bigger picture Our DTS class is 35 people, the biggest this base has ever had! We have students from Uganda, Kenya, The US, Canada, Tanzania, South Africa, Bali, & The Netherlands. It's an amazing group. I've had lots of fun talking to the Canadians, they remind me so much of home, for whatever reason I can't put my finger on it. But I am becoming an expert in Saskatchewan culture... though most is stuff I already knew, living so close to Canada.

I've also had to change my name. There are 3 "katies" on base.. though we each spell our names differently: Katy from Ohio is on staff, then there's Cady from South Africa, who sleeps on the bunk above me, and then there's me: Kati. So I am Kati Rose to help keep things from getting too confusing. Did I mention that there is also, in our room, a Catherine, a Kendra, and a Kristine?! It can get a little confusing! So, If you send me mail (hint, hint, hint) please address it to Kati Rose (with my last name of course). Thanks.

The last two days we have been learning about Discipleship. I have another lecture in about 8 minutes or so! Yesterday I also got to meet Teresha, the lady I will be working with at Spring Of Hope after DTS. Sounds like I will get to do home visits, where I go to the house and visit the children & their families and I will also get to work in the school helping with the education program! Yahoo!

[EDIT: It is NOW 9:12 pm Sunday night, and we've only just gotten internet & power back! Still no water, but it rained a little today, so we have some on base, just not in our dorm.] I will write more later, but the mosquitos are eating me alive!! Just to let you know, I am not trying to be a snot if you don't hear from me for a while, it's just that things like power, water, and internet are rather unpredictable around here. I love you all and miss you all terribly, I love love love hearing from you all, so please write back! ok. time to go! good night! love you all!

it begins!

ok. so this will be fast. I literally have 2 minutes of battery left. Things here are fabulous. God is SO Good. We started our DTS today.. there are like 40 people all arriving in the last 36 hours. In that same amount of time our dorm has gone from 5 to 17! Crazy! ok.. got to run! Pray for Kenya! Blessings!

chillin... in africa... actually it's more like roasting!

Hello! Life in africa is fabulous and HOT! Our DTS class is now 9 strong. Over night we added Penny (from South Africa), Mirijam & Matthijas (A married couple from the Netherlands), and Ryan and Tim from (Saskatchewan). Wohoo! My gmail is not working at the moment... nor has worked all day... so... please be patient for me to respond to emails. Well, yesterday afternoon I was finally able to upload some photos.. I just put them on Facebook because that is easiest. So if you follow these links, you can see them. I will try and add more later. http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28697&l=5a25f&id=505165798, http://hs.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28698&l=94a1d&id=505165798.

Last night we also had a few more adventures. We had my now favorite meal.. Chapatis (fried tortillas), rice, beef, and pineapple. YUM. Then just after I had finished washing my plate, post dinner, the power went out. Praise the Lord, none of our computers were plugged in at the time! The power was only out for 15 minutes or so (yay!) so then I went to the Common Room with Rachel (staff), Anthony (ABC student), Kendra (on my DTS) and Catherine (also on my DTS) to watch a movie. We decided on Dream Girls.. but after about 20 minutes I was suddenly exhausted and went to bed. Apparently the movie was not a favorite among other people as well. Oh well. We're going to try and watch another after dinner tonight.

Today I had amazing devotions! (YAHOO!!) And then headed for breakfast with Katy (staff) and Penny. Then I ended up talking to Jeffery (From Kenya, here for SBS) and Valence (from Uganda, also here for SBS). Valence is HILARIOUS, and super cool. He asked me a million questions, but he just has such a heart for Jesus and seeing people, especially young people, becoming disciples and discipling others. Anyway so we got to talking and then over breakfast (which was fresh buns made by the Tongans and my new favorite breakfast!!) Jeffrey started talking about Kenya and everything that is going on there. He was there for a couple weeks over Christmas.. and what is happening is just sick. Most of it is not reported on the news or anything like that. So if someone says there is "peace" in Kenya.. they are very very wrong! Please join me in praying for peace in Kenya and the healing, peace, and justice that only comes through Christ. One of the coolest things that Jeffrey was saying was that he was having a hard time dealing with all the atrocities he has seen, things happening for no reason, and he was crying out to God about them. And he was reminded that God is GOOD. And He is the God of Justice. We have hope, because one day, He will make all things right! PTL!

After breakfast we went for a walk. we started out showing Penny around.. and then ended up going and trying to find this spectacular vantage point of Lake Victoria that we had heard about. We didn't find it, but we saw a lot of beautiful things anyway. We met Jane, a widow taking care of 6 grandchildren who are orphaned. She was amazing. She asked us to come back and pray for her soon. We also met James who is a guard for a school, and this girl and her brother Emmanuel.. (I wish I could remember her name)... who lived in this amazing house. I'll try and post pictures soon.

Alright..well it is just about time for my afternoon nap. then we are going to play volleyball before dinner. Hope everything is wonderful with all of you!
(if you scroll down two posts, there is one all about day 2 or was it three?) ha ha .

Ok..
blessings to you all!

If I never said another word...

these poems are for Kelsey, my absolutely astoundingly amazing little sister.

If I ever moved to Africa, I'd miss my amazing sister because no one else but Jesus knows why "yule log" makes me laugh so hard, and I'd like to keep it that way.

If I ever became an astronaut, I'd like to buy a toothpick bird because I found Ursula's scrunchie and I like rhubarb pie.

If I ever visit Namibia, I'd like to put Betty Cracker on TV because Suudzu is amazing and i like making fun of Jude Law.

If I ever actually got a million dollars and a pony, I'd like to be a lumberjack because they aren't really going to shoot a helicopter with a stick of dynamite and if Padre shaves off his mustache, I am not coming home.

If I could go to Trader Joe's I'd like to drink water that is big-like lake because Kurt Browning used to live in my closet and I like back to school shopping.

If I ever had a four foot baby I'd like to buy you a Coldstone cake because Ranger Vickie is from "Oregon" and I want to blow stuff up with my mind.

If I never turned on Axton road again, I'd like to tell Tim Gunn his outfit was fierce because I remembered that your shark's middle name is Andre and I like it when clerks at Walgreen's ask you if you're getting married.