Uganda

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our friend Aurelie!! We hope you have a wonderful day!

We're back and we have a LOT of pictures. We've picked some of our favorites and we'll let them tell the story of our trip. If you want more details, call us, we'd love to tell you more!

We got to fly to Uganda with Gunner and Cindi who are working on adopting their sweet little boy Judah (pictured above). On our first full day in Uganda, we went to the orphanage and got to watch them meet Judah for the first time. We think Judah is pretty content with his new mom and dad!

This is Brian David, one of the orphans at the same orphanage as Judah Gunderson. Kara picked him up and he just cuddled and eventually fell asleep. It was one of her favorite moments of the trip! She wanted to adopt him.

This is the view of a Ugandan sunrise from the porch of the Hurley's home. Uganda is a beautiful country.

We thought about telling you all we lived in a hut while we were in Uganda, but that just wasn't the case. This is the Hurley's house. It was just like any home in America.

This is a street in Kampala. The driving there is like nothing we've ever experienced. It was a little chaotic. One of the main forms of public transportation is called the boda boda. They are motorcycles that you ride on the back of. Matt used them a few times and loved it!

This is the market where Danielle gets all of her produce. There are a lot of vendors, but she has a relationship with this lady (on the right), so she always goes to her.

This is Matt playing with some of the orphans that live next door to the Hurley's.

One of our favorite aspects of the trip was that the Hurley's have 4 Ugandans that live with them. We had so much fun getting to know them and we all played cards every night. They were so sweet and fun! From the left Peter, Edward, Kara, Anthony (some of you might recognize him, he went to Master's!) and Faith.

Matt grilled for everyone on Easter. It decided to pour down rain that afternoon so that is the reason for the tent. (Shannon and Peter in the background).

Here we all are right before eating on Easter. From the left: Danielle, Evan, Faith, Edward, Matt, Kara, Peter, Anthony, Ethan and Elisa.

Here are Elisa and Ethan Hurley enjoying the Easter candy that Gunner and Cindi brought them.

Here are some cute Ugandan kids. Every few days the Hurley's order chipati (it's like a denser tortilla) from the stand in the background. When we would drive up all these kids would come over and Shannon Hurley would usually throw them candy. We wanted to take the 2 littlest ones in front home with us!

Here is Matt in the Hurley's van. We had just finished getting gas in it all by ourselves. It was our first and only adventure in Uganda on our own and it was quite the experience. We had to get gas for the car, gas for the generator (a dif. kind of gas) and air in the tire. We had to go to 3 gas stations. Each one had one of the things we were looking for!

This is the inside of the Hurley's church.

While we were there, they had an outreach and showed the Passion of Christ. Setting up the sound was an event in itself! It took 2 tries on 2 different days to get it all to work, but in the end it all came together!

For the last 3 days of our trip we got to go on a safari with the Hurleys. On our way out of town we got a flat tire so we had to stop at the Goodyear in Kampala. Here are the Hurley kids being cute while we waited for the tire to get fixed.

To get to our hotel for the safari we had to take a ferry across the Nile. Here we are right before we got on.

On our way to the safari we saw a ton of monkeys. They would sit in the road in groups of like 10-20 and you would have to slow down to give them time to scatter.

Here is a Ugandan sunset. We got to our hotel just in time to see it.

We took a boat tour on the Nile and saw all kinds of animals. These are baby crocodiles.

Here are some full grown crocodiles. There were about 15 of them on the shore and as the boat got closer to them they started to swim out towards it.

The boat took us to Murchison water falls. It was beautiful!

We stopped near a little rock island and were able to get out of the boat and take a picture in front of the falls.

Here is one of the many cool birds we saw on the boat tour. They build these nests that hang down from the trees. Some of the trees had about 20 nests in them.

Here is Danielle with Evan, Ethan and Elisa on the boat tour.

Here are Kara and Elisa still on the tour.

This is a kind of buffalo (can't remember the actual name). We thought they looked like they were wearing George Washington style wigs.

Here are some elephants we saw on the shore from the boat.

Here is a picture of a hippo. There were a ton of hippos! There is even one the Hurley kids call the friendly hippo because it hangs out at a gas station near the hotel and grazes like a cow! This picture is for Janae. :)

We also went on a drive to see what animals we could find. Here is a girafe. We also got to see some girafes run which was quite amazing!

Here is a warthog (or Pumba as the Hurley kids like to call them).

Uganda had some big, ugly birds. Here is one of them!

Here is a Kobe.

Unfortunately this is the best picture we could get of the adolescent lion we saw. There were 2 and we followed them for a while.

Here are some more elephants.

Here is an elephant up close. It's blurry because it was starting to charge towards us. Matt and Shannon were loving it and Danielle and Kara were in the back seat with pounding hearts. It was pretty awesome though!

This is our hotel room.

This is the view from our hotel balcony. Notice the Nile in the background. That is Matt on the left talking with a retired couple that started an orphanage in Uganda. They are from Bend, OR. It's a small world!

Here is an African hut. We stopped and asked the owner if we could take a picture.

We had a wonderful trip and many experiences that we don't have room to write. Matt spent a lot of time touring hospitals and finding out what it would take to start one overseas someday. Kara spent her time helping Danielle around the house and with the kids and getting a feel for what missionary life is life. She got to share her testimony with about 300 school children one day.

We enjoyed some great Uganda foods while we were there. Our favorites were chipati and egg (it's like a tortilla with a fried egg and tomato -- a staple lunch for Ugandans), Samosas which are like pastries filled with seasoned meat, and African tea which is basically regular tea but made with milk instead of water (it is comparable to chai tea). Kara had fried casava which is like a dense dry french fry.

Thanks for all your prayers and support!! Please continue to pray that the Lord will help us to know His will for our future!