Cooking

Its a good thing I like to cook.  Here, I spend a good part of my day either thinking about what I am going to make or actually cutting, slicing, peeling, mixing, rolling, and cooking.  Here, it takes more time to cook and that is something I was not expecting when we moved.
Here we are very limited with ingredients to what is in season.  However, there are always tomatoes, onions, green pepper (bell), carrots, cabbage, and (irish) potatoes.  Those never fail me.  So I have learned to get creative!  I have also started to just make things that I wish I could go to the store and buy. I want to share the recipes with you of two things that I am really loving to make right now.

One thing that I like to make and Colin LOVES to eat are flour tortillas.

3 cups flour
1 cup warm water (makes the dough soft)
1/3 cup oil
1 teaspoon salt
Mix, and you may need to add a touch of flour so the dough is not sticky
Pull off small bits and roll out (the first 20 times I made these, we ate tortillas that were all sorts of shapes.  Don't fret, it gets easier each time you roll one out.  Just keep your surface dry and well floured so the dough doesn't stick.)
Cook on a dry skillet over medium heat til they puff up, flip and then remove.
The cooking should only take about a minute total.
I have found that if you want to make these for breakfast, you can make the dough the night before and put it in an airtight container.  The dough will be so easy to roll out and very soft the next day.

 The other really fun thing that I have started to make from scratch are noodles!  I really had no idea just how simple it could be.  My friend Rachel and I made these with the ladies in the village and there is no reason why you can't as well!  My mom had asked how to make them, so here it is.

1 egg
1/2 of an egg shell of water (I know, weird measurement)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Enough flour to form a stiff dough
Mix
Roll out and let set for about 15 minutes or so on each side.  This helps it to dry out a little.
Flour and fold til at least twice.  (The flour will help when you need to pull the noodles apart)

I think it is wise to pull them apart just so when you put them in the water they don't stick.

These noodles were going into a soup so I cut them into small pieces.  You can leave them as long as you like. 

And then into the soup pot they went!  Along with the old faithfuls, tomatoes, carrots, green peppers, onions, and tomatoes!
They don't take near as long to cook, so just a few minutes in a boil and they are done.
Perfection!

     So...dear readers, are you ready for this!?
I want to challenge y'all this week.  If time allows of course, to try and cook most of your meals from scratch.  Or at least a part of them.  Try and use lots of veggies. Try and make your own tortillas or noodles. (If you make noodles, please oh please someone eat it with some pesto for me!)
If you do, let me know so I can vicariously enjoy some pesto.  And if you find a fun new way to use these items, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!  I am always looking for new things to cook with the same ingredients.

A few prayer needs

The past three or four blogs have been posted by Colin, so I feel it is my turn or time to post something.
Things here are clickin' right along.
The work continues in Obule with the well drilling, fence building and bunkhouse building.  Colin has been spending most days running all around between all that we have going on.  Silas and I join in when we can.  My friend and I taught the ladies at our church how to make their own homemade noodles.  They LOVED it.  Rachel found a very easy recipe and it uses all ingredients that they have or can get in the trading center.  It was great fun and they all loved the finished product.  One of the older ladies said that she thought that noddles could only be imported!  I love teaching with Rachel and teaching this group of ladies.
We are getting ready for some friends from Ethiopia to come visit.  Jess and Jonathan will be here with their two little kiddos for a month.  They will be here from Thanksgiving through Christmas.  We are so excited that they will be here for the holidays.  We are slowly getting things ready here.  We have moved some of the rooms around so to make the best of our space here.  Colin is really excited to have Jonathan here again.  Jonathan and Jess lived in Paint Rock for a few months working with Water For All just before we joined with them.  So Jonathan is skilled in the drilling and agriculture in general.  I already have all of Jess's days filled!  We have trips planned with ladies in the village, shopping, teaching the cooking class (which is going to be "chicken that taste like bread", or as we know it chicken fried chicken) pool time with the kiddos and much more!
There are just a few things that we do need prayer over.

• We are moving forward with getting legal guardianship of Silas.  We have all the needed paperwork (so I am told) and now we will just wait for a court date here in Soroti.  Please pray that everything goes smoothly!  It would be awesome to have a date before Christmas and have this part of the process finished. 
• Colin has once again hurt his back.  He had to carry a generator/welder around the 3+ acres of the property to drill holes for the fencing wire.  Somewhere in the process he pulled or slipped something out of place.  He was on "wife forced" rest most of last week.  We have found a chiropractor in the city and we think he will give it a try when we are there getting Jess and Jonathan.  Please pray for relief from pain, healing and that this is a good chiropractor!
• The building process is going rather smoothly.  Still, like with any building project, there are things that can make you a bit frustrated.  Colin handles it all in stride, like he does with most things.  (I love that about him!)  However, we can still use prayer while we continue building.  We also want to make sure we are using the money that God has allowed us to have wisely.  We know that this is a huge gift to us and we understand that it comes with great responsibility as well.
• Prayer for Jess and Jonathan as they travel here with two young children, and for their time here to be fun and restful.
• As the holidays approach, we are all missing family.  And families are missing us.  It will be great to have friends here to celebrate with, but we know that it can be a hard time for some.  Please pray for all of us that are away this year, and for the families that are stateside.       

    
Thank you for praying with us and for us.

the color of Uganda

Uganda is full of beautiful vibrant colors.   You see all these wonderfully bright colors in flowers, the bright and intricately-patterned fabrics of the dresses the women wear.  You see all sorts of colors when you look at all the lush vegetation. When you go to the markets you are bombarded with color.  All of the produce and fruits are these great colors.  There is even beautifully colored wildlife life to see like giraffes, zebras, all kinds of pretty birds, chameleons and tons of other brightly colored lizards, and hundreds of beautiful insects.  

Even with all these very bright and exciting colors, the most common color though seems to be brown.  Maybe what I am calling brown you would call red, but for the sake of this blog I'm calling it brown - or at least some shade of brown.  I had no idea there were so many shades of brown.  Earthtones are everywhere.  You see the same browns everywhere you look from rusting corrugated tin roofs, burnt clay brick homes, mud huts with thatch roofs, dirt roads,marrum (the red-brown colored soil/rock layer covering Uganda), brown aging grass that is cured by the sun, the foods we eat, even the color of peoples skin.  I was a shade of pink when we moved here, but even I have changed to a shade of brown now.  Brownish red color is the most common color in Uganda.  It is everywhere.  

This color is what I think of when I picture Africa.  When you see a movie about Africa, or pictures from the news, or from a book or magazine, you always see these browns.  Sometimes when it hasn't rained in weeks or months I can find myself complaining about the brown dust that covers everything, gets into my eyes and mouth, blows in the windows and covers the floor, furniture, and bed.  But I do love the brown dust that blankets all of Uganda.  There is something about the brown that you just can't help but grow to love.

marrum