A little taste of home...

               7am bus ride, on a 5 hour long bumpy road is the way we got to Kampala. Kampala is an interesting city, it reminds me of LA, but an LA where the smog and exhaust is on crack and the traffic is 10X worse. It has its moments though; we stayed at a lovely place which is perfectly tucked away from the craziness of the city. Stef and I ran some errands and then had a relaxing girls night. Dinner at a swanky club where you get a free cocktail as you walk in, and a movie in a theater where you get a free drink with your ticket. On Saturday we picked up the RH girls from the airport and then took Cara on a tour of where Remnant gets their shirts. The tour was amazing, seeing how it was run and how everything was done. Thanks Herbert! Dennis our Kampala Boda, he calls us “boss”, took us all around and gave Cara a true Kampala Boda experience...which is fast and in and out through traffic.Stef took us all to a great restaurant downtown where I had some AMAZING steak and grilled vegetables. The team let Stef and I sleep over so we had a huge girly slumber party and then we all went to church the next day. 

Sunday was a day of pure bliss. We went to church, which was amazing and really nice to have a little taste of church back home, and then said goodbye to the team heading up to Gulu. Cara, Stef and I had meetings the next day so we just hung out all day at this place called Mish Mash. You could totally find Mish Mash somewhere in the OC or LA, its this great place that has tons of outdoor seating,lounge beds, picnic tables, art, and good food. We spent the majority of our day their taking advantage of the free wifi, and napping on the outdoor beds in the cool breeze. On Sundays at Mish Mash they have live music; as we were just relaxing a group of African drummers came to our area and began playing. The band moved to the front the the restaurant where they was a full set up, cultural dancing and outfits included. We left Mish Mash and headed to dinner where we ate Indian food on a roof top. It was just a nice way to end the weekend, finally getting time to really unwind and enjoy good food and good company. 

 We had more meetings on Monday and then headed back to Gulu. We got to the bus park around 2 and the bus wasn’t leaving until 4, and we didn’t arrive back in Gulu until 10pm. That was an interesting experience, but it wasn’t terrible and actually highly enjoyable. 

The week following was another amazing week. Having the team here was so fun. It was a small and speciallized trip, each girl using her gifts and expertise to learn how to better empower the people of Northern Uganda.  It was fun for Stef and I to have familiar faces from home and the christmas-morning-excitement sized care packages (costco/target/Trader Joes) they brought will keep us fueled for the rest of our stay...or as long as they will last us (THANK YOU SO MUCH!!). 

The days were spent all doing our own things, Cindy and Christina would have meetings with doctors or at clinics or hospitals,Tammi would meet with school directors, teachers or headmasters while Cara was helping Remnant with business, ,marketing, design and screen printing. Having Cara in Gulu was amazing, she is a US board member for Remnant International and she truly came at the most amazing time. I don’t know why it still surprises me that Gods timing is always right on time. Screen printing troubleshooting in Africa is not easy. Not only do we not have proper and up to date equipment but we also have to factor in all the obstacles and weather issues that come along with working in Africa. Within 30 mins of Cara being within the walls of Remnant compound she already made screen printing that much easier with a tiny trick of a loosening a few screws. She continued to blow our minds with more new tricks and a beautiful new screen printing  technique. We had several  meetings just digging into Remnant. We talked about everything from seasonal colors, designing, learning how to better create and display product, marketing and how to best communicate changes and new process to our ladies. It was a really really refreshing time. We had the chance to really work on the business side of the org while simultaneously working on how to best walk alongside our ladies. Brenda our livelihoods manager was amazing as usually, educating us on all that would be helpful to know. We had such a fun time with Cara, sharing our lunch of posho and beans. Read more about cara in Remnant Uganda’s blog. 

Our nights with the team were so much fun as we shared meals and  got  caught up with the rest of the team.  We made pad thai we went out for pizza, ethiopian and indian, we shared stories about our days and stories of how God was working in each aspect of our lives. I loved having all the girls here they were such a blessing! Thank you Cindy, Christina, Cara & Tammi, you took care of us, you loved us and you blessed us in so many ways. Thank you for all the laughs, the dance parties, and just being amazing!

If you want to help support my work with Remnant Uganda and my life in Gulu, you can send money through Pay Pal using my email address Maryjsick@gmail.com ! My birthday is August 16th so if you need a good reason...there it is! Thank you