Day 47– Aug 15, 2005, Monday: Introduction to our team

Below is our Team! from left to right: Wendy, Rodney, Meagan, Karen, Aime, Meg, Rita, Laura, Jonny, Emily, Jessika, Ruth and Dave. Can you believe God pulled us all together from all across the world to tell about Him in Uganda? Who'd a thought?

Let me introduce you to our team. Obviously there is Ruth, Jess, Jon and me. You should know us by now. The Richards family has a total of 5. Rodney is the father, he is an ex-civil engineer who now does computer networking type stuff for a school in New Zealand. Karen is his wife who home schools their three girls and keeps him in line. The girls are Aime, an awesome ‘Straight Edge’ 16 year old, Laura, the teacher/entertainer of our kids, 13 year old (she gets angry when I beat her at cards), and Meg, the playful, sensitive, always in a conversation 9 year old. They are a great family, they just talk funny (NZ accents are actually really cool sounding). Then there is Rita, our leader. She’s been to Uganda before, keeps us on track, and helps us have fun; she really is a great leader from Oregon. Every now and then she just Explodes with enthusiasm, so look out :)! Wendy is from Vancouver eh. She is a pediatric nurse with a huge heart and a sore neck. Pray that her neck gets healed and stays that way. Megan is from Virginia, 23 years old. She is bubbly and outgoing and fun to laugh with. She teaches elementary school (at least before this life changing experience). Emily is from Florida, right near Bradenton. I think she’s 18. Jonny has fallen in love with her. She is a lot of fun.

Today was mostly prep for our island outreach. We had some good worship this morning. We also had a Hawaiian guy (I missed his name) come and talk about the culture here and give us some cool history of the islands. One of the students in our class made up a skit and acted it out to music with 5 or 6 friends. It was sort of a mime type thing (with no words), but it was really powerful. Showing people give their lives in faith and struggle and know God better. I enjoyed it. Then ofcourse we mowed one last time. I can’t wait to have a week off of that! Tomorrow we are off to Kohala! Can’t wait.

You'll have to forgive me. I know that I owe you a week's worth of pictures and what God has done in our lives, but I'm beat. I've got bunches of pictures and cool stuff to tell you, so look for it later today....good night.