Our first sunday

Looking back now, I wonder why I didn't take more pictures off church, the team from

 New Heights Church or of the people we met these first few days. 

Seems I also did not take many notes these first days ... clearly jet leg, brain fog, coffee deficiency and perhaps ... 

I simply enjoyed finally being here, not being on and just absorbing it all!!

And off to Church we go, its just a little ways.

Little short cut 

Sneaking in the back way.

The kids tent! Doesn't peanut blend right in?!

There was no escaping it!
Everyone loved on little Luke, right away!

Check out these cool little guys!

Mr Matt was a hit with everyone.

Surprise! Let's have a little talk.
We got to meet the congregation and share a bit about
us and why we have come.

Lenah found it quite easy to mingle!

The sweetest girl EVER! 

Eager to get a car ride back and on being near Pastor Alex!

Walk back home, up Portbello Road

First Impressions

So we arrived, met everyone in the house and got settled in a bit. 

The weather is beautiful around 85 degrees, the rains quick and refreshing! We are a bit tired and exhausted from the long flights, but also wired and excited to see more.

Heres, to day one ...

WE ARE in Uganda!

Front yard and driveway at Alex's house.

The kids are eager to unlock the gate.

On our way to see the Kindergarten and meet Rhoda.

Area surrounding the Kindergarten. 

Across the Kindergarten. 

Meet Ms. Rhoda, Fields City Principal

                                   

Testing the playground is pretty important stuff!

Boy, there's kids waiting for me behind every corner!
Literally!!

Now, off to meet the team from New Heights Church in Vancouver and
then for a Pizza dinner! 

Wait, I though we do African now ... well, I guess Pizza is a winner everywhere! LOL.

A great first day. We got to meet more people, check out the Kindergarten and get ideas for the designs on the walls and to top it off we had Pizza and Soda!

Ready, set and go!!!

The Night before ...

Last day and only eight suitcases left to pack,
oh, plus four carry ons, but who's counting?!

Judging by the amount of meds, sunscreen and bug spray,
I think we need more snacks!

Moni and Lura came to save the day, or my sanity!
Thank you both, so very much!

One should always aim high:
Sure you will make the perfect travel journal with the kids
while gone! (Reality check comes later)

Ready for adventure!

Trying Emirates! Great airline, awesome kid service!

Cute or what?! Curtesy of Emirates Airlines.
(Of course, Bun Bun and Ducky Mo Mo had to come)!

Our sight seeing of Dubai!

Landing in Uganda.
Yes, the landing strip was paved!

Starting the drive to Luzira and Uganda welcomes us with rain!

First evening, first friends!
Meet Albright. Note, she is not posing or anything!

Just a little glimpse of our night before and the flight. We started into this with so many emotions for sure!

Mostly so, awe how everything came together. Gratefulness and total excitement for spending three weeks in Africa!!

We tried to prepare ourselves not to have expectations, to just go and joyfully see what the Lord had in mind with us over there.

We are ready to follow!

Prelude to 2014 - UGANDA

             

          Take that, 2013 ... we made it! 

2013 passed, we made it to Uganda and came back and here is 2014, and it seems like it so easily came, but ...

it has been a long way to get here. Many obstacles where overcome and it took much help and support to make it happen.

2013 has been a crazy year for our family. We have tried to live quite radical, or perhaps I should say, that's just what was put in the path.
We started the year, having one of those moments, realizing we needed change, much change and that we wanted to spend the year focusing on building a stronger, Christ centered family!

Early on in the year, we both (Chris and I) came to realize we had things we just needed to let go and choose to want whatever God's will for our lives is!

Little did we know, this would turn everything upside down! We were constantly stretched, tested and taken completely out of our comfort zones!

Remember, be careful what you ask for ... 

the answer just might not come the way you where expecting!

It was a incredible year, incredibly full of very FEW ordinary days, many, MANY crazy ones, super tough ones, and thankfully also many fun and joyful ones!


We made the decision for  me to leave my job field in Veterinary medicine, permanently and start full time college, to study Human Rights, with International Studies and Teaching. But shortly after starting, we were led to put it back on hold and home school our kids. 
Interestingly that didn't happen until after I managed to take some art courses, clarifying some new directions for me and meeting people that would be important later in the year, even so we had no idea then. We finished a couple of quarters at college, got ready for homeschooling, and dealt with financial ugliness. 

In the midst of it, God said ... time to GO!

It's time to start checking into missions, time to check into adoption and time to follow the path I have for you!

It wasn't a thought, it was not from me and clearly not simply said by Chris! 

We have been together  20 years, and what it took for me to finally let go of controlling my future and dreams, it took for Chris to let go and be willing to hear and feel what his Father has for him.

Many doors closed, and the right ones opened in amazing ways! We met just the right people, at the right moments and just for such a time as this! 

It has been incredibly to see God at work this past year!

As we tried to obey and tackle this much bigger than us thing, everything seemed to fall apart for a while. We dealt with marriage problems, seeming too large to handle, a ton of financial stress, the new world of homeschooling and insecurities about leaving the job field permanently along with all the other normal parenting and every day problems.

And now, we are trying to take our whole family on a mission trip to Africa, 

we surely must be crazy!

But, you know, it really wasn't our plan! We could not have made all of this work on our own, no matter what! Throughout the year, God has had his hand so clearly in our lives, there is no denying it! Just as much as the enemy was waiting at every weak moment for us!

When God is at work, the enemy is working hard as well! We definitely learned a lot about that this past year.

However, we also learned that is absolutely, without a doubt, God that will win the battle every time!
The key is to let him! Things go terribly wrong when we try to do it our way, but when we step back, our Father always stepped in!

We had amazing people come along side us during the tough times and also to celebrate the joyous moments of the year. God put forth his troops to support us for sure!

We experienced what it means to truly be broken, what it feels like to be completely humbled and  what a tremendous amount of grace, love and unbelievable support and encouragement our Father has for us! 

All in all, I think it is safe to say ... 2013 was the hardest year EVER! 

But it at the same time it was likely also the most interesting, radical and challenging one (and I do like all these things)!

For us to have made it through 2013, to have made it to this place of getting ready for the first mission trip, is nothing short of a miracle!

It is all HIS doing, and ALL the glory goes to our LORD!

We experienced a lot in 2013. It was good to go through the hard ones and the good ones. I am excited to learn how to use all of it in the future and to see how God is using us.

And, to be quite honest, a few of the lessons I really do not want to do over again! Hmmm, good reminder to self ... try harder in some areas. :-)

We serve a awesome God and along some pretty amazing brothers and sisters in Christ!
Thank you all so much for walking with us this last year!

And now I will start blogging about the actual trip ... with photos, enjoy :-)

So, what does it take ... to get our family on a short term mission trip to Uganda?

Well, in all honesty, a bunch of crazy and a whole lot of God and many, many supporters!

For right now though, let us just focus on the financial part for a moment, since I am sure a lot of you are wondering:

Where does all the money go?


Right here:          


Preparations: This includes our passports, immunizations and
                         malaria preventative for all four of us, and a small
                         allowance for fund raising, i.e. postage, fliers ...)                    $ 3,900

Travel costs:  This includes our airline tickets, baggage fees,
                        entry visas, medical insurance, Lodging, food,
                        in country transportation and misc expenses                            $ 9,890


                        For a grand total of:                                                              $ 13,790

WOW, now that the cat is out of the bag ... let's talk about the variations and what would happen with any left over money.

First of all, some expenses are tentatively. As TAM is a very Young ministry and we are the first team from our church going to help with TAM in Uganda, there simply is no detailed protocol or handbook available to us.

Our immunization and malaria cost are variable and depend on our insurance and deductibles. Any of you having to ever deal with their insurance, know this may take a while before we will get clear answers. In the meantime we need to cover this to the full price. Airline tickets might vary a bit as well. right now we can get them for about $ 1,600/person but in a month or two they can be as high as $ 2,500/person. Yikes!!! So, we really need to get them as soon as funding gets there!

Another flexible amount is baggage fees, transportation and lodging. That all depends on how much donated supplies we can gather to take with us and if we are able to make all the trips planned while in Uganda. A 1/4 gallon of gas is currently costs about $ 1.60 so that's about $ 6.80/gallon, which explains why it is so costly to travel in Uganda. Oh, and you usually have to hire a driver as well!

Currently we have about $ 4,500 from our own money and roughly $ 550 in donations. That leaves us with $ 8,740 to be raised by the end of the month.

Why by the end of the month, you wonder? Well, quite frankly we really need to book our flights in order to get a good price on them. January, the time we are meant to be there, is right in the short dry season Uganda has and therefore the best time to go. TAM has recommended avoiding the rain season, as inner country travel might become impossible. TAM has to plan for our accommodations, arrangements have to be made with the airlines for extra freight, in country meetings scheduled, leave turned in and so forth.

If we can not reach the majority of the funding by end of November we will have to push our departure back until we reach funding and TAM can put us in.
Should we exceed needed funding, all proceeds will be given directly to TAM to by chairs and tables for the kindergarten.

All that said, what we really need is your support in praying for us! We would love for you to partner with us in praying for us.

All else will happen in his time and to his will, as is always better than ours!

Much love,

Marion

So, you guys are going to Uganda?!

As some of you may already have noticed, there have been a lot of things going on in our family this year. Last winter, I started to be more involved in our AWANA group and  Marion started going back to school full time to pursue a degree in International Studies and Education. This spring however our family felt led to make the decision to homeschool Lenah and Luke this year, and to focus our family on living in a more radical way, to get out of our comfort zones and to learn how to use our individual gifts in a better way.

Shortly after this we had the opportunity to learn how to do just that, as we met Alex Mutagubya, pastor at City Church of Luzira, Kampala and founder of Transform African Ministries (TAM). We got to hear about their ministries in Uganda and are excited about the work God is doing in Kampala. You can learn more about TAM and what they do by visiting http://transformafricanministries.org

We feel extremely blessed and honored to have been invited by TAM, and to be sent by Lake City Community Church, to go to the City Church in Luzira, Uganda and to help a little with one of their current projects and learn about all that God is doing through TAM in Uganda. We will be traveling to Kampala, tentatively around January 7th and will be staying with Alex and his family for about 3 weeks.

So who is going, you wonder? Well, all of us! That's right, Marion, Lenah, Luke and I.
We had not anticipated that, but after we put thought and prayer to it, we got a very clear call for all of us to go, as part of this trip is also to see what God has in mind with our family from here on out.

What exactly will we be doing over there? Well, one of TAMs ministries is to open a Kindergarten in January, for which the building is under way now. We and the kids will be helping with getting the offices and classrooms ready for the children and teachers to start. We hope to bring lots of the needed supplies with us, along with a library of books, tools and possibly some funds for furniture, as well as hoping to bring music and arts along for the little ones.

And in the midst of all this, we will also be visiting an orphanage and two “babies’ homes” in Kampala. Yes, God is working mightily in our hearts and we are very excited to explore this further as well.

Many of you might already know, that Marion is very passionate about tough topics. Therefore we will also be visiting the Kampala child detention center, and/or “Remand homes,” to learn how we might be used to help and to bring hope.

After all this excitement, we are planning to finish our vision trip with a visit to Murchison Falls Park to get a glimpse of some nature, meet the staff and rangers to learn firsthand about the current poaching issues, elephant protection  and if and how we can be globally involved in the efforts to bring change to this challenging situation.

Awesome things are under way and we will share all the details on the things to take, fundraisers, ways you can be involved and status updates with you as we get to each step. So follow us along here and on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/raykovitzuganda, for the latest news on all of this.

Things are happening so quickly and sometimes not in the prepared, pre-planned way we would have it. We are eager to follow the call and to be allowed to take part in his story and to see it unfold.

And so, this is where you come in. There is much anxiety surrounding all that it means to fly into Africa for the first time and with two children, and having only barely 4 months to prepare, so we would love your prayer support in seeing this come to life.

We have arrived at a trip total of $13,790 plus whatever we can raise to help send books, tools and help with school furniture (more detailed cost breakdown will be on the FB page). Our passports are under way, the vaccines started and flights are picked and ready to be booked as soon as we reach funding.

Please pray for our family for:

      ·         peace and faith that surpasses all understanding, as we follow God’s call.

·         help with the all the preparations and fundraisers.

·         Marion's health as we prepare and for all of us on the trip.

·         our hearts to be prepared and that we may be a blessing and bring glory to his name in all we do.

We are overwhelmed, joyful and excited to share this journey with you all. We are fully expecting and longing for our hearts to be completely broken and made anew in this.

 Lake City will be our sending church and we feel extremely blessed and grateful for this.

We would very much love for you to partner with us on this journey and covet your prayers. If you are inclined and able to help financially, you can do so by sending a check directly to our Church using the enclosed donation slip, or by checking our blog for a PayPal option (note that with a mailed check you will receive a letter for tax deduction, with PayPal that is not possible as the funds will go directly to us).

We feel privileged and blessed to be sent to Uganda and would love to have you on our team.

 

With much love and gratefulness,

Chris, Marion,

Lenah and Luke

Short Story Uganda

So how come missions, Uganda?

Well, there's a lot more to it of course, but basically it goes like this:

Little girl, always wants to go live in Africa ... BUT ...
Boy grows up in America, joins the Army,
goes to Germany.
Said boy and girl, meet, fall in love and get married.
They move to America, work and have children.
Mom still wants to go but Dad doesn't hear the call :-(


Mom lets it all go, just then Dad gets his call.
They look at their children, and see ...
Mommy's little girl that long heard HIS call,
and the little boy that's ready to grow.
So upside down it turns all things,
but they cheer with joy
and pack their things.