We rafted down the Nile River!

Well, we just got back from rafting down the Nile river and survived! :) It was so much fun! (says Megan) It was the scariest, most fun I have ever had but, never again. (says Melanie) Today was a very long day we left to go rafting at 9 this morning and got back around 6 this evening. We are very tired. We're sad that we had to spend our last full day here rafting and not with the kids but, we really would have regretted not going. Tomorrow we leave Amani around 4 in the afternoon so, we will have some time to play with the kids before we leave. Tomorrow will be a really hard day for us having to say goodbye to the kids and the mamas and wishing we could stay longer. Three weeks definitely wasn't long enough. But, now we know that for next summer instead of staying three weeks, we should stay for three months. Then we might feel like that was enough time well spent here. Who knows, but we both know we are coming back here. Oh and by the way... For those of you who have asked us and we weren't able to give you an answer or you have been wondering.... Amani means peace. Please keeps us in your prayers tomorrow as we begin our journey back home tomorrow. Again, we thank you for all your support! We are so incredibly blessed!

Can't wait to see you all and tell you our many stories!

Melanie & Megan

A Second-hand Update

(posted by Meg's dad)

We talked with Megan earlier today. Life in Uganda is going well, with only a few more days before they head back home. We got the sense that they are already feeling sad about the prospect of leaving the kids, as Amani has apparently made a significant impression on them.
Megan mentioned that they have a whitewater rafting trip planned for Friday. This may sound strange for their Africa adventure, but Jinja is known as a real adventure spot. It is the source of the White Nile, which has Class 3 and Class 4 rapids just below Jinja. Throw in bungee jumping and ATV riding, and a lot of tourists visit Jinja for an adrenalin rush. The girls are going with a group of 5-6 others associated with Amani (either volunteers or friends of volunteers). Meg said that Melanie is a little apprehensive about the experience, so please pray for their safety as they venture into the wild water in a couple of days.
We expect to hear more later about their experience with the babies, although they have shared that diaper changing in Uganda is a far "different" experience than in the U.S. Hopefully, they will elaborate on it.
They are set to travel back on Saturday evening (10:40 p.m. Uganda time), and arrive home around 10:30 p.m. Sunday evening.

Things always getting better!

Hey everyone! :)

The title to our blog is part of a song that the mamas always sing with the children here at Amani. Things are still going great over here in Jinja! There are three different baby rooms at Amani, baby A, B, and C. We have been in the room called Baby B the whole week. The babies in baby B are any where from 9-15 months and there are about 10 kids in the room right now. They are very sweet and so much fun, because most of them are just getting a hang of walking.
Yesterday we got to go to two other orphanages the first one we visited is called Home Sweet Home Uganda and it is run by two women who are both originally from the Netherlands. The home opened in Janurary and house children with disabilities and right now there are 11 children there and tomorrow (Saturday) one of the children from Amani is going to be moving in there to make it 12. The max age limit at Amani is age 5. When one of our children reaches the age of 5 they are either then adopted, reunited with their families if they have any, or moved to another home where the house older children. He has reached the age of 5 and is also physically disabled and we feel they are better equiped to care for him than we are. He has Aaskargs Syndrome, which is a genetic disorder (sorry that I have to keep saying "he", but we aren't supposed to use the kids' names for obvious reasons). The second one we went to is called Our Own Home and it has around 45 kids of ages infant-15 and it was so much fun to play games with kids older than the age of 5. Our Own Home only houses children who are HIV positive. It was a great experience to see other orphanages and how they differ from Amani. It was great to meet some more of God's beautiful children! Today we're taking some of the babies from baby C to the pool. We're hoping they all enjoy the water, because it's hot here today!

Happy Forth of July!

Melanie & Megan

June 29, 2009

Hey everybody! So we decided since we weren’t getting internet at the home we would just come into town and get it. Well, we have been here a week and we both love it so far. Yesterday we went to church and got to experience riding a boda boda (a motorcycle or bicycle taxi) for the first time. It was actually a good experience. We both really liked taking the boda boda especially because without them you have to walk everywhere, which gets really tiring in the hot weather. After church we got the opportunity to fellowship with a bunch of people we met from church that morning and we all went to eat at the Braza Resort. In Uganda, when you order food, it takes at least an hour for a table of two to get their food, but yesterday we had a table of 23. It took almost 3 hours to get our food. It was good though! We have Saturday mornings off and all day Sunday off. So, the rest of the day we just hung out with some of the other volunteers inside, because it was pouring rain outside. We will try to get on more frequently, but no promises since internet here is limited.

Lots of love from Africa!

Melanie & Megan

We finally made it!

Well, we thought it may never happen, but we finally arrived in Africa on Monday at about 8:00 PM (around noon your time.) We flew into Entebbe, which is about two and a half hours from Jinja. We were so happy to just be in Africa. The process of getting through customs and everything took about an hour. After all that we went to claim our luggage and couldn’t find any to claim. After a while Megan’s turned up, but Melanie’s never did show up that night. That was a bummer. It took another hour to sit down and file my baggage as missing and then we were finally ready to go. Since we arrived a day later than we were supposed to Megan’s dad was communicating with Amani for us to see if the driver could come get us the next day instead. When he heard back from them he was going to call us. Well, we never did hear back from him before we got out of the country. So, arriving at the airport we were hoping that someone was there to pick us up. Thankfully he was there waiting for us with an Amani Baby Cottage sign in hand. We cannot even begin to explain how good it was to see him and that sign. We finally arrived in Jinja at about 12:30 AM and were starving! There are too many volunteers in the home right now, so we’re staying with the nurse that is a full time volunteer here at Amani. She’s been here for 5 years. She just lives right down the road from the orphanage. God bless her, as she had dinner waiting for us when we pulled up. I think we eventually went to bed around 1:30 and were told to just get some sleep and not worry too much about volunteering tomorrow. Well, we took that to heart. Some other volunteers from the home had to come down and make sure we were still breathing at 4:15 in the afternoon. Needless to say we couldn’t sleep at all the next night. Today was the first day of full on volunteering and we absolutely love it! The kids are wonderful and so loving and adorable. At the home there are full time employees that care for the children everyday and they call them “mamas”. The volunteers are called “auntie” or “uncle”. Auntie Megan and Auntie Melanie are our new names around Amani. We’re learning the new terms around the home. The most common ones used that we have caught on very quickly are “su su” and “ca ca”, which means pee and poop. Megan had her first ca ca explosion this morning. Those cloth diapers are a lot different than disposable diapers. We were able to walk into to town twice today. It was a great experience. The town is very cute and we can’t wait to get more familiar with it. If you’ve never been to Africa it’s definitely not the Africa you envision in your head. The internet doesn’t work very well here and we are trying to update the blog as often as we can, so please bare with us! Thanks for your continued support and prayers!

We love and miss you all!

Megan and Melanie



Melanie and her long-lost bags!

Quick Update - Friday 6/26

(Update from Meg's dad)

Talked with Megan briefly this morning - actually around 4:30 p.m. Uganda Time. They are continuing to enjoy their time with the kids, and are looking forward to the weekend off. No set plans yet, but they are talking with the other workers there to get some ideas. Megan had mentioned before going that she might look into rafting or something else to be able to see more of Uganda. They are going out with several folks from Amani for dinner at the Gately (a guest house across the street from Amani - a real 4 star place in Uganda or anywhere else for that matter!). It should be a great experience for them as they get to know everyone better. Although Megan didn't mention it, I suspect that they will have their first opportunity to enjoy an African church service - which usually runs about 3-4 hours, but is definitely lively.

Melanie's bags arrived today. Better that they arrived on day #4 than on day #18. Now they can begin to completely settle in to their trip.

The internet connection at the Amani Baby Cottage is still down. The girls will try to get online over the weekend and update the blog with more of their experiences.

T.I.A. - An update from Africa

(Update by Meg's Dad)

T.I.A. - This Is Africa

Although the girls have been in Uganda for about 2 1/2 days now, we finally had a chance to talk with them by phone for the first time since their arrival. They are well into the swing of things, working with the kids for the first full day today. It sounds like their travel difficulties - which they will likely share more about later - have all been worth it so far.
Communication has been difficult, as the internet at Amani is experiencing some problems right now. And Melanie is still waiting for both her bags to arrive. If the girls weren't close before, a few more days of sharing everything from shirts to underwear will likely bring them a WHOLE lot closer.
It sounds like working with the kids is going great for both girls. They had a chance to take some of the children into Jinja for shakes earlier in the day.
The girls are getting ready for bed right now, and are just about caught up on sleep. In fact, Megan mentioned that the first day after they arrived (Tuesday) they slept until 4 p.m.
As the internet issues are resolved, Megan and Melanie will share more about their trip. Please continue to pray that they will remain flexible (they have done an awesome job in working through their travel issues) as they help at Amani, and for the children and full-time workers there.

We decided to go to Houston, Texas instead of Africa.... Just kidding!

Well, this has definitley been an adventure so far. The day started off as scheduled. We boarded our first flight to Houston this morning at about 10:45 am and arrived in Houston at about 1:15 pm. Pretty painless. We were gearing up for the long flight ahead of us to Amsterdam. We had a two hour lay over in Houston and were to board our next flight at 3:40 pm, and we did. However, once everyone was boarded they announced that the plane was experiencing some electrical problems, so we were just going to have to sit tight for a few minutes while they fix the problem. Meanwhile, a half hour later we decided to get comfy and we both fell asleep. When we woke up an hour later we noticed that we were still on the ground. Soon after the flight attendent announced that they were still trying to repair the plane and it would take another 45 minutes. Then we all had to get back off the plane. So much for 45 minutes... Let's try like two hours later. Which, put us at a total of six hours of waiting around the Houston airport. So, after another hour we realized that we may miss our connecting flight from Amsterdam to Uganda and we should probably go ask for help at the desk. Continental told us they would either put us up in a hotel for a night and we would leave tomorrow afternoon at 3:40 or they would put us up at a hotel in Amsterdam if we still wanted to take the flight we were originally scheduled to take. Ah, sorry if this is confusing... We were confused too. We decided the safest thing to do would be to stay in Houston rather than Amsterdam. So, here we sit updating our blog in our room at the Settle Inn Hotel. We take off tomorrow afternoon at 3:40 pm if all goes as planned. We should arrive in Uganda on Monday around 8:30 pm.

We thank you again for all your love and support! Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

With much love,
Melanie & Megan

About two weeks ago on April 24th Megan and I got the opportunity to visit and eat at an African restaurant downtown Minneapolis called Tam Tam's African Restaurant. I was able to get a glimpse of the menu online before we went and I will be honest with you, I was a bit nervous. It just so happened that they were serving a buffet for lunch. So, we thought the buffet would be the best way to go, since we would get to taste a little of everything. The experience was great for us. I can't say that I really disliked any of the food. It was definitely different, but very good. The owner and the only waiter at the time we came into the restaurant happened to over here us talking about the trip and told us that he was actually from Uganda. The rest of the time was spent sharing our mission with him and taking in all the advice he had to offer us about Africa. He asked if we would come back after our trip and tell him all about it and bring lots of pictures to show him. That's exactly what we plan on doing when we get back! If any of you are interested in checking out Tam's Tam's I encourage you to do so! You can check the restaurant out at: www.tamtamsrestaurant.com. It was truly a blessing getting to meet this man. He had so many good things to say about Uganda. I find myself getting a little more nervous, well I should say anxious, because I am excited yet I get more and more nervous as the date gets closer. However, there is no doubt in my mind that God is going to make this a life changing experience that I will never forget. Please continue to keeps us in your prayers and thank you agian for all your wonderful support!

God Bless,

Melanie Flink

Hello to all our lovely family & friends!

Amani Baby Cottage, where we're staying in Africa, has wireless internet so, we thought it would be a great idea for us to set up a blog website so that you guys could keep track of all that we're doing while we're there. As the date gets closer we continue to get more and more excited each day and are even more excited to share our journey with you. We want to truly and sincerely thank you all very much for supporting us financially and through prayer! It means so much to us! Also, just a heads up that we will try our best to stay active and update you on the pre trip details and emotions, but be sure to check up on us while we're over in Africa and feel free to send us some love and encouragement too. We have already received so much encouragement and it has just been a blessing! Thank you!

God Bless,

Megan & Melanie