I have never read these verses in light of my personal feelings. All of us "despair" at some point in our lives. Often it can take over our lives. These two verses help me understand that not having hope leads to despair and despair is because of some iniquity in our lives. We tend to look outward when we are despairing but if we were to look at what iniquity could be causing us to lose hope and despair, perhaps we can repent and get happy once again. Hope brings happiness. Anyway, I like it.
It has been a rather slow week. Sister Squire is always looking for somewhere to do a good deed. She has been helping Joseph for the last few months with boots, food and sugar. She decided he needed a total makeover and visited the local church leaders to help. It ended up we had a member along with a member of the branch presidency and his wife come to help. Let me introduce you to Joseph who is 75 years old. That is pretty good in Africa. We have met quite a few older folks but they are quite rare.
This is Joseph's feet. You would think it would be a simple task to clip those toenail buggers off but it turned out to be a very lengthy process. It seems toe nails take on a superman quality the longer they get. His nails would laugh at our large toe nail clippers, scissors and razor blade as they would hardly made a dent. If I had some wire cutters that would have done it but alas, I did not. I finally went back home and got some leather-man type scissors and that finally did the trick.
Give them a good scrub and trying to soften them up.
Five workers (not all in the picture) doing the makeover and one bystander.
Sister Harriett doing the dishes and sweeping inside the house. You would not have believed the condition of the plates he was eating off. I guess that is why he has lived so long, very many antibodies built up over the years.
The toe nail clippers trying to clip away a the nail.
Two of us assigned to shaving off the beard and giving him a haircut.
After a bath behind the trees he was ready to show off the new Joseph. He really does look so different. He had to feel better with his new clothes, hair cut and toenails cut so he can walk. Joseph, Joseph, where are you?
Cute girl alert - Leticia
This is kind of sad. One of the cool things I get to do is interview all the pre-missionaries, in the Jinja area, and help them get their paperwork sent in. Moses is a wonderful young man who is serving as an assistant clerk in the Jinja District. He received his call and we are always excited to deliver them and then have them call when they open it to share where they are going. He didn't have any family to share this with so we became his family. I love these wonderful people. He is going to the Ghana Cape Coast Mission.
Martin is our woodcarver. We have had him do many pieces of work for us and he called out of the blue and said he had a gift for us. This is different because we have to bargain for the price of everything and in Africa you don't get rebates or take stuff back because you had the bad luck of it breaking. Martin had carved this beautiful panel that said: "Elder Squire & Sister Squire thanks for your support God bless you." You can see some of the very nice work they do in the background.
Ginny hen
These are six cooking stoves.
Another project for Sister Squire. He followed me home from my morning walk and Sister Squire went out to visit with him. He is 13 years old. His brother had left him and he was all alone. She would feed him every day and bought him some clothing because he was wearing rags. He came this week and said his brother had come back and they were on their way home to Juba in South Sudan. Best wishes Fredrick!
You guys have made a difference in so many people's lives. Uganda has been lucky to have such wonderful people.
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