Saturday, May 10, 2014:  Greetings from Uganda!  Today, our last full day at the center, is a bittersweet day for us here in Muko.   We rejoice and give thanks for all the love and support we’ve received, both from friends and family back home and from our Ugandan friends here, and for all we’ve accomplished over the last couple of weeks They say friends are the family you choose for yourself…..we have a large family indeed here in Uganda!  It was a typically foggy day as we left Kabale, but as usual, we were greeted by smiles and music as we arrived in Muko.  The first order of the day was to officially hire and welcome Haward as our new music teacher, who will continue working with our violin students after we leave.  He’s so talented, and Karen is looking forward to having the music program continue on a more regular basis in her absence.  We were very fortunate to be introduced to Innocent Murunguzi this morning.  Innocent is from Muko and was a beneficiary of Compassion Intl, which has made all the difference in his life.  He now works in Colorado.  How fortunate to meet him here!  We look forward to interacting more with him in the future.  Lisa, Barbara and Diana handed out the rest of the pillowcase dresses to girls from the sub-county, while Karen conducted music lessons and Elizabeth continued working on the computer, entering information on the orphans and the violin inventory.  Diana and Generous also continued training on Quickbooks, and Dave worked on shelving.

We all then migrated down to the shores of Lake Bunyonyi for a wonderful and enthusiastic lunch with our ACT team, staff, volunteers, and violin students.  It’s been an amazing experience for all of us.  Looking around the table we all saw the true expression of agape……Americans and Ugandans sitting next to each other, expressing our love and appreciation for each other, looking forward to the next time we’ll be blessed to see each other again.  We’re ready to head home, but we’re not ready to say goodbye……

We’ll be heading back to Kabale soon, then Kampala on Monday.  We’re handing over the computer to the ACT Uganda staff today, so this will be our last blog until we reach Kampala.  Please pray for safe travel to Kampala on Monday, and for our flight back to the United States Tuesday night.  Signing off now from Muko…..