SKYPE, don't leave home without it!

SKYPE is an internet program that allows you to make free phone calls and free computer to computer calls anywhere in the world allowing you to see and hear your family any time you want.  Well not exactly any time you want.  If you happen to be on the otherside of the world from your family there is a 10 hour difference which means you seldom call when it is convenient to either you or your family.  None the less, it is the salvation of senior missionaries all over the world.  Where ever you are serving, if you can get an internet connection you can call home and see your family, share important events, be a part of homeevening, listen to the primary solo or the talk that someone is giving in church that day, see Michaela in her baptism dress before the big event and then talk to her after the baptism and hear how wonderful her day has been.  You might even get a play by play of the latest game right from the players own mouth. (Our favorite was "well we lost but I was awesome.")

SKYPE can make for interesting conversations and interesting views.  Like today we were "SKYPEing" Rick and Rain Robertson.  It was 8:00 PM for us and 5:30 AM for them in New Zealand.  We had a great conversation with Rick who was up and dressed with his missionary tag on but Rain was in the shower.  Well, we are looking right into their apartment and Rick finally said, "Gosh, I hope Rain doesn't come out of that shower with just a towel on."  We decided it was time to sign off before we caught Rain  . . ."

Got to love SKYPE. 

SKYPE also has a great feature in that you can take pictures of those you are speaking to, usually unknown to them.



General Conference, everyone stayed in their pjs this morning.






  They just finished watching Pay-per -View "Fight Night. Do you think they got a little worked up? (can't believe our kids pay to watch fighting.)

Sometimes you get the whole family





Something seems to be pretty funny but usually we don't know what it is.

Sammy has become a budding artist and we get to view all her creations.  She is growing up and someone else is growing also.  We have Lincoln's height on a chart at home so we can see how much he grows while we are gone but no one has to tell us he is piling on the inches.  We can see that for ourselves.


We spent 6 months looking at the top of grandma's head until Keith finally went and got her a new webcam and now we can see her - we usually catch her in her PJs - caught her in a good laugh this time



 Michaela got new glasses and she is looking mighty fine.  She said that she now could see real good and only had to take them off if she wanted to do her famous backflip which means they are probably off as much as they are on.  She is our acrobat.

Oops!  sometimes the video has it's problems.  Some times the Ormsby's look like they are swimming under water but that doesn't obscure the bed head look we get as they usually SKYPE Saturday morning so they can brag to us about the wonderful Saturday breakfast they are going to eat with fresh berries and ice cold, real milk.

Lala likes to talk - likes to tell everyone else when they can talk. Eric shows off his latest experiments (he is in to science) or gives us a close up of his lizard or frog or painted turtle. We even get to see the gaping mouth from where the latest tooth has fallen out.

Some things never seem to change.  Grandkids are pretty funny or at least they think they are pretty funny.

What?



Something is wrong with those Levers.






 Weird?  Crazy?  What ever they are always good for a belly laugh and usually at least two or three.  Makes our day when the Levers bring it on.


 Hyrum must have pulled his tooth, or won his soccer game, or just thinks he is cool.



Em can get a little animated at times.



 Jaron's just got into Cub Scouts. He has his uniform and his Wolf book. 


He already has the Cub Scout motto down perfectly.

Well, that's our family.  Got to love SKYPE.  It is what keeps us connected.  Don't leave home without it.

Mildred Alene Dunn Barlow, the Volunteer of Volunteers!

Have we ever told you how much we love our mother, Mildred Alene Dunn Barlow.  She has been a great example to us as she has served in so many ways and cared for so many people throughout her life.

She was the youngest child in her family and so at 89 yrs of age she is all that is left. Grandpa passed away in 2002 and since that time she has made the best of life trying to continue to serve “. . . like Lincoln would expect me to . . . got to endure to the end so I can be with Lincoln, ‘cause we all know where he is at now.”

This past year she was released from the Relief Society and asked to teach the 8-10 year olds in Primary. Now she is 89 and she has every right to expect that she might well desire to continue to read her scriptures every day, read her Relief Society lesson and her Gospel Doctrine manual during the week preparing to enjoy her Sabbath day of worship. But, no at 89 yrs she is going to teach rambunctious, a little wild, new to the church converts in primary (2 hours worth each Sunday).

Did she want to teach Primary? No . . . Will she teach primary and give it her best shot? Yes. She has had almost a year of teaching these children and this summer held a birthday party inviting her primary class to the church for a celebration with a theme of “The 13 Articles of Faith.” They played games, decorated cupcakes, made little treasures,, ate a lot of food and celebrated Mis' Barlow’s 89th birthday. She also gave them each a birthday present.

She use to drive to Atlanta each month and spend a week (a 4 hour drive) to serve in the Atlanta temple.  She finally realized that the trip was just too much for her and so she looked for other ways to be of service. She called Hospice and asked if she could be a volunteer having had service from them when her sweet Lincoln was so bad. She has joined the Bluebird volunteers at the Colquitt Regional Medical Center serving 3 days a week and volunteers at the food bank once a month.

This service has continued for the last 7 years. She is a favorite at the hospital, knows everyone and everyone knows her. She has worked in many areas (and I do mean worked some times as long as 8-10 hrs) and has been the chaplain for the volunteers for the last 2 years. This has been a great missionary tool as she gives them a rousing sermon each month at their meeting. No little thought from the Internet for her. She always focuses her message on how to improve, grow or serve better. There is always a challenge to her audience to strive for those Christ-like attributes she has tried to practice all her life.

Recently the hospital CEO, Jim Lowry told the volunteer’s president that he would like for the volunteers to be recognized by honoring the service of a volunteer every quarter and present them with a $50 check. A box was placed in the volunteers room where the volunteers could cast their votes for the honoree. Grandmother was selected for the award at their September meeting and presented with a check for $50. There are around seventy volunteers and grandmother felt honored.

Each year the volunteers make an annual donation of $10,000 to the Hospital Foundation. This donation is always given in honor of some community figure. Last year it was decided that the donation could be given in honor of one of the volunteers. . This is the second year it has been awarded to a volunteer. The award was to be announced in their October meeting and they were told that Mr Lowry would come to their meeting to make the announcement. When the time came for the announcement to be made the President said that Mildred Barlow had been chosen to receive the award. Grandmother said she could hear many of the volunteers around the table say 'she earned it'. The President noted how willing Mildred was to work where ever there has been a need and pointed out that she had worked in wound care, transport, pharmacy, front desk, gift shop, various offices and had served on second floor. She pointed out that for more than a year she had done all the filing for their former gift shop manger and that was done after she had finished her assignment for the day. Grandmother said that they made her sound real good.

Grandma said, “Mr Lowry complimented me first on my inspirational thought and prayer it was flowery...I think I am the first chaplain that has ever done anything more than read something. I felt, very loved. I will sit at the Founders table in the spring when we have the Founder’s banquet and be recognized with all the Founders. I am blessed to be honored for doing something that does even more for me. Life is good!”

That’s our grandma. We are just a bit proud of her. She is probably the only “Mormon” that most of her peers know and she is a great representative of the gospel and a great missionary ready to share the gospel with whoever shows an interest.

She is blessed. She always says she has nothing to complain about. She feels good, she feels loved, she has her volunteer work to keep her going. Well that and teaching primary for 8-10 year olds who ‘will not stay in their seats or stop talking or listen to a thing I have to say’ but every week they come back to get some more of that love that oozes from her every pore.

You are never too old for a little motherly advise.

Well, now I have told you. . . I love my mother (in-law).   I love her every bit as much as Farrell loves her, maybe more. I am sure she loves me more than she loves Farrell, at least she makes me think she does. Actually we could have a real argument over this as each of us children (and grandchildren) think we are the favorite, and . . .we probably are.

A Day In Masaka

Beautiful Scenery

 Beautiful Weather

 Beautiful People

We spent two day in Masaka this week seeing the progress of the clean water project.  This project is turning out to be the best water project ever.

• 60 protected springs
• 10 clothes washing stations
• 16 latrines for schools including a handwashing station
• 15 rain water catchment systems for schools
• Hygiene and Sanitation training for 3 sub-counties
• Model village with 25 family latrines and 500 latrine slabs - training on how to build a family latrine targeted to raise the standard of living. Family latrine coverage from 40% to 70% 

  

  Typical unprotected spring water source - children stand on these boards and submerge jerri cans in the water as they gather the water needed for the day by their family.

      

  

  Construction of the spring showing the back of cement face currently this is the water source.  I wouldn't walk out on those logs.  There are snakes in those waters, even cobras. . . True!

   

Newly completed protected spring from the same source as above.

(This baby cobra was found at a construction site for a spring we were visiting.  Ssimbwa found it before we go to the spring and made sure we stayed away till they had killed it but there were children playing by the spring.  Spring was located where a natural spring drained into a swamp.)



In the villages wash is laid out to dry on the grass or bushes.  Someone washed their blankets today and left them to dry in the sun.  Blankets are real treasures and often are cut in half so share with other famiy members.



A new addition to our water projects is the washing station located right next to the new protected spring.  In Africa most people wash their clothes in a pan or bucket one for soapy water and if you have two, one for rinsing.  Before you wash you must haul the needed water up to your home and wash all your clothes using those two buckets of water for all your clothes.  A washing station has many advantages. 

1.  It puts you close to the water source so you don't have to haul water
2. You can change your water in your bucket as often as needed and have the opportunity of getting your clothes really clean.
3. You have a clean place to do the wash rather than just in the dirt
4. It offers an opportunity to do this chore with others in the neighborhood affording you a chance to socialize with your neighbors.

As we headed down the hill to one wash station we could hear the women talkiing and laughing as they did their wash.  All laughing and conversation stopped as we approached but too late.  We knew they were enjoying working together.  These washing stations are in great use and include a 3 line clothesline to hang your clothes up instead of drying them by laying them on the grass or bushes.  The project only has 10 washing stations but they have been placed at the busiest spring sites..

 Now you may not appreciate a pit latrine but believe me this is a luxury and one that this school is very grateful for.  They have 3 other latrines 2 old and one new but all three are falling into the pits.  The new one was not constructed well and it was built on a sink hole and is unusable as it has tipped over and fallen down into the sink hole.

We have made some changes to the latrine design also.  It has 2 stances for boys  plus a urinal and 3 stances for girls but a new addition is a bathroom (washroom) for girls to take care of their monthly needs.  It has a water source (a jeri can) and a drain so that used water can be disposed of.  This is a new mandate of the government that all new latrines have a bathroom for girls.  Girlsl are regularly absent from school 5 days as there has been no way to manage their needs while at schools.   All latrines are now constructed to be accessable to those with disabilities , ramps have been added and if there are children using wheelchairs one stance is altered to be wheelchair accessable and is provided with a sit down toilet seat.  See things are improving all the time.

Note the handwashing station.  This design has been upgraded to provide a cement base with a trough to divert the water away from the area and providing cement for students to stand on while washing their hands.  We are looking at a design that provides water catchment off the roof of the latrine sending the runoff to the water tank for handwashing.  We need to get that design a little more cost effective before we can include it.

H/S graduation class of the model village

 The Hygiene and Sanitation training has taken a good step forward.  We took only 4 trainers to Masaka and they have trained the sub-county health officers and the village health officers in the H/S program.  Each participant commits to being a trainer and is given a certificate of completion of the course and a t-shirt to wear when training.  The shirt designates them as a Hygiene and Sanitation Specialist (emblasoned on the back) and has the logo of the church on the front.

Their was no problem recruiting trainers and facilitators as everyone wants a t-shirt and who wouldn't want to be designated a specialist of something. 

Each participatnt took a turn teaching a principle of the H/S training.

It was wonderful to watch the excitement of the class and how well they were all responding to the program.  It is hard to believe that there are people in the world who have never learned the importance of washing their hands and how to help their families prevent illness.

Each trainee told of something new they had learned and would now be able to teach others about H/S.

Hard to believe that these principles are new but most of the remote villages we visit have never had outside training and welcome any new information.  

 As a result of the H/S training in the model village their is almost 100% compliance in building of a tippy tape for a family hand washing station.  The sad note here is that most of the people say they don't have access to soap.  We are working on a plan to show them how to make soap, something that our partner, Peace and Hope from the Maturation Training  project, is teaching in other villages.

Family latrines were being constructed and latrine slabs being distributed.  The 25 family latrines that are being constructed will go to families at risk, widows, elderly, handicapped, etc. 

 One of the recipients of the family latrine was pretty excited.  She told us thank you several times.

 She posed for a pic but not before she took off her head scarf.

 I gave her my necklace - she was very appreciative - and I got a big thank you hug.

It looks better on her than on me. 

Anyone willing to build a family latrine will be given a cement latrine slab to use as the base.  The trainers for the latrine construction have had to simplify the construction design for families building their own as they are unable to afford the bags of cement for a base or wood for siding.  They are using bamboo woven to make a mesh and then applying mud for the walls and a thatch roof - but the cement slab is a welcome addition.  They lay a base for the slab of logs and set the slab on top over the pit or they make clay bricks and build a base which they can take apart and move when the lartine is full.  The pits can not be dug as deep as usual as the water table is too high (close to the lake) and in digging you soon hit water.  The goal for the model village is 100% family latrine coverage.

Balloons were a big hit in the village but no one knew how to blow up a balloon or to tie one off either.  Balloons soon ran out and it didn't take long before all the suckers were gone also.

 Some kids didn't have time for suckers or balloons.

Where did he ever get that wheelbarrow - that looks easier than carrying it on your head- by far.

Hey, that's Farrell walking down to a spring.  The only bad thing about a protected spring is they are ALWAYS at the bottom of the hill.



Trek through the banana forest.

 Got to love Masaka - hills and vales, mountains and streams, forests and very ugly storks.

That nest and stand in the top of very tall trees in any community where there is garbage to eat.

But to make up for those very ugly storks there are many, many beautiful children.