Family Ties

Last weekend at the Bead Party in Ft. Smith, my Great Aunt Anita stopped by. I had the most wonderful time visiting with her. She and I share a deep love of books (and going to movies!). She has been a Librarian in Ft. Smith for years. Lauren tells me I devour books, well my Aunt Anita demolishes them! We were talking about Uganda, Rwanda and Africa in general and the book I just finished came to mind. It is called Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I was wondering through Borders a few weeks ago searching for a good read and I kept seeing Little Bee everywhere. So I opened up to the first page and it read, "Sometimes I would rather be a British pound coin than an African woman. " SOLD! It was the best book I had read in a while. I gave Anita the book and told her a little bit about it. She writes an article for Ft. Smith's online newspaper, The City Wire, and she said that she wanted Little Bee to be her next book review. She likes to connect her books in someway to the real world so it would be perfect for her to connect this book to me since I'm moving to Rwanda. Here is her article...it's great! I am so honored she wanted to write this review about me. I'm pretty spoiled to have such an amazing and supportive family. Please check out her review and pick up a copy of Little Bee!

Paddocks Picks: Little Bee

Beads, beads, beads!

Mom, Lee and I had a bead party at the house this past weekend. We sold over $4,000 of beads and the money goes straight to the beaders in Uganda. It was amazing!! So many of our friends and family from Ft. Smith came to support BeadforLife. It's incredible to see the fire in someones eyes light up when you tell them first hand stories about the women in Africa. One of the most exciting parts of the day was meeting a new friend, Jessi. Jessi is good friends with Blayne and traveled with him to Musanze and Sonrise. I had heard so much about her and had no idea she was planning on coming to the bead party. It was great to talk to her since she has been to the school where I will be working and stayed in the house I will be living in. It's such a small world.

Still thinking about Uganda...last week the Kasubi tombs where caught on fire and burned down. When I was in Kampala, we visited the tombs and learned the unique history of the Buganda tribe. Here is a picture of the tombs.

www.kasubitombs.org

Buried at the tombs are 4 Kings of the Buganda tribe. George was our tour guide. I hope he is alright and unhurt throughout all of this.

YAY!!

Monday morning was a typical morning...breakfast in the classroom, calendar work, snotty noses...thanks flu season! But then I got the most REMARKABLE email from Dale....BISHOP JOHN HAS APPROVED LEE AND I TO WORK AT SONRISE! (Yes, that is how excited I was!) I read the email and started jumping up and down and grabbed Vanessa and gave her a big hug. My kids thought I was nuts. I am so honored and blessed to be working at the Sonrise School starting in August. God is working great things in my life and I can't wait to get to Rwanda.