City of Ice

I wish you could see it (and maybe you did on CNN) but I have no camera, so allow me to paint a picture with my words. Like a poet.

Imagine a world, where cars lie abandoned in ditches, where trees sag and branches snap like toothpicks. Imagine a world, where darkness reigns and traffic lights blink, blink, blink. Imagine a world, where planes will not land, and hotels are overflowing with frightened families.

I know it sounds like a fantasy place, but it is real, and it is Oklahoma City. And it is currently covered in 2 inches of ice and more is coming. My adventure starts on a 6:30am flight to Dallas this morning. The first thing I noticed was that there were cots stacked up all over the place. Clearly there had been major delays the night before. CNN says that much of the midwest was hit by an ice storm. My flight got delayed. My flight got canceled. My coworker could not fly directly from Ohare to OKC so he flew to Dallas. We were re-booked on a flight the next day. We said "No thank you" and rented a car to make the drive. 3-4 hours from Dallas to Oklahoma City with potentially dangerous roads. But we needed to get to the client tonight.

As we approached the city the ice started building. The temperature gage slowly dropped, dropped 40 down to 32. 15 miles out, everything was completely covered in ice. Coming into the city, trees were snapped everywhere and cars were on the side of the road. I finally got ahold of the client and they said that power was out this morning, and they had to go to another building. We decided to check in and call it a night.

So that was my day. Up at 4:15am to catch the first flight in order to wait for 5 hours in the Dallas airport. Rent a car in order to drive 4 hours into the city of ice in which we didnt do any work. My baggage is still in Dallas. The weather does not look to improve tomorrow. I may be wearing the same shirt all 3 days. The client paid us over $100 an hour to "work" today. I rented a Volvo from National.

Praise God we made it safely

Fun Fall Stuff

One might say that Beth can go a little overboard on her enthusiasm for fall. But it makes her feel great just to be in the midst of a beautiful fall day, so I can't get in the way of that. Here follows an account of our weekend:

War/Dance
Friday we went over the the movie theater to experience the Heartland Film Festival for the first time. This is a week long festival promoting independent and big-time productions that are in-line with Truly Moving Pictures' missions statement. Which is something along the lines of promoting films that are positive and inspiring for change.

The movie that we saw was called War/Dance, which is the story of Patonga primary school, a school within a refugee camp in war-torn northern Uganda, qualifying for and competing in Uganda's national music and dance competition for primary schools. This is a big deal in Uganda, with their sense of music and dance as a part of their ancestry being so strong. All of the kids that attend Patonga are refugees, many having lost one or both of their parents and members of their family to the war. The story told of the obstacles that each one of these kids had to overcome to just make it to Kampala (Uganda's capitol where the competition was held), and it focused on three of the kids in particular.

It is so moving to watch the joy that is on the kids faces when they are singing and dancing, as they will often mention, makes them forget about what is going on around them. The personal stories of the three kids are incredibly heartbreaking, and I can say with confidence that there was not a dry eye in the house. Beth claims that I cried more than she did... I definitely lost it during one scene. It is so easy for us to connect with those kids, as we were in their country, getting to know kids just like them only months ago. Anyway, the movie is going national soon, so I will be sure to remind everyone to see it.

Pumpkin Patch
Saturday we went to Spencer Farms to pick a pumpkin. Spencer farms is where Nicki Spencer's family lives (she went to Uganda with us as well).


We took a hayride to the pumpkin patch, picked out our little guy and went back. Then we dug an orange mum to put on the porch. We also bought a few little gourds, some indian corn, and some cider.




This girl loves her pumpkin:


In the evening we went home and made burgers and apple cider. And by "made apple cider" I mean we added a bunch of stuff to pre-purchased cider and put it in the crock pot for an hour, but oh what a difference those additions made.

Oh yeah, on Saturday morning we went for a walk in the park. We were taking this paved path through the small wooded area when we heard this crazy yelling around the curve. We couldn't see anyone. We kept walking and heard it again, a bit closer. It sounded like a man screaming a gibberish language at the top of his lungs. We kept walking and heard it a third time, and saw a red shirt through the trees coming towards us. I steered Beth right around and we started walking quickly back the way we came. The voice continued but got further away. It ruined our walk. And we were left wondering who it was and what was going on for the rest of the day.

Compassion Child

We were finally able to sit down and decide on a child to sponsor through Compassion International. Ever since we returned from Uganda and had the experience of interacting with those children, we knew we were going to be sponsors. We really wanted a child from Kyamate CDC (Child Development Center) in Ntungamo, where we stayed and worked, but for whatever reason I have never seen any available on the Compassion website.

We looked through all 55 or so children available in Uganda, picked out a few that stuck out to us and then prayed about it. We decided on Naturinda Emmanuel. In Uganda (and I assume many other African countries) they generally have ethnic as well as more English names. Emmanuel lives with his mother and 6 other brothers and sisters. He is 7 years old, with a birthday coming up in December. He has partial hearing loss. Emmanuel actually lives near Mbarara, which is quite close to Ntungamo and we stayed a night there during our May trip.

Emmanuel's father likely died from HIV/AIDS, as it has affected pretty much all of Uganda. Out of the 285 children in the Kyamate CDC, around 90% of them have lost one or both parents to AIDS. In his community, the average income is about $7 US per month! Yes I said month. It is things like these that make it impossible to resist the urge to do something to help. I have plenty more to talk about on all that in the coming posts. Our sponsor package will come in the mail soon and we will be able to see better pictures of Emmanuel. I am quite impressed with the amount of information that the website has on each child and their community.

If you have ever had any curiosity or desire to sponsor, visit the Compassion website and browse around the children and read about them. Compassion International website

We had a nice Saturday

We have to make the most of our Saturdays because I am gone all week and Sundays are devoted to church and Colts/Bears games.

Saturday we woke up and went over to Sahm park to play disc golf. This is the second time we have played this summer. I taught Beth sometime in August and she has picked it up pretty quickly. It helps that I taught her how to throw a disc a few years ago. We played 9 holes and I won, but that is understandable. We don't really compete in disc golf because I have such a clear advantage. Tennis is another story, and I am not proud to say that Beth is ahead in the series for tennis matches. I think last time I double-faulted about 10 times.

In the afternoon we drove downtown to the White River State Park. This is where the Indiana State Museum, the Indianapolis Zoo, and a bunch of other stuff is at. It is also only a few blocks from the circle so there is always shopping and food nearby. We wanted to see the canal so we walked up and down the length of it and saw the different murals and waterfalls and art along the way. We will definitely have to go back for the zoo and the museum later.

After that we walked into the center of the city to look for food. Two lessons were learned. The first is that if you see a restaurant that has a short wait in downtown on a Saturday night, just eat there. Don't even bother seeing what else there is. We walked by Weber Grill and it looked fairly open. But we walked a few more streets and about 35 minutes later we came back and they had a 90+ minute wait. The second lesson is that Buca di Beppo is a huge restaurant and they rarely have a wait for a party of 2. I asked and the waiter told us that they are the second largest Buca in the country. We were table 82 or something. Then Culver's for frozen custard action. Mmmhmmm.

Sunday: Church was awesome as usual. Ted came with us today and he came over for lunch afterward. Haven't seen him since the wedding.

Bears.... make me cry. Colts should be able to brighten the day later.

Uganda Slideshow

National Geographic

We have talked about submitting this picture that Beth took to National Geographic