What a year it's been

The year has almost ended. We don’t know what happened to December, but it feels like we missed it. The arrival of Joshua Magezi Lammers (Magezi means wisdom in Luganda) has significantly changed our life and routine. 

 

 (We had thoughts of taking a family picture of the 5 of us on Christmas but it didn't happen. For now you will have to enjoy some pictures of Joshua)

In the midst of all the adjustments we quietly celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. Last year as we were preparing to return to Uganda after getting married we thought it would be good to take some time to settle into life together in Uganda. We weren’t planning to do any travelling. But at the same time we didn’t want to settle into a life of comfort and miss what God was going to do. As a result, it has been an interesting year.

We have gone from being engaged to married to a family of 4 to a family of 5. We were invited to a number of weddings this year, a few in Uganda, one in Tanzania, and one in the US. We travelled to the US twice and Tanzania once. Our intention of a quiet year has been anything but quiet

The birth of Joshua has shown us again what a wonderful community we have, both in Uganda and abroad. As we were sitting in the hospital the day Joshua was born, we were feeling overwhelmed. We had this newborn baby and weren't sure what to do with him. As we were praying about what to do, God reminded us that we can't do it ourselves as much as we want to. We need God to give us strength and wisdom. We need community to support and encourage us. Our community has been a great support, from providing meals to bringing gifts to encouraging words to watching our other two boys it has helped us to get through the first month. 

Life has been challenging the past month. We have been very tired, especially Ashley. Taking care of a baby is a very new experience, unlike anything we have done before. It has been a huge change of life for Ashley, looking after Joshua has consumed most of her time. Our life is much less flexible, Joshua dictates our schedule. We feel pulled in many different directions and it doesn't feel like we have enough time for everything. It is hard to get time together as a couple. It is a challenge to give attention to 3 very different boys. 

But there is also joy in this season of life. There is joy seeing Joshua smile. He is growing quickly. He has been a wonderful baby, who hardly cries. There is joy in seeing the other 2 boys being more helpful. Last night as I was going to bed and Ashley was bathing, I asked one of the boys if he wanted me to take Joshua into the room with me or if he wanted to watch him. He said he would watch him. Ashley came out to him carrying Joshua and walking him around the house showing him different things and then outside to show him the stars. There is joy in our life. 

God has been giving us the strength to get through each day. He has been faithful to provide and has used our community to provide for us.  We have hardly bought anything for Joshua as we have been given so much. God has been teaching us to lean on him to get through as we can't do it ourselves. So even though this year has been different than we planned, a lot less comfortable than we would have made it, it has been good. Our God is sovereign and as our loving Father he knows what is best for us. 

Thank you for loving and supporting us. We cannot go through life alone.

Matt & Ashley

Praises:

-birth of Joshua Magezi. He is healthy and growing. 

-God has been working in our lives this year.

-We like each other more than we did this time last year.

Prayers:
-wisdom for each day as we parent 3 different boys.
-patience
-for our marriage to continue to grow and strengthen throughout all the changes
-the boys have gone to visit their families for a week. It is not always easy for them to be there. We will miss them while they are away.
-that Joshua would grow to know God
-We have had a number of significant life events this year (3 kids) that has changed our budget. While we are financially okay right now, our support amount is no longer sustainable. Please prayerfully consider whether to join our support team or to increase your current giving. God is our provider and he is faithful.

Growth

This has been a month of growth for us…and we’re not just talking about Ashley’s continually growing baby bump. Two weeks ago, after returning from a short and wonderful trip to the US for Ashley’s sister’s wedding and visiting family, our family size doubled with two boys joining our family.

Both boys were residents of the DOORS Home for the past two and a half years. One, 14 years old, was formerly living on the streets of Kampala before coming home to DOORS, and the other,16 years old, was a pupil at DOORS Primary School who ran into a hard family situation leaving him homeless. Since entering the DOORS Home, both have had some reconciliation with their biological families. So, how did they end up in our home as part of our family?

About two years ago, when Ashley returned back to Uganda, she felt strongly that one day these two boys would live with her…she just didn’t know what that meant or would look like as she was no longer living at the DOORS Home as she had been previously. When Matt returned to Uganda the following January and our relationship was on the cusp of beginning, one evening Ashley shared with Matt passively her feelings that these two boys would stay with her one day to sort of test the waters of their potential relationship. That morning as Matt had been praying, he had had a similar thought: that one day these exact two boys would live with him. Well, that night we began dating…

These boys moving in and becoming a part of our family has been something we have been thinking and praying about for the past year and a half together. The timing definitely does not seem ideal as we are still in our first year of marriage and also expecting a baby in less than two months, but again God has made it clear that September was the time for our family to start growing. God’s wisdom is certainly not the world’s wisdom, and for that we are thankful.

While the boys are fully a part of our family, we feel it very important and necessary for them to continue to build relationships with their biological families. Because of their age and family situations, we have no intentions of formally adopting these boys; Ugandan law also prevents this. We are at peace with maintaining a fostering status with the boys as we raise them up to be the Ugandan men God created them to be. They will continue to visit their biological families during portions of the three school holidays each year to continue the reconciliation processes with their families.

While we love these boys and are so excited that they are finally a part of our family, the transition has not been easy for us. We have found challenges with changes in our routine, changes in our household and schedules, changes in the amount of time we get together just the two of us to catch up on our days and invest in our marriage. While we know this is the path God is leading us down, we are asking for your prayers as we navigate what it means to be parents to two Ugandan teenagers from hard backgrounds, and how to prepare to be parents at the same time to a newborn baby in a month and a half, while maintaining and strengthening our marriage. It is our desire that as our family grows, we would grow closer to God and to each other.

Please also pray for the boys as we know that while they were excited about moving in with us, the transition has not been easy for them either. Their walk to school is significantly longer (and now includes a massive hill home), they are no longer surrounded by their friends of the DOORS Home causing some boredom for them and also some bullying from the other boys in the home, they are working out how to be at home here and be themselves with us, and also they are learning how to get along and befriend one another as previously in the DOORS Home they weren’t the closest of friends.

It is our deepest desire that in our home they would have the freedom to be who God created them each to be. Would you pray for us that God would reveal what that looks like for them?

Some pictures of the boys’ first weekends with us:

Gardening

Playing frisbee with Matt

Playing tennis against the gate

PS…The baby continues to be healthy and develop normally, due date is estimated November 22-25^th. Matt continues to stay busy busy at eMi (more on that later with a subsequent newsletter), and Ashley is beginning to take some steps back from DOORS in preparations for a new lifestyle with a baby in tow.

***We have been asked to remove the names of the boys on social media sites as per DOORS' Child Protection Policy***

Back Home

We have just returned back to Uganda from a great trip to the US. After spending a handful of days in Northern California with Ashley’s family, we drove along Route 50 which calls itself (and rightfully so) “Loneliest Road in America” through Nevada and Utah to Colorado. Highlights of that road trip for us were a half day stop in Utah’s Arches National Park, and a morning hike at Hanging Lake in Colorado.

Arches National Park

Arches National Park

Arches National Park

Arches National Park

Hanging Lake

For our last week in the States, we met up with the majority of the EMI family for the EMI World Staff Conference hosted at a YMCA camp just 2.5 hours west of Denver. Though overwhelming at first with so many new faces and people to meet, it was a wonderful week in the mountains connecting with EMI staff located around the world, as well as reconnecting with EMI Uganda staff that have been on home assignment or furlough for the past couple of months to year, and meeting the many new faces that will be joining the EMI Uganda office…6 families/couples from now until January! 

The theme of the week was Restoration. Time was spent in morning and evening all group gatherings with guest speakers focusing their topics mostly on discipleship, and breakout sessions with themes ranging from living cross culturally to raising to children to maintaining spiritual vitality, as well as a few work specific meetings for Matt…and plenty of free time to enjoy the facilities which we took advantage of by playing some tennis and taking walks. It was a week that we did leave feeling restored and rested, and ready to get back to Uganda and back to work to implement themes discussed at the conference…but before we set off on our 28 hours of travel, we spent a day with just the EMI Uganda staff and families at the Nature and Science museum in Denver, and got a night and a day with dear friends that we met in Uganda who left just about a year ago to return to the US. A wonderful way to end out trip.

View at the conference

EMI World Staff Conference Attendees

We are now getting ourselves back to normal in Uganda-readjusting to the time change, stocking our house with fruits and veggies, hanging out with friends, and of course, getting back into work. Thank you for continuing to invest in and support our lives in Uganda. As always, we would love to hear what you have been up to as well this past month.

God bless,

Matt & Ashley

Praises:

-Great trip to the US, and refreshing EMI World Staff Conference

-A house and friends to come home to in Uganda

-A continued healthy pregnancy. We will be looking at the hospital we plan to deliver at within the next month.

Prayer Requests:

-4 new EMI offices are beginning the launching process in Nicaragua, Senegal, South Africa and Cambodia. Pray for their beginnings, that strong foundations would be built, and that new staff would adjust well to culture and life in these new places.

-Our readjustments back to Uganda and implementing what we learned at the EMI Conference