Holy Pogo Stick, Batman!

It was a view similar to this one that I was treated to on my way home last week. A quiet street, families arriving home, and a small child on a pogo stick. The memories that came flooding back made me smile.

I'm sure the pogo sticks of my childhood were much simpler than the one in this picture. I dare say though, that we probably had more fun on them "back in the day." I must admit that I was really surprised to see a kid outside on a pogo stick. It just doesn't seem like it is a very popular toy these days - which is a sad, sad statement.

I loved jumping on my pogo stick. What one would do to have back just a few minutes of that time!

Note: Did you know that there is a sport called "stunt pogo"? According to wikipedia, some form of stunt pogo has been around for 50 years!

If only we'd known.

A view of Uganda: New Year's Eve

We were blessed to celebrate the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 in Uganda. Our team, as well as Jeff and Andrew, had made our way out to Camp Saaka to begin setting up for Faith Quest Uganda 2008. Joining us at Camp Saaka that night were the youth from the Ft. Portal area Churches of Christ. It was a great chance to get to spend some extra time with these youth from the immediate area before the rest of the youth groups from around the country arrived.

It was a busy day - and included a lot of packing, unpacking, and setting up of tents. As we had brought tents and sleeping bags with us in our luggage, we got a chance to get those out and set them up. It was entertaining watching the boys attempt to put up one of the tents - because of course, they didn't want to read the directions first!


What a blessing it was to celebrate and worship as a group. While we waited for the matoke (our dinner) to finish cooking, we were all entertained by Mark Long and his crew from Kampala with what we called "Brazilian fireworks." They were fabulous as you can see by these pictures:

The evening ended with a devotional around a campfire and lots of singing. The highlight was definitely the singing group from Rwebisengo. They are amazing! One of these days I may post the video I have of them - but that would require the ability to figure out how to make it shrink enough to post (currently it sits at about 500 MB).

I will say that as I lay in my sleeping bag, being lured to sleep by the youth as they continued to sing the New year in, that I believed it was one of the best ringing-in's of the New Year that I have ever experienced.