For those of you who may not have read it, here is our most recent update letter:

July 2009

Bergs to Uganda (and Kenya)

We thought we would update our family and friends on how our plans for Uganda are progressing. The short version is this: things are coming along well. There’s lots left to do, but we’re crossing things off our list one by one.

People have been wonderfully generous in donating to our trip. We’ve just got about $5,000 more we need to raise to make our goal of $40,000 for the year. I never realized how meaningful it would be to have people donate to us. We genuinely feel honored and humbled. And when people say they’ll pray! I had no idea.

One twist that some of you may not have heard yet is that Scott will be attending boarding school in Kenya, not living with us and going to school in Kampala. There were a number of factors that went into that decision, one of which was Scott’s enthusiasm for the boarding school versus the tiny high school he would have been at with us. Some of you may have heard of the school—Rift Valley Academy, which is located about an hour from Nairobi. It has been a well-regarded school for missionaries’ children for almost 100 years. Scott will take a full load of American school classes, plus some unique electives like Swahili and tropical medicine. He’ll fly back to be with us on breaks, so we’ll get to see him throughout the year.

We plan to leave the U.S. on Aug. 15 and fly to London, where we’ll spend a few days with Paul’s cousin. Then we’ll go on to Kampala where we’ll spend about a week going through orientation with Engineering Ministries International. After that the three of us will fly to Kenya (it’s the next country to the east) to take Scott to school. Finally Paul and I will return to Kampala to settle in. With Kampala as home base, Paul will make trips to the villages he’ll be working in, some of which are 6-8 hours away, and some which are more like 12-14 hours away. I’ll begin looking around for ways to make myself useful during the ten months we are there. I hope to be able to volunteer in some capacity that will leave me flexible enough to be able to travel with Paul sometimes.

We have a partly-furnished apartment rented already. It’s small, only 900 square feet, but we’ve been told there are some nice guest houses nearby. You’re all invited to come and visit, just not all at once please. We’re planning to bring our other children over for Christmas (this is out of our savings, by the way, for those of you who have donated) and are looking forward to giving them a chance to see what their dad is doing.

In other family news, Carl has moved back home and he and Alfonc, our Albanian exchange student, will be staying in our house for the year, along with two other roommates (insert obligatory joke here about trusting your home to a bunch of college boys). Tracy will be leaving for George Fox University in Newberg, about an hour away. Since Paul and I will have left before Tracy goes to school, Amy and Carl will function as her parents and take her. It makes me sad to miss out, but I’m sure the three of them will have a great time. Then Amy will leave for grad school at UC San Diego. If friends near or far would check in on any of them during the year, I would love it. I’m sure they’ll do fine, but mothering by Skype isn’t the thing I’m most excited about.

Here is our various contact information:

Please note especially that I am changing my e-mail address. It will be bergkarenc@gmail.com. The new account is open so you can begin using it immediately. I’ll stop using the current Comcast e-mail once we leave.

Paul’s e-mail will continue to be paul.berg@ch2m.com

Our blog is www.ugandawater.blogspot.com

Our Skype name is pkberg1.

If you would still like to make a tax-deductible donation to our trip, you can send your donation to

Engineering Ministries International
130 E. Kiowa St.
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Our account number is 1872, or you can simply note that the donation is for Paul Berg. We’ll appreciate it!

It probably goes without saying, but we would be delighted to hear from any and all of you, and you’re all invited to make a visit to Kampala a part of your vacation plans for the coming year. We hear the mangoes can’t be beat.

Sincerely,

Karen

“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.” I Thess. 3: 12, 13

Our first good-bye

Leaving for Uganda involves good-byes and we said our first one last week. Alfonc, our exchange student from Albania, left to visit his mother and brothers for the summer. He's been in the US for two years, finishing high school and his first year at Oregon State University. He won't return until after we've left so we had to say good-bye for a year. We miss him. He's become a part of the family and it seems different now that he's gone.

When Alfonc returns in late August, he will be living in our home. Our older son, Carl, and Alfonc and two other college students will also live in our home while we're gone.

Paul

Christmas in July

Every year, about two weeks before Christmas, I hit panic mode. I've done it for enough years now to recognize the symptoms. Too much to do, too little time in which to get it done, and I get a knot in the pit of my stomach. Then by a few days before Christmas I start to relax. Most of the big jobs are done, family is gathering, the house looks nice and smells good, and the gifts are piling up under the tree.
I feel like I'm in the two-weeks-before-Christmas phase of our move to Uganda now, although we're actually about 5 weeks out. I cross things off the top of my to-do list and add others on to the bottom. I have maybe 50 tasks to accomplish and I'm averaging 3-5 a day. If no one gets in my way maybe I'll get it all done but life has a way with interfering with my plans.
Logic and faith tell me that everything will get done, but my emotions are what keep me up at night making mental lists. I'm hoping to lasso our kids into helping Paul and me with some of the tasks, and I trust that between all of us, we'll make it onto that plane on time.

Help along the way

There are many tasks to do to get ready before we leave for Uganda/Kenya. We need to get our passports and visas in order, set up banking and insurance plans, and get immunizations. We need to buy stuff, get rid of stuff, store stuff, and pack stuff. We need to get Scott ready to go to boarding school and Tracy ready to leave for college.
One task Rift Valley Academy required us to do was find a guardian in Kenya for Scott, should disaster strike. It seemed like quite a hurdle to me since we don't know a living soul in Kenya. Think about it: how many people do you know in Kenya? And it seemed especially difficult to find someone willing to look after our son in a crisis. Enter Fred, our friend with connections the world over through his organization, the Navigators. In no time, we received an e-mail and then a phone call from a family in Kenya who also has a son at RVA, offering to be guardians for Scott. It was such a boost to talk to Patty, the mom, and accept her offer not only to be guardian, but pick us up at the Nairobi airport when we arrive and to stay with them before we get to RVA. Really, people can be so kind. It brought sunshine to my day.

Uganda map

Here's our home for the next 10 months. Karen and I will be living in Kampala. (Scott will be next door to the east in Kenya.) The main project that I'll be working on, at least in the beginning, is located about 320 kilometers (that's 200 miles for you Americans) to the northeast of Kampala, near Kapchorwa Town.

Uganda is approximately 530 kilometers north-south and 500 kilometers east-west, a bit smaller in area than Oregon. You can click on the map to enlarge it.

Paul