Welcome to America!

Dennis Emiku is one of the Administrators at Calo Me Lare, the orphanage that Project Hope Worldwide is building. Dennis has been responsible for finding the most needy orphans in northern Uganda to live at Calo Me Lare. The first 20 moved in this past February. They now have clothing, food, shelter - and most importantly, lots of love. Here are videos of their first church service. I love watching these!

As mentioned in a previous posting, Dennis flew from Uganda to Tulsa to speak at Kwero this past week. It was his first time to fly on a plane and he was so nervous the entire time. The girls and I met him at the airport, along with a few others from our church. They greeted him with his favorite candy - red licorice - and his favorite snack food - beef jerky. Dennis said, "Whenever I saw your girl's smiling faces, I knew I was safe." ;-)

Our team spent a lot of time with Dennis when we went to Uganda this past December. He is one of the neatest guys I have ever met. He has an amazing testimony and has such a huge heart for helping children in need.

Dennis spoke at our church this past Sunday and shared about his childhood and about life in Uganda. Here is part of his discussion with our pastor...

Dennis is here for two weeks so we "reserved" a day during his stay to spend time with him and show him around town. The girls and I thought it would be fun to take him to the Aquarium in Jenks. We weren't sure if he would be interested in it or not but he LOVED it! We are so used to the Aquarium because we've been so many times before, but Dennis was seeing everything for the first time with new eyes. It was so neat to watch his expression at each exhibit. His mouth just dropped to the ground in awe of God's creation. He was actually very quiet, which is unusual for Dennis - who is not one to be short for words. It was just such a worshipful experience for him and a good lesson for me - to be mindful of God's amazing creation and to not take it for granted.

After the Aquarium, we went back to our house. The girls gave Dennis some Zany Bands for the children at Calo Me Lare and enjoyed talking with him while I cooked dinner. He said he loves trying new food in America and the girls requested their favorite, Mexican Pizza, so we had that along with burritos, Spanish rice, chips and salsa, and cinnamon crescent rolls.

After dinner, the girls played soccer with Dennis...

Then we looked through a photo book I had made from our Uganda trip and reminisced. 

We had such a fun day together. Dennis has made so many new friends during his trip and we are all so blessed to know him. He's a pretty special guy and I know God has even greater plans ahead for him.