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Decker’s Diary
on the Mission Field
Dear Friends and Family,
UGANDA MISSION…
I have been to Uganda with the team from House of Friends and would now
like to return. The team’s purpose was two
-fold: to do sponsorship updatesand small special projects at Abba House in Uganda, and to do manualremodeling of a school facility in Ethiopia to make it into a House of FriendsHome. The team members were mainly from the Kansas City area, but Iowawas also represented.
DAILY MANNA…
Though I went with them, as a team, I stayed in Uganda for the full twoweeks. My purpose there was to plant a garden with good vegetables to
enhance their daily food. They eat a lot of red beans and “posho”, a blandcorn flour mush. Posho is a word in Swahili, meaning “provision”. At the
school, which is on the same property as the Abba House, they cook up about25 pounds of beans every day and serve them aslunch with posho. Big sweet potatoes appear occasionally and sometimes the beans areflavored with small eggplants or with small,sun-dried minnows. I am reminded of the stories of the Israelites and their
“posho” of manna, and how tired they
got from eating that stuff every day! Itis basically the same scenario at theAbba House. They eat posho porridgefor breakfast, their school provides posho and beans for lunch, and thenthey return to the Home for a heartymeal of beans, perhaps with minnowsor eggplant, and posho. Sometimesgroups of individuals will refuse to eat;the Bible says that hunger makes thingstaste better. I remember in Venezuela,when someone commented, concerningsun-
dried minnows, “yeah, we boil them together with some pota-toes and then, with a little hunger they can make a fine meal.” The
groups wait until hunger gnaws at them, usually by suppertime, to
receive their portions of the ”manna”.
PLANTINGS FOR A BETTER DIET…
Hence, my purpose there was to start a garden so the diet of the kids had alittle more variety in it. I took seeds with me, planted them, and then wasvery encouraged with what God did with them. Though the rains are notsupposed to start until late July, we got a good soaking rain at a most conven-ient time. My garden preparing and planting did not start until the secondweek--after the team had gone on to Ethiopia. Then I had from Tuesday, toTuesday before I was to also go to Ethiopia and meet up with the team for thereturn trip home. I started planting, with the help of Rose, one of the AbbaHouse moms, on the first Tuesday. That week, we planted yard-long green beans, spinach, chard, cucumbers, watermelon, zucchini, beets, and lima beans. It rained on Friday. Returning to the garden on Monday, I found stuff breaking through the soil
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cucumbers, yard-long beans, zucchini and eventhe lima beans, which were planted last. How
(Continued on back side)
WORKED LIKE AN AFRICA
The pastor of the local church, who worksextensively with the home and school,was skeptical of my gardening at first, butthen at the church service before I left, he
said,” I don’t understand why someone
would come from so far away to dig in thedirt and plant seeds. But I give God theGlory for this person who came andworked in the soil like an African so that
these children can have a better diet.”
Barb Decker
I would like to support Barbara Decker’s work on the mission field with House of Friends in the following way.
___ Barbara Decker Mission Support (Monthly) $_________(One Time Gift) $________ ___ Agriculture Projects for Abba House in Uganda $_________ ___ Mission Trip Expenses to Uganda $_________ ___ Please send more information about House of Friends.
All donations are tax deductible. Please write checks payable to: House of Friends and send to P O Box 228, Alma, MO 64001Thank you for caring!
Above
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Barb,left, Rose, right, preparing soil and planting.Left
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One of thelittle jewels of Abba House.
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