Meet Virginia

Proud big brothers meeting their baby sister for the first time

Virginia Lee East was born Thursday, July 19th at 5:52 p.m. She weighed 8 lbs. 7 oz. and was 21 inches long. She and Jamie are both healthy and are doing great! Here is Jamie's blog with Virginia's story and more pictures http://mattandjamie.4cornersministries.org/  We are all so excited to have her in the world and all be able to meet her before we leave.


This past week has been our last full week here in Gulu. We will be leaving early Thursday morning to go on a safari and head to Kampala before leaving Entebbe on Saturday. This week has been filled with so much fun! We went out to the land Tuesday and Wednesday and got to explore and meet some great people. We met some of the workers families and other people in the community and also got to see the progress on the construction of the first caretaker's house. It is amazing to see how much work they have done in just a few days...and ALL by hand!

Bricks are laid!

 

When we woke up Thursday, Matt told us that Jamie was in early labor but that we would probably have a baby by that night. We were all so excited!! We already had planned to go to Andrea and Jesse Kruze's ministry in Adok, so we spent our afternoon with them. Their ministry works with the people in the Adok community to help them become more sustainable. They have built a medical center that will be opening next month, building a rice mill and storage area for community members to store their crops, and are doing some vocational training. It was neat to see their ministry and to hear how the Lord has worked through the ministry in the past 3 years.


While we were in Adok, we also go to help with a children's program. There is a primary school right across the street from where their ministry is located so we got to work with about 100 students from the school. They hold the program each Thursday and get a chance to sing, dance, read the bible, and learn about God. They let us come up with the plans for the day and we did many of the activities that we did when we did the VBS with the children in the village. We sang songs, shared about how God loves each one of them and loves them, then we played some games. The children were so fun and loved learning how to play musical chairs!

They got very competitive!

We got back from Adok around 4:00, and Mimi told us that we were probably an hour and a half away from having the baby! We kept the boys occupied by taking them into the village and then at 5:52, sweet Virginia Lee was born! We have all loved having her here and especially seeing the boys love and care for her. Please continue to pray for the whole family during this transition period but especially for Jamie and Virginia.

As our last few days come to an end (so hard to believe!) please pray for all of us as we soak up the last few moments here, but also pray for our hearts as we prepare for leaving Uganda, the people, the culture, and returning to our lives in America. I have had the most amazing summer here and learned more that I could have imagined. I pray that I will continue to learn from the Lord when I am home and that I will be able to be a light to others.

I read this verse this morning and it is comforting to know that even when I am not here, the Lord will continue to work in these children's lives. For it is not my work but the Lord's!

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Philippians 1:6