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 updates Barb Decker
and small special projects at Abba House in Uganda, and to do manual
remodeling of a school facility in Ethiopia to make it into a House of Friends
Home. The team members were mainly from the Kansas City area, but Iowa
was also represented. WORKED LIKE AN AFRICA
The pastor of the local church, who works
DAILY MANNA… extensively with the home and school,
Though I went with them, as a team, I stayed in Uganda for the full two was skeptical of my gardening at first, but
weeks. My purpose there was to plant a garden with good vegetables to then at the church service before I left, he
enhance their daily food. They eat a lot of red beans and “posho”, a bland said,” I don’t understand why someone
corn flour mush. Posho is a word in Swahili, meaning “provision”. At the would come from so far away to dig in the
school, which is on the same property as the Abba House, they cook up about dirt and plant seeds. But I give God the
25 pounds of beans every day and serve them as Glory for this person who came and
lunch with posho. Big sweet potatoes appear worked in the soil like an African so that
occasionally and sometimes the beans are these children can have a better diet.”
flavored 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! It
is basically the same scenario at the
Abba House. They eat posho porridge
for breakfast, their school provides
posho and beans for lunch, and then
they return to the Home for a hearty
meal of beans, perhaps with minnows
or eggplant, and posho. Sometimes
groups of individuals will refuse to eat;
the Bible says that hunger makes things
taste better. I remember in Venezuela,
when someone commented, concerning
sun-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 a Above—Barb,
little more variety in it. I took seeds with me, planted them, and then was left, Rose, right,
very encouraged with what God did with them. Though the rains are not preparing soil
supposed to start until late July, we got a good soaking rain at a most conven- and planting.
ient time. My garden preparing and planting did not start until the second Left—One of the
week--after the team had gone on to Ethiopia. Then I had from Tuesday, to little jewels of
Tuesday before I was to also go to Ethiopia and meet up with the team for the Abba House.
return trip home. I started planting, with the help of Rose, one of the Abba
House 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—cucumbers, yard-long beans, zucchini and even
the lima beans, which were planted last. How (Continued on back side)

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 64001
Thank you for caring!
Better Diet—continued as is the custom. Two water sources are better than one. I
would like to be a part of getting solar power set up to
encouraging! We continued to plant all the seeds that I
pump water from the lake as well.
brought—carrots, turnips, cilantro, basil, more chard, and
more green beans.
COME BACK AND TEACH…
WATER SOURCE... I do regret not having
the time to teach
The property is right on the edge of Lake Victoria and the
about what I was
garden is about 500 yards from the massive source of
doing. I had one
water, but the water’s edge is protected by papyrus as a
opportunity to talk to
natural filter for the
Water pit where children sometimes get the secondary school
rains as they make
water for daily use and where I obtained students one day at
their way to the lake.
water for the garden. lunch break. I spoke
A water “pit” has
mainly a meditation Teaching at the Christian high school
been dug between on Abba House grounds.
on Matthew 13, the
the lake and the
parable of the sower. Two boys came to me while I was in
garden for the kids
the garden and asked if I would come back to teach them.
to collect water for
I would like to get back in time for the harvest in 60-70
their use. There is
days, or around the beginning of September. I would like
also a spigot of city
to be there for at least 3
water nearby, though
months and get a water
its usage costs. I hauled water up the hill from the water-
system going with solar
hole to use on the garden. It was not an easy feat and I did
power from the lake. I
it more for the experience of knowing what the kids have to
would also like to
do to get water.
continue planting and
One of the projects the team researched was how to get
teaching gardening
water from the lake for usage at the Home and garden.
methods. This time I
Electricity is also costly, though solar is not. A solar pump,
used a perforated water bottle method, thinking the kids
or pumps, can be used easily there. Uganda is on the
might enjoy more filling the buried water bottles rather
equator and there is not a shortage of solar power. There is
than just watering the plants. With this method, the roots
a plan, and funds, for digging a well on the property. Being
get the abundance of water and there is minimal evapora-
so near the lake, the water table should be fairly high. A
tion above ground.
well will draw in all the neighbors to the free water source,

VISION AND PRAYER

There is also vision for, and land for,` wider scale food production-- wider scale that would need a tractor and implements. Uganda
is an agricultural country and a tractor could be easy enough to obtain if we had the right contacts. I present this to you as a prayer
request—for the food production as well as a place for the older boys, as they graduate from the school, to work and live if they would
continue their education at university level. This would be a future possibility; there are none to graduate for another two years.
I am very excited about this project and its possibilities, especially getting more into the children’s diet than beans and posho. I want
to be able to write about the universal fight of trying to get the kids to eat their broccoli, but more so, I want to teach them how to grow
things that will better their diets and maybe their lives.
I need your support on this endeavor. The flight into Entebbe, Uganda will cost about $1800. I understand that in Uganda, solar
water pumps can be purchased at a reasonable cost. I will research the growing seasons and the time of the rains in Uganda.
There were many things, like plants and fruits that are similar to what I could find in Venezuela and Colombia, so Uganda seems
familiar to me. Unlike places I have been though, if I were to drive, I would have to set my mind on the other side of the road as they
drive on the left side. It is an English settlement, therefore English is the official language--the “proper” England’s English, with a bit of
Ugandan accent--and they drive on the left side of the road.
Recently Uganda has been in the news for terrorist activity in Kampala, the nation’s capital. Please pray for my protection as well as
the protection of the Abba House children. Entebbe is about 45 minutes south of the capital, on the shore of Lake Victoria. (Lake
Victoria is the biggest body of water in East Africa and its shoreline includes Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.)
My knee doctor has given a 2-year clearance, to go and do. I will ask for prayer in that aspect also, that if I fall, I will not damage the
hardware; and if the work or the uneven ground makes them swell or get stiff, I would have the wisdom to take a day off and rest.
I am forever grateful that I was able to purchase my home in Alma when I did. It is a safe haven for the times that I come back to
the States. Please pray that enough provision will come in each month to cover the living costs, without cutting away from the proposed
projects of water and farm in Uganda.
Your prayers and support are deeply appreciated. May God pay you back with abundant blessings- good measure, packed
down, shaken together, and running over. (Luke 6:38)
In Him, Barbara Decker

Alma, MO 64001
P O Box 228
House of Friends
Barbara Decker, Missionary