Yes, I asked my husband out! The beginning of it all

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2001 I got married to George a man I was one hundred percent sure God asked me to marry. For us, it was not that first love sort of scenario. 

He was working for a Church we both attended and served. I sang in the choir of the same church. We met and became friends ….he had other friends who were girls…I had other friends who were boys. 

I was 20 years old; He was 23 years old we just started hanging. I had many potential suitors like all girls do at that age and I really didn’t want to go through loving a random guy who I would end up breaking up with.

I prayed fervently for God to show me my future husband because I wanted to get married and get on with my life.

I really wanted to get married early, have my kids and then pursue my career.  My plan was to have 3 kids maximum. 2 biological and adopt one.

George was always in my circle of friends. He came to Africa Hall of residence at university as all the other potential suitors did. He never asked me out or said anything in that regard but I knew he liked me. He was shy and always to himself. He is still shy but his world is far from being alone….i came in like a flood!

God was kind enough to show me through the 3 signs I asked for that it was George that was my life partner. I did not waste my time..so my cousin Stella Karashani who after so many years would help me bury a body and keep quiet if we were to commit a crime….She and i went to Georges little job and I told him we can start dating. (Yes, I asked him out) with Stella by my side in case things went wrong. And yes…things did go wrong. George, after reading the note I had written, I could not say it…He walked away from Stella and i.

Stella was furious and I thought “fool”!

We went back to university and let Him be and later he came to my hall of residence and apologized for his behavior. Apparently when he read the note, he was so excited and went to the back of his office to give thanks to God for answering his prayers while Stella and I were planning to do bad things to him!!

Almost 2 years after that, we got married. A few months after our wedding we moved from Uganda to England where we began our journey of building our family.

After 2 years in the UK, we welcome our first baby Danielle Cherrie Atwine Barugahare born to us in West Middlesex Hospital in London. She was 4 kgs heavy, I had no clue what to do as mum but natural instinct kicked in and George and I were madly in love with our creation. Danielle was such a source of joy in our marriage. She was such a happy baby, fed well, and slept through the night by 3 months. I think she knew mummy and daddy needed some peace. We were juggling being parents, working and studying at the same time. It was a crazy season but I guess that was supposed to be our story (Being strong in crazy seasons)

It was very expensive living in London, so we moved to Manchester because our college had a branch in Manchester and the cost of living was more manageable.

The day after Danielle’s second birthday we received our second baby Gabriel George Bamwesigye Barugahare. Gabriel was such fussy baby but cute as a button. We were so delighted to have a little boy. We felt so blessed to have both a girl and a boy and  we agreed that was it for us until they were old enough and until we had started making real money, then we can adopt and raise another child.

After Gabriel was born, I got postnatal depression and I could not cope with Danielle as a crazy 2 year old. She literally drove me nuts. Gabriel never slept at night, Danielle was up at 6 am…George and I were like walking zombies. George had to keep a part time job …we had diapers, rent, formula and all these costs to take care of.

Thank God, my part time job was still paying my maternity pay. We were barely making it but were happy in our 2 bedroomed house and 2 adorable children.

But as time went by, I still failed to cope with the work load of 2 children because I really needed to sleep….have a proper sleep while someone was watching the kids. I didn’t have that option in the UK. One day, after praying about it for so long, I knew God wanted us to return home. The kids were older and we felt ready to go home. And we did. We moved back to Uganda with no promising jobs, with 2 fancy kids and just standing on the promises of God knowing that He would not lead us and not be on the journey with us.

All our friends and family members were against it. We had sort of settled in the UK and there were no jobs in Uganda. But we still obeyed God and went back to Uganda.

The kids and I went home first and then 3 months later George joined us.

It was a rough start in Uganda. We went from broke to BROKE! Our kids had to change a few things in their lifestyle, the milk they took, the diapers they wore, Uganda was very dusty and they had skin rashes for a while. We had an old beat-up car….it is all our savings could buy.  It was so funny driving that car…..it would die when it felt it had had enough. We knew how to resuscitate it, so when it stopped in the middle of the road causing traffic and people yelling at us, we went to the point of the battery connections and fixed it. I was a ninja fixing my car all the time….The window flaps had fallen off and so rainy days were not good for the road. We laugh a lot when we look back to those days.

We love looking back and talking about these precious memories!

We know we are creating more memories! Most of these memories have been created in fear but our faith has always taken an upper hand.

I cannot remember anything that we look back to with laughter and joy that was not scary!

So, go ahead make your own memories! Don’t let fear ever hold you back.