In Fall of 2011 I had the privilege
of a lifetime. God, in all His
greatness, worked it out for me to spend the first semester of my senior year
of college in Mukono, Uganda. While my love for Africa was first sparked years prior
to this adventure, my time in Mukono ignited a joy deep in my heart.
As anyone would expect, a semester
in a different context changes you.
Uganda scarred me in more ways than I can explain. I travelled to that beautiful country
with great dreams and expectations of how I was going to change the world, but
Uganda shattered all of that. Instead,
Uganda taught me the value of presence, people, and reconciliation. I quickly realized that Africa didn’t
need me, but oh, how I needed Africa.
In all honesty, I was hesitant to
return to Uganda. I loved the time
I had there previously and feared that returning to a place that I loved so
deeply would only result in discontentment when I returned to the States. Surprisingly, our 10 day trip to Uganda
resulted in anything but discontentment.
It was still just as hard and disappointing to leave the country that I
love, but lessons were still learned.
It’s funny how God teaches us
sometimes. The biggest lesson from
my return to Uganda did not come in the form of some glorious revelation, but
through a toddler. Good Shepherd’s
Fold, the orphanage that we worked with, is home to children of all ages. While our team was there, we were
welcomed in any of the children’s homes during our free time-so any time I was
free you were most likely to find me in the baby house (shocking, I know).
On one of our last mornings at GSF
I made my way down to the baby house, took off my shoes, and sat on the floor to
spend my morning playing with a handful of the little guys that had stolen my
heart. One little man kept
bringing me a small plastic egg.
He would run up to me with one piece of the egg in each hand saying
“mommy it is broken!”. I would put
it back together for him over and over and over again. He found so much joy in the restoration
of that egg….and that was it.
That’s when everything clicked.
We enter into 3rd world
countries as arrogant Americans thinking that we have it all together…that we
can fix anything for these people….that these poor people need our help;
that we can be their saving grace, but the reality is: We. Are. Broken. All of us. And broken people cannot fix other broken people, but God
can.
Jesus, we are broken.
