Just a typical weekend in Uganda :)

This was my first weekend to be at home here in Uganda, and it involved quite a range of activities.  Saturday consisted of helping make lunch and dinner for the day, which is an adventure in itself.  Our kitchen is outside in a small tin building....it consists of two "stoves" (3 bricks with space to put fire wood in between).  I spent a solid hour peeling matooke, which is "the food of Africa and Heaven" according to my Ugandan mother....we eat it for lunch and dinner.  It looks like a weird banana before it's peeled, and once it's cooked it looks like a heavier version of mashed potatoes.  Speaking of potatoes, peeling them is another job I've taken on.  Potatoes, or Irish as we call them here, are also served with the majority of our meals....even for breakfast sometimes.  So after peeling lots of matooke and potatoes, I butchered a chicken...that was an experience in itself :) One that I'm hoping to never relive.  I spent the rest of the day playing with my little brother and doing homework, but even playing is different here.....Enoch has no toys, but views the world as his playground.  I admire the freedom in that.

Life is life no matter where you live it

Although this semester is quite a bit different than my typical time at Williams, it's still life.  I still have to wash clothes....just by hand.  I still eat in a cafeteria for lunch everyday...there's just a lot less options (rice, beans, and bananas).  And I still have a family.  I'm pretty sure my family will be my favorite part about my time in Uganda.

My Father, Reverend Henry is the pastor for the Church of Uganda and looks two times younger than what he is.  My Mothers name is Irene, and she keeps the house all tied together along with Rev. Henry's two sisters: Jessica and Bekah.  Jessica is 24 and Bekah is 22...they do most of the cooking.  Irene and Henry only have 2 actual children: Enoch (age 5) and Elezar (8 months).  Our house has three bed rooms, two bathrooms, one "kitchen" sink, a living room/eating area, and a small room for ironing clothes.   In Uganda it is very common to take in extra children/teens as well, so my family not only has Jessica, Bekah, Enoch, Elezar, and me living there, but 2 young men as well.  The two guys live in a small building behind our house, but shares meals with us.  They are all absolutely precious!

Although I'm used to dorm life, spending the evenings helping make dinner and playng with my little brothers is the highlight of my day.  Life is still life here in Uganda....it just looks a little different.

The Rwandan Birthday

Being right on the equator, it gets bright pretty quickly, but I managed to wake up and make it outside just in time to see the most incredible sunrise…..for some reason everything is just more spectacular in Africa. I cannot possibly think of a better way to spend my birthday than the day that followed. On Sunday, August 28^th our team of students woke up planning to spend the morning worshipping with our Rwandan bothers and sisters.  Having been to several (culturally) different churches, most of Sunday’s activities did not come as a surprise to me.  Just like any church service, we sat and stood multiple times for worship, prayers, scripture reading, and finally sat in expectation of the message. After the sermon, there was a special act of worship; a dance.  After a while the dancers had us join in, sorry my fellow Baptists! ;)  This was awkward and uncomfortable for us, but the act in itself was beautiful.  The freedom these people have in Christ is evident far beyond their time of dancing.

The emphasis of our trip to Rwanda was to learn about the Genocide, and we saw several effects of it first hand at church that morning.  One woman even had a 4 inch long machete slash on her forehead….the people there almost act as if the genocide itself never occurred, but the scars and the memorials remain. 

For the next three nights we stayed at a Catholic guest house outside of Kigali, and there was a memorial right outside our room…..less than 20 years ago people were slaughtered right there.  I don’t understand how people can act as if nothing ever happened.  Even the woman with a gash in her head did not seem to doubt God’s goodness and plan through it all.  

Although this birthday was spent learning about the death of others, I have never before seen so much life.  

The Here and Now

After spending 25+ hours in the air, we arrived in Uganda around 7 p.m. (East African time) last night.  We stayed in the dorms of UCU (Uganda Christian University) for the night to prepare for a busy day ahead. Today has been filled with meetings, meetings, and good food.  Tonight I will meet my host family and spend the evening with them.  Tomorrow me and 29 other students will head to Rwanda for the week.  Since it is the “winter” season  over here, we are wandering around in 80 degree weather….not too bad, if I may so say myself.  I am greatly anticipating what the next 4 months hold! 

Leaving is hard, but going is easy.

Over the past week, saying goodbye has become difficult as the time to go to Uganda approaches.  I hate sad, sappy moments when everyone feels like life will never be the same, but I guess they are right.....Life will never be the same.  Today I realized that life never being is the same is a good thing.  Some people adapt to change a little bit better than others, but I think it's more about the willingness to embrace change rather than change itself that really, well, changes us.

What brought this to my attention is a passage that I recently shared with a friend as I was dealing with leaving.  In Matthew chapter 4 (verses 18-22), Jesus calls his first disciples.  In verse 19, Jesus gives them a simple invitation: "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men". The response of these fishermen blows me away.  Verse 20 says "At once they left their nets and followed him".

In bold obedience, the first disciples dropped everything they owned, knew, and loved to follow the calling of Jesus.  I can't imagine the thought process of these men! To give up everything immediately.  I wish we all responded to God's callings in this type of obedience!!


 At this point in time, the disciples had no idea the adventures that would take place in their own lives as a result of following the Savior.  On the other had, they also had no idea of the heartache, disappointment and punishment they would face.

In my own life, whenever I have to make a decision, I think about how it immediately affects me-not the end result.  I wonder which of these is more of the disciples thought process.  If I were on the boat that day when Jesus called them to drop everything and follow him, I would have hesitated, just like I did when I was beginning to apply for the Uganda trip.

I knew being accepted for this trip meant leaving everything I knew and everything (and one) I loved.  That was my first thought, not the end result.  I knew that leaving in itself would be one of the hardest things to not only do, but also explain to everyone else.  I will never forget the response of the students at Central when I told them I was going to Uganda for a semester.....they focused on the immediate effects as well.  With disappointed faces, I heard "you're going to leave us?" over and over again.  That broke my heart.  I tried to explain  my leaving in a positive way by saying that it was only for a semester, or that I would be doing mission work, but no matter how I said it, my leaving meant things were changing: that life would never be the same.

The disciples may not have known what to expect as the end result of following Jesus, but their instincts at the time told them it would be worth it.  I knew leaving everyone would be hard for me, but I knew that going to Uganda would be worth it.  The disciples learned in one day what took me 7 months to realize: Leaving is hard, but going is easy.  When you are doing what you know you are supposed to do, it becomes worth it, no matter the cost.  For the disciples, this meant leaving their family, friends, jobs, and a consistent life, and they did it anyways-yet we hesitate at even the smallest beckoning of the Holy Spirit out of fear; we fear our plans and our lives getting interrupted.

I pray that we all become obedient to God's leading-even if that requires leaving and going, because even if we don't like it, life really will never be the same.

Time, or lack there of.

This evening I was talking to a friend and realized that I leave in 32 days....we might as well say a month.  As expected, summer has flown by, and several of the things on my "to do" list have not exactly gotten done, and several things have gotten pushed to the side. To me, how you spend your time is a reflection of what you truly value in life.  Looking back over summer thus far, I feel much time was wasted.  In this case, wasted time means placing value on things that do not matter (or should not be my focus).  There were some great things accomplished and some lives changed, but so much more could have been done if I was more focused on things beyond myself. 

My prayer for all of you and myself as I prepare to leave for Uganda is this:  Let us set our minds attention and our hearts affection on Christ.

Time with the Lord is never time wasted, but valued. 

Proverbs 20:24- Obedience Does Not Require Understanding

          Even though I am fully aware of my leaving in August, it is still very strange to tell others my future plans.  I know I'm going to Uganda, but it still blows me away for some reason. At Central, graduation for the high school seniors was this past week and we spent sometime on Sunday listening to them talk of their future plans.  When I was in their stage of life (three years ago) I had my next 10 years mapped out....90% of what I'm doing now is not anywhere close to the plans I had then.  

         Several of the seniors have not committed to a life plan, a major, or even a school yet, but are simply waiting for the blanks to be filled in on God's timing.  I'm not disappointed in  not following the plans I had leaving high school, in fact where I'm at now is so much better than what I had planned anyways. As my plans changed over the years I did not understand why, and I still don't, but I listen to the One leading me anyways. 

As I was spending time in the Word this morning I was reminded of the fact that it's okay to not understand what you're doing or how you got there.  

"A man's steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?" 

 

Thankfully we are not required (or expected) to always understand, but to simply obey.  Obedience after all, does not require understanding, but action.