It's a Hard Knock Life

I have never done a blog before so I am not sure what you expect of me, but I find it rather boring to just report what I did that day. Also, with so many new things and little events that blog would be extremely long each day. Instead, I would rather write about certain things that really strike me here and make me think, or write about certain things that God is teaching me while I am here. I hope this ok with y'all.

Coming here, I am not sure what my exact expectations were, but it is a very different experience to be in Uganda as someone attempting to belong to the culture rather than coming to observe it. Last time I was here, it was normal and almost acceptable for me to be walking around with my camera, being loud and American but noy my camera has not left my bag, and I do my best to at least greet people in their own language. As difficult as that can be, especially because I love photography and there are five different languages in the town town I am in, it allows me to be privy to the less obvious reality of life here.

Sometimes, that reality is hard to view. I was not unaware of what was going on in Uganda, I was not blind to the fact that there are many problems in day-to-day life here, but I do not think I understood nor do I yet fully understand it, but I am learning a part of it each day. I could report to you back and forth the situation in Northern Uganda, but I never actually thought about the lives of the children elsewhere in the country, and although they are not being abducted, they live a harder life than I ever expected or imagined.

As I write this, my heart is heavy thinking of what I have learned of their lives in just a few days. When I think of being a kid, I think of the few years of your life when you can be pratically carefree and a time in you life when you are valued and nurtured. In America, the children are valued to a point that it is almost bad, where we treat them like they are eggshells and could be broken mentally or physically in an instant. Here, children are treated in most respects as nothing more than scum.

To be a child in Uganda is hard. Here in Tororo their day to day challenges are beyond my comprehension. I will give you the examples I have learned this week. Take for instance food; here the culture is that man eats first, and then the wife, and if there is some left over it is given to the children. Or the abuse kids face. HIV/AIDs, although ridden throughout the country, has such stigma with it that there is little understanding of the disease. The belief here, especially in the villages, is that if you have sex with a child you will either be cured of the disease, or it will prevent you from contracting the disease. So it follow thats many of these kids are sexually and physically abused by their parents, either out of wrath or that they simply do not understand HIV/AIDs. This kids also face huge challenges with education. The african culture is this: if you have money for school fees, but another need arises you do not save that money for school but use it meet the current need. Later if you have more money then you child will go to school for as long as you have money. Thus, having a steady flow of education is rare here. This means you can have children as old as fourteen in second grade!

The other huge problem that I encountered for the first time today is Glue. Many of the kids here, especially street children, are horribly addicted to Glue. Children as young as five can be living on the street begging so they can get their next fix of glue. They get so addicted to the stuff that even if they take street children and put them in school, they will run back to the street as soon as they can because the glue calls to them. My knowledge up to today was that this was an addiction that only street children really struggled with. But I was so wrong. Today in the middle of my lesson I noticed one girl kept putting her fingers to her nose and holding them there for a while. Not knowing how glue worked, I wasn't really concerned. But when we were leaving the church at the end of club, the missionary I am living with, Evy, noticed a can she was holding and called the girl out. Right in the middle of a bible lesson, in a church, this girl had a can of industrial glue and was just huffing away. We took the can from her, but it was so sad to see. Her eyes showed that she was both scared that she got caught and that she was longing after the can. Something as simple as glue can wreck a life here.

All this being said, there is hope. What is encouraging for me to see its that through the churches here, the view of children is being changed. Now they want to have children's programs, they want to have trained sunday school teachers. Through the church, they are realizing that not only are the children their future church, they are the future period. I only pray that this is not a slow influence on the culture.

Though difficult to see and learn all of this, the smiles and heart of the children teach me something too. I see in them that despite everything, you can find joy in all situations. And it spurs me on to love them and to teach them about a Father who truly loves them and longs to care for and comfort them.

Sent by Post

I am finally in Tororo!!

For the next six weeks, Laura and I will be working here with a hilarious missionary named Evelyn Ant. We are going to be spending the first two weeks running basically VBS for two different churches. Then for the rest of our time here, and during the first two weeks, we will be working at Smile Africa ministries helping with over four hundred children there. Also, we will be spending some time at the Salvation Army's orphanage doing work there and helping with their street kids ministry.

How did we get here? Well thats a funny story....

Laura and I got up at 5:30 am and drove to the post office. In Uganda post is not delivered by mail trucks or anything of that sort. No, post is delivered by bus. And not only post can travel on bus, but you can buy a ticket and traveling on the bus with the post. So we went to the post office, bought to tickets to Tororo for less than 7 dollars and waited for the bus to arrive. We finally got on the bus at around 9 am and were headed for Tororo. Then we stopped. Practically every thirty minutes, and the conductor would grab the post and drop it each post office. Then we would start again.

Not only did we drop post at the different offices in different towns, but we also picked up other passengers along the way. We started our journey with maybe ten people on the post bus. There are thirty seats, and by the time we got to Tororo there were about fourty people or more on the post. I don't think the bus could handle that much weight, because for the hour before we reached Tororo, the bus would stop, wait for ten minutes, then go a few hundred meters, and stop again. It should have only taken us about four hours to get from Kampala to Tororo, but i think it ended up taking six and half. It was an experience for sure.

Being white, I obviously stick out a ton, and I think children are more curious about it than I realized. While we were sitting on the bus, there was a woman with a little baby behind me and a toddler. I think the toddler understood what a white person was, but the baby was a bit more curious. For five minutes it felt like it would slowly reached forward and just touch barely touch the back of my arm with its index finger. Imbolden by the fact that I never turned around, ( i thought it was funny and wanted to see what she would do), she began to reach forward and just try to wipe the white off of me. She was confused when that didn't work and began to pinch my skin to see if it would go away that way. Eventually her mom saw and made her stop, but it was really funny.

That's all for now. Pray for us as we prepare the lessons for the next two weeks and as we get to know to Tororo. Also, pray for me as I've been sick and have a dash of homesickness already.

Bedemaber (goodbye in Japadhola)

Learning and Riding

The past few days have been mostly relaxing and attempting to get over jet lag, so there hasn’t been much to report. Yesterday the training began but in a fun way. We split up and went to a few different churches, and the met up later for lunch at my Aunt Karen’s and Uncle Greg’s flat, where I will be staying when I get back from Tororo.

I went to Greg and Karen’s church called Zana Presbyterian. The church was really brilliant. It had two pastors speaking simultaneously in Luganda ( the language of Kampala) and English. Unfortunately, other than the singing which was awesome and in both languages, I do not have much detail to give. As we sat waiting to go to church we had a discussion about how we were doing with jet lag and everyone was still struggling with it, but I thought I was over it and bragged to that effect. I guess God wanted to humble me because as soon as the sermon started, it was almost impossible for me to stay awake. I tried everything, I even would pinch myself every time my lids would droop. But it was to no avail, the only moment I was awake for the sermon was when the pastor did an imitation of Shaggy (the singer who sings “ girl you’re my angel, my darling angel” who is in Uganda at the moment). After church we all met up at the flat and had a delicious African meal and watched the movie City of Joy to get us to think about cross culture issues.

We woke up bright and early today to begin in-depth training. To begin each day, two of us will give our testimonies. Today, Jeremy and I gave our testimonies. I am not an eloquent speaker by any means, but it was good to give my testimony because one I will most likely have to give it many times while I am here, and two it was a really cool way to see how God used different things in my life to bring me to this place. Then we did some language and culture training. We split up by regions we are going to and went to study with a local from our region who could teach us language and culture. Laura and I went to work with a really cool guy named Ben who is actually from Tororo and speaks Japadhola, the local language. It is hard! Here is a sample:

• • Yoga – Hello
• • Yoga bende – I am fine
• • In’tye nadi – how are you?
• • Artye maber, kosaini – I am fine, how are you?
• • Ichiewi nede- Good morning/ how did you wake up?

Then after some delicious lunch of bread and avocado and eggs, we played Frisbee with the guard and the headed out to a place called Mildmay. Mildmay is local HIV/AIDs clinic that was invited to start in Kampala in 1998. This place was brilliant. I cannot even begin to describe it. It was better than any hospital I have seen, even better than most I have seen in the US. It was good to be at Mildmay and get a backround of HIV/AIDs and how it really truly has effected the people and the culture here.

On the way home we took public transportation. We road the Matatu back from Mildmay to the base of the Matoke Inn road.. The Matatu is always an interesting ride. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a 15 passenger van that ends up holding 20+ people. Then we road bodas(motorcycle taxis) up the hill. My driver was awesome, as I sat side saddle on the back of his motorbike, only holding on occasionally, he made a point of beating the rest of the groups bodas. He speed over and around speed bumps and went so fast. Needless to say we got there first. It was so much fun.

The rest of the week will be about the same. I leave for Tororo Friday, so I will probably put up one update before then.

Finally Here!!

I am finally in the red soil. This journey felt so long and I don’t think I have ever had so many emotions in so little time. We left Pearl River for Newark Airport at about two pm on Wednesday. We got through ticketing fairly quickly, but then we had to help the Munson’s with all twenty pieces of luggage. It took about an hour to get them checked in, to weigh all the luggage, and to get it tagged. It was a hilarious endeavor to us, but I am pretty sure those in line behind us were quite annoyed. At around six pm we were on the flight to London!
That flight was not much fun. We all decided to take an over the counter sleeping pill to ensure that we would sleep, but since we took it so early in the day it just ended up making us loopy and restless on the flight. Half of the group slept, I did it random spurts. So restless but still running on adrenaline, we arrived in London around 7 am and hit the ground running. We checked our carry-ons at some sketchy place in the airport then bought an all day tube pass and headed into London. It was really weird to be in London because I had just been there less then two months ago, but when I was there I was even more tired so I don’t even remember where we went. So every place we would go I would have a vague memory of it, but I couldn’t tell you definitively that I had been there before. Anyway, we did basically everything in London in about nine hours. We would think of a place we wanted to go, or look at a place that sounded cool on the map, and then we would hop on the tube and go there. By the time we got to Wembley Stadium, around three pm, I was exhausted. We walked wembley and even saw a Segway race around the stadium and then decided that even though we had a few more hours till our flight we would head back to the airport. I could barely keep my head up on the train and nodded off more than once. Through a few more train changes, we arrived at the airport around 445 and had about four hours to kill. We slept, or attempted to sleep. Oh and Laur, I got a mango passion fruit smoothie thing of course.
At around nine we were headed to Uganda. I tried to talk to this adorable old lady next to me who was from Uganda, but she couldn’t understand me. Pray for me that I learn to speak slowly and distinctly, as I am beginning to realize this is going to be a huge hindrance while I am here. After failed conversation, I fell asleep before we even took off and didn’t wake up till the served us some nasty dinner. I slept most of the flight and didn’t wake up until they were shoving a breakfast box in front of my face. That breakfast was weird, one thing I will never understand is where British Airways comes up with their menu for breakfast, it was a spinach egg and mayo sandwich thing!
When we landed we had no problems. All of our luggage arrived, Lawrence was there to pick us up and after a little confusion over who he was picking up, we headed off to Matoke Inn, the AIM guesthouse. We get to hang out here and relax for the day, which is perfect because I don’t think I have ever been this tired in my entire life, but I am not allowed to go to sleep so that I can break the jet lag.
Being here is really weird. I think because I am so tired my emotions are going haywire, because one moment I am like so happy to be here and am excited because its all familiar and feels like a second home, and the next I get really frightened when I realize that five months is a long time. Pray for me that I will get focused and not get homesick.

That’s all for now folks! Love y’all and miss you!

Quick Update!

Hey Guys just a quick update tonight:

Today was just a day of training and figure out how to do the basic ie culture, worldview, money, travel etc. My training group is so much fun and I am very excited that I get to travel and orientate with at least three of them all the way to Uganda. Oh, we met another couple this morning named Jeremy and Cori Sinclair who will be working with Favor of God Ministries in Gulu, Uganda so they will be traveling with Ryan and I. I love this couple they are so much fun, and hopefully I will see them soon I think I am going to be working at Favor of God in Gulu for a bit!

So don't have much time to write tonight so I just wanted to give you a list of things to be praying over the next two days as I travel.

• that flights are not canceled or delayed, there is only one flight leaving daily for Uganda so if i miss it that means a whole day stuck in the airport
• for my luggage to make it all the way from Newark to Entebbe
• for protection, I am carrying almost 4 grand on a belt on my waist
• that my money belt will not set off the security alarm
  
• for health, im so nervous my asthma has been going bizerk
  
• calmed nerves, God has already been working wonders in that
  
• for boredom, I have a fifteen hour layover and I don't think it'd be good stewardship of my money to go into the city, so that I can find something else to do for the next 15 hrs
• for sleep on the plane and in the airport

Pretty basic stuff but if you can find time to bring it to God I would great appreciate it. Especially the luggage situation!

P.S. - If anyone wants to talk to me or call me while im in Uganda, download Skype and I can call you for free!

Step One for Adventure: Leave

Well, let the adventure begin. 

Last night was a night of many tears and goodbyes. My parents and got to spend some quality time together Thursday through Saturday. For my mom and I it was laughing at how bad X Files was and struggling to get my bag under 50 pounds. My dad and I had a good time going to see The Mummy (can you tell I was trying to enjoy America as much as possible before I went?) and reminiscing about how much I've grown etc lol. 

Then, last night I had my final dinner with my parents, where my mom would randomly tear up, much to the amusement of my father and I. After dinner, I had my closest friends come over and we didn't do much but just being with them was a blessing. We spent the evening showing down on American food and just sitting on my roof, scaring my mom half to death, talking about life and basically everything. Sitting on that roof I just realized how God is in control and has been in control of my life, even though I have totally fought him every step of the way. Just in Raleigh in general this is evident. I did NOT want to be in Raleigh, I thought I would never build the quality relationships in Raleigh that I had in Delaware. I saw Raleigh as a holding place before I went on to college, well apparently Uganda, and I never expected to build ties and extremely strong friendships. Sometimes I wish I could just see the bigger picture that God has in front of him, but at the same time, I don't think I would be as amazed and in awe of Him as I am right now if I had seen the big picture. Saying goodbye to my friends made me so thankful that God had sent me to Raleigh, I realized how much these people had touched my life, and even got to hear how I had touched and effected someones life that I never expected to touch. 

This morning was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Every step of today reminded me that I am both not a little girl anymore but hardly an adult. I said goodbye to my parents, my mom bawling again, and rode up the escalator in a mix of holding back tears and excitement. I think I was super nervous because today was just a jumble of awkwardness. On my first flight I hit a woman in the head with my sweatshirt, she flipped, and I felt like a five year old. I changed flights in Pittsburgh and every moment I thought to myself, what I am not old enough to be doing this! I finally got to Pearl River, NY around 2:30 and I got picked up by my own driver and was like OK now I feel old! 

Everyone at the office is really nice. They showed me around and I got a few things in order and then got to get some well needed rest! I have two days of training with two other single people, one named Lisa who is heading out to Tanzania and one named Ryan who will be working at Dwelling Places in Uganda and is actually out there on the same time frame as me. Then on Wednesday Lisa, Ryan and this adorable family of four who are heading out to work at Rift Valley Academy, and I will be heading to JFK and all flying to London together. Lisa is going to be enjoying her 15 hour layover in London and I think that Ryan and I may join her! 

I am almost wrapping this up I swear. I just have to say I can already tell that God is going to teach me so much. Just sitting with Ryan, Lisa, Rusty and Brooks at dinner tonight we all got a chance to tell why were there and stuff and it was so evident that God had planned it all out. Nothing went according to any of our plans. One of the questions on the application to get here was are you flexible. I thought I was pretty flexible but with what he has taught me already and what I have heard from people tonight, we all have a huge lesson in flexibility and trust that has been and is being taught to all of us! 

One more thing and then I swear I am done. On the plane I had the chance to re-read my favorite parts of Irresistible Revolution and one thing really stuck out to me. I know that I am not capable of doing anything big, God is but I am not. But what I really want to pray for God to show me how to do is to live out this. This is a quote from Mother Teresa and is going to be one of my many visions for this trip:

" We can do no great things, just small things with great love. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it." 

Peace and Love. Pray for me as I am still quite nervous and don't even have a solid idea of what the next five months will look like! Pray for my mom that she doesn't have a breakdown and pray for my dad as he consoles her lol! 

Two Days Before I Jet: Reflection, My Life is Stupid, God is in Control

This past week has been absolutely stupid. (And for those who still think that stupid is a bad thing, from now on I mean it to be: “me with my jaw dropped amazed at how little control I have over my life but in awe of how God leads it.”)

 

As most of you know, I almost lost my trip to Uganda this past Monday. I received the most devastating news I could imagine at the time. My new facilitator at AIM told me in a very straight-to-business voice that I was to overnight the total amount of my support to them the next day or my trip was canceled. My total support was $8127, I had about $3860 A simply request on her part you might think. What she had in fact told me, at least in my human eyes that forgets the power and plan of God, was that I was not going to do the thing I had dreamed of since freshman year, that I lost my spot at a top university, and that all the things I thought God had laid out in front of me were over. I made it through dinner with my friends that night not letting on that I had just received what I thought at the time was devastating news. I left as soon as I paid the check, and the moment I got in my car, I started sobbing. In the forty or so minute drive home my eyes were so welled with tears I am surprised I did not get in an accident.

 

I am pretty sure that God was watching this whole thing just thinking, “Seriously? This girl needs to calm down, does she not know who I Am?” I came home and told my parents what was going on, knowing full well that I could not ask them to front me over four grand. They simply did not have it, and I did not feel right asking for it. But God has that sense of humor, and through a series of events including a Facebook group, amazing friends, family, people I have met a few times, people I haven’t talked to in years, and people I don’t even know God raised over $3700 dollars in less than 48 hours. What? Just think about that for a moment. That is crazy. That is amazing. That is but the WHISPER of God’s doing.

 

In the midst of all this a friend showed me this verse; "And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?" Job 26:14" Raising that much money in so little time, I mean to me that is a miracle. But that is just a whisper. I have been scared, worried, anxious that maybe I am not supposed to go, or that I am misinterpreting what God is calling me to do. But if just his whispers can do miracles like that, I cannot wait to hear the thunder when I hit the ground in Uganda!

 

I am ashamed to say, though, I am still very scared to go. Sitting around saying goodbye to friends the other night, hearing them talk about roommates, classes, schedules it finally hit me that I am actually going. This has been an idea, a hope, of mine since the very beginning of freshman year. I never actually believed it would happen. I am doing something completely different from everyone I know and I am kind of petrified of that. I even had to call a friend tonight to get him to give me a pep talk to tell me I was doing the right thing so I could calm down. And as I sat tonight looking at a map of where exactly I would be going and assembling an itinerary for my mom, I realized they aren’t exactly Disneyland safe. Anything could happen, I could get really injured or even die. Ok maybe it isn’t that dramatic, but that is where my mind has been going tonight.

 

But God is amazing. As I repacked my bag for the third time , begging it to be under fifty pounds, I opened up the journal I am going to be taking. In the front of the journal I have jotted down a few quotes and verses that have really been speaking to me as I prepare for this new phase in life.  I sat there scared,  glancing but not really reading, and my eyes fell upon a quote from The Iressistible Revoltuion: “If you’re wondering whether you’ll be safe, just look at what they did to Jesus and those who followed him. There are safer ways to lie than by being a Christian. And there are cooler ways to live than by trying to follow the gospel….So live real good and get beat up real bad. Dance until they kill you, and then we’ll dance some more. That’s how this thing seems to work. (IR 241-242).”

 

Everyone I tell about this trip tells me to be safe, but I would rather not. Right now, God is telling me this is His plan for this next adventure. For me to listen to the thunder, to live a dangerous life for him, to break away from the norm, and to remember, He’s got it under control. That’s how this thing seems to be working. Let’s start this dance!

 

P.S. – Thank a hundred times over to those of you who having been praying and supporting. It means so much to me,  I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all that you have done and are doing!