The Longest Walk

We're back!  After 18.5 total hours of flight time and 24 total hours layover time we finally got to Omaha, NE where, believe it or not, it's hotter than Africa.  Our smiling families met us outside of security with "Welcome Home Mzungu" signs.  Priceless!  Over some ice cream and salad (ok- an entire month without dairy and fresh vegetables), we told some stories then went our separate ways.  I miss Janna already.

With all of the flight time we had plenty of time to digest Africa.  Surrounded by industrialism, village life could have never happened. This will come off completely corny, but moving through the airports to easy listening music seemed like a computer game. Nothing natural grew anywhere, no chickens crossed our paths, even after two days traveling I felt squeaky clean.  Also, I discovered that on an 8 hour flight there's enough time to watch three movies and listen to an entire CD.  After a month without tv, my head hurt. Whatever I watched, whatever I saw, everything reminded me of Africa.  I don't know if this will ever change. Forever, everything, always, will remind me of Africa.  It's written on my heart and I'm going back.

The third week of the trip, I felt God calling me to come back to Uganda.  Being a rather practical American, I asked God to confirm this more tangibly.  Within the next week, every single Ugandan staff member found Janna and I, pulled us aside, and told us that we belong in Africa.  Why us?  So many other MSTs have a heart for Africa, love Africa, and are willing to serve God wherever he places them.  I simply thank God that he will allow me to return.  We don't know when, but we'll go back.

Provia prays for our return.  Tabitha and her friends pray for our return.  Florez prays for our return.  The staff prays for our return.  We became attached as we spent more time in the village than any other MSTs this last month.  Kids cried at Sunday school when they announced our last day.  Our girls sacrificed seven passion fruits to send with us.  The church cooked a meal for the entire team.  We led praise and worship one last time.  Pulling our sponsor children aside, we had Felix explain that we were leaving, but that we loved and would pray for them.  Provia asked that we pray for healing on her.  Florez wanted help on her exams, and food for her family.  Provia is praying for Janna's return and Florez said she'd pray blessings on me and my family.  We gave them dresses and other gifts, hugged them, and walked them home.  In a flash of skirt, my little girl twirled away and was gone.  I walked the mile back to the trading center in silence, holding the hands of Tabitha and her friends.  Their tears left a trail in the red dust.  Never has a walk stretched so endlessly in time.  Goodbyes never seemed to end.  Yet there were no goodbyes, only "see you laters," if not in this life, then the next.

And it's not over.  It will never be over.  We continue to serve God here in America, in our daily lives.  We will go back to Africa when God calls us, and we will serve him there.  We will continue to serve until we die; then we will praise him at his throne forever.

So no goodbyes.  Thanks for reading this blog.  May God bless you, and see you later!

Blessings in disguise

It finally happened: I got sick in Africa.  On sponsorship day.  Obviously I’m still alive and well- otherwise I’d be in bed not writing a blog. 

Anyway, I was all ready to go to sponsorship day (the Saturday full of games and events for all of the sponsor children) when my stomach began churning more and more.  By the time everyone loaded the van, I had crashed back on my bunk with a bucket.  Long and short I missed an amazing day.  My little girl, Florez, didn’t know that I plan to sponsor her.  Today EAC picked her up from the village, told her that Tabitha would sponsor her, and brought her to the big city of Kampala (probably her first time out of the village in her life).  Florez ran through the maze of events to Janna asking, “Tabitha? Tabitha?”  and I wasn’t there.  My heart just broke when Janna told me this.   Lets get this straight: I dread tomorrow.  It’s my last day in Uganda with this specific team.  However, Sunday school and the opportunity to hold Florez’s hand can’t come soon enough.  I will treasure every moment with her. 

Back to today: Blessings did come in disguise.  Once I had everything out of my system, I felt fine.  Hannah, an English MST artist, skipped sponsorship day to paint murals on the walls of Katelemwa (the hospital for disabled children).  She didn’t leave until one, so I accompanied her.  Rain washed over the tin roof while we stayed hidden away painting.  God blessed the entire situation.  So many kids limped in on crutches or wheelchairs to smile and watch the “artists”.  Parents also came just to look.  All stress and sickness melted away.  Here are some pictures of our work.  We didn’t know what to paint, but had soo much fun.  I did chickens and butterflies while Hannah brought a tree and owl to life.  

Tonight we said goodbye to Hannah and Dave.  Tomorrow it will be our turn to stand in the middle of a circle of friends, hearing their words of praise and prayer for our trip.  God has touched me through this trip, these people, and all of my experiences.  Please pray that he continues to use our stories to further his work and inspire others.  Also for journey mercies on the long flight home.  God willing, the next time I write will be from America!  

Mucama Yebazewe! 

Praise the Lord!

Meeting God

"Precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender everything.  Take my hand and lead me closer.  Lord, I long to meet you there."

Everyone who experiences life in the village meets the Lord.    Late late Saturday night, Uncle Israel pulled Janna and I aside to tell us to pack- we were going to the village for five days with the Kansas team.  I cannot describe my elation.  My bags were packed in fifteen minutes.  

This stay differed greatly from others.  First off, long time no shower. Secondly this group breaks themselves into four smaller specialty groups: Leadership training, women's ministry, children's ministry, and manual labor.  This week I waffled between children's ministry and labor. Lastly there was some tension within the campsite that created a challenge.  Fortunately nothing says team building like throwing bricks at each other, trusting the next person will actually have the strength to catch them.  I also got the chance to whack bush with my slasher for a few more hours, carry thatch over a mile on my head, haul water many many times, and tread mud in our hand dug pit. Never have my muscles ached more.  Oh! We overturned a black adder in our work.  Douglas crushed it and it died.   For all of our hard work, the villagers honored us with two live goats.  These we slaughtered (I just watched- they were fuzzy) and barbecued. Delicious. 

Children's ministry this week differed as well.  As Janna and I knew the program and songs, we had the opportunity to lead.  I heard tiny voices chanting after mine and giggles over my antics.  So much fun to have them respond this way.  One particular little girl, Florez (white tank top in earlier blog), touched my heart again.  At first I couldn't find her.  Lord, if you want me to sponsor her, lead her to me!  One day, by a house in the distance I spotted a girl.  I recognized her immediately through the Lord.  I couldn't see her face or hear her voice, but I knew that that was my girl. She stopped working, stared at me, then ran to the road and knelt at my feet.  Now the team is working on the forms so that I can sponsor her.  

Yes, the med kits came out again.   This particular girl had gotten her leg stuck in the spokes of a bicycle- a chewed up gash and a sprained ankle.  Otherwise it was jiggers as usual plus a few infected fingers.

 Now non-feeding programs don't need scheduling with the village.  The van drives up to a clearing and the children come.   Here are two blessed souls.  Don't his eyes just tear out your heart?!

One day we walked to town early to pray over Janna's girl Provia.  As she was visiting her mother in a different village, we simply hung with the kids.  We felt disappointment at not helping Provia, but God gave us a blessing in these extra moments. 

Millet seed porridge (boosch) cooling on banana leaves.

While resting over the early afternoon hours (how intense the sun!) I broke out the face paint for some little tribal warriors. 

True African right?

 Little girl sharing in the maize snack while the mzungus built a mud hut.

I'm going to miss this village.  These are my people, my village, my Africa.  They are my family in Christ.  God is personal.  They are mine; I am theirs; and we are His. 

Thank you God for taking us and saving us.   

Rhythm of Africa

"It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end."  
- Deuteronomy 11:12


This land has a rhythm or a groove to it.  I must admit that last week getting back from the village provided an abundance of chaos.  This week though everything seems to fall at the proper time.  You just have to move with the flow of the week, the flow of Africa, the flow of God's plan.  It's a flow I could follow forever: up at rooster crow, hand washing clothes as the sun rises, project, praise in the heat of the day, another project, preparation as the sun goes down. 


On Friday so many of our number were down sick (mostly exhaustion from working in the heat) or working on special projects, that we downsized from two feeding programs to one.  We bumped along to Victory primary school to feed the hungry.  For the "Boosch" (millet porridge), I collected water from a flowing pipe.  Hauling Jerry cans back and forth consumed most of my morning.  Clouds hung dark across the sky, but waited until we had boarded the vans.  Anyway we joked that we could truthfully claim to have spent Friday the 13th in a drainage ditch during a thunderstorm.  (I refrained from posting this as a facebook status for fear of alarming my mother.)  


We also put on a program for the children: praise and worship, games, and a bible skit.  (Whenever I talk about a program this is what we do- different MSTs take charge of each event.)  Below: some students showing their attitude for the camera. 

The yard after teachers herded all of the rowdy children back into the buildings. 

Later in the evening, a group of 17 MSTs from Kansas/ Missouri joined us for supper and worship night.  To add to the merry circle of 40+ people, a British Airlines pilot dropped by with his accordion.  Charlie (an English MST) and I attempted polka dancing, but did in fact bang heads.  

To end, I cannot leave out the Great Guacamole disaster.  

 Charlie leaves on Monday and we're all very sad to see her go.  So we decided to have a movie night complete with western world snacks.  (Can you believe we had to explain a sandwich to the Ugandans?) Anyway, after praise and worship (10:45 ish), the tiny kitchen had at least 5 people crammed into it washing the mountains of dishes (by hand with grocery sacks as scrubbers) not to mention multiple people passing through.  I volunteered to peel the avocados for guacamole.  For the next hour all the concentration in my being focused on not cutting myself with the massive knife furnished from the Ugandan kitchen.  Apparently sometime in the first 15 minutes, mama Nina told me the avocados weren't ripe.  An hour into cutting Emily, another MST, and I finally tasted some.   Emily spent the next few minutes sucking candy to remove the taste while Nina rolled over laughing at us for wasting an hour of our lives.  We had to settle for  plain "crisps" with our movie. 

Nina was still laughing this morning.  

In the village, the peaceful village

Tuesday we tramped our way back to the village racing a thunderstorm to set up camp.  The Lord held the storms until we dashed under our canvas. We lashed canvas to poles with duct tape ropes as the Heaven's opened.  The best part about the rain: peace.  Children sneaked through the openings to huddle against the rain.  We just waited out the storm.  Programs in both the new village and the original village finished the day.  I was so frightened when my girl (white tank top picture from previous blog) failed to show.  I looked for her all over.  On the way back we stopped at the original village.  I wasn't going to get out and play, but something told me I should.  Searching for my buddy Tabitha from that village, a tiny hand grabbed mine.  My girl was back!  My heart surged with joy!  So many children yet somehow the Lord tells you, "This one, this is the one I want you to touch."  On the way home she sang to me.  I hadn't heard her speak and now she sang!  Joy, unending joy.

A pastor in the uplands of Uganda had a dream.  In his dream a group of people from around the world came to teach in their small school.  He told his school, and waited.  On Wednesday a group from England, Ireland, Germany, Uganda, and America visited his school.  That story simply blew my mind.  We taught several lessons on story writing and career guidance, watched some girls do native dancing, attempted to dance like Africans, and finally tried to match them in soccer.  We lost.  In our defense the other team wasn't just girls this time, and these guys have been doing manual labor most of their lives.  Not to mention that we gave several girls a ride home after the games.  4 miles.  One way.  Every day.  Barefoot.  I felt humbled and impressed.

A more humbling experience this morning: Starting at 6 in the morning we mowed the church grounds.  These had never been cleared before.  African grasses stand over my head mixed in with bush and several trees. We used slashers and machetes.  All of us will sleep very well tonight.  At 8:30 a miracle occurred: an army of men from the village showed up to complete the work.  We gladly left the field in their competent hands.  The women of the village also came to help with their church.  They used hoes to overturn dirt around the campsite, many slaving with children bundled on their backs.  So much pride in actually getting a church.  Our town, around 300 people/ close to village size, takes 4 churches for granted.  If American people had to dig clay for every brick, fire the bricks in the oven, lay them by hand, and clear the land with long knives, more would come to church Sunday mornings.  I definitely have a greater appreciation for the resources available in America.  God has blessed our country, and he's blessing Uganda.

Healing hands

Today we returned to the new village to host their first ever Sunday School.  At first a few adults trickled into the brick and tin building, soon the whole floor flooded with children.  Heaven will resemble this church.   Everyone danced, sang, knelt, shouted, aye yi yied in praise to their maker.  The children stomped and shook out the door to a spreading tree where we held their program.  Yes the program moved the children and myself, but I want to touch on two things. 

The little girl in the picture claimed my left hand the first time we visited the village.  At the time she burned with fever.  Everyone was warm- it’s un-air conditioned Africa.  It almost hurt to hold her hand, the fever was so high.  Several times throughout that first night she collapsed, and I knelt to keep ahold of her hand.   That entire program I begged God to remove the fever.  After the program, I lost her in a crush of bodies, unable to discuss getting her medicine.  Today she skipped up to me, cool as a spring day, and happily re-claimed my left hand.  God took care of her without medicine.  Thank Him for his attention to the least of these children.  

Secondly, after visiting the craft market yesterday Janna and I found a pharmacy.  Here we spent the rest of our money on supplies for treating jigger wounds.  The crater I described from the village was a jigger wound.  Technically these are chigoe fleas that bore into the flesh from animal feces.  Then they lay eggs and eat further into the flesh.  Eventually they can consume entire limbs so that all a person has is a skin sack full of jiggers for a foot. Today I saw one girl with a similar hole in her ankle.  After the program we had a few minutes, so I pulled her aside and treated her with proper materials (no more germ-x!).  All of the children mobbed us, so curious to see what the mzungo would do.  After she was cleaned a grandmother tugged my sleeve saying, "Auntie Tabitha!" and handing me a little boy.  Then another girl followed... So much need.  Janna participated in the program at the original village and had a very similar experience.  The hidden wounds brought to light at a promise of healing.  Ultimately we can do very little.  Please pray to the all-powerful God to kill the jiggers in these children and heal the wounds they leave.  Also pray that through our treatment they see God's love for them.

To God be the glory forever and ever!
Amen

I will be exalted

“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

-Psalm 46:10

Jesus will be exalted.  Not in Heaven.  Not at some future point.  Now.  Here, on the earth.  He deserves every praise that wings his way.   He demands our exaltation and our devotion.  Not just a “morning devotion” of scripture reading, but true and absolute devotion of our hearts and spirits towards him all of the time.  As they say here in Uganda: “God is good!  All the Time!  And all the time! God is good- it is his nature which will never change. Wow!” 

Continually I watch children lift up the name of the Lord.  Today we did a feeding program with a primary school.  We cooked the millet seed porridge over a wood and paraffin fire.   We buy all of our supplies from street vendors in the area to promote their economy.  Today I was handed money and told “mofota.”  I wandered over to the shop, handed the lady the money, and asked for mofota.  This is the system.  Standing in the street waiting you just hope that you pronounced the word right and don’t get something completely bizarre.  By the way mofota means paraffin, and it started a lovely fire. 

While waiting to depart, a new MST took some pictures of a man and bicycle cloaked in pineapples.  He yelled, “Jacocoaba!”  Believe it or not this was the first thing I learned how to say in Ugandan (crazy first van ride).  It means, “I will beat you!”  Needless to say we hustled into the van before the man could extract himself from his pineapples.

Lunch hour we spent in fellowship with some high school students who give up their lunch period to spend time with us.  (This wasn’t the same one as last week.) I couldn’t believe how packed the building was!  Students hung through the windows just to participate.  Many marvelous voices hide away in these little African schools.  Nobody on America’s Got Talent can compete with these songbirds and their passion for their God. 

When you travel people tell you about the monuments you’ll see.  In my mind, most people leave out the important things like in Uganda:

·         Teddy grams wear ties and dresses.

·         A live, full sized hog lashed to some poles and tied to the back of a boda-boda is not unusual.

·         Raising your eyebrows means yes.

·         On your birthday you get doused with water, a la super bowl.

·         Random men propose to white women. 

·         Fat is a complement and smart doesn’t mean intelligent.

·         Plastic sacks substitute for dish scrubbers.

·         One doesn’t steal pineapples because witchdoctors put curses on them.  If one attempts this feat, he’ll/ she’ll be frozen until the owner comes and slaps the thief.

I hope you enjoy these pictures! 

Campsite at sunrise; Girls walking to Sunday school; Boy in the village; A girl wearing a necklace made by the VBS children in Davenport, NE

At the End of the Road

At the literal end of the road in Zirobwe village stands a forest of tents.  Over 20 tents served as our home base, although we spent as little time in them as possible.  A la "Tale of Two Cities"- it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, there were times of joy and times of heartbreak, times of natural beauty and times of disgusting squatty potty, times of chaos and times of peace, time that drug on and time that flew...

Ya ya.  Anyway, there's so much to cram into this blog!

 Quickly: yes villagers build their own huts out of grass and mud bricks (one will often catch men churning mud with their feet in a ditch to make these bricks).  Tribal paintings cover huts where witchcraft is practiced.  Many babies run around in beaded loincloths.  Older children often have only a shirt or clothes ripped so terribly that they don't provide much covering.  Chickens, goats, and pits roam the dirt paths which connect huts and farms in a tangled maze.  Everyone farms for a living: pineapple, passion fruit, coffee, maize, jackfruit, mangoes, and cabbage.   Traveling down a jungle path, one fetches water from a well with jerry cans and lugs it over 1/4 mile back to camp.  (pumping water is also a chore of itself!)  Children all the way down to toddlers mow grasses with machetes bent at one end (slashers).  Everywhere we went children clung to us and ran screaming after us.  Sometimes I felt every emotion all at once, too much to handle; other times I felt nothing at all- some things needed time to have an impact.  All in all God blessed me through Zirobwe.

Mostly we did programs with children and schools: singing, skits, games, crafts, food, and donations. The first night, a pastor had stopped us in a village close to Zirobwe and asked that we come to his church.  That evening we changed our program and sent a group to the new church.  I was the praise and worship leader.  We were warned that only a few children would show, and that those wouldn't speak English.  Imagine our surprise when we jumped off our van into a throng of over 150 children not including parents and grandparents.  This first night God touched me.  So many hearts thirsting for him.  With a baby in each arm and two girls clinging to my hands I couldn't take a picture for my readers.  Just try to imagine this crowd.  I was terrified as songs were first and no one knew them.  With the wonderful help of Jonah and Jayan (both Ugandans who translated) and of course God, hundreds of verses raised to Him for the first time in that place.


The moment that wrenched my heart the most almost never happened.  We loaded the vans and waited for the signal to leave. Children milled around playing with us.  Somehow God led my eye to one girl's foot.  On her ankle was a jigger (not chigger- jiggers are parasitic burrowers) wound.  Picture a gaping, golf ball sized crater caving into the skinniest child leg ever, yellow tissue and red scabs oozing with puss and swarming with flies.  The only thing not packed: the first aide kit.  However most of our supplies had already driven down the road to Kampala.  With nothing else to clean it with, I used germ-x.  Uncle Israel explained to the girl before hand that this would hurt.  She knelt on the bare dirt without making a sound, as I washed her muscle.  As I spread ointment into the hole she spoke softly.  Uncle leaned over and told me what she had said, "It's only a small scratch."

I cried.

Parents how many of your children have sat still for a single shot? shrugged their shoulders over a broken bone?  To this child a wide hole almost to her bone was a small scratch.  Please pray God's healing on these children who have so much to bear already.

My precious little girl stood up, curtsied to thank me, let me hug her for a long time, and then limped off smiling to join her friends.  May God give us her spirit of endurance and humility.

So many more little things caught my eyes and my soul: new constellations over a velvet sky, a giggling baby hanging on my skirt, a boy chasing and throwing rocks at a chicken with a sock in its mouth.  I thank God daily for allowing me to have this experience.  Thank you for all who helped me to get here- not only financially but also by being a part of my life.  From Uganda: Mukama Yebaziwe!  Praise the Lord!

Hands and Feet

"By day the Lord directs His love, at night his song is with me- a prayer to the God of my Life."  Psalm 42:8

This morning God directed his love to the Sanyu babies home, through his hands and feet.    I literally sorted a bucket of beans most of the morning.  Lots of bug crushing!  Then we hung up laundry, took down laundry, hung up more laundry, and took down more in a never ending cycle.  I don't believe spare air space exists. Clothes and diapers hang from everywhere!  In the last maybe 20 minutes, babies swarmed around us and we got caught up in the flow to the sandbox.  A little boy climbed into my lap crying.  After a few minutes with his mzungu mama, he settled down and we built a castle.  When I got up to go, he cried.  These children long for touch and attention so much, that even after a short while, they form an attachment.  With big, hungry brown eyes, how can I help loving them back? Please pray for God's peace over all of us MSTs so that we can trust the children to their caregivers.

For the next three days we will pitch our tents in the village!  That means no blog for a while.  No internet, no running water, no toilets- here we go!   Just so that no one accidentally mistakes me for a martyr: In the guest house we have proper bathrooms complete with showers and hot water.  We mzungus shower everyday; Ugandans shower twice a day.  We have a refrigerator and a stove (although all of the cooking is done outside over a charcoal smudgepot sort of thing).  We wash our clothes by hand, but in a yard by the banana trees.  (I think it's kinda fun!) We have a wall and a guard, so feel safe all of the time.  Yes, by American standards this house is rather small for almost 40 people, but this mission is truly blessed. Not only with such a great facility, but also by God's love directed daily and sung at night.  Praise for His blessings!  Amen

Stand in Awe of God

All weekend (Thursday through Saturday) we stood in awe of God as we went on safari.  Absolutely wonderful!  Charlie didn't get eaten by a lion (in fact we didn't see a lion).  If anyone is interested in viewing over 400 pictures of hippos, water buffalo, giraffes, and elephants- please see me when I get home! I'd be happy to bore you to death. 

Back to Kampala the poverty struck me anew after the sparkling wonder of creation, the tragedy in eyes and the faces that gaze intently through our windows.  Part of me jumps for the perfect photo opportunity with such dynamic subjects.  I'll get my camera out, but can never quite bring myself to snap a picture and hurt their dignity.  The emotions are too raw, too deep.  I feel rude, pushy, and guilty so put my camera down.  Over and over I go through this cycle passing up photo ops: 

• A man, drenched in sweat, mowing with a machete
• A little girl pouting by the door of a canvas shack, surrounded by heaps of bananas
• A man on a bike, pedaling a shiny silver milk can up a mountain
• Immaculate furniture being constructed in a tin shanty
• Stacks of fabric piled high on a teen's head
• boys pumping water from a rusted pump into hundreds of yellow jugs
• A glorious mosque beside squalor
• five people astride a boda boda
• abject poverty: row upon row of shacks, too shabby for even that title, with forlorn faces staring through the shadows.

These are the images burned on my memory, captured in my heart, and forgotten by my camera.  

Part of my reading today: 

From Ecclesiastes 5:1a and 7b     Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.  Go near to listen.  Therefore stand in awe of God.  

 Today we stood in awe of God in the village of Zirobwe.  An entire day of worship and praise to God.  Despite the poverty everywhere and the serious eyes in the faces of children, I stood in awe of God today.  His power in these children's life, and their full belief in His power to provide and keep them overcomes me.  "Go near to listen."   These children and people have more to teach me than I can teach them.  I will listen and learn.  Yes, in the village with unschooled children there is a language barrier.  However, the situation, expressions, gestures, dance, and song served as communication enough.  

I met my name buddy- Tabitha!  She's adorable, eleven, and can't speak much English.  Nevertheless she attached to my side for the day and will probably do so again when we visit the village.  So sweet!  After a moving worship with the children, we fed them.  One half of a chipati (like a thicker taco shell) and a fourth cup of pineapple juice for each child.  These children bowed their thanks, grateful for so little.  One girl with malaria stumbled, unable to even carry this to a place where she could eat it.  She was smiling.  

Janna and I finally got to play our ukuleles!  After two songs, curious fingers pulled them into a throng of children. For the next hour so many hands plucked those strings!  

On the way out of the village our van, which has carried us to many far places through crazy roads, got stuck!  Completely mired down, the van stayed put for over an hour while the whole village congregated to get it out.  I played with children while the men puzzled over the swampy mess.  When they finally had it about free (by placing palm fronds under the wheels) my group of girls began chanting, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" as the van pulled free of the mud.  These children know who to ask, and where to give the credit.  

I think this video will speak volumes more than I can ever describe.  Enjoy!  and praise God!

p.s. While at the village I did take pictures, as a Ugandan villager snapped photos of us!