Honored

Today I feel honored, I feel honored to have been called to go to a far away land, to love unloved people, to experience new things, Honored to have been loved by my host family and many others. Honored to have rafted the Nile and seen monkeys. Honored that I was chosen to come to this place. It ahs been so hard, harder than I could ever have thought but it’s an honor to be tested, stretched, broken, humbled only to fall into the arms of the one who has loved me through it all. I am honored to have cried all the tears I have cried because I got to see the heart of God that much more clearly even through the tears. I am honored to be covered in red dirt because that means I am in Africa. I am honored to be one of few people who will ever get to live in a foreign country for 4 months with an extraordinary host family. I am honored to see the handprint of God in a whole new context, honored to see stars that we cannot see in the Northern Hemisphere in the U.S. Honored that I came here and will not leave unchanged. I am honored to have been torn down so I could learn how to love. I am honored to have heard many different opinions on missions and on God so I could solidify my faith. I am honored to have lived in a place where community is huge and resembles the early Christian church. I am honored to eat beans and rice every day because I can enter into others suffering in an appropriate manner. I am honored to have had a bucket bath or freezing shower every day so I can learn how to be even more thankful. I am honored to be separated from my family and Chris for 4 months so I could learn how to love them and how to serve them better. I am honored to have killed a chicken and cooked a meal over a charcoal stove or wood burning stove because now I can appreciate my huge kitchen and the things God has blessed my life back home with. I am honored to have met close friends who I will treasure and love for the rest of my life. I am honored to have struggled so I could find happiness. Africa has changed me drastically, Josh told me when I left that the best advice he got before he left for Costa Rica was to not expect to return the same. With that expectation I have lived the life of an African realizing that my American attitude needed to be transformed. Not a single day that I have been here have I not seen or felt God in a very real way. I have learned how close to me He is if I just reach out to take His hand. I am humbled and honored mostly to be a child of God and to realize that no matter how far from home I may go, he is there to guide, challenge and love me through it all. I can honestly say this has been the hardest, most challenging and often times the most frustrating time of my life but it has also been the most growing, most humbling, and most exciting time of my life where I have come to closely know the God who brought me here. When I first left I had no idea why I was going, I did not want to go and I was incredibly fearful. Of all the things I have learned, the most important is that God is near, he is big but he is close, especially when your heart is lonely and broken. I do not think I could have learned these lessons sitting in my dorm room at Biola, I had to be completely isolated in a tiny town in Africa seeing starving, barefoot children and living with a family who makes less than $375 a year for me to have seen how very close God was. I will not come back the same; Africa has renewed, strengthened and illuminated my faith in the most extraordinary way!

Splish, Splash!!

In just a few hours I am leaving for a weekend trip to raft the Nile! They are supposed to be class 5 rapids so it is going to be super intense! This is the last year people will be able to raft the Nile because they are going to Dam it at the source. I'm so glad for this opportunity! One, semi funny thing, there are really bad parasites in Lake Victoria and the Nile so as we are stepping on the plane they hand us all some medicine we have to take 6 weeks after rafting so we can kill it. I can just picture them saying, have a great flight here's some parasite meds (OIA).

Other than that, things are still pretty much the same from the last time I wrote. Still tears and smiles all within a few minutes of each other. Still pushing through and trying to find God in the midst of a really hard living situation. I am excited for a break from "reality" this weekend and maybe even have a hot shower! I will write soon to update you all on this weekend, it should be a blast!!!

29 More Days!

So many people have asked me in the past few days how I am doing…how am I doing? I don’t even know. So many people have also asked, how is Africa? Where do I start? Do I start with saying it is good and I love being with my family, I love learning new things and being a part of an exciting adventure, I love learning a new language and finding out about Africa. I love that God has come so close to me and grown my heart in ways I could not imagine. That I have learned lessons that I could have only learned in Africa. Or do I start by saying this has been the hardest 4 months of my life. That it is devastating to see starving kids with bloated bellies and no shoes and a baby on their back unable to go to school because they are too poor. Do I say that there are devastating statistics like 2,000,000 orphans in Uganda alone, that’s almost the size of Phoenix. Do I tell of the corruption of the Ugandan government that all the Ugandans feel? Do I talk of the strive occurring in Congo that shows up on every newscast and the floods of refugees that are streaming into Uganda daily. Do I talk of the hundreds of child soldiers that have been abducted by the LRA just since I’ve been here? So many hard realities of this beautiful place that is called the Pearl of Africa.

I don’t even know how to talk about these things, I haven’t posted for a while because I don’t know what to say, the “Africa is a funny place” was a cop out to buy my more time because I am so confused. How does my heart face these realities that I see every single day? The hardest thing I have experienced while here is I don’t know how to deal with this experience and I don’t know how to process it. Yes I can talk with the other USP students but we are all in the same boat. We all have the same struggles. Yes I can pray and talk everything through with God, and I do. Yes I can read my Bible, David has been a great comfort, but how do I even begin to sort things out and help my heart not feel so clogged up? Almost every time my family or Chris call I end up in tears, I just want to feel safe and secure again. I want to feel loved and cared for. I want to be able to talk about these things with people who can offer insight and wisdom into something that has drastically changed me.

Another challenge, that relates, is that there is no sort of fellowship. Church is different and very mundane, not to offend anyone from the Anglican Church but it isn’t normal and I don’t feel “filled up.” Even chapel is very dry. They spend over 25 min doing announcements and then deliver health and wealth gospel message that usually leaves us pretty angry. I feel like I am constantly being emotionally drained from the rigors of daily life but never being built up.

I know this sounds like a lot of complaining. I promise Africa is a wonderful place. There are wonderful things I will tell you all about when I come home when I can show you pictures of the wonderful people and places, but life here is so hard. I’m really struggling right now with not wanting to leave my host family but wanting to feel secure, to know that I am deeply loved, wanted and valued.

On a very very big side note, my family has asked me to be the godparent of the new baby! So pray “it” comes before I leave, I really need to meet my godchild.

And last night I finally at the grasshopper, it tasted like a crispy French fry but I just couldn’t get past the fact that it was a grasshopper so I could only do one. My dad loves taking pictures when I try something new so there are pictures!

I only have 29 more days till I am home and 25 more days till I leave my family for debrief, please pray that I can feel a little less depressed and stressed so that I can fully engage and enjoy them for my last month. I love them so so much and don’t want to miss a minute with them! Also, as mentioned earlier in blogs and as you have probably heard, please be praying for the situation in the Congo, literally millions of people have come here and are in displacement camps. These camps give them a place to live but are a breeding ground for HIV/AIDS, disease, tension, starvation and other horrible things. Please pray for the conflict to end so these innocent victims can return home safely to their homes!

Africa is a funny place

I think I have mentioned before, among the American students we have a saying "OIA" (Only In Africa). We say this often when things happen that can only be explained by using this saying. Let me share with you a few of these things.

1. This one is a little heavier but I promise it will be funny. Picture me 16 years ago. My mom calls Josh, Sean and I in from the sand box to watch Clinton's Inauguration. Here is what my 5 1/2 year old brain understands about him. I desperately wanted a baby sister, after praying for a year and a half my mom gets pregnant (she may not have planned it but I always knew I would get my sister). So she is a few months from being born and I know, somehow, that Clinton supported abortion. Throughout the whole inauguration I balled, then my mom noticed sand crawling in Sean's hear, wait sand doesn't crawl...we had lice!

So here I am 16 years later, in Africa, I'm 20, and we have no elected a president who has radical views on abortion. My dad and I had a small discussion on the topic so when I found out I cried again. I felt like I was 5 1/2 again, why does anyone kill babies? Give them to me! I had a small flashback to 16 years ago, I'm still sad but feeling more my age.

2. One thing that helps us through all the hard days is exercising. They really encourage those of us who exercise at home to exercise here as well, like my 4 miles of walking to and from school isn't enough. So my exercise partner Stephanie and I try to get out every morning to run, do abs and some arm stuff too. Well, I've been having the lung issues so a few weeks ago I decided not to run as much, but to do lunges, squats and other various exercises. So I decided I needed a little more weight, are there any normal free weights in Africa? Of course not…so what do you use? Picture this, I look around and there are numerous boulders. Yes, I started doing overhead presses and squats with a boulder. I will try it again and have Stephanie take a picture.

Oh, and another thing, running on the “track” which is often a muddy swamp, you can encounter many obstacles. I live 30 miles from the nearest lake yet there was a rotting fish on the side. Gross! Also, you can often encounter cars, cows and chickens. It is necessary for us to always keep our eyes open so as not to run into any livestock.

3. So in the United States we have apple seasons, orange seasons, etc…guess what kind of seasons Uganda has. Well, for starters, the white ant season has already passed. White ants are huge flying insects that they fry and eat. But, there is a new season that is just coming. It’s the grasshopper season!! And guess what, we eat them too!! After we run we go up to the dorms to take a shower in the sub-zero showers and they are infested with them. The first day I counted 21, today 27. Yep, tons of 2-3 inch green, grey or brown grasshoppers that make a screaming noise and run or fly at you. It’s super gross.

4. And lastly, you may laugh at this but at 4 am this morning I wasn’t laughing. We had 2 chickens yesterday that someone gave to my family. A hen and a cock. Well the hen was sick with a respiratory thing so we killed her right away to eat her. Yes that’s right, when a chicken gets sick the obvious answer is to just eat the sick chicken. They say I won’t get sick, let’s hope not! The cock gets to live until Sunday, unfortunately since he couldn’t be with the hen he got to hang out in the house. He decided to make his little home right in front of my bedroom door. Gross. Then when it was time to go to sleep I thought we would put him outside, that sounds logical right? Wrong! He “slept” inside. He was a very confused rooster though. He thought sunrise was at 3 am when it doesn’t actually happen till about 6:15. He crowed 10 crows every 20 minutes from 3 am until I finally left the house at about 6:10…my family had told me the day before I was the one responsible for killing, plucking and gutting him. I quickly declined but by about 4 am I was more than ready to slaughter that sucker!

Anyway, that is the funny happenings around here. I hope you are all doing wonderful. Gaze at a beautiful autumn tree for me. I’m missing autumn more than I thought I would. Have a wonderful Thursday! Love you all!

Back from the Bush...and Jungle

I ended up going on my rural home stay, just 2 days late. I went to the Dr. last Monday morning and after a very intimidating time (he is a British doctor who thinks he is always right) he diagnosed me with a strained diaphragm...hmm, what does that mean? I had blood drawn, which consisted of a few tears since I hate needles and I had to do it all alone. As soon as we got back to school I was off.

I traveled to Soroti, a warm bush climate to meet my family. My father met us on the road and took us back to the house. He owned 11 acres and had all kinds of different crops including maize, ripes (bananas), oranges, pumpkin, mangos, paw paw (papaya), beans etc. He, his brothers and a neighbor were in a coop to try to harvest the perfect fruits. I told them how my family had a cocktail tree when I was growing up and they were excited to try that with their new seedlings. We also had 40 chickens, 20 turkeys, 20 goats and of course many spiders and cockroaches and massive rats. Their coop had also tried to breed the perfect animals; we had one dwarf goat and one giant goat as a result of their experiments.

My father was a very intelligent man, a head master; however, he was very stuck in the gender roles of many Africans. He told me that the first day I was a guest but after that I was to cook for him and be in the kitchen because that is where women belong. He also took me around to all of the brothers and neighbors to "show me off." He would introduce me to everyone as "his mzungu." After about the 10th house we went to I asked to go home because I couldn't take it anymore, I was more of a prize or show and tell than a person. I felt very subjected by him and by my skin color, more by him than by almost anyone else since I've been here.

On the other hand, I adored my host mom. She was a gorgeous, mother of 8, grandmother of 2 and the sweetest lady every. Many of the neighbor girls would come over with their babies and ask for advice about parenting or how to run their houses. It was a sweet picture to see the young neighbors with their babies, and my old mom with her grand daughter on her lap. She was so kind and tender and had the sweetest smile and laugh. I cannot wait to show you all pictures, she was amazing!

Three daughters lived with them; I shared a mud hut with two of them. Their son Dan, who was about 10 also lived there, he was very smart and spoke great English. Two of the grandkids from 2 of their daughters lived with them also while their parents were working near the Congo border. My favorites were the two grandkids, Tony and Tina; they were the cutest kids I have seen in Africa. Absolutely beautiful, just like their grandmother!

After the home stay, which for me only lasted 2 days, we stayed in Soroti town for 2 days as a whole group. It was a great time of relaxing, playing games, fellowship, laughing and making new friends.

We left Soroti town for Sipi Falls for three days. It was absolutely breathtaking. We stayed at a rest camp in mud houses again but it faced a cliff with a 200 ft. waterfall. On Saturday we got to hike from the very top to the very bottom. At the bottom the mist from the fall was so intense I was drenched for the 2-hour hike back up. I was literally blown away standing looking into the vastness of the waterfall. It was absolutely incredible. I don't know if I have ever been somewhere so beautiful. Again, I can't wait to show you pictures. That evening Grace and I took some time to go out and look up at the stars. There is no power so no city lights. The vastness of the stars took my breath away; it reminded me of this summer with my dad looking at the stars in Ouray, Colorado. We talked about the promise to Abraham that God would make his descendants greater than the number of the stars. It was incredible for me to think that I had seen so many stars this summer but they are completely different than the ones I saw this weekend since I am in the Southern hemisphere. I may feel very small and insignificant but God seemed really really big this weekend.

Please be praying for me over the next 6 weeks, I have 45 days till I come home but it feels very hard right now. Our director asked if it all feels down hill from here but to me it feels all uphill with home being way up a mountain. In talking with my parents I started crying, which I haven't done for over a week, realizing how heavy my heart is. So many hard things have happened here and there is no support from the staff here, no one to process with or to talk things through with. I told my parents, I see starving kids every where, this morning on my way to school 3 men asked me to marry them, a girl yesterday got a very disturbing email from a Ugandan students, and another had one show up to her house, I have felt subjected for 3 months for being a woman and white and have never had someone to come along side me and be there for me. I can't wait to come home but still really want to not waste my last time here.

Please also be praying for Uganda and the Congo, if you have not heard in the midst of election chaos, the rebels have advanced and Goma, the Congo border city to Gisenyi, Uganda. Many Americans have been evacuated and the situation is tense, we are fine here but the situation with the rebels is constantly.

Lastly, if any of you want really cute cards for Christmas or anything, google Cards From Africa. It is a British guy in Rwanda who has employed victims of Rwandan genocide. They are mostly kids who have to support their families. Read the description on their website, they are all hand made and beautiful. Pricey but worth it! Love and miss you all!