A Year ago Today

Reflection could be personally defined as something that was beaten to death in my education degree.  Even though I hated writing reflection after reflection about lesson plans or educational experiences, I did learn how valuable reflecting truly is.  It always seems to be around a holiday that I look upon what I was up to the year before.  Every birthday, new years, or thanksgiving, I will remember what I did on that day the following year.

Last year around this time, I just finished my final teaching practicum and all the course work for my degree(yes, all those blasted reflections!).  Going to Africa was a small idea brewing in my head.   This year I am at God’s Grace Orphanage, a three bedroom house home to one hundred and twenty children.  They fast and pray as they regularly don't have money for food. They sleep up to 7 kids on a foam mattress inside the home, and the bathrooms outside do not have a roof or even curtains on the doors for privacy. Although there are so few resources and funding to support all these children, the kids at God’s Grace are something else.  We were mobbed by smiling children fighting to hold our hands, and greeting us as Auntie or Uncle as we arrived.  We taught the children a Bible lesson in their tiny schoolhouse outside their home before playing games and singing songs out on the red dirt road.  As we left the orphanage, one of my team members had to stay out of the bus to keep the children from crowding the bus.  It is really difficult for me to portray how special this place is.  The children have such a presence of love and joy about them as they hugged us and talked with us.  Later on in the week, another team visited God’s Grace to only get to witness a huge truck delivering tons of new mattresses to the children.  

Last year I spent my days perfecting my resume and cover letters to hand out to school districts, cleaning my neglected basement suite, hanging out at the Mustard Seed every weekend, and exploring the local trails around Victoria.  This year, I am visiting Akiba, a home for children with cancer.  I spent my day there washing walls, laughing, dancing and running around with kids.  We were informed that a boy we met the previous visit successfully underwent his operation to remove the large tumor on his neck.  Please keep Emma in your prayers for a speedy recovery.  He is maybe 9 or 10 years old with a beautiful smile and likes to play soccer.

Two years ago, I was in Rome along with another million tourists and pilgrims for Holy Week.  I visited the Sistine Chapel, and witnessed part of the Palm Sunday service at St. Marco’s Basilica.  This year, I attended a Revival Night and Praise Rally in the heart of Kampala at Watoto Central.  The Praise Rally alone had 6,000 people singing, dancing, and worshiping in the church and the parking lot for four hours straight.

Last year on Good Friday, I went to a citywide church service at the local hockey arena where I ran into many people I knew from different churches throughout Victoria.  This year on Good Friday, I attended A Night to Unite which essentially is a multi-congregational church service as well with thousands and thousands of Ugandans.  We arrived at the large fairgrounds at around 5pm.  From 6pm to 10pm, we sang, danced, prayed, listened to a sermon, and had a massive communion.  Oh and did I mention we danced!  I think I will have a really hard time not moving around in the pews during church worship when I get back home.  We danced to some African worship songs, and then at the end we formed a LONG chain as we sang Hillsong’s Running.  Callie lost her sandal in the midst of the chaos and I was sure that if I fell down, I would be trampled to death in this Christian mosh-pit!

Four years ago, I woke up early in my dorm to walk down a forest trail in the pouring rain to attend a sunrise Easter service on the beach by the ocean.  Last year, I celebrated Easter at a potluck at my friend Daphne’s house.  This year, I taught little two to four year olds about Jesus raising from the dead by narrating a play and singing songs with them.  I ran down the hill by my house with my little neighbor friends and ate matooke, chapati, g-nut sauce, rice, pumpkin, and some type of meat for Easter lunch.  On Easter Monday, Jess and Danielle planned some activities including egg painting and a hunt around our compound.

So many things have happened in just a year and I can see how much I have been shaped and molded into a better disciple over the last year.  I wonder where I will be and what I will be doing next Easter season.

Happy Easter everyone!  I will leave you with this Easter song I sang with thousands of Ugandans over this Holy Week --> Hillsong's Man of Sorrows

Peace and love

Holy Spirit You are Welcome Here

Holy Spirit by Katie and Bryan Torwalt is a song that I used to play a lot as a worship leader at my church and one that I regularly listen to on the bumpy bus ride to Watoto church every morning.  I just love it sooooo much!
 

Holy Spirit you are welcome here. 

Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. 

Your glory God is what our hearts long for

 To be overcome by your presence Lord.

On Thursday, my team headed out to Ebenezer Christian High School to teach a lesson on trust.  We have heard a lot about how incredible this high school is from our classmates that have already taught there.  Once we arrived, we were lead on a narrow path between two brick buildings to a classroom filled with many children in uniforms and tattered shoes.  This classroom is an extension off the other school buildings and is made of iron sheets and wooden boards with a dirt floor.  The students sat on wooden benches and there was a single chalkboard with a podium at the front.  No bright colored displays, no smartboards, no power-points, no textbooks, and resources, just a sitting area for children to listen to their teachers and write in their notebooks.

As we entered, the students lead us in praise and worship songs.  The Holy Spirit presence was so thick as we sang along with these kids, clapping our hands along with the djembe drums.  Words cannot describe how beautiful it sounded and looked as the students sang to the top of their lungs with arms stretched wide and eyes closed in that classroom.   After praise and worship, we split the students into two groups as two of my team members preached on trust.  Below is a picture of my friend Emmanuel teaching the students at Ebenezer.  He did an incredible job!

As I have mentioned before, our home is situated between other very nice fenced in homes with a slum just down the street.   The contrast is very real between rich and poor.  Every day, as we travel past the slum, the children will smile, wave, run after the bus, hold our hands as we walk to the grocery store, call our names by our gate, or lately jump out of the bushes to surprise us.  One time they even ran into our yard after our bus entered the gate and screamed and did cartwheels until our gatekeeper yelled at them.  That moment was priceless!  It was as if their life mission of infiltrating our home finally came true.  

Some of my housemates have gone out to play with them in the streets a few times.  A few of us have decided to make a consistent meeting time with the kids by having a mini Sunday school with them once a week.  This Sunday, Jess, Natalie, Jack, Callie, and I walked out of our gate to find the little munchkins.  We saw a group of 5 kids about 100 meters down the road and Jack signaled for them to come over.  Word spread like wildfire and soon we were swarmed with 30 to 40 children varying in ages of 1 to 13.  They taught us games… actually that is a lie, they started to play games and we tried to figure them out as they went along shouting and squealing in Luganda!  We taught the kids a song, and then got them to re-enact the story of Daniel in the lion’s den.  The Holy Spirit was ever present as we sang, danced, and laughed with our neighbour friends.  Many of the parents curiously came out to watch as we played with the kids.  One mother even thanked us for teaching her kids even when in reality those kids were teaching us.  They taught us how to be accepting and including of all, how to love your neighbour, and how to have so much joy and fun with so little.  Those kids are incredible!!  Before we were escorted back to our home by this vivacious little mob, we joined hands in a circle and prayed in the dimly lit evening. 

Holy Spirit you are welcome to play with adorable babies at Bulrushes Baby Home with me.  Come flood the Suubi track meet when I encourage the competitors while my skin is getting torched.  Fill the atmosphere, as I play a donkey in a reenactment of Jesus coming to Jerusalem by donkey in a Sunday school lesson about Palm Sunday.  Your glory God is what my heart longs for to be overcome by your presence Lord.

Peace and love

Hope is Rising

Please listen to this song as you read this post.  Hope is Rising by Downhere

After an entire month, my care package from my parents has finally arrived.  The estimated time of arrival was two weeks, so hope began to deteriorate as to when and if the package would make it to Kampala.  I was ecstatic when I received my parcel with a Canada Post sticker and my mom’s hand writing on it.

Unfortunately, this Tuesday was the first time I was able to visit my slum family since the last time when we found out about Finah’s disappearance.  Finah’s mother, Harriet, shared with us that a few weeks back she received a phone call from some man informing her that he had her daughter.  He told her that he had Finah as a house girl and said where he was keeping her.  Harriet does not know who this man is, and how he got her phone number.  She is very suspicious of her neighbours and wonders how this man got her number.  We do not know whether this man is telling the truth but this phone call brought us some hope in finding Finah.  Harriet is waiting for her brother to come so he can escort her to this place where Finah might be.  I am very encouraged by the hope in Harriet to continue searching for her daughter.   She is a very strong woman and shows great care and affection for her children.  I ask for you to continue praying for Finah’s safety and for her return back home.  I also ask that you pray for Harriet and her brother when they go to this unknown and risky area to find Finah. 

On Thursday, my team ventured out into the slums to visit our two Living Hope clients.  It had rained very heavily the night before so we prepared to get muddy as we trekked through the slum.  We took a public taxi to get to the area where both of our clients live.  We have only visited our clients once before and last time, we took a different route to get there.  Slums are very tricky to navigate through, as they are crowded with small huts and narrow pathways.   Needless to say, our team couldn’t find our first client’s home and got lost trudging through the muddy and garbage-laden slum.  After about an hour, we decided to head back to the main road.  Praise the Lord for as we began to walk back, our client Maria found us and lead us back to her home.  Maria is a very gentle and hospitable woman and I am looking forward to getting to know her better.  We then moved on to our next client Margaret, a fiery woman who crochets blankets and table runners to provide for her family.   We chatted with her for a bit, sang some songs for her, read her Psalm 23 (I had to read it in Luganda… YIKES), and prayed with her.  Then Margaret walked us back to the main road, showing us a much easier route for next time.  Those ladies seriously blessed us way more than we blessed them.

On Saturday, we went to Suubi for sports ministry.  After a sun-kissed morning playing volleyball, I was invited to my friend Prossy’s house for lunch.  Here is a picture of a monkey that we saw out her back window.   We have heard that monkeys live in Suubi and had been hoping to one day see them.

Since this Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day, Callie and I decided to plan a party for our house on our day off on Monday.  We have been scheming and conniving over the last week on what kinds of holiday activities we should do.  Below are some pictures from our St. Patrick’s Day activities.

We forgot to ask Kevin the night before to dye the pancakes green for breakfast so we hoped that Kevin would find our little post-it attached to a bottle of green food colouring.  St. Patrick’s Day is not celebrated in Uganda so we weren’t sure how Kevin would take our note.  That poor woman probably thinks we are the strangest group of mzungus ever. 

Kiss Me I am Irish game: Instead of pin the tail on the donkey, it is pin the lips on the leprechaun. 

Find the Lucky Charms treasure hunt:  We were hoping that the thunderstorm would stop so that we could go outdoors to do our treasure hunt.

St Patty’s Day dinner complete with green Jello.

This week embarks the halfway point of my time here in Uganda.  Whoa does time sure fly!  It is a little scary to think about what I will be doing after 360 and sad to think about leaving all these incredible people and this beautiful country.  I am trying not to dwell on future plans but remain fully present in my time here.  I am very hopeful about some exciting future possibilities headed my way.  Ya, that last sentence was pretty vague.  Sorry folks!

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

Peace and love

Words to Live By

“Don’t move in your bed or it will be even more insufferably hot.  Be still.”  This was a conversation between my room and the room across the hall as we were going to sleep the other night.  It does not cool down at nights so we are normally drenched in sweat by the morning. 

Our conversation then went along the lines of this:

“It’s a sauna in here” --> “I just want to put an ice cube down my shirt” --> “Air-conditioning how I miss you” --> “Don’t judge me if I strip down and lay on the cold tile” --> “I’m going to draw a cold bath and sleep there tonight” --> “I see a mirage of snow”

I like quotes.  I like writing down funny things friends have said so I can later laugh at those memories.  I love reading inspiring quotes and pinning them to a pinterest board but a few days ago, my roommate Hannah shared with me this excerpt from a blog.

“Martin Luther King doesn’t want to be quoted, the saints of the church don’t want to be quoted, Jesus doesn’t want to be quoted, the Buddha doesn’t want to be quoted. They all want us to work. They all want us to make enlightened and self-sacrifical choices that make ourselves and those around us better people. Here is an exercise: Quote only those words that you are willing to do today. If we can’t act on what we quote, what is the actual value of it? Expecting others to do it and not ourselves is just arrogance and self-centeredness. Find a struggle and persist in it. Then be willing to change. Wouldn’t you like these words to have meaning for generations after us? I would. So let’s not hollow them out with our laziness.”   Hhmmmm…. Something to think about.

Okay, so here is the quote that has been on my mind lately as I go from ministry to ministry over the weeks.  It is one of my all-time favorites. 

“At least I will not laugh at your pain.  I will not try to fix your problems.  I will not ignore your suffering or condemn you with my piety.  I will simply lie here next to you in the cold as we breathe our smoky prayers to God.” Raeben Nolan.

What this quote means to me is that God’s love is shown through actions.  By laughing, ignoring, condemning or fixing, I am acting as though I am superior or all knowing to the person in need.  I am not superior for with a snap of a finger our life situations could have been reversed.  God wants us to live in relationship with one another, to support and love one another, to sit and console those who are mourning.  As my friend Christa would say, “Be furniture in someone’s life”, meaning share life with those around you and be ready to support them when in need.  It is definitely not easy, but I am trying to live this quote out.  Below are some of the moments throughout this week that have reminded me of it.

Thursdays are now full ministry days.  Each Thursday, all the teams rotate through various outreach programs throughout Kampala.  This Thursday, my team started the day off at Akiva(SP*), a home for children with cancer (kind of like a Ronald Mcdonald house).  Upon arrival, we began washing the walls and windows and dusting around the home.  Then two little boys around the age of two came over to play the drums that were left out.  I sat them on my knee as they hit at the drums.  As I was playing with them, one of the workers came up to me to tell me a bit about the boys.  Peter is a little brother of one of the girls there that has cancer and Ronnie is suffering from Leukemia and also is HIV+.  Now that is a blow to the heart.  I wouldn’t have known any different.  While the children were on their break from school, I began to play soccer and volleyball with two little boys, one of which with a large tumor on his neck.  I then had my hair done by a beautiful and warm little girl named Patience, who hugged and kissed me many times throughout the day.  You wouldn’t know any of these children were sick by looking at them or talking to them.  Feeling sorry and showing pity on these children is not going to do anything for them.  At the time, the best possible thing I thought I could do to pour love onto these kids was to just play with them and have some fun, and man, did we ever have fun!  I am looking forward to spending more time there.

That afternoon, our team went to Mulago Hospital, the largest hospital in all of Uganda.  We had heard many stories from teams that had previously gone there and were preparing ourselves for difficult sights.  Let me tell you for those of you who complain about healthcare in Canada, we are extremely blessed.  If you want good care from the doctors or even a bed, you better be able to pay for it.  A lot of the time patients suffer from worse things or take even longer to heal because of delayed and/or improper treatment.  We found, people lying on beds out in the main hall upon entering the ward. 

We were brought to the ward where many people had broken limbs, and amputations due to accidents.  We split off into pairs, myself with my friend Lillian, to go from hospital bed to hospital bed talking to, encouraging, and praying for the patients.  As we moved from patient to patient, I saw bloody bandages wrapped around wounds, visitors of patients lying on mats on the floor, metal things sticking out of those whose legs were badly broken and smelled rotting flesh from poorly treated broken limbs.  Helpless, may be an understatement of how I felt when I was there.  My friend Lillian did an incredible job facing her fears of hospitals, warmly chatting with the patients in Luganda, and then translating the conversations to me.  We would generally ask the patient what had happened, how long they have been in the hospital for, and if they would like us to pray for them.   It was so painful to leave after the hour we were assigned as we had people begging for us to pray for each and every patient in the ward.  I did not want to ignore the suffering of any one of those patients.  They are all worth it.  Now although this ministry has been the toughest to do so far, it was an incredible day being some sort of encouragement and beacon of hope for people by pushing past my fears and insecurities.  One woman said to Lillian and I, after we prayed for her son to be healed of his broken leg and arm, that she had faith in our prayers and presence there to restore her son back to health.  Those are the places that need the most love poured into them.

I may sound a bit preachy in this post but all I can say is building rapport with people and showing love through actions is incredibly powerful as it brings dignity and worth to those that have been beaten down the most.   Although, I am striving to live out those words of Raeban Nolan, I am not perfect.  Believe me there are times when I don’t give people the time of day and need to have some sense knocked into me.  I am exceptionally thankful for the life that I have and the blessings that have been gifted to me.
 

I ask for you to pray for the children at Akiva to win the fight against cancer and for the hospital of Mulago to have better treatments, resources, and financial aid to restore their patients back to life. 

Peace and love