The Newest Addition to the Family

So most of you probably saw the title of this post and immediately assumed that I'm dedicating a post to my adorable new nephew Caleb. I know you're shocked, but this post is actually not about him (Stacy...don't be offended). Now while he is definitely worth writing about, I'm actually talking about the newest addition to my Ugandan family. Let me introduce to you, Goretti, or Gigi for those of us who still struggle to roll the r's here like you're supposed to.

All of the missionaries here have workers that either do yard work for them or help with some of the cooking. Most foods have to be made completely from scratch here, which tends to make things more complicated and time consuming in the kitchen. For example, let's say you're craving some chips and salsa? Well, that craving is going to wait a few hours while you make the chips....from scratch. Then you have to whip up the salsa from scratch as well. Yeah, let's just say that we don't eat those a lot. Desarae and I are not exactly what you would call skilled in the kitchen, but I have to say that we've done pretty well for ourselves so far. We're definitely not wasting away to nothing over here. But when the opportunity arose for us to hire Gigi, we jumped at it.

Gigi has been a worker for the Fouts' for the past nine years. She became really close to them and is just another member of their family. We've gotten to know Gigi really well over the past few months from spending so much time at their house, and we've come to love her a lot. Not only is she one of the greatest cooks in the world (the greatest according to the Fouts' kids), but she is an incredible woman. She makes us laugh a ton, and she's really become a close friend in our time here.

Gigi owns a hotel in town, but the business is pretty slow. She's kind of lost and without her family now that the Fouts' are gone, plus she has taken a big cut in pay since she's no longer working for them. Des and I don't necessarily need a worker, but we saw this as a great opportunity to help a friend, and be blessed even more by having her around our apartment. We know that she could use the financial help, but even more, she could use the companionship.

So as of last week, Gigi is now working for us. She comes two days a week to make some staple foods for us, and maybe even some posho chips and salsa when we're having one of those cravings. Gigi is such a blessing to us, and I couldn't be more excited about the newest member of Beco Hostel. I just hope I don't gain too much weight as a result.

Purpose in Pain

Life in Uganda is so unpredictable. Today our friend Doreen invited us to a Bible study at the university that she goes to. She called yesterday to tell us about it, and in between the static of the phone and her accented English, I hung up the phone unsure of whether we were leading the study or just guests. Judging by our past awkward situations that we've had here, which of those do you think she was expecting? Yes, you've probably guessed right. We showed up to find out that she was expecting us to share something. Awesome. Nothing like being completely unprepared and on the spot. Thankfully Doreen shared her testimony first so D-rae and I had some time to come up with something.

As I was sitting there in a room of 10 Ugandan women, wondering what I could share with them to encourage them, and kicking myself for not having something planned in case of this very situation, I decided to just share my favorite verse and see where that took me. Thankfully God guided my thoughts and gave me the words to speak, and He taught me more while I was sharing than I could've ever taught those women. My favorite verse is Proverbs 16:9. We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps. Speaking today was a good reminder to me of several things. 1) Never assume anything in Uganda. Even if you think you're not in charge of a Bible study, you probably are. 2) Don't speak too fast or for too long when someone is translating for you...this tends to make things more difficult. 3) Most importantly, God reminded me that He is in control. I may have plans for my life, but the direction that he takes me is always best.

I shared with the ladies a few paths that God has taken me on that I would have never expected. Five years ago if someone had told me I'd be living in Uganda at age 22, I probably would've laughed at them. I would've never dreamed that I would blow out my knee and end my basketball career so early. I had planned on playing all four years in college, but God had different ideas. I for sure never pictured losing my Dad when I was so young, but again, God is in control and he works all things for his good.

It's sometimes painful to look back on missed opportunities or unexpected twists and turns in life. But thankfully, the more I have experienced and the more I have grown, God has revealed to me his purpose in so many things. I see purpose in not playing basketball all four years. I definitely see purpose in the path that led me here to Uganda. The hardest of those situations to consistently see God's purpose in is the loss of my dad. There are days when I still question his plans. The pain of losing my dad is still so great, and it's hard at times to believe that there was good behind that situation. Pain is always easier to deal with when you can see the purpose in it, but I have to confess that there are many times when I fail to see any purpose in this part of my life. Today, more than ever before, I think I clearly saw a big part of the purpose behind that pain.

In that room of ten women, at least two of them have never met their birth mother. Doreen is an orphan. Every single woman in that room has lost their husband to death. The heartache and struggle in these women's lives was almost too much for me to hear today. Take Judith for example. She is a Rwandan and has never known her mother. Her dad was killed in the 1994 genocide. She fled to Uganda as a refugee and got married to a Ugandan. He then died and left her with six children to raise on her own. Or take the woman whose husband tried to kill her when she was pregnant with her fourth child. She now works at the university and sends all the money she makes home to send her children to school. These women know what it means to lose someone because they all have.

When I mentioned that I lost my dad when I was 15, there was a murmur and almost a moan from all the women. I shared that story with my friend Annah one time and she couldn't believe it. She didn't think that children lost parents when they were young in America. She thought that was only a problem in Africa, where AIDS is so rampant. Honestly, she was shocked to hear it, and I think her exact response was, "That is very uncommon in America, right?" Today I realized that maybe part of God's divine plan in me losing my dad so young was to be able to better understand and relate to the people that I am surrounded with now, seven years later. They have all known great pain in their life, and they understood my pain when I shared it today. I tried to imagine what my response to their heartbreaking stories might have been had I not experienced the loss of my dad. I don't think I would've been able to look at them with tears in my eyes and truly know their pain. I don't think I would've known what to say when it came time for me to share. I also think that my loss made me more real to them and more like them. The differences between us are obvious, but our losses connected us today.

I walked away from the Bible study today thanking God that he determines my steps. I am thankful that even though I make all kinds of plans for my life, in the end, his plan will always be done. I am not in control, and I'm just so thankful that He is. His ways are hard for us to understand at times, but I'm thankful for times like today where his ways make a little more sense to us.. Today I felt like he was taking off the blinders and revealing to me the purpose in the pain of losing my dad. I am so thankful for the ways that he is using the loss of my dad to reach people even today, in Uganda. My prayer today is that when it feels like my life is taking the wrong direction, I can rest in the peace of knowing that if God is leading me, it's always the right direction.

Our weakness is His strength

Weakness is such a negative word with such an ugly connotation in our world today. Weaknesses seem to be associated with inability and shortcomings. We view, and definitely rightly so at times, weakness as the crack in the door that Satan uses to plant his home firmly in our hearts. Weaknesses are bad. They are unspoken of, and they are unwanted. I mean, who really wants to be weak?

This negative view of our weaknesses is not something that I am above. I hate admitting when I am weak, and all to often pretend that I am strong in each and every situation. I live this way, full of pride, and false pride at that, but the Bible tells us such a different story. Does anyone else out there read the Bible the way they want to read it? You know what I mean. You underline all the right verses and know the staple scriptures by heart, but you skip the part about actually applying them to your life. Well, I, for one, am guilty of that. One of my favorite verses, and also one of the most challenging to me, is one that I rarely live out in my life.

I think Paul's view of weaknesses is so refreshingly different from my own, and yet so hard to live out. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul is speaking of the many trials that he has faced as a follower of Jesus. He tells of the times he was beaten, put in prison, even shipwrecked. I love how he ends this chapter. After rehashing all the horrible experiences he had to endure (which I have to confess always kind of sounds like borderline boasting to me. Ok I feel better getting that off my chest ;) he writes verse 30. If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am. After reading that verse, I have to ask myself how many times I willingly seek to show others the weakness in my life. I'm ashamed to say that I'm usually way too concerned with what others think of me to open myself up to sharing the ugliness in my life. Challenging stuff for sure, but Paul wasn't done here.

Paul goes on to discuss the thorn in his flesh, and I absolutely love the response that God gave to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9. My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. Man, that is good stuff. This is definitely a theme verse for my life. God's grace is so much bigger than any sin or any failure in my life. In this verse, I almost can picture God just sitting by waiting to swoop in and cover us with his grace. He's ready to show his awesome power, and most times that comes through our failures and our weaknesses. Paul gets that, and I think that is evident from the next few verses. Paul chooses to embrace his weaknesses so that Christ's power can be shown in his life. He even goes as far to say that he delights and takes pleasure (NLT) in those weak areas of his life because he knows that only when he admits how weak he is will God show up and make him strong again.

I need to be reminded of this on a daily basis. I need to be reminded that God calls me to lay down my pride, so that his name can be glorified instead of my own. I need to remember that in order to truly let God reign in my life, I have to die to myself...all of myself...every day. I need to remember that the more I recognize that I am nothing with him, the more God is ready to make me something with him. God's word is so full of paradoxes, and this is just another one. The world tells us to be strong, yet God reminds us that boldly sharing our weaknesses brings us far more strength than we could ever imagine. I'm thankful for his word, and the way it convicts me. I'm thankful for people who teach me to readily share my weaknesses, and then love me even more after seeing them.

It's been awhile since I've included some song lyrics on here. I've recently become obsessed with the group Leeland. They've got some powerful lyrics, and I am in love with the song "Carried to the Table." They say it better than I could ever say it.

Fighting thoughts of fear and wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup; this world has left me lame
Even in my weakness, the Savior called my name
In His Holy presence, I’m healed and unashamed

God wants us right where we are. He is more powerful than we could ever imagine, and he can use our failures, our sins, and our weaknesses in mighty ways. I pray for a heart that can truly be unashamed of my weaknesses because I'm so in awe of the ways that God is using them to show his power.

Kenya=Incredible

I feel pretty confident in saying that after what D-rae and I have done the last week, we can figure out any situation and do pretty much anything. We set off on our first real traveling adventure of our four months here, and it was quite the adventure. The week started with spending three days in Kampala with our team, savoring our last time with the Fouts. We stayed at a hotel called the American Club, and it is pretty American. The food is pretty good, and there's even a picture of George Bush in the lobby. The weekend was full of swimming, or getting thrown into the pool in all of your clothes on(thanks Nick), playing tennis, playing cards, and spending time with our friends. We went to the airport Sunday night to say goodbye to the Fouts and that was a pretty hard thing to do. There were a lot of hugs and tears, and I left feeling pretty empty.

God's timing is perfect though, and thankfully Des and I had a fun trip to look forward to after saying a hard goodbye. We were so thankful that we weren't just heading back to Mbarara the next day, but instead we were taking off on an adventure of our own. We spent Monday in Kampala, hanging out at a bookstore in the mall, drinking our first Dr. Pepper since May, and I got my first haircut in Africa. That night we went to the airport, flew to Nairobi, and spent the night in a hotel in downtown Nairobi. I didn't realize how western and modernized Nairobi is, and let's just say I was a little overstimulated by all the flashing lights and big buildings. I've been in Africa too long...

Tuesday morning we set off on the 6 hour trip to Masai Mara, the game park where we were going for our safari. This is supposed to be one of the best places to go on a safari in the world, so needless to say, we were pumped. We were the only two people going on a safari with this particular company so it was just us, our awesome driver Peter, and Imraan, the owner of the company, in the bus. We felt kind of like royalty and were definitely a little spoiled by being the only ones. We drove through the Great Rift Valley much of the drive, and the view down into the valley was incredibly beautiful. The roads were awful though...probably the worst roads I've ever seen in my life. The curvy, steep hill down into the valley was also really dangerous. There was a wreck on it two days before we were there where three tourists died, and we actually saw another death on the way back. This was one of the many times on this trip that I thanked God for his protection and realized how lucky we are to have a God who takes care of us.

We got to Masai Mara in the afternoon and went straight out for game drive #1. Within 45 minutes we had seen giraffe, elephants, lions, and a leopard, which are pretty much the big things to see. Yeah it was awesome and I think at that point I had already decided that the money we spent on this safari was well worth it. Imraan has been going on safaris since he was three years old and he's only seen a leopard six times, so we were really lucky. Peter was an awesome driver and would drive off the paths, which is definitely frowned upon, just so we could get better pictures. We were close enough to touch almost every animal that we saw. It was awesome. I also saw one of the prettiest sunsets of my life...and yes, I took a few pictures.

While on our safari, we camped out in tents at a campsite that is right next to the park. Again, we were the only two people there, and there were actually more people staying there to take care of us (cook, guard, guides). Each night we would shower, eat an awesome dinner, then sit out by the campfire listening to crazy stories and looking at the amazing stars. Sidenote: I really think the stars are better here in Africa.

One of the craziest things about the safari was that we had two real Masai warriors guarding our tent each night. No, no...not from humans, but from the animals that occasionally wander into the campsite from the park. The park isn't fenced in so the animals pretty much have free room, and some of the stories that John, one of our Masai guards, told involved him running from both elephants and lions within the campsite. Imraan and John heard lions roaring nearby each morning and even followed them one day. Probably not the smartest idea if you ask me. Don't worry Mom...I was safely asleep in my tent at this point.

Wednesday was filled with three more game drives and lots of lions. It was really great to just be out in God's creation and experience it in such a new and cool way. I have to admit though that I am pretty awful at spotting animals while on safari. I told Des that it was my goal to just spot one animal before she did. Some of it might have to do with the fact that I tend to get a little distracted by the scenery and my new obsession with acacia trees (they were all over the place). So the safari went a little like this...D-rae "Oh there's some more giraffes. And some elephants over there. Oh yeah and don't miss those lions." Me "Ooooo....Look. I just spotted my 37th acacia tree." Yeah I'm pathetic. Thankfully my safari partner has awesome eyes.

My favorite part of the safari was when we visited a real Masai village Wednesday afternoon. This village is exactly what I picture when I think of an African village. All of the huts are in a little circle, surrounded by a fence-like structure. The Masai warriors all wear red because they are such fierce warriors, and they are also the people that you see on National Geographic that make big holes in their earlobes. We got to watch (and participate) in both the men's and women's dances. We also watched them make fire from sticks...yeah, it really works. It was an incredible experience. I can't even begin to put it into words, and this is getting lengthy already so let me just hit some highlights. D-rae and I tried to jump as high as the warriors...didn't work. We were both made chief for a few minutes. The chief of the village asked if I was married yet...awkward. We were able to truly see inside the life of a very culturally preserved African village. It was awesome and well worth the trip.

The safari ended on Thursday and we drove back to Nairobi. Peter took us to the airport, and we ended up spending six hours in the Nairobi airport because our flight was delayed. I got some coffee from the Nairobi Java House (Africa's version of Starbucks), and for a few minutes, I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. We also spent a lot of time people watching and playing a fun game we invented called "Guess my nationality." We're getting pretty good at guessing where people are from. However, people here are really bad at guessing where I'm from. This one guy at the Rift Valley lookout point asked if I was from Holland. I mean c'mon. Imraan told me I don't look American, but maybe Australian. Must be the blonde hair....

Friday was definitely one of the most interesting days of our journey. We had to go grocery shopping in Kampala before heading home to get some things that we can't get in town here. We had a cooler bag for all of the meat that we were buying, and we were just praying that it would stay cold on the however long trip we had back to Mbarara. This was another one of those times that I thanked God for his protection as I was riding through the crazy streets of Kampala on a boda-boda (small motorcyle), squeezing between cars, with my huge hiking backpack in between me and my driver, while holding the cooler bag and other grocery bags as well. I feel pretty sure that you all would've laughed at me. My boda driver was a little acrobat and he squeezed through some spaces that I'm honestly not sure how we made it through. Check that. I am sure. The whole time in my head I was singing, "God will make a way, when there seems to be no way..." It's true. He does.

We had our first experience with taking the public buses back to Mbarara. We've been lucky enough to be able to ride to Kampala and back with our team members so far, but this time we were on our own. Everyone has made public to sound so awful so we went in expecting the worse. As we drove up to the bus park, people immediately started grabbing our bags and taking them to their bus. In fact, two men almost got in a fight over my bag because they both wanting my business. We finally got to a bus and sat on it for an hour and a half waiting for it to fill because the buses refuse to leave until they're completely full. The four hour trip to Mbarara wasn't nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be, and it was $7 so you can't beat that.

Whew...that was long. Sorry to get so wordy and so detailed, but I just want to share all of these incredible, and funny, experiences with all of you. It was an incredible trip, but I've never been so happy to see little Beco Hostel in all my life. When we landed back in Entebbe, I turned to Des and remarked how good it felt to be back home in Uganda, a place where we know some of the language, we know our way around, and we know the people. Uganda is home. That seems weird to say, but I'm so thankful that I can say that and truly mean it. God has blessed us so much in our time here so far. I feel 100% comfortable here in Mbarara, and he continues to bless us with experiences and relationships that make us love our life here even more. God is good, and he is taking care of us always.