I made it!

Wow, where to begin. My plane flights were wonderful, I met a Christian teacher who's adopted 10 kids in Kenya/Uganda and sat next to an aid worker of Food for the Hungry/World Vision and spent lots of time talking to her on my way to Ethiopia. On the three hour ride from Kampala to the Hopeland base I spent the whole time looking right and left and taking in all the new sights and sounds.

It's hard to believe I haven't been here for more than the weekend, everything is so different I'm overwhelmed- but not in a bad way. It's just strange to be waking up in Africa and every American aspect of life is gone. The girls are wonderful though-- there are only five of us (and 1 married women) and ten boys (from India, Sudan, USA, Kenya, Congo, Tonga, & Nigeria.) Penny and Shannon are from South Africa and are 24 and 26. Shannon did her DTS at a different base in Brasil and did 1 month of outreach there, working with street children and a restoration home then her outreach was in Kabul, Afghanistan. So we've talked about the Middle East a bit. Judith is from West Uganda, and Cierra is from the states.

And the boys I haven't met much, except in class. They're mostly older- all over 26. I'm one of the youngest actually. It seems like it will be a lot of hard work and challenging, but I'm excited.

Today I had my first experience of an African church service and it just makes a smile grow across your face. We read Psalms aloud then repeated them turning it into a song, then start the clapping & drum and their harmonizing is so beautiful. And the children are so friendly and wonderful- climbing in your lap, climbing on you, following you around, laughing, singing.

Yesterday we went into Jinja town... Penny, Cierra, Nate, and I. They cram the minibus as full as possible so it's quite the bonding experience. Markets with goat & meat, clothes, sidewalks of shoes, and other trinkets. The streets are dusty and almost everyone walks (gas here is 10$ a gallon! and almost no one can afford a private vehicle.) Bicylces and motorcycles called (bodas) dominate the streets. And you see people carrying huge clusters of bananas or potatos on back-- as well as women and children carrying water on their heads. Compared to America everything is cheap - 1600 Uganda Shilling to 1$. The market place and street vendors is like Panama and Thailand.

The noises are funny too-- there are a lot of animals on base. (a small farm and lots of things growing and gardens we'll work in and such. Cows outside the window (moo shrieking- hard to explain), the toilet running, and the quiet noise of bugs in the grass. It is so quiet outside, from the buildings near the soccer field you can look out over Lake Victoria and its absolutely gorgeous. And the rain... sounds like a shower is turned on right next to your head (but so far its only been at night and the sun dries it up so quickly.) This morning we four girls went for a run up the hill and it was just after sunrise and misty. The stillness just creates so much space to think, meditate, and hear God's voice.

the road goes ever on and on

At last the day is here, the one I've spent countless time mulling over, wondering what lies on the other side of, the day of departure. It still seems a bit unreal. God has been faithful beyond my expectations-- financially, with the support of people and faith communities that will be praying for me, and with moments of peace, beauty, fellowship, and communion that have filled my spirit. These last few days hiking along the Patapsco, among trees soaked in gold, Isaiah 55 has been pressed on my heart.

"For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the LORD,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

a cup of cold water in His name

"I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence.
I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.
I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life." - Tolstoy

Yes.

I want to taste of life.
Yonnie prayed for me once and had the vision of God doing eye surgery, correcting my vision, and every time God finished, he began again to remove something else. I feel like that now. In a current phase of absorbing books on: India, Arundahti Roy, and the Aids/Hiv epidemic)... in a place of preparing my heart for Africa- anxious to be broken down again, to taste and see reality more deeply.

"The American way of life is not sustainable for the world" and that is why we can not accept the American dream. I believe in a kingdom where nationalism has no place, I believe that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ we inherit hope, joy, and peace. I believe. And sometimes that belief tears at me. Stripping off layer after layer. And so I wait anxiously for Africa, because I know it is another stripping... to see what most of the world deals with daily, to push off the rose-colored glasses of my middle class American existence (again) and go to the "hurting, dirty, and dying" - and to learn from them humbly.

I am a learner.
I am a student.
Sitting at His feet as I struggle through these questions that threaten to unravel previously held assumptions, that threaten my comfort, the edges of my boxes. The uncertainty of the times could send me drifting, tossing like a toy ship in violent waves...
and yet He whispers, "Be still."
Not with my words, not with my actions but in my heart.

I want texture not text.
and it begins again, another journey, a step forward into the unknowns of:
Uganda
Community development
AIDS/HIV, Poverty, Hunger, Orphans
Humility, Love, Truth, Redemption.

I have little to offer of myself, but I can tell a story,
and share the richness of the inheritance of the saints.