Praising God for Colds & Delayed Flights

So this past week I’ve been in South Africa with a couple fellow staff ladies at a retreat for missionary women. As I type this, we’re in the air over Johannesburg on our way home to Kasana.

God’s timing is always so perfect – earlier this year when my friends started talking about this retreat, I thought it sounded like a good idea…..and then in the past couple months things have happened that have shown me just how much I really did need a time of renewal.

The past year has been filled with a lot of ups and downs—and for that matter so have the two years before that! Over the last few months, I’ve begun realizing that I’ve let those challenging circumstances affect me, putting layers of hardness around my heart.

On Sunday night when the retreat opened with a time of worship, we weren’t two lines into the first song before I had tears running down my face. I know without a doubt that people were praying over the retreat, because I felt the Holy Spirit honoring their prayers by breaking through the inner walls I had been allowing to build up.

God spoke to my heart that night more directly than I have felt Him speak in some time. Calling me to repentance—and reminding me of His forgiveness and love. That night I spent a chunk of time journaling it out so that I can remember and look back at it.

But I wasn’t feeling so well. Saturday as we had traveled to the retreat, I had felt myself coming down with a sore throat, which continued on Sunday. All day Monday, my nose was almost constantly running. And so while others went through Kleenex from crying, I was using them up to handle my cold.

I let myself be miserable about how I felt—wallowing in self-pity. Because I didn’t feel well, and I was annoyed about it. Justifiably so, right?

I made a comment to someone that day about how I was thankful for how God had been speaking to me during the retreat, but a bit apprehensive about whether the effect would “stick” after the ‘high’ of the retreat.

The next morning, I got up still feeling unwell—particularly because I hadn’t slept very soundly. As I was dragging around my room trying to get ready for the day, God gave me a much-needed slap in the face.

Our speaker for the retreat was talking about how we deal with suffering based on the book of Job. On Monday morning, she had talked about how people form different views of God in the face of suffering. Some become cynical, some think they know the answers, and others (like Job) choose to trust God’s sovereignty.

On Tuesday morning, the Holy Spirit showed me that I wasn’t having a very Job-like attitude. I was behaving selfishly, and letting my physical circumstance dictate my heart attitude. Which is the same choices that had kept me stuck in a pit of apathy for most of this year.

And so I had to again repent for my behavior. Even a silly little thing like a cold at an inconvenient time is NOT out of God’s purview!!! He allowed it for a reason—and my responsibility is not to mope and question why, but rather to accept it with thanksgiving and worship!

As I accepted that in my heart, the Holy Spirit filled my mind with verses from the Psalms and songs. I left my room singing worship to God. Because He totally changed the attitude of my heart!! Instead of being frustrated, I suddenly became thankful for the cold. It gave me just the practical test I needed to keep me humble and yet also show me how simple obedience really can be.

I told my small group this—and they could even see the difference in my face. Yes, I still felt a bit crummy—but when God turned my heart attitude around, that made a huge difference. And so I was able to enjoy the last two days of the retreat even more, as well as learning a valuable lesson in practical application!

Today my fellow staff member and I have had another test. We woke up at 3:30 this morning to go to their airport for our 6 a.m. flight (first of three) on the way back to Uganda. But, instead of leaving at 6 a.m., that flight didn’t take off until 11 a.m. (long story, believe me!!).

We were scheduled for a four-hour layover before the next flight—but obviously even that wasn’t long enough for a five-hour flight delay. Worse yet, that first leg of our trip was booked separately from the rest because it had been cheaper up front that way. But with the delay & missed flight, we were on our own between airlines.

Of course, it all worked out….but instead of arriving in Entebbe at 11 p.m., we will now arrive at 3:30 a.m.—and possibly be charged extra money. We’re still not quite sure on that point. We were quoted a price, but then not asked for payment.

Through it all, it’s been an opportunity to once again choose to trust God and not just be angry about what He has allowed. I felt especially bad for the flight crew of that first flight, as they had a plane full of mostly annoyed people (some who were rather vocal!!) sitting on the tarmac for three hours.

But God has a plan even in this, one we may never understand. But it’s all part of our sanctification process—because God is so good at what He does that **nothing** is wasted – He works ALL THINGS together for the GOOD of His beloved children!!

And *that* is why I’m thankful for a cold & a delayed flight.

{Now as I post this we’re waiting in Nairobi – our next flight boards in just about half an hour! Almost back to Uganda….!!}

A Ugandan Celebration

Last weekend, two of my colleagues who are cousins (S & G) lost their grandfather. They are from the southwestern corner of Uganda, almost all the way to Rwanda. As is normal here, a group was organized to go from New Hope in support of our sisters. I decided to go with them, because S is one of my closer friends here.

I'm glad I went for the funeral. I wanted to be there for S and G, and I’m glad I was. But I’m also grateful simply for being there and being able to experience the testimony to this man’s life. And I wanted to share the experience with you.

S & G are part of a western Ugandan tribe, so they speak a different language than the one spoken in the area where I live and work. So I understood even less of what was being said than I would have if it were in Luganda (the language I know tiny bits of). But a couple other of my fellow staff who went with us are from that area, so they helped translate some of what was spoken.

The man (I didn’t even catch his name!) who passed away was 107 years old; he had at least nine children, and there seemed to be close to 20 grandchildren there. Funerals in Uganda are normally big community events. I’m bad at estimating numbers, but I think there must have been at least 500 people there by the end of the service.

The grandfather accepted the Lord at the age of 7, and evidently spent the next one hundred years serving Christ faithfully. He was part of the Church of Uganda, which is Anglican. They had at least six pastors there to take part in the funeral, as well as a small choir with some beautiful local instruments. Between each part of the service, the leader would spontaneously break into a short hymn and the choir and attendees would join in. I really appreciated that – it felt like such a joyful celebration.

It is evidently customary at funerals in Uganda for someone close to the deceased to relate the story of their last days/moments on earth. I’ve noticed this at three of the five funeral services I’ve been at – and the other two I wasn’t there for the whole thing. In this case, one of the grandfather’s two surviving daughters explained what happened. I didn’t catch much, but he evidently had been sick for a couple months—mostly in the hospital—and finally an infection claimed his earthly body.

For him to have lived to 107 is really amazing in Uganda, where the life expectancy is about half that. Evidently he has a couple sisters who are still alive; they were there but didn’t speak because of their advanced age. As I said, this gentleman is survived by two of his daughters. A third daughter, S’s mom, died some years back. He also had six sons, but all six died before him (two in the past year, I think). Each of the sons' widows was there, though, and one of them spoke for the group. She told about their father-in-law’s generosity towards them – and she’s the one who got choked up while speaking.

The sister to S’s grandmother, who had also died before her husband, shared a bit as well. I think one of the things that especially blessed me was seeing the apparent unity in the family. Of course, I am not very familiar with their story – but what I saw yesterday seemed difference than what I often hear about here.

Last month, I listened to nine Ugandan women talk about their family background – and about half of them had a father who practiced polygamy. In a culture where bearing children (and lots of them) is considered “proof” of one’s manhood/womanhood, men often have children by multiple women – whether or not they are really married to all/any of them, and whether or not the man takes any part in raising the children.

During the car ride, we heard a radio talk show discussion about whether a person should let his/her spouse and “side dish” (a term that I eventually figured out meant a romantic interest outside of marriage) be friends. It basically took for granted that of course one would have such a “side dish,” the question was only if a man would let “his woman” (wife) be friends with her. It was such a demeaning conversation to have about women – as if they were just objects to be used as it pleased the man – especially in the way those terms were used.

That stood in such contrast to what I perceived about the man whose life we went to celebrate. There was no mention that I picked up on of other wives, half siblings, or similar family fragmentation. Instead, it seemed like this man was an example to his children and grandchildren – an example I saw fruit of as I watched them working together to prepare things for the service.

The grandchildren had shirts made with a photo of their grandfather, and under it were the words of 2 Tim. 2:7, about fighting the good fight. That’s also what the pastor preached on briefly. And the testimony lives on – one of S’s brothers is evidently a pastor, and he came and took the time to pray for our group before we started our long journey back.

The funeral service is often held in the family’s compound (their yard). In this case, the seating was in the open area between four houses – the grandfather’s house on one side, with three of his son’s homes on two of the other sides. Afterwards the body is usually buried in the family’s matooke plantation (an area where they grow a type of banana), including a cement topper.

I had been to three such burials already, and always I have been struck by the contrast between the family’s wailing and the hymns sung by those less deeply affected. At my first Ugandan burial, I wasn’t expecting the loud sobbing, and it really caught me off guard. This time, I was waiting for it – and it never came. The hymns were sung, the prayers were said – and I’m sure the emotions were there, but they weren’t given the same fierce expression I’ve seen before. This may be mainly because the other funerals I have attended have been for people who died too early' – in fact all three of the others were my age or younger. But it still seems a difference that I noticed.

S & G stayed there with their family. After a death like this, there are meetings to have and discussions/decisions to be made. So please keep them and their family in your prayers during the coming days.

Our group of 12 had left New Hope at about midnight and driven through Wednesday morning about 8.5 hours to reach the village where the funeral was. We were early for the service, which started at about 1 p.m., but it gave us a chance to relax a bit. Coming back took more like 10 hours because we made more stops. It was almost 2 a.m. on Thursday when I fell into my bed. So it was a LOT of traveling. I couldn’t help but notice the irony that my first three trips between Dallas and Entebbe each took about the same amount of time as the traveling we did yesterday. But as I said, I’m very glad I went. And, it is a beautiful area with lots of rolling hills - very different than our mostly flat area here!

Trekking with Rhinos

Last Saturday, I went on my first Ugandan “safari” experience. And it was certainly fun! (This is your "lucky" day, because for once it's a blog post with pictures!!! If you want to see the picture bigger, just click on it and it should open. Then you can hit your browser's "back" button to continue reading.)

We had several short-term visitors at New Hope at the moment, and so one of them wanted to go see some rhinoceros at a sanctuary nearby – and she opened it up to whoever else wanted to come along to decrease the per person transportation costs. There ended up being eight of us!

So Saturday morning we left dark and early (instead of bright and early, because at 5:30 a.m. it is still very dark here!!!). After we hit the tarmac (paved road) in Luwero (the larger town 30 minutes away), it started to rain – and it really poured for a bit of the drive. In the back seat, we (our team coordinator’s wife, myself, and a Canadian visitor) were pretty talkative most of the way when we could actually hear one another ;-)

Eventually the sun rose, though it was still really overcast. We got to the rhino sanctuary before 8.

The sign for the sanctuary on the main road; no, those are NOT real rhinos!

While we were checking in and paying at the main office, we got our first “wild” life sighting – a warthog named Pumbaa, appropriately enough :) But he was quite domesticated, not really wild at all. The staff were petting him, so some of our group did too! Very very wiry & bristly – certainly not like petting fur!

Warthog Pumbaa eating the doormats…I don’t know why…

Wild Ugandan rhinos were victim to a lot of poaching, especially during the civil wars in the 1980s. The last one was actually killed in 1983. So the rhinos at the sanctuary have been re-introduced to Uganda, and the staff are working on breeding them with the hopes of one day releasing some to other wildlife parks in Uganda. Currently, this sanctuary is the only place to see wild rhinos in Uganda.

The rhinos have personal guards who are with them 24/7 to make sure they are doing fine, and also to keep track of their whereabouts to make it easier to take tourists to find them. In our case, we drove for a few minutes deeper into the sanctuary, then followed our guide trekking through the grass on foot to where the rhinos were. Within an hour of arriving, we had our eyes on two rhinos! Bella, who I think is the founding matron in the sanctuary, and Luna, her 14-month old calf.

Meet Bella the Rhino!

It was kind of hard to get good pictures because of all the grass (it is certainly still rainy growing season!), and because rhinos don’t hold their heads up very much (too busy eating, and their heads are very heavy!).

Bella is currently pregnant (baby rhinos stay in the womb for 16 months!), but still nursing Luna – which we got to see for a couple minutes! 

Luna nursing from mother Bella

It was rainy (just lightly sprinkling) and chilly, which initially seemed like a downside…but it was actually good because otherwise the rhinos may have just bedded down for the day. The guide told us rhinos usually eat most of the night, when it’s cooler, and then in the heat they sleep.

We followed Bella and Luna as they meandered along, chomping away at the short grass. We stayed at a respectful distance, though, of course! This pictures shows about how close we were. Sorry it’s just the rhinos butts! ;-) 

Safari Esther & the Rhino Butts

Here’s the best picture I got of this first family group, this is Luna the “baby.” She was standing still because she had just been peeing. I got a picture of that too, but I was laughing too much and so the picture is shaky because of the gray skies. 

Luna Posing

We went back to our car and drove to another spot to see a different group of rhinos. This one was two of the “teenage” girls (Malaika, age 4 and Laloyo, age 3.5) and Moja, the dominant male in the herd (there are 14 rhinos currently living on the sanctuary). We followed a trail the rhinos had made through the grass that was taller than we were (but not thick, so we could still see), and found them feeding.

The Teenagers Feeding

We moved to one side, and as we watched the three rhinos started moving back towards the road and our car. The guide said they could smell the fuel from the car and were curious about what was going on. Sure enough, when we got to the car they were just standing on the road looking at it from a short distance away. The guides had told us that rhinos cannot see very well, they have much better hearing.

We stood at the front end of our vehicle, and the rhinos were just standing there looking towards us from behind the rear of the van. It was pretty amazing! 

Curious Rhinos - note the mirror of the van in the foreground!

It made the guide and the guard a little nervous, so they told us to get in the van. We did, and being in the back seat I was only about 8-9 feet away from these massive mammals. Thankfully with glass/metal between me and them! Here’s a video I took at that point (sorry for all the noise, my camera makes a lot of focusing noise as it takes video).

After a few minutes, the girls got bored and headed off into the bush on the other side of the road. Then Moja came and stood behind the van. He has had his horn sawn off, because just a couple months ago one of the young males had died from an injury in a fight. Anyways, Moja took several steps nearer, until finally I’m sure he was no more than 6 feet away. Then he backed up a bit and turned to go parallel to our vehicle. When he did, I realized by my sudden panting that I had been holding my breath a bit! :D

Moja lumbering towards the front end of the vehicle

He then went towards where the two guides were standing outside of the vehicle. He turned and faced them, and they moved quickly to the back end of the vehicle. When they did, Moja took a step towards our vehicle, but then changed his mind and “ran” (for about five steps) off into the bush. Our heart beats were all a bit higher after that! It had looked for a minute like he might charge at either our guides or the vehicle. I never felt actually in danger, just had a very healthy respect for these large, wild animals!

That ended our rhino sightings for the day – but not our experience! We drove some good distance (still within the sanctuary) to the lodge where we would have lunch. On the way, we saw monkeys, mongoose, bushbuck (like dear), and birds! Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of the first three, our driver wasn’t the slow down & stop for every moving creature type…. But I did get a picture of this family of Helmeted Guineafowl as they ran to stay ahead of us on the road. 

Helmeted Guineafowl, 2 Parents & 3 Chicks

We got to the lodge early, so I lay relaxing on a hammock and ended up falling asleep for a bit! The lunch was amazing, such delicious food!!! Then it was time to head back home to Kasana.

But on the way, we did convince the driver to stop when we spotted a large swarm of butterflies!!

Butterfly Cluster!

I think there must have been a carcass or some small mineral area or something to attract so many. In an area not much more than one square foot, there were dozens and dozens of butterflies, of probably 7 or 8 types!

Zooming in on the smaller ones

By then the sun had come out again, and we had an uneventful drive back to Kasana – taking exciting memories with us!

My next post will be about some recent interesting insect incidents!

Regarding Wedding Feasts

I just got back from my third Ugandan wedding. Unsurprisingly, weddings here are somewhat different than in America. For one thing, there are usually two parts to weddings here. One is the culturally Ugandan “introduction,” where the bride price is decided and paid. I haven’t been to one of those yet. The second is the “church wedding,” which borrows a lot from the traditional western ceremony.

A major difference, though, is that frequently the wedding ceremony is combined with something else. Both of the weddings I have attended at Kasana have taken place during the church service. The wedding two weeks ago in Kobwin occurred as part of the school’s end of year ceremony. My understanding is that this is done to save money.

Weddings are also a much more open affair here. In every wedding I have heard about, an open invitation was extended to the whole church and/or the surrounding community. This goes along with the more communitarian lifestyle here. So at a wedding, many of the guests may not know the bride or groom personally – certainly not in the same way as at American weddings where each guest is individually invited.

The receptions (and meals) are also usually open to whoever wants to come. So far I have only been part of one of those, so my experience is fairly limited. But that is what this post is about.

As I wrote in my post about my trip to Kobwin, I helped a bit to prepare the food for the wedding there. The ladies on staff at Kobwin spent hours preparing a feast for the wedding party and special guests (community leaders, plus members of the staff who came from Kasana for the wedding). These VIPs had matooke (steamed banana, a traditional food) with g-nut (peanut) sauce, rice, beef and sauce, chicken and sauce, and sautéed cabbage. That is a fairly typical “special meal” here.

For the general public who were going to come, the cooks prepared pilau, flavored rice with some beef mixed in. This was the very first wedding to take place at Kobwin, so everyone was excited about it. But that also meant that we really didn’t have a good way to know how many people would show up.

In the middle of the wedding ceremony, I tried to estimate how many people were there. There were probably more than 100 children sitting on mats on the ground in front of me, probably at least 250 people sitting on chairs or benches under the awning on one side, plus more people behind me. A few people were still arriving as the wedding ceremony was wrapping up, even though that was more than five hours after the event had been scheduled to start.

I had offered to help serve the food to the community, so as the wedding party and VIPs headed over to another area for their meal, I went over to the area where we had cooked the food. The pilau was staying hot in a huge pot. Here is a picture from earlier in the morning to show you just how big it was. I don’t know how they managed to pack so much food into that pot, but when I went to help serve it was mounded high.

The first thing we had to do was use bowls to scoop the rice/beef into somewhat smaller (but still two times bigger than anything Americans have at home!) pots so that we could serve food from multiple locations to different groups of people (the extended family of the bride/groom, the other guests—men first, and the children). We had what seemed a big stack of bowls for people to eat out of….until we started splitting them up and looking at the crowds.

As I said, there were more than 100 children there, and those were just the ones under the age of 10 or so! The lady in charge had the children all come sit on the ground under a tree. We had one washing basin full of food for them, and maybe about 20 bowls. There was some food still on the fire in reserve, but it was easy to see that there was not an overabundance of food.

I could feel the tension and frustration level increase a bit among those who were preparing to serve the food. Ugandans tend to serve very substantial portions of food, two or three times the portion size I typically eat. But there was no way the food was going to last like that. So with the kids, we were serving up a typical Uganda portion, but then trying to have three kids eat from that bowl.

The kids crowded towards the food….they had been sitting for hours and hours, and I’m sure they were very hungry. There wasn’t much I could do to help, there were several of us standing there trying to keep the horde somewhat orderly and figure out how to make things work. We took a big serving tray and had seven kids share from the food we put on it. Slowly the crowd of hungry children began to diminish. But by then it seemed we really were out of food, guests from the other groups were even coming to the cooking area trying to get food.

I think there were about 20 children left who hadn’t had anything to eat yet. I’ll never forget their eyes and their faces. Hungry eyes, somewhat desperate expressions on their faces. I felt like we had failed them. Even the ones who had gotten some to eat probably hadn’t had as much as they wanted.

Feelings and emotions started clashing and flooding my heart. Frustration over the cultural norm that meant so so many people came, some who I negatively assumed had come only for the purpose of eating the meal. Pain when I thought about these kids who weren’t getting the meal they had hoped, for whom—as far as I knew—this may have been their best chance at a good meal for the day. Helplessness that there was really nothing I could do. Recognition of the orphan heart that New Hope talks about in these kids—the orphan heart that always wants/needs more than is given.

Any joy and celebration of the day had left me. I could feel a flood building, I knew my inner dam would break soon. I turned and left, walking towards the rocks to escape and vent. As I went, I met the bridal party coming back from their feast to rejoin the guests for the rest of the celebration reception. Honestly, deep inside I was angry…..so angry…..but, either by God’s grace or plain hypocrisy, I was able to greet and congratulate the bride and groom, and my two good friends who were the best man and matron of honor. Once the interaction had passed, though, I was only closer to tears.

I attacked climbing the rock as the sobs started coming. I didn’t care that thorns were scratching my legs, that tagalong seeds and burrs were catching onto one of my nicer dresses. I finally felt myself out of sight, and I let it all go. The tears streamed down my face as I thought about the children’s hungry eyes.

I should point out that I was pretty tired from having woken up very early to help fix food. I was also overly emotional that weekend for other reasons. Now as I look back from a more rational mindset, it does not all seem as dire as it did then. But it is still something I will always remember—my first experience seeing the expression of hungry children who feared there would not be enough for them.

In the midst of the stormy tears, all I could do was pray for those kids. I knew God loved them, I knew God could see them….I knew they were important to Him. My mind flew to the future wedding feast of the Lamb that we are told about in Revelation. I couldn’t help but think about how that wedding too is open to all who will come through faith in Christ—but there, there will be no running out of food. And so I prayed that somehow those precious children would know the gospel of Christ so that they may join us at that feast.

I lay on the rocks until I had calmed some, then went down to the house where I was staying. I was still emotionally raw, though, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat any of the food Constance said was left over from the VIP’s meal since all I could think of was the children who hadn’t gotten food. Hearing her comment to someone else that the large bucket for food waste needed to be emptied for the second time (leftovers from the VIP’s plates) just set me off again.

I retreated to music on my tablet, to anything to get my mind off of being stuck in what I had felt. Two of the foreign staff ladies could tell something was wrong, and one pushed gently to get me to talk. I explained what had happened through heaving sobs, and she was just there with me in that and prayed for me. After some time alone reading, I was finally able to move on.

On Monday evening, we had dinner with the Kobwin staff member who had been the one coordinating the food for the community. She mentioned the fact that I had disappeared from the wedding, and I asked about how things ended. She said that everyone had gotten fed, that as the rain storm came in everyone else was leaving and so she took the last of the food for herself to eat. She even said she had invited some people to come have seconds once everyone else had gotten some.

So I have chosen to take her at her word on that, even though I didn’t see on Saturday how in the world that outcome could be possible. Maybe some of the leftovers from the VIPs were used to serve the community. Maybe they had some extra rice they could cook. I don’t know how it worked. Part of me wishes I had stuck it out to see how it ended. Most of me just takes it all as a reminder that we in ourselves can never truly satisfy the needs of others. Only God is enough to do that. Praise Him that His goodness never runs out!

The Beauty of Kobwin, Part 3

I should have added to the end of my last post that the family parents of the first family group are going to be coming to Kasana (our main center, where I live) for the Institute of Childcare and Family from January to May of next year. We will be classmates since I am also taking the Institute during that time. Now that I know them a bit, I am eagerly looking forward to this upcoming opportunity to grow in relationship with them!!  :)

Monday morning marked the beginning of our last full day in Kobwin, at least for this trip. The manager had announced at church that the students needed to come to the school at 7:30 on Monday morning to do a project with me. Unfortunately, not all of the day students were at church….so we mostly just had the students who live on site.

But other than that it went pretty well. It took a lot longer than we were expecting (three hours), partly because the students were having so much fun coloring and drawing after they had done the writing bit! Also because students didn’t all come right at 7:30, they kind of trickled in over the first couple hours. Thankfully we had enough papers and colored pencils to keep everyone occupied!

I had simply written a couple basic examples. Other than telling the children to put their name, age, class, prayer requests, and signature, I really didn’t give much instruction. Later that week, as I read through the kids’ requests, I was mostly impressed. Sure, I chuckled at a couple (“I want to be the next Obama”), but there were also some that showed the students’ positive character (“Please pray that I would have a forgiving heart”). There were also some that included bits of Spanish, since we recently had our first ever team from Mexico and they spent most of their trip at Kobwin.

Once the last student had finished, Constance took me on a tour of the property there. She was taking some pictures of the community outside for comparison. It was interesting to see a few houses and learn a bit more about Ugandan culture in that area. For example, there are lots of large gray rocks in that area, and the people there use them to dry potatoes and things like that as a method of preserving food.

{Side note – since Kobwin is in a different part of the country, the people are mostly of a different tribe and thus speak a different language. I kept wanting to use my small bits of Luganda, and then remembering that the people there may not understand it because they speak Ateso instead (or sometimes also)!}

By then it was only 11 or so, but already so so hot that we gave up on our walk, even though we had only gone part of the way around the property. That was one of the unfortunate parts about Kobwin….it is much hotter there than at Kasana, so activity becomes much less enticing pretty early in the day.

{Kasana will be warmer these next couple months than it has been, though, because we’re now entering one of the dry seasons. I got back towards the beginning of the rainy season, and there have been a few times where it has felt down right cold here at Kasana! But really that means it was “only” 60 degrees or so…..}

Later that afternoon I went and did a quick email check for the first time in five days, then played a couple games with some of the kids. First we tried doing dominoes, but we only had a double sixes set and we had about eight players. So it didn’t work too well. Then we played cards for a while, until a football {soccer} game started and most of the students wanted to join that {when thinking about Kobwin, it doesn’t seem right to call them “kids” or “children,” because so many of them are in their late teens or early twenties! So I end up calling them “students” instead, even in non-school contexts.}

My three young friends from Friday then wanted to take me up on top of the rocks right behind Constance’s house. A couple of the youngest staff kids decided to tag along, and my guides didn’t want them to come, saying “they’re going to cry!” I had been up on the rocks just a bit on Saturday, and so knew to watch out for 1) thorns and 2) cow paddies. But I was looking forward to being led up to the top, since I had just kind of wandered around. I figured I could help the little ones if needed.

Well, the wind started picking up…..sure sign of a storm blowing in. We tried to go up the way the boys knew, but the two youngest ones were scared…it involved climbing up onto one rock and then immediately scooting through a narrow space from another rock on top in order to get higher. I couldn’t quite figure out how to get up the rock, even though I was definitely the tallest in the group. {Wearing a skirt and flip flops is a convenient excuse, right?} The little girl proceeded to cry a bit, so I called everybody back and helped the little ones down.

We tried going up another way, but it was too overgrown to really get onto the top. The littlest boy cried somewhere along there too, so the guide’s prediction proved correct! We had seen that the sky was getting dark, though, and when we started feeling a few raindrops I said that we had to get down before it poured on us. So down we went, none the worse for the little adventure.

The storm took longer to really come in than I thought it would, but my word, it really did POUR when it came! So the temperature was quite a bit cooler in the evening than it had been in the late morning. There were a couple girls in Constance’s house when I got back, so we shut the windows (to keep the rain coming in) and then used solar battery lanterns (because there’s no power there) to see enough to play cards (since we couldn’t hear one another talk because of the rain pounding on the roof!). It was a fun day :)

Then that evening, we three muzungus (Lugandan term for white foreigners) went to the second family group for devotions and dinner. And this family mother fed us a small feast! She makes me chuckle even as I think back about it – she is definitely the mothering type!! She kept urging us “You eat! Be free! Drink your tea!” And she insisted on sending me away with some homemade peanut butter, the best I’ve ever had!

Both of the sets of family parents were just so welcoming and so ready to open their homes, hearts, and families to include us. It was a special time getting to know some of the special members of our extended spiritual family!!! They accepted me and loved me and encouraged me, even in a short few days. I was definitely blessed, and I look forward to seeing them again whether here at Kasana or on future trips to Kobwin!

The next day we left Kobwin by 6 a.m., and in Kampala I bid farewell to Constance and the others and headed to the mall to print pictures, then on to public to go home on my own. It all worked out, thankfully, and I was back home to Kasana by about 7 that evening. {Constance needed to take a young boy to Entebbe--south of Kampala--for a surgery. Keep him in your prayers, please! He has now had a second surgery, and is in a cast for a while.}

The Beauty of Kobwin, Part 2

Well, it’s nearly a week later and I’m finally getting around to writing more about Kobwin!

On Friday morning, I got started taking pictures of the students there for the prayer cards we were planning to have them do for sending to prayer supporters in the U.S. I was a bit unsure of myself at first, but the family parents (our staff members) welcomed me in and encouraged me “be free!” and to not be afraid.

Soon their young twin boys and one of the younger students from the family group were helping me by pulling in the students I hadn’t gotten pictures of, finding them on my list, and even copying what I told them to write as the description so I would know who was who later! I really appreciated those three young fellas helping make me feel more at home :)

Around lunch time, Constance and a couple of the staff members got busy mixing lemon juice and powdered sugar to make the typical Ugandan cake frosting. One of the ladies had amazingly baked the cakes on a sigeri (charcoal-burning small round stove) since ovens are not common household appliances. (As I think I mentioned in my previous post, there was a wedding coming up the next day!).

We had fun frosting the cakes, wrapping them in ribbon, and then trying to add more frosting since we had a lot of extra. The problem with the latter was that we didn’t go slowly, letting one layer of frosting harden before putting on the next layer. So it ran all over and we spent some time frantically trying to shore up the “dams” of the ribbons….and pretty nearly just ended up with a big mess! But it all worked out :)

After we had got that straightened out, I went down to the school to start helping prepare food for the wedding. We peeled matooke, sorted/winnowed pounded ground nuts (peanuts), and chopped up several cabbages. The first two were new experiences for me! The ladies also had some young men gather large rocks to build fire pits of sorts for cooking the food. By then it was dark, and so lack of electricity sent us all home.

The next morning, the day of the wedding, at least a couple of the ladies woke up at 2:30 a.m. to start preparing the meal for the wedding. By the time I got there around 3:30 or 4, there were about a dozen people working by flashlight, and five or six fires going under massive pots (I’m talking two to three feet in diameter!). At first most of them were butchering the meat (cow and chicken) that I think had been slaughtered the night before. I thankfully missed the slaughtering bit! But the rest about the wedding feast will need a blog post of its own.

By 7 or so most of us went home and showered to try and get the smoke smell off before getting dressed up for the wedding. The ceremony was scheduled to start around 9—and I think it did start pretty close to that. The first hour or so was taken up by the two processionals of groomsmen/groom and bridesmaids/bride. It is evidently the tradition at least in that part of Uganda for the processional to be very very slow. I guess it helps make sure people arrive before things really get started?

Anyway, we had the school’s end of year ceremony, complete with speeches, musical numbers, etc. The crowd steadily increased as time went on, and between every couple of pieces of the program the MC would again welcome those who were just arriving. That’s just part of the “African time” culture here…..(my friends’ youngest son slept in my lap for an hour).

Then we went straight into the wedding, including more singing and dancing. Vows and rings were exchanged, a culturally acceptable (though exuberant) hug took place instead of a Western-style kiss. Then Uncle Jonnes preached a short wedding message that even I as a single appreciated…about how 50-50 isn’t sufficient for a marriage…God calls a husband and wife to give 100% to one another as an example of how Christ held nothing back but gave 100% of Himself for us!

Finally, at 3:30 I think? It was time to serve the wedding meal. I was helping with that also….and as I said above that will be the subject of another blogpost. Quite a bit later, a threatening rainstorm blew in, putting an end to the wedding festivities. We enjoyed simple rice & beans for dinner, and I went to bed early!

Sunday was a very chill day, everyone just needed to recover from the wedding! Church that morning was an interesting experience. Lots of dancing and clapping from the worship leader…he had to have two handkerchiefs to try and keep up with the sweat of his exuberance! Also, here at Kasana, we do the service in English and it is translated into Luganda. But in Kobwin, the service is carried out in Ateso and then translated into English sentence by sentence. So it was my first time here to be understanding the translated sermon rather than as originally spoken.

In the afternoon I worked on sharpening three gallon bags of colored pencils for kids to use the next day on the prayer cards. Thankfully the three little musketeers, my friends from the day before, showed up and pitched in to help me with that!

That evening we attended devotions with the first family group at Kobwin, and then had dinner with the family parents. Oh my, such a feast she set before us! I really enjoyed getting to know them better and hear bits of their story! A couple girls from the family had helped the mom cook, so they ate with us as well.

Well, I am falling asleep here on Tuesday night as I try to type this…so I think I better call it quits and finish another evening!

The Beauty of Kobwin, Part 1

I just wanted to put fingers to keyboard tonight (this was written Wednesday) to get this written, even though I am tired….because I know these next few days are going to be hectic and I want to grab this chance while I have it.

As you probably know, a week ago I traveled from Kasana (New Hope’s first and main location in Uganda) to Kobwin, our other children’s center in the northeast of the country. When Kobwin first started in 2010, our main focus there was working with young men and women who had been kidnapped or otherwise affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. Those kidnapped served as child soldiers and became known internationally as “Invisible Children.”

Now, four years later, we do still have some young people at Kobwin who are “returnees”—those who were abducted and then escaped or were released. Others grew up in IDP (internally displaced person) camps because their families were trying to avoid the atrocities of Kony and his rebels. All told, many of our students in Kobwin have come through even more intensely traumatic circumstances than our children here at Kasana.

At any rate – part of my job here in Uganda is updating supporters and prayer partners about the happenings at Kobwin, but until last week I hadn’t been there. Aunt Constance, our foreign staff member who has invested a lot of time and energy in Kobwin, invited me to go with her up to Kobwin for a wedding and the end of {school} year ceremony—and I jumped at the chance!

I was eager to see this location that I had heard so much about from interviewing three of the main guys in charge there. But I was also very excited to get to see two special people, their two sweet girls and their two adorable boys! :D So my expectations were high for the long weekend :)

The first day of travelling was kind of rough. But you can read more than enough about that in my previous post. The next day (Thanksgiving) was thankfully much less stressful. Watching a beautiful sunrise over Lake Victoria….seeing the Nile River (near its source) for the first time….enjoying a short passage through an actual forest! (I miss proper woods/forest while at Kasana)….observing Mount Elgin in the distance….just getting to witness more of this beautiful country that is my home for the next year. :) And that was all before we arrived at our destination!

When we got there, most of the students and some of the staff were just eating lunch. We joined them (for the typical posho and beans) after being greeted by a hug from each of the young people there. I think that’s one of the things that most stood out to me about Kobwin. It is quite a bit smaller than Kasana (less than one-fifth the size in student population, even less as far as staff), and thus has a much more intimate feel to it. The two family groups are very close to one another, but each is enclosed with a wall (originally to help the kids feel safer).

That afternoon, the students were practicing musical selections they had created and prepared for the end of year/wedding ceremony. The whole student/staff community (probably about 50 people) gathered to hear them and to offer advice. I just enjoyed experiencing a new style of instruments and singing! And I also finally spotted my friends’ two daughters. Their dad was also there, though I had been able to see him a couple weeks before at Kasana. I had told him I was coming to Kobwin, but told him not to tell his family so I could surprise them!

Well, since the daughters had seen me the dad and I decided I should go home with him to surprise the mom before the girls gave her the news. Their home is a short distance outside of the center because staff housing is really limited there. As we walked, he proudly showed me the small square of land where his family grows a bit of maize and papaya, collards and sweet potatoes.

As we neared the family’s house, the late afternoon sun was shining into my eyes. So I knew the mother would be able to see me before I could see her. Sure enough, I hadn’t spotted anyone I recognized before I saw a figure running towards me. It was my friend!! She grabbed me in a hug, ending in a tickle as I had forgotten was her habit towards me ;-) I met their neighbors (also Kobwin staff) and was invited in to my friends’ home for some tea. But not before my dear friends spent a couple minutes praying and thanking God for bringing me to their home and reuniting us!

Their two boys were hanging about. The older one (age 6) gave me a shy grin of remembrance, but the younger one (age 2)—my piggy back buddy—didn’t seem to know who I was. A bit later, though, he started to remember—and as I tickled him, I got to hear his adorable laugh again!! :D The time with them was far too short, but I had to get back to Kobwin for dinner with the manager and his wife. Uncle took me back on his bike – it was my first time to ride side saddle on the back rack of a bicycle, so I was glad someone I trusted was doing the pedaling!

That evening, Constance, Allison (a visitor from America who had spent a whole year working in Kobwin a couple years back) and I enjoyed a wonderful meal with the manager and his family. His wife and a couple young ladies prepared atapa (aka kilo, aka millet loaf. I’ll have to explain it some other time….), chapatis (they take a lot of work!), rice, and a yummy sauce with pork. It was all so delicious that I went on to P2 (aka, I took a second helping)!

Their two young boys nearly fell asleep while eating, and it was interesting to notice them being bathed in basins in the middle of the living room as we finished our dinner and conversation. Later, after we had gone back to Constance’s itinerant home where we stayed, I was able to call my family and talk to the three of them for a little while. Which was a blessing, because I had heard that cell signal up in Kobwin wasn’t much good.

So that was my Thanksgiving day…..I’ll have to write about the rest of the weekend later. It certainly wasn’t a typical American Thanksgiving……but it’s where God has me this year, and I am grateful for all of the opportunities He is giving me!!! Towards the end of the weekend, I couldn’t help but think that, while most Americans use Thanksgiving as a time to visit family, God used this Thanksgiving to grow my family….to introduce me to members of our spiritual family that I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet before. That’s what my next post will be more about! :)

A Jonah Day

It’s Thanksgiving morning as I begin to write this, and I am sitting in a friend’s car in Jinja, Uganda as we stop to pick up some things on our way to Kobwin.

Last night we stayed at a resort on the shore of Lake Victoria, not far from the source of the Nile River. Yesterday was rather challenging….but through it all I am remembering to focus on God’s goodness and faithfulness.

It started in the morning. We were leaving Kasana at 9, but I had to run up to the admin office before then. I wasn’t planning to bring the sponsorship laptop with me, and I couldn’t sign in to access that email remotely. So I wanted to set up an automatic vacation response so people emailing questions would know it would be a couple of days. But I couldn’t find it anywhere in Outlook.

Made it home and it was time to go. In the process of trying to finish things up, I forgot to close my windows (hopefully it doesn’t rain too hard while we’re gone) and I forgot to grab my sleeping blinders. Neither of which I realized until that night.

We made it into Kampala, I got a few things I needed at one of the malls, and we had a good conversation with our driver. He is one of New Hope’s grown sons, now with a wife and a new baby, and we really appreciate him!

{It’s now Friday morning in Kobwin! I didn’t want to write as we drove, because I wanted to observe the new regions of Uganda where I had not yet been!}

So on Wednesday for lunch we went to a restaurant I had been to a couple of times earlier this year. It’s in Entebbe, not far from Lake Victoria. Sitting there looking at the lake somehow felt so restful and just what my soul needed. I had delicious chicken lasagna for lunch (and dinner, thanks to a takeaway box!).

At the airport, we picked up a gal who had spent a year at Kasana and another at Kobwin. Then we really got on the road, back up through Kampala and then off towards Jinja. There was a good bit of traffic, plus tons of slow, big trucks. So the journey seemed long and a bit tense.

We arrived at the resort tired and hungry. Once we got a bit settled in our rooms, we went to the outdoor seating area for dinner. Thankfully Constance & Allison had called in to preorder their food, and I was just eating my leftovers…so we didn’t have to wait for that.

Within 10 minutes of being outside, I could tell the mosquitoes had found me and were having a feast. So I headed inside and counted seven quickly swelling lumps. :/ I had also found out there was no wifi at the resort, which was disappointing because I had been hoping to enjoy a Skype with my family.

I was pretty sore and tired, so I was looking forward to a hot shower Constance said they would have. Fought with the bathroom door a bit that wouldn’t lock easily and wouldn’t stay closed, then thought I heard someone trying to come into my room. I still don’t know what the latter was about, I was too nervous to come out and didn’t want to have to fight with the door again.

Got all ready for my shower, turned on the hot water, and it was cold. My hand ran into a spider web in the corner, and he ran away as I continued letting the water run hoping it would warm up. No such success……I gave up in frustration.

Let down the mosquito net (which had a small hole) and grabbed my tablet to read in bed for a little while. Fought with the confusing bedcovers….It took me a bit to figure out that instead of having a sheet and a blanket, two sheets had evidently been sewn together to make a sort of duvet (a word I learned in N.Ireland!) over the blanket.

This is when I realized I didn’t have my blinders, and the lovely porch light right outside my window would make it hard for me to sleep. Climbed out of bed and turned it off, and as I climbed back in something among the covers moved and all I could see at first was a tail.

“You’ve got to be kidding, please don’t let there be a snake in my bed!!!” was my first thought. Then I noticed a small foot near the root end of the tail and breathed a sigh of relief. It was “only” one of the common 5-6” skink lizards that I usually enjoy watching. But I was still definitely NOT amenable to him sharing a bed with me. He wanted to run away as well – so I untucked the mosquito net near where he was and he fell to the floor and scurried off.

At that point I curled up in bed and had a self-pity cry. It had all been a bit too many failed expectations and frustrations for one night, I guess. If I had been making the decision at that moment about going home for Christmas, I would have gone in a heartbeat. But the decision to stay had thankfully been made the week before on a better day, in a more reasonable frame of mind!

I finished the chapter on Friendship that I had been reading in C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves, and then I turned to my current relaxation reading: Anne of Avonlea. The title of the next chapter was “A Jonah Day,” about a day when teacher Anne Shirley felt like a failure.

A toothache colored her day all dark, and she was irritated and harsh with her pupils. On top of that, assuming that a package contained a banned nut cake, she told the offending student to drop it in the fire….and since the package was actually fireworks it created no small sensation! Then her trouble-maker student put a mouse in her desk, and she actually whipped him for it….something she had said she would never do.

Wow did I ever identify with her that evening! It may not seem like God would typically use a fluffy fiction book to encourage a frustrated, somewhat weepy daughter…..but He did just that :)

“Jonah days come to everybody,” as Marilla reminded Anne, and “This day’s done and there’s a new one coming tomorrow with no mistakes {and no frustrations} in it yet.”

And so yesterday (Thanksgiving) my attitude and thus my day were very much better! Thanks to God’s unending faithfulness and graciousness even in those times when I get so frustrated when things don’t go my way.

On Thanksgiving, I had the privilege of worshipping God as I watched His lovely sunrise over Lake Victoria. I took a shower that, while still not hot was not as cold as it might have been. We arrived in the beautiful Kobwin safely. I was reunited to some dear friends and greeted warmly. We had a delicious dinner. And I had no problem with cell phone signal to call my family for a bit before I went to bed.

Through ALL of it—both a Jonah day and Thanksgiving—God is good :)

Parents, New York, and the LAST Week

Hard to believe it’s been nearly a month since I last posted on here! Lots has happened J

The first weekend this month Dad and Mom came up to see me! They “kidnapped” me for the weekend, and we went camping outside of Asheville, NC. We did a lot of hiking that weekend, mostly to see waterfalls along the Blue Ridge Parkway. There are definitely some gorgeous ones!!!

It was really good to get to spend some time with my parents, and fun to get out and see some of the beauty of western North Carolina! On Friday before we headed out of Boone, I also got to introduce them to some of my co-workers and show them around the department a bit, so that was good too.

I’m not nearly doing that weekend justice….you can look at my Facebook photo album to see my pictures from it, and they have more description of what we did.

The next week (Aug. 5-10) was another adventure. The first two days I was at work, like normal. That Monday night the church small group that my hosts are part of went out together to do miniature golf. It was definitely the craziest putt putt course I’ve ever seen, up a steep hill! I somehow managed to win in our group of four.

On Wednesday, I headed out for my reporting trip to New York. Driving down to Charlotte I experienced thick fog for at least 30 minutes, which made for some tense driving. Then when I got to New York, I picked up my rental car and headed out to find my hotel. Which was also a driving adventure, because my directions were wrong, since the hotel was in an odd place. And it was NY driving, so that made it interesting in and of itself!

A few things I noticed: They evidently don’t believe in turn lanes or having an arrow in the light signal. People definitely use their horns a lot more. And there are just way too many people and cars. But I survived three days of driving there, so I consider that a success!

On Thursday morning I had breakfast with the SP staff and volunteers at their church headquarters. It was fun because the site managers were the same people who had been in Joplin, and the same videographer came out to cover the dedication.

I spent the day interviewing a few volunteers and watching them work on the two houses that were in process there. That evening, the owners of the house that would be dedicated the next day came to the church to be interviewed. It was really neat to get to hear their story, and so good to get to know them.

The next morning, they took the videographer and me out to show us around their little town. They had lots of stories to tell, since the house that Hurricane Sandy destroyed had been owned by their family all their lives.

That afternoon, around 100 people flooded their large yard to celebrate with them the dedication of the first house rebuilt by Samaritan’s Purse since the storm nine months ago. To read more about that, you can check out the article I wrote posted on the SP website!

As in Joplin, I was so blessed by everyone I interacted with. Since it is still early in the rebuild process in New York, I didn’t talk to as many homeowners. But the staff and volunteers again provided wonderful testimony to the work God is doing in and through them.

That Friday evening, after I had fellowshipped with the people at the church for a while, I went down to the beach to go wading in the ocean a bit. I had quite an adventure, as you can read in my previous blog post! God certainly provided J

The next day I guess I felt like I hadn’t had enough adventures, so I decided to drive up into Manhattan a bit to see more of NYC before I left, since I had been away from the main part of the city for most of my trip. Traffic was worse than I expected on a Saturday morning, and before long I was ready to leave the big city behind for a while. Barely made it to the airport in time, but again everything worked out.

Thankfully I had a day and a half to “recover” from my trip before heading back to work again. I was pretty apprehensive about how that Monday would go, because the Monday after my Joplin trip was tough and because the two days before my trip had been rough too. But on Sunday, God did some needed work on my heart, and He really turned my attitude around. You can read more about it on my spiritual blog, starting here.

So thanks to that, instead of being hard Monday was one of the best days. For the first time, I felt completely at peace with where I was. It was a huge blessing and an answer to many people’s prayers!

The next day came a conversation I had been expecting for a while. My supervisors informed me that they had an open position in the communications department, and asked if I would be interested in applying. Long story short, God continued working in my heart that week and the next to give me an increasing sense of peace with pursuing staying on at SP.

The job opening was posted on Friday, and I submitted my application on my last Monday. On my last day (Aug. 23), I had an “interview” with my supervisors. They let me know that they’ve got a couple other candidates they’re looking at, and I let them know that I would definitely love to join the team, if that’s what they think would be a good fit.

Since nothing was finalized yet, I said all my farewells and packed up all my stuff to fly back home the next day. And now I’m kind of just playing the waiting game….waiting to see whether God will open that door, or whether He has something else in store for me. While I’m not excited to just be waiting again, I’m glad to have some time at home. And I know God will continue faithfully leading J

(To read what I wrote for SP about the Joplin trip last month, check out the article here and my blog post for them here.)

Angels in Disguise

So.......visiting the Long Island Beach tonight nearly cost me what I'm guessing would have been about $500..............

Let me back up. I came to Island Park, New York for the weekend to cover the dedication of the first home rebuilt by Samaritan's Purse after Hurricane Sandy, which was today. {Warning - long story coming up}

I bid farewell to the SP folks at the church, and they had told me where I could go to be on an ocean beach. It wasn't far away, so I decided to go. I got there at about 8:40, so it was definitely past dusk. Tried to take some pictures, and started getting my feet wet wading. Then I decided to put my camera, my phone, my flip flops, and my rental car keys together in a pile so that I could wade without worrying about my stuff getting wet.

That was shortly after 8:50. I quickly realized that the waves were going further in than I expected, so I grabbed my pile of stuff and moved it to a different place. I debated moving it further inland, but as I had walked onto the beach a beach police patrol vehicle had driven by. I could see his lights down the beach, and didn't want to take the chance that he would run over my stuff! So I put it down in a new place, but still rather uncomfortably close to the water.

A tiny bit later, I went to move it again or something, and in picking up my stuff I realized that my car keys were not right there with the other stuff. I knew I was in trouble. I turned up my phone screen brightness to use as a flashlight and started looking for the keys. Thankfully there was a pile of rocks that created a boundary marking point on one side of the area. I knew my keys had to be between where I first put my stuff and where the rocks were, a distance of maybe 20 yards. Unless the waves had already carried them away....................

The phone did no good. I got on my hands and knees and crawled along the track I had thought I walked between the two places. No luck. About that time, the police car came back toward where I was. I walked over to him and flagged him down. He had someone in the back, I think a kid who was breaking curfew or something. He didn't have a flashlight, but he turned his floodlight on and drove between the two points where I thought it was three times as I walked alongside looking. Nothing. He had to take the kid home, and said I should call a tow truck if I couldn't find them.

Long before that point, I had been praying asking God to please help me find my keys. I knew He knew where they are, and I sure would like to have them!!! I had noticed that the keys said on them "average replacement cost is $225." And if I followed the policemen's suggestion, I'd have to pay a good bit to have it towed, most likely plus a chunk more for a locksmith to get me into the car so I could get my stuff out. After the police man left, I walked back and forth I don't know how many times between the two points, shuffling my feet in the sand, just hoping that I would run into the keys with my feet. "Please guide my steps," I prayed. A knot was forming in my stomach as I thought about how much this would cost. And yes, I was definitely worried.

By 9:08, I realized I probably was not going to find the keys. And that I needed to call someone from SP to come pick me up before it got too much later. I didn't have anyone's number who was at the church (about 15 minutes away) - at least not on my phone. It was in my notebook in my car, which I couldn't get into. I did have the videographer's number in my phone, but he was at his hotel, 30 minutes away. I called him and asked him to send me the site manager's number. When I got off the phone with him and waited for the text message, I noticed I only had one bar of battery left on my phone. That made me honestly scared for the first time. "God help me," I said, knowing I was fixing to really be in a mess.

A lady and two gentlemen, one with a little kid on his shoulders walked over to me and asked if I had lost something. I questioned for a moment how wise it was to tell complete strangers that I was locked out of my car and pretty much stranded. But it was obvious that I was looking for something, and I didn't have much choice. I told them I had lost my car keys, and where I thought they ought to be, but that I was just calling a friend to get me. It was 9:13, and the text message came as I was talking to them. I called the SP site manager's number. It rang maybe four or five times, no answer. But then I hung up, because those three angels in disguise had called out to me that they found my keys. Yep, I had been looking for those silly things for 15-20 minutes, and they found them in about three minutes.

They handed me the keys, and I asked them if they would come with me to my car so that I could give them some money as a thank you. But they didn't want anything. I told them how very grateful I was. I can't even express how relieved I was about it! Oh my....God certainly provided!!!!

They walked away down the beach, and I went back to enjoying wading a bit, since I had barely had time to do so yet. But this time, I kept all of my stuff with me, you'd better believe it. Standing there, the waves crashing against my legs, I recovered a little bit from the nervous tension I had been under for the past several minutes. And just thanked God. It was definitely a reminder that He will take care of me, even when I'm not so smart and even in the "little" things.

God is so very amazingly good! And yes, God would be just as amazingly good if I hadn't ever found my keys, or if the ocean had swept them away. But I give Him lots of thanks for the fact that in this case He decided to protect and bless me, despite my smidgen of stupidity. :)

Joplin Experience Plus

Wanted to get another update posted here! This one’s mostly about my trip to Joplin J

Orientation—the week that I posted my previous update—went fine. It was great to get a bird’s eye view of the whole SP operation, even though I already knew some of the information from reading most of the articles that have gone up on the website over the past couple of months. We got to hear more about some of the “background” things of SP, such as donor ministries, and we got to tour the campus which was fun.

Thursday the 18th I skipped out on the last few orientation sessions because I had to drive to the airport to head out to Joplin! Lots of firsts on the trip – first time to rent a car (ended up with three rentals by the end of the trip!), first time to drive a long distance by myself (total of nine hours in big chunks), first time to stay in a hotel by myself (which was fine).

Ahead of time I was pretty nervous about the trip, and especially about interviewing people I had never met before. But everything went beautifully and looking back it seems silly to have been so worried. So I grew in self-confidence a good bit from it. J I’m actually going on another similar trip next week, and I’m really not worried about it. Though this time it’s in New York…so hopefully the driving there isn’t too ridiculous…..

Anyway, Friday in Joplin turned out to be a long day for me. I went to the base church at 7:00 a.m. to meet the SP staff managing the project and to have breakfast with that last week’s crew of volunteers. Got oriented to things, then headed out to the home that they would be dedicating that afternoon to watch and interview the volunteers putting the finishing touches on it. Went to the homes of another lady and a family who had each received their houses this year to interview them, then back to the last house for the dedication ceremony.

It was pretty hot outside (almost my first taste of a “real” summer this year because of being in N.Ireland and Boone, both of which are much cooler than Dallas!!), so the 50+ people who turned out all crowded into the house. Which made it pretty hot in there too, but it was a miracle that the electricity was on at all, and everyone was excited to be there and to celebrate with the family. J It was like witnessing a family reunion – and most of these people weren’t related to one another by blood. But they obviously had a special community of relationships.

I ended up interviewing another homeowner there, plus the lady who received the last house. By then, it was time to go back to one of the houses I had visited earlier in the day for a farewell cookout that the family hosted in honor of the SP staff and volunteers. While there, I interviewed a fifth homeowner. I also got to continue witnessing the incredible love and care for one another that was so very evident among all of the people involved. There were a lot of tears too, as the Joplin homeowners bid farewell to the SP staff members who had been living and working there for months.

It was 8:00 p.m. by the time I got in my car and headed back to my hotel room. I felt so very blessed to have had the opportunity to kind of be a part of that weekend of celebration. It was a joy to hear and see what God had done in the lives of both the volunteers and the homeowners. And yet there was a heaviness there too—because all of the stories I heard involved so much loss, although every one of the people I talked to focused much more on being thankful for what God had brought out of the situation. But for me there was also a weight of responsibility. They had trusted me, a stranger, with their stories. And my job was to go back and write articles to share that with the supporters of SP. It was just a lot for one day…but in an amazing, good way.

The next day the Joplin staff had to pack up their office of two years and get everything loaded up and ready to move on to the next place. I helped out a bit, and enjoyed getting to learn more about the people behind the rebuild effort. That afternoon, I interviewed a final homeowner couple. In two days, I had completed 12 interviews, most of which were 45-60 minutes, and taken many many pages of notes (yes, I’m old fashioned that way…..).

Every one of the stories I had the honor of hearing that weekend was amazing and special in its own unique way. And in the days since then, I have had the privilege of attempting to retell those stories. So far, I’ve written five or six articles based on Joplin. None of them have been posted yet because of scheduling issues, but hopefully they will eventually be used somehow. One of those was a first-person blog post for the SP blog that goes more in-depth about what I learned from the people of Joplin…so once some of those stories get posted I will probably post links here.

I had a couple of adventures aside from the work aspects of the trip. One was locking my keys into my rental car. Yep, I managed to do that. Thankfully it was at the cookout and there were plenty of “Good Samaritans” there to help me! The hero ended up being the eight-year-old son of the homeowners. He had a metal bar that we were finally able to poke down through the window (which were thankfully cracked open!) to pry the door handle open.

The other was getting to spend Saturday evening with a couple friends from JBU! Joplin is close enough that one of the professors from our mission trip team was willing to come up to see me! We met up at a movie theater to watch Monsters University, and one of the other students who had also been on the trip showed up with her to surprise me. It was so very great to see them and to have a chance to wind down with them after the weekend. We enjoyed dinner together as well, and it was just a wonderful opportunity to catch up.

Sunday I retraced my steps from Thursday and ended up safely back in Boone! It was a really fantastic trip, even though it was a bit hard to come back and be “stuck” at my desk. In the week and a half since then, I’ve managed to keep busy at work…most of the time. I’ve worked on a few other things in addition to writing up the Joplin articles.

Then on the 26th, one of my best friends from college happened to be in the area on vacation with her family! So we got to spend the evening together, which was really special. I got to meet her dad and sister and see her mom, who I had met in May when I bid farewell to my friend. We had a great time catching up about our summers, and even though it was relatively short I was so thankful for the opportunity J

So yep, that’s pretty much been my life since my last post! Well, add in several trips hiking up the mountain I’m living on, which has been fantastic. :D I think I’ve been up there five or six different times, all to different little places, and all wonderful times to get away for some exploring and/or reflection. I’ve got some more adventures coming up! My parents are going to be here this weekend to see me, and then next week, as I said, I’ll be headed to New York! So I know these last 3.5 weeks of my internship will probably fly by pretty quick! And then? Who knows…. ;-)