Slacking

So, it's been over a year since I last posted. For some reason, I have not been keeping up with my blog, but I have recently had a change in heart and figured I might as well update. Better late, than never.

This summer, I spent six weeks in Mbale, Uganda, with three other girls(Taylor VanDuinen, Kayla Dick, and Keesha Sedgwick), doing just about anything you can imagine. We were nurses, mamas, painters, Sunday School teachers, Bible Study leaders, elementary school teachers, evangelists, wedding helpers, birthday planners, and so much more. This trip was my favorite by far because of all the new things we were able to experience.

We started our trip by joining seven wonderful ladies from Wimberley, Texas. The leader of the trip, Becky Ball, started a sponsorship program called IChooseYou in the year of 2009. Becky provides sponsors for 30 beautiful children in the slum of Namatala. Before IChooseYou began, these kids were digging through piles of trash to find any food for them and their families. Because of Becky's response to the Lord's calling, these 30 children are now receiving an education and a month's supply of corn flour, sugar, soap and Vaseline. The corn flour is used to make a food called posho. Posho is basically corn flour and water mixed together to make a substance that looks like mashed potatoes, but much denser.

We spent our days with them visiting each of the homes of the children, doing hut to hut evangelism in Namatala, and giving out clothes, shoes, toys, etc., to the children. We could not have been blessed with a better team to start our trip off with. Each of the seven girls were amazing servants of God and had such wonderful hearts for the people of Uganda.

We had two days on our own after they had left and before our team from home was coming to join us for a church plant in the village of Lutonyi. We spent these two days visiting a baby home and teaching P1 and P2 classes (1st and 2nd grade level).

We were able to love on and play with the kids at St. Kizito's Baby Home right outside Mbale. They have very few visitors and volunteers coming to the home so it was a major blessing to be able to spend a day there helping out. We played with them in the morning then helped with lunch, baths, and getting ready for nap time. There are about 36 babies living at the home; many are abandoned and many have lost at least one parent.

Being teachers for the P1 and P2 classes was quite an adventure. Our plan was to go there to observe and help out where needed. We arrived, walked into the class and the teachers walked out. We were on our own to teach a class of 50 kids from 9am to 4:30pm. We covered reading, writing, math, P.E., Bible, and music. At the time it was a nightmare because none of us have ever been teachers, but looking back on the experience, it really was a lot of fun.

Our team joined us that night and we began our church planting ministry. We started off by revisiting our previous church plants at Angalia, Namunyu, Kerekeren, and Busiu. On Monday, we started hut to hut in Lutonyi and school and prison ministries. Needless to say, it was a very successful week with a full church of 700 people on the first Sunday.

We were then dropped off in Jinja to visit Amani Baby Cottage. I volunteered here last year and thought it would be fun to revisit and see all the children again. It was very cool to see the kids growing and becoming healthier as time has passed. Many kids were adopted this past year and there were a lot of new faces but it was still a very good experience.

We returned to Mbale to help Natalie Rolfe, who has taught Phonics at Lulwanda Children's Home for the past couple of years. She had a closet at the home that needed to be cleaned out, organized and inventoried.

We attended a wedding that weekend and threw a birthday party for our friend Jerad. Jerad doesn't know when he was born and has never experienced a birthday party before. So, on June 19, 2010 Jerad turned 22. We celebrated with cake and presents and a time of hanging out with friends.
On Sunday, we attended church at our friend, Pastor Charles' church in the village of Kidoko. After church we bought lunch for the kids there, did Awanas with them, and set up a wound clinic on the porch of the pastor's house. We were then taken to old man Paul who has a wound on his leg so we could treat it(I will do a separate post on this story).
For three days we worked with a sponsorship ministry called Hine's Ugandan Ministry, just outside the town of Mbale in a village called Kamonkoli. Hine's was started 15 years ago by Katherine Hine's who is from Colorado. She sponsors widows and children in the area of Kamonkoli. She has helped over 200 kids throughout the years, and we got to work with some of her first kids a part of the program who are now at the university level. The first day, we did hut to hut evangelism in the village and visited a few of the homes of the children and helpers. The second day, we painted a house for a widow in her program and attended a Bible study at the local church. The last day, we did more hut to hut evangelism in the morning. In the afternoon, we visited Kerekeren to check out the school, look into potential grounds for a school, and visit my girl Nora, whom I fell in love with two years ago.
The next two days, we joined a team from Midland, Texas to help at a wound clinic they had set up at the church plant they were doing. We helped distribute mosquito nets, fill prescriptions, and treat wounds. The rest of the clinic was set up with pediatricians, doctors and nurses. The first day we were met by around 1,000 people; the second day close to 3,000 people came from miles and miles away to receive free medical care. By the time we were done, we treated around 4,000 people.
The following week, we spent three days, visiting six different churches doing discipleship lessons at each. We tried our best to return to the churches who have yet to have mzungus(white people) come back and visit their church. We would go to a church in the morning and a church after lunch. Taylor taught on God's promise and shared a story of a slave girl who was bought at a very high price to be set free. Kayla shared her testimony and explained how important it was to surrender your life to God; to say I will go anywhere and do anything for our Lord. I compared to passages in the Bible. One that says we are saved by faith alone and the other that says faith without deeds is dead. I challenged them to serve the Lord and live out their faith in a way that people would see they're different. While Taylor, Kayla and I were teaching these things to the women Keesha taught the kids on Jesus being the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
On our down days, we would visit Namatala to work on the kids wounds and visit the children who are sponsored by IChooseYou. We also returned to St. Kizito's Baby Home to play with the kids and love on them.
That Saturday, we attended another wedding, which got rained out during the reception. In Uganda, if it rains on the wedding day, it is considered a blessing from God that their children will be strong and healthy. We also learned that a wedding is not a wedding if there is no rice. We got to hear Pastor Morris preach for the first time at the wedding. I have never heard such a funny, powerful speech at a wedding.
On Sunday we made a surprise visit to the church of Lutonyi. We wanted to show up without the announcement of the mzungus coming because when people here the mzungus are coming everyone shows up. We wanted to see how many people really showed up without the arrival of mzunugs. To our surprise, they had a full church, three different choirs, and have been training up elders, deacons and leaders in the church.That night we went to Busiu to help with Awanas. We played the games and Keesha taught the lesson.
For the Fourth of July, we went on a hike to see the beauty of Uganda with our friends from Hine's Ugandan Ministry. We got to see a few different waterfalls. It was a fun relaxing time to end our trip. After our hike we went out to lunch with everyone. The four of us got our favorite food, Sambusas/Samosas(we haven't exactly figured out the right name for them yet). They are similar to eggrolls but are filled with meat.
After lunch the four of us stayed in town to meet our friend Paul. We went to the market to buy him and his family some food as a thank for making us feel right at home and helping us throughout the trip(I will expand on this in a later post as well).
This is just an overview of the trip. In later posts, I will share more of my favorite parts of the trip. I will also be updating everyone on my plans for this winter and my trip next year.
Before I end this post, I want to acknowledge how good our God is. We went into this trip with somewhat of a plan only to find out that our plan was not God's plan, and I am so thankful it wasn't. God put us in the right places at the right times. We experienced the power of God in so many incredible ways. For most of the trip, we really had no idea what we were doing or how to do most of the stuff we needed to. Because of God's amazing power, we were completely adequate(even tough sometimes we felt inadequate) for every situation we were placed in. God performed miracles right before our very eyes. He gave us the strength that we did not have to serve each and every day with full energy. It is through God alone that this trip was possible, and I am so grateful to be serving such an amazing, gracious, loving and powerful God.