THE END IS NEAR!!!

Well, the end is near.  

I'm sitting on the bed, looking at my bulging duffle bags and honestly, I feel pretty crummy.  

We're leaving tomorrow morning after chapel for Kampala and we'll spend a week there before flying back to the States.  I'm all mixed up.  Part of my doesn't want to leave Uganda, part of me really misses home, part of me totally does not want to go back to the busy-ness and the complicated nature of life at home, both practically and socially.  And then there's another part of me that just sort of feels nothing at all.  

I just really like staring at mountains everyday, reading my Bible with a cup of coffee.  I don't want to go home and dive back into all the busy-ness.  There are so many distractions, I didn't realize before how much I didn't notice or feel them....until suddenly they are all not there and I can breathe.  

I like Uganda.  I don't want to come back.  It's confusing though because in my mind, I'm already home...and yet I'm here...in Uganda.  It's an identity crisis of sorts.

Also I'm tired of discussing the election with British people.  

So let's reflect for a moment.

....I'm coming home in a little over a week.  My life is changed, my soul is altered, I'm going to have weave in my hair........let's just say I will never be the same.  I've eaten goat.  I've eaten chicken liver, chicken gizzard, fried banana cookies cooked in less than desirable sanitary conditions, kasava, one thousand chapati (a pancake of sorts made with lots of oil), a billion mandazi (a doughnut like thing fried in oil).  I've eaten matoke, pumpkin, sugar cane, dodo, and lots and lots of toast.  I have also drank more soda while I have been here than I have ever in my life.  (that includes middle school)  oh yeah and I also ate a fruit that no one knows the name of.  

And you know what?  I really have enjoyed all of it, except the chicken stuff....really gross since in Uganda, many chickens are not actually fed and they just go around pecking at whatever is layin' around (trash, stones, other trash).....so it was sort of disgusting.

I had a really terrible day today.  I went to the maternity ward to see if I could actually witness a birth before I leave, but I was totally discouraged by one of the UK elective students and then I felt like I was in the way because I'm not a doctor......so I got really sad and this all compounded on the homesickness and the not wanting to leave Uganda feeling and I went and sat behind the building and cried for a bit.....

and then I realized that there were a bunch of Ugandan women sitting on the sidewalk just across the way and they were all staring at me, shocked.  White people cry?

So I decided I would make myself feel better and go buy some soap for my friends in the fistula ward.  So I went down there and carried the huge box of soap on my head and we sat and stared at each other since we can't speak the same language, but I felt better because they're my friends now.  

You know in high school when I used to feel discouraged like that, I would go to the mall and shop.  

How things have changed.  

They really have.  I won't be the same when I get back.

Don't give it up

Some of you may know and some of you may not but I used to read tarot cards not too long ago.  I think I started reading them my senior year of high school and I stopped a little over a year ago.   Some of you may also know this:  I have a tattoo on my shoulder.  The tattoo is a tarot card.  I got it right before I stopped reading them.

 

Well, now that the Lord has taken me to Africa, I think I may finally understand what the image means in the larger story of my life, and what the image means in the stories of the lives of the women in the fistula ward, and what it means in the life of any person who has come to know Jesus Christ, and in the life of any person who hasn't. 

 

            People always ask me what it means and it’s probably the question I really hate the most because honestly, I don’t really know how to explain it very well.  There is no short version.  In fact, I hate the question because it confuses me, and it’s usually asked by a stranger, someone who I was never really ready to share the following story with. 

 

But I think I’m ready to do that now.

 

There was a particular season of my life when most of my relationships were abusive.  I allowed myself to be controlled by people not because they were directly causing me to behave a certain way, but because I allowed their presence in my life to cause me to believe in my own powerlessness, helplessness, and inability.  This is the essence of the meaning of the tarot card.

The eight of swords.  This card means captivity.  The woman in the image is blindfolded and bound, standing, of her own accord, in the mud.  She is not struggling.  She is not freeing herself.  Her captors are nowhere to be seen, and yet, there she is, alone, trapped in a fence of swords.  There is a building in the background, representing the place she has been cast out of.  She is in the wilderness, and she is completely isolated.

 

But this is not the image on my body.  The image on my body is upside down, which changes its meaning.  When tarot cards appear upside down, or reversed, whatever the original meaning of the card was when it was right side up, is blocked.  I wanted it this way because I didn’t want the meaning of this card to follow me around for the rest of my life.  Looking back on my life, I saw how oppressed I was, and continued to be, and I always wanted to remember to fight this trap.  I didn’t want to be controlled by anything or anyone anymore.  I saw the image of oppression and I rejected it.  What I wanted was freedom.  I wanted liberation.

 

 Liberate: to set someone free from a particular situation (especially slavery or imprisonment) in which their liberty is severely restricted; to free a country, city, or people from enemy occupation

 

So I started searching for this.  I started searching for freedom, but I couldn’t find it on my own.  Sometimes it feels like I didn’t find it until just yesterday.

 

The women in the fistula ward know what it feels like to be controlled by your own feelings of helplessness.  They were such promising women, hopeful for so much, and then something terrible happened to them, they lost their child.  But they lost something else too, something slipped through their fingers without their even noticing.  They lost respect for themselves and their dignity when they began to believe the lies people told them.   They began to blame themselves.  They began to blame themselves when other people began to blame them.  They believed the lies. 

 

If you were a good enough woman, like your own mother, you would have pushed hard enough and you would have your baby now.  Instead, you’re damaged.  You’re leaking urine right now because it’s your punishment for failing.  The only thing left for you to do now is take your punishment.

 

My version isn’t that different.

 

If you were really capable of love, you wouldn’t have been in so many failed relationships.  If you were really worthy of love, you would be loved, but nobody loves you.  Therefore, it’s your fault.  It’s your punishment for being damaged.  You’re damaged.  The only thing left for you to do now is take your punishment.

 

Yours may not be that different either.

 

You’ll never be the same after _________________.

You’re divorced.  Only selfish people get divorced.

You can’t go back to school, you’re too old.

War damages people.  You’re damaged.

Your dad always said you were_____________.  He’s right.

It was your fault when __________ died.

It was your fault when ___________________left.

 

Those are the lies that keep you standing in the wilderness, wearing the blindfold, accepting the punishment and the isolation.  These are the lies that keep women from accepting the love and redemption of Jesus Christ.  These are the lies that keep women hiding in villages on mountaintops leaking urine.  These are the lies that kept me believing I could never be beautiful again, the lies that made me want to cut off all of my hair and rid myself of anything that made me beautiful, because I believed I wasn’t. 

 

I didn’t want these lies, but I didn’t know what redemption looked like.  I didn’t know Jesus was what I was looking for.  I was like a lost sheep without the truth.  Jesus looked like He had nothing to do with my life.  He was just some historical figure, completely unrelated to what I was feeling.  In fact, most of His people didn’t really look like the sort of crowd I wanted to be associated with. 

I'd been down that road before, and the Jesus I found expected too much.  He made me feel ashamed and judged and I didn't really want that.  His people didn't look like people with hope, they didn't really look that different from anybody else I had ever met.

So I went out looking for liberation because I knew I didn’t want shame anymore, but without the good news in my life, I only found punishment, even with the best intentions.

 

I chose punishment instead of redemption.  I chose punishment because it felt like justice, but what my soul wanted was mercy.  I was looking for freedom, and you can only find that in one place.

 

The cross.

 

The Ugandan women find freedom at Kagando Hospital, because it’s a place where Jesus is healing people and giving them hope.  They make the pilgrimage because they hope that somehow there’s something better than living in shame on the top of a mountain, mourning alone and leaking urine. Some of them had been out to find it before too, like I had.  Just like I had turned to the church for hope and been sent away feeling worse, they had gone to other hospitals that made it worse, who damaged their bodies more than they were before, but the women who had come to Kagando hadn't given up hope.  They knew there had to be something better.  

 

Everybody knows deep down that they want something better than whatever it is they’ve got.  And they don’t just feel that way because that’s just how everybody feels.  They don’t feel this way because this sort of thing happens to everybody.  Everybody doesn’t feel that way.   It doesn’t happen to everybody.   It’s not just because they’re just never satisfied.  It’s not because they’re just flawed people and everybody’s flawed.  It’s not just because something that happened to you years ago will always affect you.  It’s not because you’ve made mistakes and there’s no turning back or making amends.  It’s not because you’re damaged.  It’s not your fault.  You don’t have to live like that.

 

But think about it.  If you believe that you do have to live like that, will you ever start looking for something better?

 

If you just choose to believe that there’s nothing out there that will satisfy your soul, and you accept whatever punishment feels comfortable and just, you will never be happy.

 

Have you given up that dream?  Have you stopped searching?

 

What if the Ugandan women at the hospital had given up that dream?  Some of them live alone in shacks leaking urine for the rest of their lives because they have no faith.  They’ve given up.

 

Don’t give up.  I didn’t give up.  I chose to believe that there was hope.  Hope just happened to be on the other side of the ocean, where Jesus called me to make a pilgrimage to a place where He IS doing something, where He is healing women just like me.  I don’t know where it is for you, but I know Jesus has something to do with it. 

 

Lunch

So I went to the hospital for the first half of the morning to poke around and take some photos and I got to see something cool.

Lunch in the fistula ward.

Beans in the left hand bucket, kasava in the right hand bucket.  This meal is free for the women here.
The orange bucket the woman in the back is holding is where her catheter drains to.
This is the fistula ward.

This is what the hospital looks like.  There is clothing drying everywhere, and people camping on the ground.  The wards are individual buildings connected by these concrete sidewalks.  It feels sort of like a very large family picnic.  Since the hospital can't feed all of the patients the way hospitals in the states do, patients bring attendants with them, family members who cook for them and care for them....which is why this hospital has a very large kitchen with lots of women always in it.
This is Harriet. (on the right)  She has just had the fistula repair operation the first week we were here.  Lisa and I were able to give her a Luhkonzo Bible we had bought in Kasese during the first two weeks.  
This is jackfruit.  Yes, it is actually as big as it looks.  In fact it's probably bigger than it looks.  These were small.  When you eat this fruit, you have to coat your fingers with margarine first because it's so sticky.   Jackfruit was probably on the tree of knowledge, because it looks unbelievable awesome, but then it's unbelievably messy.   No, I haven't had it yet.

It's Photo Phriday!

hey dad guess what!  i saw a huge termite hill and took a picture for you.

We saw a lion on the safari!  YAY!  it was five in the morning.  TIRED!

This is jayne and derek.  They are friends that Lisa and I met staying at the guest house.  They shared coffee and conversation with us and told us about Wales.  They have been coming to the South Rwenzori diocese for 15 years together and they have built a school here.

 Jayne is an Anglican priest in Wales and Derek, her husband, is an insurance broker.  I got to see Jayne baptize 11 African babies.  The service was trilingual because she said the baby's name in Luhkonzo, marked them with the cross of Christ in English, and said Father Son and Holy Spirit in Welsh.  I cried.

Jayne and Derek treated us to lunch at Hotel Margherita, where I was able to have a coke with ice in it and look at the mountains.

This is a view from the hike that Lisa and I went on with the medical students from the UK. (below)

From left to right: Victoria, Rosie, Lisa, Morwenna, Rachel, me, and Jane on the hike.  

So this hike, was really more of an awful thing than an invigorating thing.  observe the shoes.  also it is important to note that Ugandans tend to hike steep mountains faster than musungus because they grew up trotting up and down with big bushels of bananas on their heads.  I, on the other hand have been walking only on sidewalks my whole life.  Let's just say the hike was less than great for me.

This is real live coffee from real live Uganda.  Those beige-ish ones on the left will be roasted and such.  

ASWT, our favorite supermarket.  You can buy ICE CREAM here!!!!

All of the sewing machines are treadles here.  Here is one in front of a store in Kasese. Notice the signage: All these are done as, you wait.  This is Africa

Phun!

Well this week has been pretty uneventful.  I was exhausted on Monday from the weekend so I stayed home from school.  Then Tuesday was a holiday, no school.  Wednesday I was feeling pretty sick so I did nothing but read.  And yesterday...well yesterday I was homesick.  

So, since I haven't really been doing much this week, (except for reading and feeling homesick or regular sick) I think I'm going to go down to the hospital for the second half of the morning to poke around with my camera and maybe this time, I will get to witness a birth.  

Or maybe I'll just wander around feeling useless and conspicuous because I am:

1. not a doctor

2. white

.....or maybe something wonderful will happen.

let's hope for that.

Who hasn't been touched by evil in this life?

All of the women in the fistula ward have one obvious thing in common.   They have no children with them.  In a place where most women are carrying small children on their backs or trailing beside them, it is obvious when that is missing for a woman of a certain age.  These women lie in beds alone, as a catheter hangs below them into a bright beach bucket under the bed.  They are a few limbs and a docile, slightly grinning dark face in a pile of brightly patterned fabric—skirts and sheets. 

 

The child they spent nine months hoping for, expecting joyfully, has died in obstructed labor.  A difficult labor that left their body damaged.  Their husband has divorced them.  They leak urine.  Some leak stool.  They have been lied to, told that this curse has come upon them because they were not as good a mother as their own---lazy, unable to push as they should, inadequate, not a real woman.  They are rejected, degraded, despised, poor.  They are controlled by these feelings.  They begin to believe that they are a death machine, a cursed creature, killing all things they touch, even themselves….. They believe that they are cursed. And they believe this because they have been touched by evil.  

They are poor, and they are blessed because they see the redemption of Christ.

The Lord mourns with them.  Even today He does. 

And I know He does because I see him redeeming it, healing it, making these women new women.  Repairing their bodies, healing their souls, restoring their hearts. 

 

And He’s using Dr. Frank to do this.  He’s using Harriet and Goret.  He’s using St Peters, me and Lisa, you.  He’s using you.

 

He uses Dr. Frank when he opens up their bodies to repair the fistula.  He’s using Harriet the nurse in the ward, when she explains what fistula is, when she finally tells them that they are not cursed, and that they are good women.  He’s using women at St Peters when money comes across the ocean to provide food that heals their bodies and vehicles that take them home, where they might be restored.  In time they may marry again and have children again and know the goodness God wants for them.

 

God wanted life for these women to be different from the start. 

 

I see the ways that war and hunger and disease have changed Uganda each day.  The people have an empty, vacuous expression, an unflinching weariness about them. When you say you are feeling sick, they are greatly concerned and ask if you are "suffering from a disease."  They have lived amongst pain, uncertainty and scarcity and their faces show this.  

The heart of God has desired something different for them.  He has desired peace and prosperity, health and plenty for them and for their children.  I am sure of this because I see the redemption of his people now.....here in Uganda.  I see their dawn shining at the hospital, in the precious innocence of the children at the primary school.  I see God working here to bring that peace out of the tragedy of war that they have seen.  He is bringing forth the desires of their hearts.

God wanted your life to be different.  He has watched the years pass, desiring to stop the tragedies and the pain, to take away your heartbreaks and disappointments---to give you the thing that would give you peace.

But human beings are cursed.  They are touched by evil.  They cannot hear the voice of God when it comes to them.  A violent and profane race, they consume the messengers of God without being changed.  It is  by the grace of God and the grace of God alone, that even one of us hears his voice calling in the desert.  

This is the business of God.  This is what he does each day.  It has been his work and his nature since the fall, since we first looked away from his face.  He reaches and He calls and He sends His servants and messengers to us in hopes that we might turn and be healed.  

 

He created us in glory to love Him completely, freely.  We broke from his love to find knowledge of ourselves, knowledge outside of God.  He sent a promise to Abraham, that He was going to win us all back Somehow.  He sent the law to Moses and to the nation of Israel to set them apart that He might Somehow win us all back.  He promised David that Somehow, He was going to win us all back.  He sent this promise in each prophet to Israel.  He sent this same promise of faithfulness over and over like a husband to an unfaithful wife who, in the midst of her affairs and unfaithfulness, continues to receive desperate love letters of reconciliation from her husband, and burns each one.  

My darling, somehow, we can be together again.  We can save this.  I still love you, we can work this out.  

But she doesn't believe him.  And it hurts so badly not to believe him, somehow, because really, she wants it to be true too.  But she won't reconcile.  It's too hard.  She's done too much now.  It's too late.

And so when this somehow, when this great "Somehow" comes to us, in the womb of a virgin, to win us all back, we burn it too.....we hang it on a cross and mock it, because we have been practicing for generations.  Even now we burn it, when we ignore the Holy Spirit in our lives calling us to return to the Lord.

Christ was the "Somehow" promised from the very beginning.  When He came to the earth and looked at Jerusalem he said this:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!  See!  Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord."

Luke 13:34-35

The husband longing for reconciliation cannot go and kidnap his wife.  He cannot go and force her to love him, to work out their problems.  They both have to want it.  

God cannot reach out any farther to you without wrenching away your freedom.  And He refuses to touch that, because love is free and total and faithful and sacrificial.  And He is love.  

Which is why you are free.  You are free to reject God because he is unjust.  Because He allows evil.  Because this whole church thing is for the weak.  Because religion is a device to control the masses.  Because His "people" are particularly unfriendly or ignorant or because the church is unappealing or full of narrow bigots....You are free to bring yourself pain and separation and isolation, and to bring that for those around you, those you love.

Or you are free to choose the things that would bring you peace, to finally choose to claim redemption for yourself.  To choose love for yourself.  

Just admit it.  Admit that you are in a pile on the bed, wishing you were dead.

The Ugandans are doing it.  Why can't you?

So we're driving down the road and we feel a big bump and a loud screech.  Out the left window, suddenly we see a tire fly off to the side of the road, just barely missing a few bicycle taxis and pedestrians.  We are stopped.  We get out to see this.  Lots of Ugandans stop to help and we make four or five new friends.  This is Africa.  

Angela Kabugho at the school that her parents helped to paint. 

Ok so this is a bicycle taxi.  Imagine this, except in motorcycle form, and I am on the back, giggling.
A photograph from compline during the first two weeks with the group; the power is out.  

If you dwell on the symptom, you never discover the disease.

It seems that at the end of a term, or when students complete a level in school, they all get a marker and are told to go crazy writing on the back wall of the classroom.  This must be the African equivalent of the curious "yearbook" tradition.  I think some of them get confused because "Never faget Agaba" (Algebra?) was written on one of the rafters in the P5 classroom today and all sorts of memories of middle school yearbooks started crawling about:

You rock, Don't change!

Never forget class of 2006!

KATS, stay sweet!

HAGS, lylas don't change!

There are some other more embarassing ones......which I won't mention.

But here, I'm not an awkward tween with a sharpie wanting other tweens to sign my yearbook.  I'm the Musungu with the red pen and I have the power---but I choose to use my power for good and not evil---I will use my power for giggles!  It's not hard either...all I have to do is raise one eyebrow or dance a little bit and then.........there is a very dramatic roar and fit of laughter.

When you do something funny here---or dramatic or impressive all of the kids roar in laughter and like a wave, the sound returns after a pause with a loud, whooo-oo-ooo!!!  It's like a laugh, a pause and a howl.  It makes you feel like they're cheering you on or starting a song for you.  (which is not uncommon here)

When you have so little, I think you really know, in a deep wisdom sort of way, what really matters.  It's not the Ugandans who are worried about the fact that they experience poverty....it's me.  I think it's because they know something I don't know.  They know that the Lord provides for them.  They know that their crops grow because the Lord sends rain.  They know that they have food and clothing and clean water because God is good.  When all the things around you lead you to such a huge truth so quickly, it's no wonder that after that, nothing else matters.  Because God is the point.  God is all there is and he is the center of all things.  Nothing else matters anymore.

So when you come to a small church on a remote mountain, and you are invited to the Vicar's house to have lunch and this huge, wonderful meal is laid out so carefully on the table, you start thinking really hard.  The plates are very new looking and the food looks like the best they have and there's a very clean lace cloth draped over all the dishes and they have forks and knives for us (Ugandans eat with their hands, quite neatly and impressively I might add) and not only that, but the wives of the clergy men have been working all day long to make this meal.  You know this because they come in after the meal and kneel before you to welcome you with a whisper and a smile.  

They have killed a goat.  They have saved the best.  They have bent over backwards......And they are joyful, and they are meek, and they are humble.  And they have inherited the earth.  They welcome visitors and show extravagant hospitality because they are so honored to be visited.  They aren't interested in contemplating the gap between you and them.  They're interested in showing you honor and bridging that gap.  They want to know if you love the Lord.  They want to know if you have joy.  And they are deeply and tenderly concerned when you do not.  

I keep thinking of the parable told by Jesus about the field with the great treasure in it.  When you find that treasure in the field, you go and sell all you have because whatever you had before seems like nothing after you find that treasure.  The treasure is the kingdom of God.  The treasure is God himself, in all his mystery and endlessness....and the Ugandans have found Him here.  

They know something that wealth obscures....everyone has nothing, not just people in poverty. When you see who God is, righteous, unrelenting, gracious, sovereign....... whatever you have, whether its much or little, is meaningless. We become convinced, amongst our comforts, that they somehow keep us from God, or that our comforts somehow separate us from our souls. 

But comforts and wealth and worldly goods don't do that.  

Earthly wealth and goods are nothing.  If we are kept from the Lord, or from each other, it is because there is not love in our hearts.  It is because we insist on ourselves.  It is because we are full of doubt toward God.  It is because we see the injustice and we think it's our job to abate it.  We see how much we have and we try to earn God's favor by denying ourselves in the midst of our comfort. It is because we won't accept that grace is enough for us....and not just a scandalous legend.  It is because we do not trust......even when God seems to not be so good.

 So that's why they will slaughter the goat and fix the best and take out all the stops because they know that if a visitor comes from so far away to worship the Lord with them, it's because the King of the Kingdom has sent them.  And He is the only one who matters anyhow.  They're not even really honoring you.  They're honoring God.  And to say that you are unworthy of a visitor's welcome only reveals that you do not know who the Guest of Honor is.  

Think about it:  Do you feel like God is asking something more of you because you have so much wealth?  What do you think he's asking?  Is he asking you to give away your wealth?  Maybe it's easier to let your heart be bothered about questions of money or justice or greed because the question that cuts through all that may cost you more.  

Are you afraid of me?  Do you doubt my goodness?  Do you really trust me?  Do you even want to trust me?  Do you really believe that I am in absolute control here?....or do you think you might still have a little control over how much I love you?

It's a lot easier to answer the questions about wealth and giving after you answer these questions because none of it belongs to you after that.  

Jesus said that if your right eye causes you to sin, you should gouge it out.  Think about it.  Is it really your right eye that causes you to sin?  Or is it your heart?

"For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,

And the knowledge of God more 

than burnt offerings."

Hosea 6:6

God wants you to know Him more than he wants you to give anything up.  The funny thing is, once you know Him, you'd give anything up.  And He knows that.  

Well anyway, I am officially spoiled because Lisa and I have the chance to keep a modem for her laptop until tomorrow morning...which means we will be spending the entire night uploading photos.  (which is why this is the longest, deepest post in the world)

And so.....for your viewing pleasure:

In a secondary school yard in Bwera.

This is the room I stayed in at the Agape house in Kasese while we visited churches for the first two weeks.  Note the super-enchanting mosquito netting. (PS, I still don't have malaria)

A meal served for us at the vicarage at St Stephen's parish.  G-nut sauce, sugar cane, irish potatoes, matoke, cabbage, pumpkin, goat....the works.

This is how Ugandans eat sugar cane.  It's because they grew up toddling around with it hanging out of their mouths and by the time they're grown, they have teeth like bears.

Children hiding from me at the Cathedral.

Beautiful Ugandan girls posing for the Musungu with the fancy camera.

This is what joy is.

So if I had to say what I missed the most today it would be:

Liturgy, incense, hymns and all of the joyous souls at St Peter's Anglican Church, sticking their necks out for the truth they have found, simply because it is worth everything they've got and more.  

Keep it up friends!

Lindsey

Gotcha, Teach!

Well folks, I am switching gears. Last week was my first week at Kagando. I spent it in half culture shock hermit mode and half hanging out in the fistula ward. I heard the stories of a few women there, and Lisa and I had the opportunity to buy soap and sugar for the women there. We bought enough soap for a week for twenty women and about eight pounds of sugar. It cost us about thirty dollars. That's only the tip of the iceberg.

So, the US dollar here is worth about 2200 Uganda shillings. A soda is 1000. When you bring the glass bottle back to the shop, they give you 300 back, making it 700 shillings for a soda. A house maid here makes 20000 shillings a month if she is lucky. Thats ten dollars folks.

So I started teaching english at the primary school today......I just sort of waltzed over and the headmaster said...oh great you're here! The teacher for the P4 class is sick today! So there I was, standing in front of 54 children expected to teach them something about english. I must admit, I panicked for a moment until I remembered that.........I speak English.

ohthankgod

so am is are was were adjectives and nouns all day today and it was great! I taught about 150 Ugandan children at about age 11 or so, all about the USA and the state I am from.

I think the best moment of the day was when a boy asked me what tribe I was from. I just sort of stuttered all flustered......um well, how do I explain this.......Thompson?
I never thought of my dad as a macho tribal leader but.....it's what he is. the patriarchal society here is really growing on me. Suddenly I feel a new affection for the men in my life as protectors and providers because that's what they are here. I think it gives Ugandans a special perspective on having a heavenly Father.

It was also great when I was explaining about animals. When I told the children that there aren't just animals running around willy nilly in the States, one boy looked puzzled and asked.....how do you eat?

Good question, kid. That is more profound than you know.

I was talking to one of the other teachers today and he was asking about the cost of living in the States and we did some math. Turns out my monthly pay as a nanny of sorts is about three times as much as some state workers get paid here. And as most of you reading this know....I am not rich.

It was a sobering moment as I thought about the implications of that......people in the states can do so much here because their money is worth so much, but does that mean we should all drain our bank accounts and buy a goat for every Ugandan? Again, God has a way of defeating my ideas about poverty and wealth and giving. The conclusions I keep coming to are.....if only there were some non subjective judge of who gets what and that judge were to deal out stuff according to how he sees fit and.......wait a minute!

anyway......I have much more to say, but no time to say it. I can only say that I am happy to see that people are reading the blog and I hope that I can be so spoiled as I have been the past two days to write so often!

PS- I still have not witnessed a birth.

Another precious opportunity to post to the blog! Let me begin by saying that I miss all of you so much. It gets worse everyday.

But alas! Uganda is amazing. I was reading today (in a leftover travel guide, another artifact I have found from John and Katherine's stay) about the history of Uganda and it got me thinking. It helps to understand a little about what has happened on the land you walk if you want to know more about the people who are already there.

I am beginning to realize that some of my ideas about the west and about wealth and poverty were naive and simple. God is bigger than the empire I was born in. Not only that, he's better than I thought. When you see children who are very hungry and you consider that you just bought a meal for under two dollars, it begins to be a greater challenge to trust God. Trust God.

Trust that you are who you are for a reason. And that includes how wealthy you are. And how comfortable you have been....and ultimately how powerless you are to change any of that in the slightest. And I really mean any of that in the slightest.....recycling, vegetarianism, conservation, anything at all.

Poverty is huge. it's really huge. and it's bigger than you can imagine. and bigger than you can fix.

but it isn't bigger than God.