Christ is Our Only Comfort Zone

Hey friends and family! Just a quick update to say that I am no longer at SOS Ministries with the Hurley's as they are now on vacation, but I am now in Entebbe with my parents and will be until we leave on Sunday for home. Having a blast hanging out with my parents, the three American missions teams that our staying at our guesthouse, and my best friend from home, Bekita! I've been able to spend some time at Bethel Covenant College (where my parents are at) just getting to know the highschool students and give them encouragement, advice, and prayer. Also having the chance to meet some incredible people doing ministry in Uganda from Americans, to Europeans to Ugandan nationals. It's absolutely amazing to see all the people God is using here! In a very random dinner last night, we got to meet and have conversation with Uganda's Minister of Finance and his wife who has an orphanage school!

In other news, the computer network is getting off the ground, and my dad is feeling very encouraged. So as I'm in an internet cafe, I must cut this short, but thank you again for your prayers and messages!

Adventures and Experiences

In my efforts to become more Ugandan, I took a huge leap in my cross cultural adventures.... I rode a boda side saddle in a skirt! Not only that, I got to do this while off-roading on the dirt path that leads to SOS! Hold on your to purse, clutch your hat, try not to get your skirt caught, hold on to the seat, try not to lose a foot as you scrape past a cattle lorry, and maintain your Queen of the Rose Parade composure and wave. Another thing checked off my list.

Anyways, apart from boda adventures, I had the opportunity of a lifetime yesterday. As many of you know, I work as an aid in a special ed. class, and I've been very interested to see what a special ed. class in Uganda looks like. From what I've read and the little I've seen firsthand, most children and adults with physical or mental disabilities in third world countries are condemned to the life of a beggar. Often, they are seen as bewitched or cursed and are often abandoned, so it was a wonderful surprise to me that there was a special needs program for children just down the road from us! I spent most of the day in a class of 8 children, most with mental disabilities, teaching them how to write numbers and letters in English. They, in turn, took it upon themselves to teach me how to count in Lugandan! The rest of the day was spent talking with the staff and hanging out with the school's deaf population which is about 50 children ranging from preschool age to high school. My friend, Kelly, and I discovered that it was actually easier to carry on conversations with the deaf children than with their hearing peers! Sign language is pretty universal, and these kids pick up on body language so well that we were able to have some pretty entertaining conversations! They even assigned me a name sign! Since the teachers obviously can't call the students by name, they let the students assign each other a unique sign that stands for their name. Usually, the students pick some outstanding physical characteristic and just point to it. For example, one kid apparently got caught picking his nose, so now he is stuck with the name sign of having a finger up the nose! Hilarious, I know. Fortunately, I got assigned a pretty nice one. The kids would smile and then point to a spot right under their eye where I get a dimple when I smile. Not too bad! Spending time at this school has been one of the top five highlights for me on this trip, and I am praying that I will be able to start up a relationship with the staff at the school and have a consistent ministry there when (not if, when!) I return to Uganda.

Uganda and SOS feels more like home every day. I've kind of gotten myself into a routine here, and the orphans and the Hurley's kids feel like my own family now. I'm sorry I haven't been able to get more in depth into the specific lessons God has been teaching me, but I'm hoping to post two or three blogs on that when I return home to the U.S. and have had some time to let it settle in.

So before I go, there are a couple of personal messages! Nicholas Kaya, one of the SOS orphans, was standing here as I typed this, and charged me with the task of me sending his greetings to you all. Finally, a little personal update for Sam Neylan, Rose is doing amazing, and she broke out the nail polish you sent and she and the other girls were having a girl's impromptu spa night last night. She sends her love, and she is sending a drawing/letter home with me for you!

Update on my parents

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates. Electricity here has been touch and go, because of government regulated blackouts. When you add those in with our usual unexpected power outages, it makes things pretty interesting! So here we go on a very, very quick update....

I finally talked to my parents last night, and they are doing very well. They discovered that four computers got damaged in transit, but we have a friend who will be visiting the school in September so we are planning on sending the fixed computers back with him. Four broken out of fifteen computers is not bad at all! We praise God they even made it over here at all! Setting up the network has been hard, because they are trying to make their newly constructed computer room more secure. More bars on the windows, more locks, extra walls, more barbed wire etc. This means that my Dad will not be able to accomplish everything he hoped to, but he has been able to spend more time ministering to the kids by teaching in their chapels and spending time with the teachers. With every drawback, comes another blessing! Please pray for him as he attempts to cram a two week computer project into a few short days. My mom has been enjoying hanging out with the students and teachers. In particular, she's been able to spend some time discipling a young girl, Sharon, who we brought a wheelchair over for last year. My parents both say that the Lord is teaching them many wonderful lessons which they are very excited to share about when they return. They are also stoked about their continued relationship with Bethel Covenant High School, and doing future ministry there.

The orphan research project I've been working on has been slowgoing, but if anything else its been teaching me the necessity of relying on the Holy Spirit and my inability to accomplish anything on my own strength and intelligence. Right now, we are just trying to sort through what information we do have, and creating a more thorough orphan information sheet that we can use to send to the U.S. sponsors. We have also had the awesome experience of delivering several U.S. sponsor letters to some of the kids, and helping them draw pictures and write letters to send back to their sponsors. The kids have been very excited about this, and take it very seriously! More about this later. Finally, we've been doing a lot of brainstorming about how to build up the relationships between the sponsors and the kids. Please pray for us as we try to begin implementing these ideas, and the numerous details that go into making these ideas a wonderful reality.

My last thought for this rambling update... I can not express how important your letters are to these kids. Even if you can't contribute financially to them, you can invest them even more by taking an interest in their lives, and being their pen pals. One of the ideas we've had is to begin a pen pal program, so please be praying with us about that. Thank you to all who have taken the time to write to these kids, and please, please continue.

Learning New rhythms

As anyone who has traveled to another country knows, you often spend your first couple of days or weeks feeling like a newborn baby. You have to relearn everything! Your five senses are on overload and everything is overwhelming. The best example I can think of is learning how to negotiate the public transportation system in the capital city of Kampala. You have two options of public transportation here; taxi or the infamous bodas. The bodas are motorcycle taxis, and they are driven by men who don't seem afraid of losing life or limb. After haggling with the boda driver (who automatically doubles the price when he sees that you're a naive mzungu), you climb on the back of a piece of machinery somewhat resembling a motorcycle, and you hold on for dear life as you go careening through the streets at 45mph ducking in between cars, taxis, pedestrians, and man eating potholes. Next, there are the taxi's. Taxis here are vans which usually cram anywhere from 10-20 people in them in addition to the occasional bunch of chickens and multiple bags of produce. You have no way of telling where the taxi is going except for the taxi conductor who's job it is to hang part way out the window yelling their destination and hitting the sides of cars that are in their way. It's also important to know that as a pedestrian, you have no rights here. You are simply a speed bump in the road, and the taxi drivers will not think of twice of running you over. According to my lovely cohort, Sarah Vernell Dyer, the best way to cross the street is to flail your arms and pretend you're demon possessed. All that to say that every form of travel, even walking, is an adventure here. Seriously though, learning the rhythms of Ugandan life is an awesome experience, because you truly learn what it means to be completely dependent on God, our great Provider and Protector. I didn't realize how much I love my independence and freedom that I have back home. I can climb in my car, go anywhere I want, I know where everything is, I can communicate clearly with everyone. I so often take this for granted, and this often leads to me thinking I am self-sufficient. Being here for a week has been a powerful reminder that as a created being, I am completely dependent on my creator for every aspect of my life.
The other rhythms I have been enjoying is that of the orphans who live on the SOS property. Every night, they sing worship songs as part of their bedtime routine, but let me tell you this is no quiet, soft, sleepy singing. This is singing at the top of your lungs uninhibited and free, hands clapping, drums pounding, hips shaking worship. Whenever I see these kids singing or playing on the property, I am always reminded that the joy the Lord provides is not dictated by life circumstances. Honestly, I do not pity these kids, and trust me they don't want pity. In fact, I envy them for their simply faith and joy. There is nothing quite like the innocent trust of a child, and it teaches me so much about my own faith as I observe and interact with them.
On Monday, I begin working on researching the orphanage backgrounds. We will be interviewing both the orphans and their closest living relatives. Interviewing their relatives means my favorite thing.... Using Ugandan public transportation. We are hoping to take this information and post it on the SOS website, so that the orphans sponsors will be able to know details about their lives. Furthermore, we are also hoping to start correspondence between the orphans and their individual sponsors. So you can all be praying for us as we begin this process!
I have not heard from my parents about how their ministry is going, but I hope to hear from them in the next few days, so I will be sure to post an update on them soon! Thank you for all the comments on the blog. They are so enjoyable to read, and those little messages mean so much! Keep them coming, and if you have any questions feel free to post them and I'll do my best to answer them!

We've Arrived

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that we arrived safely in Uganda! A huge answer to prayer, we were over on our weight limits for several of the computer boxes we we're taking, but God gave us a very gracious airline employee who waived the fees for us. God has provided for us the entire trip, and we are so excited to see Him working.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well, its actually happening. Today, my family and I are leaving for Uganda, Africa to spend some time serving with our friends and family. It's amazing how God brought us to this point, and I still can't believe it's actually happening. God gave me the most generous and loving parents, I must say. They came out to Uganda to show their support for me last year, and that one trip has evolved into a family passion. God has really used our experiences in Africa to bring us together as a family, and I can't begin to express how much it has meant to me to have my family serve alongside me.

So this time my parents will be using their skills as educators to serve our friends and family at Bethel Covenant High School in Uganda. My dad will be using his technical wizardy to set up a 15 computer network for the students, and my mom (when she's not busy preventing my dad from throwing the computers off a cliff) will be helping out the staff at Bethel House, an orphanage associated with the school. The computer network, when its done, will truly be an awesome blessing to the kids at the school. As many of you know, textbooks are extremely hard to come by in Africa, and the majority of the one's they do have are outdated. The hope is that these computers will be able to open up a whole new world to the kids with acess to free texts online. For instance, my dad was able to download almost every classical piece of literature ever written, so now the kids will be able to study books they never thought possible. Lots of exciting possibilities.

Meanwhile, I will be about 50 miles away from my parents in Mukono, Uganda working with the Hurley's at Sufficiency of Scripture ministries. They have an orphanage onsite, and I will probably be spending most of my time with the kids although with Shannon it's always a suprise! The awesome thing is that I get to return to the site of the first place I ever worked at in Africa, and serve with the Hurley's who God used to influence me towards ministry in Africa. It will be somewhat of a reunion/homecoming!

I don't know how much we'll be able to update this blog, but the hope is that we'll be able to keep in touch with friends and family from home with this blog. We'll do our best! Please be praying for us as we deal with taking 15 computers plus massive amounts of other technical equipment with us. Specifically, you could be praying that we would get generous airport staff who won't hassle us about the amount and weight of our equipment. Thank you to everyone who has been praying and supporting us this past year. We love you all, and we hope this blog gives you the ability to see your prayers being answered!