1. Safe journey. We leave Uganda for London on the 14th and I head home on the 16th.
2. Health. Especially during travel, pray that I remain healthy.
3. Re-entry. I have no idea how it will be. Pray that I will just trust God with it all in any circumstance.
Thank you so much for your prayers. They have been felt deeply.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
One week.
One week. One week until I depart Uganda and arrive in the US. One week until I leave the place I have called home for five months and return to the place I have called home for 22 years. One week. And though the majority of my life has been spent in the place that I'm returning to, the five months spent in this place where I am soon leaving will affect the rest of my life. I'm just not quite sure how.
The time of reconciliation is approaching, and I don't know how it will work out. No doubt what I see and experience here and what I see and experience at home are very different, in every aspect. And before coming here, it was easy to accept that. It was easy to look at what I had, see what people here didn't, and feel compassion for them. And it was easy to try to reconcile the two worlds--it was easy to believe that the children here should have every privilege I had growing up and to think that with the help that we give the people here, peace and prosperity was just around the corner. But it's not. And it's not easy. And being here has made me realize that we're far from the same, and it's not necessary to be the same.
I've been here for 22 weeks and in this last week, that's all I know. People might expect me to bring back a lot of answers to how to help these people--on how to salvage this devastated continent. The few answers that I might have are all ones that have been heard before, yet still Africa remains in this tattered state. The only thing I can bring back that might be something new and authentic is myself--what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've felt. And so I return attempting to reconcile these two worlds--these two lives and experiences--with the same questions all of you still have and less answers to them than I had when I arrived.
The time of reconciliation is approaching, and I don't know how it will work out. No doubt what I see and experience here and what I see and experience at home are very different, in every aspect. And before coming here, it was easy to accept that. It was easy to look at what I had, see what people here didn't, and feel compassion for them. And it was easy to try to reconcile the two worlds--it was easy to believe that the children here should have every privilege I had growing up and to think that with the help that we give the people here, peace and prosperity was just around the corner. But it's not. And it's not easy. And being here has made me realize that we're far from the same, and it's not necessary to be the same.
I've been here for 22 weeks and in this last week, that's all I know. People might expect me to bring back a lot of answers to how to help these people--on how to salvage this devastated continent. The few answers that I might have are all ones that have been heard before, yet still Africa remains in this tattered state. The only thing I can bring back that might be something new and authentic is myself--what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've felt. And so I return attempting to reconcile these two worlds--these two lives and experiences--with the same questions all of you still have and less answers to them than I had when I arrived.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Prayer Requests
Please pray for:
1. Good health. Pray that I am healed and that I countinue to remain healthy as I return home.
2. Safety. Pray that we will continue to have safe travel while in Uganda and that we will have a safe and hassle-free journey home.
3. Re-entry. I have heard from many people how difficult it is to return home after experiences such as these. Pray that I won't become bitter, but I will see every situation through God's eyes and use what He has taught me for His glory.
1. Good health. Pray that I am healed and that I countinue to remain healthy as I return home.
2. Safety. Pray that we will continue to have safe travel while in Uganda and that we will have a safe and hassle-free journey home.
3. Re-entry. I have heard from many people how difficult it is to return home after experiences such as these. Pray that I won't become bitter, but I will see every situation through God's eyes and use what He has taught me for His glory.
Healing
We are in the midst of our final weeks here, the last weeks that you want to treasure, to accomplish something big and go out with a bang, or at least a strong sense of acheivement. I've spent too many situations wishing my time away, and I wasn't about to let that happen again--I was determined to make this time count. However, it seems that God had different plans for me, or at least a different definition of what makes time valuable.
Right when I was about to give my remaining time in Uganda my all, my all was taken from me in the form of an infection. I went to the doctor last week determined to get better before time got away from me, and the doctor gave me some antibiotics. Right when you think you're on track, though, something else always comes along to mix things up, and these antibiotics ended up treating my body worse than the infection was. I ended up missing three days of our program, in the hopes that rest and rehydration would speed up the healing process. And here I am in Kampala a week later, waiting to see the doctor again, having finished a seven-day course of antibiotics that seems to have gone straight though me.
Because of my health, or continued lack there of, the moments last week that I didn't spend giving our program my all, I spent upset and confused. Even after being prayed over countless times, I still felt the same (and let me just say, being prayed over by someone in a foreign language with passionate intonation is quite the frightening thing, so it took enough faith just to say yes). My motives were pure, I had thought. I had wanted to spend these last weeks really impacting the people here with the Gospel and God's love, so why was God keeping me from it?
And then I realized, as I once again prayed for healing so that I could treasure the remainder of my time here, that my motives weren't pure. They were thoughtful. They were noble. They were even righteous. But they weren't pure. Because while it was all well and good that I wanted to remember my final weeks here as a time when I enriched the Kingdom of God, in my mind I was the one doing the enriching. It wasn't about God--it was about my acomplishements. I was measuring value by what I could acheive, not simply in glorifying God.
Thus, I begin my final week in Namaliri no healthier than I have been the past few weeks. However, I can value it all the same, because my value rests in God's will and that is to glorify God. Healed or not, I can continue to do so when my treasure rests in Him.
Right when I was about to give my remaining time in Uganda my all, my all was taken from me in the form of an infection. I went to the doctor last week determined to get better before time got away from me, and the doctor gave me some antibiotics. Right when you think you're on track, though, something else always comes along to mix things up, and these antibiotics ended up treating my body worse than the infection was. I ended up missing three days of our program, in the hopes that rest and rehydration would speed up the healing process. And here I am in Kampala a week later, waiting to see the doctor again, having finished a seven-day course of antibiotics that seems to have gone straight though me.
Because of my health, or continued lack there of, the moments last week that I didn't spend giving our program my all, I spent upset and confused. Even after being prayed over countless times, I still felt the same (and let me just say, being prayed over by someone in a foreign language with passionate intonation is quite the frightening thing, so it took enough faith just to say yes). My motives were pure, I had thought. I had wanted to spend these last weeks really impacting the people here with the Gospel and God's love, so why was God keeping me from it?
And then I realized, as I once again prayed for healing so that I could treasure the remainder of my time here, that my motives weren't pure. They were thoughtful. They were noble. They were even righteous. But they weren't pure. Because while it was all well and good that I wanted to remember my final weeks here as a time when I enriched the Kingdom of God, in my mind I was the one doing the enriching. It wasn't about God--it was about my acomplishements. I was measuring value by what I could acheive, not simply in glorifying God.
Thus, I begin my final week in Namaliri no healthier than I have been the past few weeks. However, I can value it all the same, because my value rests in God's will and that is to glorify God. Healed or not, I can continue to do so when my treasure rests in Him.
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