You are God...
no matter where we are.
You are not limited by location, languages, circumstance, our mistakes, misunderstandings, by the boxes we put you in. You are not changed.
You are a God of...
compassion, forgiveness, justice, restoration, mending, unending love, miracles, and intimacy.
You are God...
of the poor, hurting, healing, broken, growing, confused, displaced, the journeying, the planted, the forgotten, lonely, the joyful.
Your love doesn't change despite our shortcomings, failures, or mess ups.
You ARE God.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Walk with Me
I just got to school a little bit ago and I’m still sweating from the walk, haha. I’m so out of shape. Denise and I have a 30-40 minute walk, depending upon how quickly we walk. About 1/3 of that walk is up hill….we have to pace ourselves but luckily most Ugandans walk pretty slow as well. It’s kinda like life here goes slower anyway. It’s super common to walk down the road and just see people sitting on their front porches or yards. They have time for each other.
As I walk to school I pass small houses, little stores and stands, and lots of people on boda bodas (motor bikes). Life as a pedestrian is thrilling in a dangerous way. The totem pole of travel here goes: buses, vans, cars, boda bodas, bicycles, and then people at the very bottom. If you’re in the road you better get out of the way, haha.
As a white pedestrian there is a whole other element to walking to school and it’s constantly hearing the phrase, “Hi muzungu!” These shouts almost always come from little kids and they smile and wave as you pass, some get excited and jump up and down or follow you down the road. You get looks of confusion and fear from small children sometimes because lets face it, white people in an African setting look scary. I have to admit while I was in Rwanda I was talking to a woman holding a small baby and when he looked at me he let out a loud cry, looked terrified, and then hid his face in his mom’s shoulder. I made the poor baby cry because in the words of his mother “You, first muzungu.” Haha, I was the first white person that baby had ever seen. I bring fear to small children, oh man. The other group Denise and I get the most attention from is men. They look at you and say “How are you?” with a creepy grin. This hasn’t happened to me a lot, but this has been the most attention I have ever received from guys in my life…and I’m not sure I like it, haha.
As I walk to school I pass small houses, little stores and stands, and lots of people on boda bodas (motor bikes). Life as a pedestrian is thrilling in a dangerous way. The totem pole of travel here goes: buses, vans, cars, boda bodas, bicycles, and then people at the very bottom. If you’re in the road you better get out of the way, haha.
As a white pedestrian there is a whole other element to walking to school and it’s constantly hearing the phrase, “Hi muzungu!” These shouts almost always come from little kids and they smile and wave as you pass, some get excited and jump up and down or follow you down the road. You get looks of confusion and fear from small children sometimes because lets face it, white people in an African setting look scary. I have to admit while I was in Rwanda I was talking to a woman holding a small baby and when he looked at me he let out a loud cry, looked terrified, and then hid his face in his mom’s shoulder. I made the poor baby cry because in the words of his mother “You, first muzungu.” Haha, I was the first white person that baby had ever seen. I bring fear to small children, oh man. The other group Denise and I get the most attention from is men. They look at you and say “How are you?” with a creepy grin. This hasn’t happened to me a lot, but this has been the most attention I have ever received from guys in my life…and I’m not sure I like it, haha.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Rwanda
So I feel like there's so much I could write about but it would be a huge novel and I might bore you. Rwanda is a great country. It has a past and the effects are still seen today, but their future is looking up. The genocide that occurred there took 1 million lives and it has effected the lives of almost everyone left behind. I've heard countless stories of loss and tragedy beyond what I can comprehend. It's easy to look at the million lost as a whole, but EACH life mattered. Each one was a sister, brother, mother, father, friend. Each person had a story to tell and I got to put some faces to the lost and to those left behind.
The hardest place was Nyamata Church in the Burgesera District. TEN THOUSAND people were massacred there. There were piles of people's clothes on the pews, blood stains, you could see where grenades went off, where the killers had broken through doors. Tutsi women were placed on the altar and had their babies cut out of them, people were killed over a period of days by having their limbs cut off, babies were smashed against walls, and if you had money you could pay the killers for a bullet so you could die quickly. We met a guy named Charles; he was one of 7 survivors at Nyamata. His mother and father were killed; his brother in attempts to save him covered him in blood and made him lay among the dead bodies. When Charles went to find his brother, he found that he had been decapitated by a machete. It’s taken Charles years to get back on track, but he is now a believer and is trying to forgive the killers. Throughout the genocide, women were raped, and some of those who survived contracted HIV from their rapists. Around 100,000 children were orphaned. Imagine watching your family be killed by a family friend or neighbor. That was reality for many Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I’m sorry to be so graphic, but I don’t know how else to describe it to make it seem real. On Sunday I met a woman at church who had us over for lunch and we learned that her husband and 5 children had been killed in the genocide. She was the only one left.
At Nyamata you can walk into these underground crypts. There are rows and rows or stacked coffins. Each coffin contains 25-30 peoples’ remains. We also went to the memorial in Kigali. There are mass graves located there where 258,000 people are buried. It’s crazy. More bodies are found each year. Rwanda is making moves to reconciliation. When you live in rural places, like some of the villages in Rwanda, you almost have no other choice because you need others to survive. Going to Rwanda taught me so much about what it means to forgive and my own propensity to want to hold onto wrongs. People who have admitted to killings have been allowed to have a shorter sentence and spend a good portion of it doing community service because the prisons were so overloaded. You can walk down the streets of Kigali and see men in blue jumpsuits- most of these men have been convicted of murder but they’re working off their time building houses for survivors, repaving roads, and terracing hills. I looked some of those men in the eyes as I passed them and could not imagine them killing someone else.
As you walk the streets you also literally sees the scars the genocide has left behind. A girl passes who is missing a leg, a man with no arm smiles at you as walk by, a man who is an orphan has reduced himself to begging and shows you the machete marks on his head. This part killed me. I see so many people in need who ask me for money and I’ve been given strict instructions not to give any handouts. The last guy I described found me outside a church and followed me inside saying “Genocide. Machete,” and he kept showing me the healed gash in his head. I struggled with the fact that God has a heart for widows and orphans and we’ve been called to help. But then I realized, money won’t truly solve the problems they face. They need people to love them, to let them know their worth, that they’re capable of doing great things, and that God has a plan for them. Long term, holistic development is needed. You can’t break the cycle of poverty by only giving money. Poverty is a tangled web and there are many factors involved. The sad reality is that many well-meaning people have only given money-which may seem like an instant fix. This has bred a mindset of “give me” instead of “walk beside me as you show me how to improve.” I’m still thinking this all through and trying to figure out where God’s heart is in it all, but I truly think it’s on the holistic side of things. I can’t fix everyone’s problems, God can, but I can seek to know His heart more, to ask for His eyes, and to love the way He’s told me to.
The hardest place was Nyamata Church in the Burgesera District. TEN THOUSAND people were massacred there. There were piles of people's clothes on the pews, blood stains, you could see where grenades went off, where the killers had broken through doors. Tutsi women were placed on the altar and had their babies cut out of them, people were killed over a period of days by having their limbs cut off, babies were smashed against walls, and if you had money you could pay the killers for a bullet so you could die quickly. We met a guy named Charles; he was one of 7 survivors at Nyamata. His mother and father were killed; his brother in attempts to save him covered him in blood and made him lay among the dead bodies. When Charles went to find his brother, he found that he had been decapitated by a machete. It’s taken Charles years to get back on track, but he is now a believer and is trying to forgive the killers. Throughout the genocide, women were raped, and some of those who survived contracted HIV from their rapists. Around 100,000 children were orphaned. Imagine watching your family be killed by a family friend or neighbor. That was reality for many Tutsis and moderate Hutus. I’m sorry to be so graphic, but I don’t know how else to describe it to make it seem real. On Sunday I met a woman at church who had us over for lunch and we learned that her husband and 5 children had been killed in the genocide. She was the only one left.
At Nyamata you can walk into these underground crypts. There are rows and rows or stacked coffins. Each coffin contains 25-30 peoples’ remains. We also went to the memorial in Kigali. There are mass graves located there where 258,000 people are buried. It’s crazy. More bodies are found each year. Rwanda is making moves to reconciliation. When you live in rural places, like some of the villages in Rwanda, you almost have no other choice because you need others to survive. Going to Rwanda taught me so much about what it means to forgive and my own propensity to want to hold onto wrongs. People who have admitted to killings have been allowed to have a shorter sentence and spend a good portion of it doing community service because the prisons were so overloaded. You can walk down the streets of Kigali and see men in blue jumpsuits- most of these men have been convicted of murder but they’re working off their time building houses for survivors, repaving roads, and terracing hills. I looked some of those men in the eyes as I passed them and could not imagine them killing someone else.
As you walk the streets you also literally sees the scars the genocide has left behind. A girl passes who is missing a leg, a man with no arm smiles at you as walk by, a man who is an orphan has reduced himself to begging and shows you the machete marks on his head. This part killed me. I see so many people in need who ask me for money and I’ve been given strict instructions not to give any handouts. The last guy I described found me outside a church and followed me inside saying “Genocide. Machete,” and he kept showing me the healed gash in his head. I struggled with the fact that God has a heart for widows and orphans and we’ve been called to help. But then I realized, money won’t truly solve the problems they face. They need people to love them, to let them know their worth, that they’re capable of doing great things, and that God has a plan for them. Long term, holistic development is needed. You can’t break the cycle of poverty by only giving money. Poverty is a tangled web and there are many factors involved. The sad reality is that many well-meaning people have only given money-which may seem like an instant fix. This has bred a mindset of “give me” instead of “walk beside me as you show me how to improve.” I’m still thinking this all through and trying to figure out where God’s heart is in it all, but I truly think it’s on the holistic side of things. I can’t fix everyone’s problems, God can, but I can seek to know His heart more, to ask for His eyes, and to love the way He’s told me to.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Uganda makes me want to watch the Lion King
So I made it! After two days of travel and over 20 hrs in air planes, I stepped foot into Rwanda. It was amazing to fly over parts of Europe, like Italy and Germany. Not long after I made it through customs and got my visa, Entebbe welcomed us by shutting off the power at the airport. But it gave me my first real chance to see the Ugandan sky at night. The stars are amazing.
On my first whole day in Uganda I got dropped off with my host family. They packed 6 of us in a tiny van with all our luggage, our jari cans, basins for washing, mosquito nets, gum boots, and trunks. As we wobbled us the red dirt roads to our homes I started to panic a little and started praying fervently for a roommate and sure enough I got placed with a girl named Denise with our program.
As we got out of the van I was greeted by my mom, Edith and my brothers and sister. They quickly carried in all our luggage and we were pretty much on our own. We had our first homemade Ugandan meal of rice, matoke (cook bananas that taste nothing like bananas), noodles, beef, fish, and pineapple.
I asked my mother how many children she had and I pretty sure she didn't understand me b/c she responded, "I don't know." My sister then asked her in Lugandan and she responded 10 and I was shocked. Turns out I only have 1 sister named Judith and 3 brothers named Mark, Brian, and Simon. Cousins here are called brothers and sisters. My dad came home late that night from school meetings- His name is Julius and he's the headmaster of Mukono High.
The house is pretty great. It's simple, but they have a tv, dvd player, bootleg dvds, and a computer. Here the bathroom is where you shower and that's a concrete room in the house. You was out of a shallow basin....I still haven't figured out the art. Outside is the kitchen with wood/coal/charcoal burning stove. The toilet is also outside. We have squatty potties here and it's pretty much just a hole in the ground. My first night there I went to use the squatty potty and when I opened the door a rat ran into the hole. I made the mistake of looking down into the depths w/ my flashlight only to find huge cockroaches. I decided to be brave and let's just say during the process the rat ran out btwn my legs into the squatty potty where Denise was. I didn't scream, it was a proud but terrifying moments.
I also got to watch my cousin Lamula and the maid Prose slaughter and butcher a chicken...oh my word. Poor chicken. Aunt Becky, if you're reading this, I still love meat :) They cut that thing's head right off and the chicken twitched really hard. Then they put the decapitated chickens into boiling water and pulled the feathers off, cut them open, pulled out their insides, cut them up, and cooked it. Crazy!
Well my battery is dying. I'm headed to Rwanda tomorrow for 10 days. It's a 15 hr ride.
Peace out girl scouts!
On my first whole day in Uganda I got dropped off with my host family. They packed 6 of us in a tiny van with all our luggage, our jari cans, basins for washing, mosquito nets, gum boots, and trunks. As we wobbled us the red dirt roads to our homes I started to panic a little and started praying fervently for a roommate and sure enough I got placed with a girl named Denise with our program.
As we got out of the van I was greeted by my mom, Edith and my brothers and sister. They quickly carried in all our luggage and we were pretty much on our own. We had our first homemade Ugandan meal of rice, matoke (cook bananas that taste nothing like bananas), noodles, beef, fish, and pineapple.
I asked my mother how many children she had and I pretty sure she didn't understand me b/c she responded, "I don't know." My sister then asked her in Lugandan and she responded 10 and I was shocked. Turns out I only have 1 sister named Judith and 3 brothers named Mark, Brian, and Simon. Cousins here are called brothers and sisters. My dad came home late that night from school meetings- His name is Julius and he's the headmaster of Mukono High.
The house is pretty great. It's simple, but they have a tv, dvd player, bootleg dvds, and a computer. Here the bathroom is where you shower and that's a concrete room in the house. You was out of a shallow basin....I still haven't figured out the art. Outside is the kitchen with wood/coal/charcoal burning stove. The toilet is also outside. We have squatty potties here and it's pretty much just a hole in the ground. My first night there I went to use the squatty potty and when I opened the door a rat ran into the hole. I made the mistake of looking down into the depths w/ my flashlight only to find huge cockroaches. I decided to be brave and let's just say during the process the rat ran out btwn my legs into the squatty potty where Denise was. I didn't scream, it was a proud but terrifying moments.
I also got to watch my cousin Lamula and the maid Prose slaughter and butcher a chicken...oh my word. Poor chicken. Aunt Becky, if you're reading this, I still love meat :) They cut that thing's head right off and the chicken twitched really hard. Then they put the decapitated chickens into boiling water and pulled the feathers off, cut them open, pulled out their insides, cut them up, and cooked it. Crazy!
Well my battery is dying. I'm headed to Rwanda tomorrow for 10 days. It's a 15 hr ride.
Peace out girl scouts!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Ok so, I love the show So You Think You Can Dance. I wish I could dance half as well as the people on the show, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing certain muscles and levels of coolness to ever do that, haha. Anyways, as I was watching a few weeks back there was a dance done about addiction. I thought the dance so great in the way it portrayed the way people become enslaved to addictions and sin. Sin entangles you, breaks you, clouds your vision, draws you in, seems to take control of you, and tears you down. It's crazy that we know it's dangerous and still choose to go to it. I know in my own life I wonder that all the time. And the more I give into a sin the more I become enslaved and numb to the severity of the reality of it all. Watching this dance made me think about my own struggles and how it truly effects my life and those around me. Once you get in so deep it can seem impossible to break free and thoughts of just totally surrendering to it can feel like the easiest way out. Been there, tried that, and it's not the right path. God's gives us freedom and it takes surrender,humility, vulnerability, and complete reliance on our part. I'm so thankful that I serve a God of hope and freedom.
Here's the link to the video, it's worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lLWJboraJw&feature=related
Here's the link to the video, it's worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lLWJboraJw&feature=related
Saturday, May 30, 2009
He's Never Failing
It's been a while since I've been on here, but hopefully that will change as I get ready to leave for Uganda. In less than 3 months I will be in Uganda. It's hard to comprehend and I honestly don't think about it a whole lot. I think it's in part because I'm excited and don't want to have to think about the wait and in part because I'm nervous because I have no idea what to expect or if I'm cut out for it.
I've been home for almost a month now and still have no job. It's been a frustrating road and it can be hard not to take the rejection personally, but I'm learning that getting upset won't get me anywhere. I just have to pick myself up and try again...and be patient (that's the truly hard part). As much as I know I need a job, I have a peace about it. I'm learning to trust that God has something in store and that it might be found on my first or tenth try.
A huge reason I need a job this summer is to pay for my tuition and expenses for Uganda. All money must be accounted for before I get on that plane in August or I won't be allowed to go. Due to the fact that I'm choosing to go with a program that isn't run by my college, the school is taking away half of my scholarship while I'm gone. When I first found out about that back last fall I was upset but was thankful for the half of the scholarship that remained. I'd been praying that God would provide the money that was being taken away and this spring I received a different scholarship from the religion department and that was a HUGE praise. The scholarship a little more than covered the missing sum but this past week I found out that the scholarship is only worth half of what I was told due to the fact that the money for the scholarship was in the stock market. When I received this news on the phone all I could do was cry and the poor guy on the other end just awkwardly said he was sorry and hung up.
Part of me is tired from the hurtles along this path to Uganda. I even began to question if I all these things were meant as doors closing to Uganda, but as I've prayed about it I've been reminded that God has brought me this far and He'll see me through. He never said it was going to be easy, but He did say to trust Him and to act in faith. He's given me peace and I know I serve a God that is unfailing. The same day I learned that half my scholarship was lost, I got a check from a family member worth 5 x's what was lost. Just when things start to look bad God reminds me to not let go and to remember who's in control.
I've been home for almost a month now and still have no job. It's been a frustrating road and it can be hard not to take the rejection personally, but I'm learning that getting upset won't get me anywhere. I just have to pick myself up and try again...and be patient (that's the truly hard part). As much as I know I need a job, I have a peace about it. I'm learning to trust that God has something in store and that it might be found on my first or tenth try.
A huge reason I need a job this summer is to pay for my tuition and expenses for Uganda. All money must be accounted for before I get on that plane in August or I won't be allowed to go. Due to the fact that I'm choosing to go with a program that isn't run by my college, the school is taking away half of my scholarship while I'm gone. When I first found out about that back last fall I was upset but was thankful for the half of the scholarship that remained. I'd been praying that God would provide the money that was being taken away and this spring I received a different scholarship from the religion department and that was a HUGE praise. The scholarship a little more than covered the missing sum but this past week I found out that the scholarship is only worth half of what I was told due to the fact that the money for the scholarship was in the stock market. When I received this news on the phone all I could do was cry and the poor guy on the other end just awkwardly said he was sorry and hung up.
Part of me is tired from the hurtles along this path to Uganda. I even began to question if I all these things were meant as doors closing to Uganda, but as I've prayed about it I've been reminded that God has brought me this far and He'll see me through. He never said it was going to be easy, but He did say to trust Him and to act in faith. He's given me peace and I know I serve a God that is unfailing. The same day I learned that half my scholarship was lost, I got a check from a family member worth 5 x's what was lost. Just when things start to look bad God reminds me to not let go and to remember who's in control.
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