Well I'm already halfway through my trip and finding it quite hard to believe. I've been eating enough rice and beans that a common theme every meal time is to talk about the feast we will have when we arrive back to the US. One friend leaves for home on Monday and made a point of asking his parents to bring a big chocolate milkshake to the airport. I hope you are taking notes, mum and dad! Despite missing family, friends, and the familiarities of home, I will surely miss this place when I leave as well.
The greatest thing I have noticed in the ministry so far is how grateful and God-seeking the Ugandan people are. I think it can best be summed up by a few bible verses. Proverbs 27:7 reads "honey seems tasteless to a person who is full, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry." I can certainly picture myself ordering a steak in the US and then sticking up my nose at the fact that it isn't quite cooked right inside. A child here will take any piece of food you give them with a smile without the slightest complaint. The most important thing is that this principle extends far beyond hunger. Everytime I greet someone in the town, pat a kid on the head, or shake hands with a schoolteacher, I get a very warm response. People in the western world are so full up on other things that the simplicities of life are taken for granted. When it comes to spirituality, Jesus got it spot on: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."(Matthew 5:3) Compared to us, these African people are certainly destitute when it comes to riches, food and health. With this destitution, they realize their need for something greater. An alternative translation of Matthew 5:3 is "Blessed are those who realize their need for Him..." With the comfortable lifestyle and many things to fill voids such as romances, sports, and consumables, it is hard for a westerner to realize a need for God. Many convert at difficult times in their lives when they have nowhere else to turn. Many who claim to be Christian and thank God for their blessings would far sooner give up their 'god' than the blessings He has bestowed upon them. It has been here that this point has become most plain to me.
We made a trip to a hospital for children with disabilities earlier this week. Each child has a parent stay with them while they are being treated. While half of our group gave a presentation to encourage the kids, the rest of us went amongst the parents and spoke to then about their troubles and toils. One question we asked often was how their relationship with God had fared during the suffering of their children. Every single parent said that it had been strengthened and that they were placing the youngsters conditions in His hands. This pure faith stunned me. To continue trusting in God at a time of great suffering is the mark of someone whose soul is desperately seeking.
That was a little hard to put into words and if anyone has a different interpretation of the above verses than feel free to tell me about it. One thing for sure is that the people I have met treasure their small blessings and the God that gives them far closer than many I know in the US.
Next week we make a trip to a village again. This time we are building a goat-shed for a family amongst other community service ventures. It will be another 5 day stretch with no electricity, showers, or city civilization so again I expect the least and will be pleasantly surprised with anything else.
Until next time, be safe and joyful, Tommy
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Update one, just a wee bit late
Well here I am in a hole in the wall internet cafe in downtown Kampala. I have already used up 19 of my 40 minutes getting to this page so I hope I can type swiftly and get finished in time. I attempted to post the day after I arrived but after typing for half an hour the computer lost connection and my composition when I clicked submit. Since then we have been on a 5 day village trip where we had no Internet or reception. Actually I just managed to post the previous one, a draft saved on my profile thankfully.
The journey was long yet eventful. My flights got changed at the last minute due to overbooking, I enjoyed my first full English breakfast for such a long time in Amsterdam, my bags didn't arrive, and I had an interesting experience with some immigration officers. I arrived exhausted but was quickly awoken when my van driver entered the mayhem of Uganda traffic on the way to our accommodation. The look left that I am used to making in the US is useful even here because many drive on the wrong side of the road anyway!
I am staying in a small american style house in the city suburbs with around 25 american/british college students and another 15 ugandans of slightly older ages. We sleep 4 to a room, have cold water showers, a spot to pee in the yard(for guys), and a huge pot of rice and beans most days for meals. Within walking distance are stores that sell candy, marmite, french fries, and coke in glass bottles. At least 2 trips to these has been a norm so far. On the night I arrived I was told that soon we would be leaving for a group trip to the Northern part of Uganda which has been affected by the recent war. This was news to me and a little concerning since I had made of point of making sure I was staying far from that region. I was assured that it was all safe by the Ugandans and when no-one else seemed to be too worried I was satisfied. We took a 6 hour ride along dirt roads in a taxi van, fitting 18 people when only 14 should be seated, with no air conditioning. What should have been a nightmare was in fact one of my favorite car rides ever, everyone enjoyed eachothers company and was excited about the upcoming ministry. We arrived in Gulu and found our accommodation to be a step lower than Kampala - no electricity or running water, and the guys slept out in tents. The joke at the end of the 4 days was that we missed Kampala, our home!
While we were in Gulu we visited schools and gave assemblies and preached to the kids. It astounded me that if I wanted to I could have volunteered to preach to a high school of 300 kids. Instead I said an opening prayer and told them that I supported Liverpool, to much applause. Our ongoing project was to build a house for a family in the village whose parents had both died in the war. 9 children were living with their grandmother and had too little space. We spent at least 30 hours carrying bricks, sticks, bags of cement, tin sheets etc. many miles of fields and beaten down paths. The inefficiency was quite scary. One morning we spent a few hours moving bricks in one direction only to have to carry them back the same way when we changed the site for the house. I was involved in digging a hole for the toilet connected to the house. What started as shovelling away at some nice dirt became pick-axing at rocks after a couple feet. When the job became too much for us Westerners, the Ugandans stepped in a dug down to 10 feet deep with our cheerleading. The hard working ethos of these guys is quite astounding.
So far the ministry to children hasn't been very organized but basically wherever we go a following of village youngsters builds behind us. Most of them know some English, love to hold hands and give high fives, and love to stare! We play games with them, give them piggy back rides and judging by the smiles on their faces they thoroughly enjoy it.
One boy in our group has long brown hair and a beard and gets greeted almost anywhere as YESU, ugandan for our Saviour. The kids giggle at him and point and he loves to play along with the joke.
Well there are so many other things that we have been up to here that I'm overwhelmed by how much more I could type. We visited a refugee camp, had a accident with a sharp tool and someones face, had one of our group members bitten by a rat, and have been singing some of the coolest african praise songs.
Uganda is a beautiful country. The stars are the best I've seen, the weather is fantastic, the people are vibrant and smiling often, the culture is exciting, and it is full of God. Obviously there is still a lot to be done but I'm definitely glad to be here and continue His work.
I must go now. Tomorrow we get back into ministry in Kampala as we visit a juvenile detention home. I hope we can reach out there. Love to you all reading. I hope I can write again within a week. Thanks, Tommy
The journey was long yet eventful. My flights got changed at the last minute due to overbooking, I enjoyed my first full English breakfast for such a long time in Amsterdam, my bags didn't arrive, and I had an interesting experience with some immigration officers. I arrived exhausted but was quickly awoken when my van driver entered the mayhem of Uganda traffic on the way to our accommodation. The look left that I am used to making in the US is useful even here because many drive on the wrong side of the road anyway!
I am staying in a small american style house in the city suburbs with around 25 american/british college students and another 15 ugandans of slightly older ages. We sleep 4 to a room, have cold water showers, a spot to pee in the yard(for guys), and a huge pot of rice and beans most days for meals. Within walking distance are stores that sell candy, marmite, french fries, and coke in glass bottles. At least 2 trips to these has been a norm so far. On the night I arrived I was told that soon we would be leaving for a group trip to the Northern part of Uganda which has been affected by the recent war. This was news to me and a little concerning since I had made of point of making sure I was staying far from that region. I was assured that it was all safe by the Ugandans and when no-one else seemed to be too worried I was satisfied. We took a 6 hour ride along dirt roads in a taxi van, fitting 18 people when only 14 should be seated, with no air conditioning. What should have been a nightmare was in fact one of my favorite car rides ever, everyone enjoyed eachothers company and was excited about the upcoming ministry. We arrived in Gulu and found our accommodation to be a step lower than Kampala - no electricity or running water, and the guys slept out in tents. The joke at the end of the 4 days was that we missed Kampala, our home!
While we were in Gulu we visited schools and gave assemblies and preached to the kids. It astounded me that if I wanted to I could have volunteered to preach to a high school of 300 kids. Instead I said an opening prayer and told them that I supported Liverpool, to much applause. Our ongoing project was to build a house for a family in the village whose parents had both died in the war. 9 children were living with their grandmother and had too little space. We spent at least 30 hours carrying bricks, sticks, bags of cement, tin sheets etc. many miles of fields and beaten down paths. The inefficiency was quite scary. One morning we spent a few hours moving bricks in one direction only to have to carry them back the same way when we changed the site for the house. I was involved in digging a hole for the toilet connected to the house. What started as shovelling away at some nice dirt became pick-axing at rocks after a couple feet. When the job became too much for us Westerners, the Ugandans stepped in a dug down to 10 feet deep with our cheerleading. The hard working ethos of these guys is quite astounding.
So far the ministry to children hasn't been very organized but basically wherever we go a following of village youngsters builds behind us. Most of them know some English, love to hold hands and give high fives, and love to stare! We play games with them, give them piggy back rides and judging by the smiles on their faces they thoroughly enjoy it.
One boy in our group has long brown hair and a beard and gets greeted almost anywhere as YESU, ugandan for our Saviour. The kids giggle at him and point and he loves to play along with the joke.
Well there are so many other things that we have been up to here that I'm overwhelmed by how much more I could type. We visited a refugee camp, had a accident with a sharp tool and someones face, had one of our group members bitten by a rat, and have been singing some of the coolest african praise songs.
Uganda is a beautiful country. The stars are the best I've seen, the weather is fantastic, the people are vibrant and smiling often, the culture is exciting, and it is full of God. Obviously there is still a lot to be done but I'm definitely glad to be here and continue His work.
I must go now. Tomorrow we get back into ministry in Kampala as we visit a juvenile detention home. I hope we can reach out there. Love to you all reading. I hope I can write again within a week. Thanks, Tommy
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
First impressions and an interesting day of travel
So here i am finally in uganda the place i had been planning for for so long. to apologize in advance, these posts may be short and not very gramatically corret, however i am using an on-screen keyboard to fill in letters that do not work on the standard keyboard which is a lengthy proess. well the excitment of the trip began in houston airport. as i was waiting to board the first flight, i heard the dreaded thing: my name being called over the loudspeaker. i approached the desk and was told that due to overbooking i was being moved onto a different flight that would take me directly to amsterdam and cut the travel time down. i grabbed my 8 dollar meal ticket for the now delayed departure and all was thankfully well. the first flight went well but then as i boarded for the seond flight i had another scare - my boarding pass was denied at the gate. apparently someone had removed me from the flight accidentally, kindof a strange thing i thought but didn't question anything when the hostess booked me back on it in no time. the flight, despite its length, was fine. arriving at uganda was an experiecne! we were greeted by a young boy wearing a gas mask as we all had to pass a swine flu check before we could go through immigration. a flu epidemic is something africa could do without so i wasnt at all irritated at this point. after paying 50 dollars for a stamp in my passport i walked over to the baggage claim only to see a whiteboard with my name on a missing bags list. it turned out that as they booked me back on the flight from Amsterdam they didnt put my bags back on. i waited over an hour to speak with a representative to help me with a claim for my luggage which came to a halt when i realized i didnt have a copy of the address i was staying at. the one copy i did have had already been turned in to the immigration officer. i was sent back to the immigration room only to find the officers sitting around and packing up the documents for the day. due to their lack of time to help search for mine, they gave me a stack and told me to search through all of the douents for my own. i cant quite imagine a us officer letting someone sift through other peoples private documents but oh well, TIA, this is africa, as i have been continuosly told. thankfully the man who came to pick john and i up from the airport was loyally waiting there as we came out. i opted to ride shotgun on the way to our accomodation, the first real eye opener of the trip. Cars sharing a lane, pedestrians crossing a road where cars travelled at speeds far too high to be legal, and strange roundabout systems which the local drivers apparently didn't understand or maybe that was me. i arrived at the house exhausted but couldnt sleep without being introduced to all of the people i was staying with. i sprayed myself with bug spray and sprawled out on my bed with the same clothes i had been wearing for the past 24 hours and would be for the indefinite future.
Friday, June 12, 2009
The time is nigh...
Well it's June 12 and this Sunday, June 14, I leave for Kampala, Uganda on my first mission trip. My friend John is also journeying with me. The preparation so far has been smooth but it is still a very abstract concept that in a few days we will both be in a far-off continent with very little familiarity except eachother.
When I got a minute of time alone yesterday, I got to thinking about the lives mine is about to intersect with: Young children living on the opposite side of the world, scraping by on their daily lives - and here am I, a young adult living with all the resources in the world, constantly surrounded by love and fellowship. In a few weeks I am going to be a part of their lives, and they a part of mine. How thankful I am that I have been blessed with this honor and responsibility. I struggle to understand why I was considered worthy of this task but it is my prayer that I will live up to the challenge and love these kids as the image of God they were created in.
I aim to update this blog at least bi-weekly with stories, thoughts, monologues, or anything else that comes to mind of value. I hope that if you continue to read over the weeks that you can gain some encouragement or humility from the work being done in Africa. I welcome any thoughts or comments you have in return. Speak soon,
When I got a minute of time alone yesterday, I got to thinking about the lives mine is about to intersect with: Young children living on the opposite side of the world, scraping by on their daily lives - and here am I, a young adult living with all the resources in the world, constantly surrounded by love and fellowship. In a few weeks I am going to be a part of their lives, and they a part of mine. How thankful I am that I have been blessed with this honor and responsibility. I struggle to understand why I was considered worthy of this task but it is my prayer that I will live up to the challenge and love these kids as the image of God they were created in.
I aim to update this blog at least bi-weekly with stories, thoughts, monologues, or anything else that comes to mind of value. I hope that if you continue to read over the weeks that you can gain some encouragement or humility from the work being done in Africa. I welcome any thoughts or comments you have in return. Speak soon,
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
