Ani?

This song was taught to us first by Rachel, at the school in Magamaga, while we were in Uganda. As I sit here and type, I realize it is just morning where she is, and she is preparing for a Monday morning at school. I miss it! Ha, talk about life-changing. I am always reminded of Uganda, either because someone asks what I did with my summer, or because God reminds me. I probably answer questions about Uganda or mention it every single day. It had a great and lasting impact on my life, and I'm sure it did on the people who we worked with. What an amazing place!

Anyway, it's a beautiful song which asks the question "who can sit on the throne of God?" In the beginning, the pastor (acting as a teacher--they teach English in the schools there, that's how you can tell who has been educated) comes into a classroom and writes "Ani?" on the board. It means "Who?" The next major scene is a married woman comes to the pastor (Wilson Bugembe) and asks why God won't let her conceive, so he says he will pray for her. Then, a school girl comes to the pastor who is pregnant and afraid to tell her mother, and he prays for her too. Then, through the irony of the situation, the pastor realizes that these situations are too much for people to handle and decipher, and that only God can handle it. It was really popular in Uganda, and Tammy, Daphne and I really began to love it! Who can sit on the throne of God? So simple, and so humbling.

I've been home for 25 days, and I miss it already. I love the people and spirit of Uganda!

want to help?

I've gotten a lot of responses to my blog saying that people wanted to help with the work that I was helping with in Jinja, Uganda. Well, here's the hospice website! http://hospicejinja.org/ There's a donation's tab where you can donate money to support them financially, or you can read through the website and see how to pray for the hospice.

Other ways you can help this missions project is to donate to the next group who goes in Summer 2011 (I will probably not be a part) and support InterVarsity's work there, or you can sponsor a child from Uganda, either though Compassion International ( compassion.org ) or World Vision ( worldvision.org ). It's $35-$38 per month to sponsor a child, which includes feeding them, sending them to school, providing activities, and sharing the gospel. You can also correspond with the child, and it's an awesome opportunity to be involved with missions on a personal level with a child across the world. I'll warn you--it was heartbreaking to have to sift through the children and choose one. Compassion International has an option where they pick the child for you, and choose a child who has been waiting over 6 months for someone to sponsor them. Maybe it would be good, though, to look through the pictures, and see how much need there is in the world. These companies only sponsor a fraction of the poor and needy, too.

Love you, hope you'll get involved!

James 1:27

But religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

_______________________________

"Turn Down the Music" by Shane & Shane

If you were hungry would we give you food?

If you were thirsty would we give you drink?

If you were a stranger would we let you in?

What would be a song we’d sing to you when there in need?

Would it be an empty hallelujah to the king?

Turn down the music

Turn down the noise

Turn up your voice oh God and let us hear the sound

Of people broken, willing to love

Give us your heart oh God a new song rise in us

And if you were naked, would we give you clothes?

If you were an orphan would we give our home?

And if you were in prison, would we visit you?

What would be a song we’d sing to you when there in need?

Would it be an empty hallelujah to the king?

Turn down the music

Turn down the noise

Turn up your voice oh God and let us hear the sound

Of people broken, willing to love

Give us your heart oh God a new song rise in us

Let it be our worship

Let it be our true religion

In this world but not of it

Holding on to our confession

Tugende! (too GAEN day)

I’ve arrived at the end of my trip, and I’m realizing that real life comes back very soon. I’m very excited to see Austin and my family very soon (might even seen Matt in Dubai!) but I know I’ll miss this country, these people, and the experiences I’ve had here very much. I’ve grown exponentially in this last month, though at times I didn’t realize it or want to. All throughout this time I’ve had here, God has been moving in my heart, and the Spirit has been convicting and changing my heart.

Uganda is a beautiful, green place, but it is also a very poor place. Sunday night, our team stayed at Rainforest Lodge in Mariba Rainforest, and got to experience the lush green-ness of this country as well as the wildlife (I even saw a monkey!) but up until this point, and even on our way back from the rainforest, we saw and interacted with the very many poor of this land. Uganda has so much to offer, but developmentally, it has a long ways to go.

We learned, from one of the people who work for the Hospice Jinja, that Uganda has about a 65% unemployment rate. To put that in perspective, even in the state of our present economy, the United States of America only has about a 9% unemployment rate. We saw children wearing clothes that were so worn and tattered that we wouldn’t have even used their clothes as rags in the States. In fact, when I gave dresses away, the people were more appreciative than I was for any of my Christmas presents last year. This is not to say I don’t appreciate gifts; I definitely do, and I love to give them. The point is that we don’t have the right perspectives about “needs” as Americans, myself most definitely included.

Last Wednesday night, our team went to have dinner at Jeremiah’s Aunt’s house. She served an abundance of homemade Ugandan food, and we ate until we were more than satisfied, and enjoyed ourselves. The big difference between this home and an American home? Her “toilet” was an outhouse; she had electricity in one room. This family seemed closer than most American families, and was even close friends with several neighbors, who also came by to welcome us to their home. Talk about living in community!

In so many ways, I think that we, as Americans, pervert the meaning of the word “need.” There are poor people in our land that don’t have food or clothing, and so many times the Bible clearly calls us to love them as God does and give to them. Why don’t we? Why don’t I? Well, we literally think we “need” things that aren’t needs, and waste our money on selfish American treasures and spend the money that could sustain one person on a new pair of jeans (when I already have more than four). I think we walk a very dangerous line when we start to invent “needs,” which we have done as a culture, and are not good stewards of the things that God has given us. I know in more than one way, I myself am guilty of this. God has used my being here and seeing the desperation with which some of these people fight to provide for their family to convict me of my selfishness in many ways.

My honest fear is that I will forget these things I’m seeing every day when I get back into America, and back into a more affluent culture. But, God really wants me to be held accountable, and to make a statement to y’all about the convictions He’s placed on my heart, and make a covenant with Him. The convictions that God has placed on my heart and that I now have to take back to the United States are as follows:

· Love the poor (giving, no treasures on this earth, the meek shall inherit the earth)

· Love like Christ (Luke 6:27-36)

· Increase prayer (pray constantly in Spirit & truth and by faith)

· Be bold in declaring the Gospel (Jesus is clear about this, so is the rest of the NT)

So, please hold me accountable to these things, and push me in love toward them, and remind me of them. Feel free to ask me about them, though I think I’ve posted blogs about each one if you want a quick reference. I’m excited to see how these things change in my life in America.

My verses for this trip:
“Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is Lord of Lords and God of Gods; the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve Him, and hold fast to Him, and by His name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God who has done these great and terrifying things which your eyes have seen.”
-Deuteronomy 10:16-21

Leavin’ on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again… see you soon, Houston

Liz-ah

The people in Uganda can’t just say “Liz,” so they’ve been calling me “Liz-ah” since I got here, and the girls in my group have been too. They also call Daphne “Daphen”; we’ve just adopted them as our Ugandan names :)

I will be honest; I woke up today missing home more than ever. My parents are at the Neill Family Reunion, and I really wish I was there with them. But, I’ve grown so much here, and really seen God move in awesome ways, so I know he wanted me here for a reason. We only have nine days left on this continent, and I know God still has a lot planned for us!

Yesterday was the Jinja Youth Conference that we hosted on “Building Your Potential to Advance” from the book of Daniel. The idea behind the theme was that many Ugandans, we were told, have the basics of their faith right, but they aren’t necessarily discipled to be missional and to spread the Kingdom of God, they just internalize their faith. It’s a problem a lot of Americans have, too. But when you read the book of Daniel, you see he stood up, time after time, in faith, knowing that God would do amazing things in Babylon. I was the “secretary” of the event, which meant: running a ton of errands the day before, trying to get things organized, calling the worship band and getting that arranged, and counting the numbers of attendees the churches and schools gave us so we could make sure we would have enough food. It was a lot to handle, but really, I just turned to God, and He took care of it! Had I not, I would have just been one big ball of stress, which wouldn’t glorify God or help the people I was working for.

God made the conference work. We served breakfast to about 150 people at 9 am, and about 250 had shown up before worship started at 10 am. By lunch, we had 360+ people to serve! We have two main sessions with small group breakouts afterward, then lunch, which ran late, so we had one final session and an invitation at the end, where eight people declared that they wanted to know Christ as their Savior! It was pretty cool seeing it all come together. There were definitely a few times when I was stressed out, and God reminded me to love and give without expecting it back, and to serve, and to do so joyfully; He put me back on track right away! At the end of the day, we were all so glad that everything was finished, and that we had been able to serve so many and see so many come to know Jesus Christ. We got their information to their organizations so they can continue to be discipled. My hope is that the Word that was preached will be planted into the hearts of these people, and that they will grow.

This week, I will go to the Hospice twice: Monday is a “Day Care” day (or group therapy; the women come and make paper bead necklaces and tell their stories to the mzungus) and Wednesday we will go on visits with the Hospice. On Tuesday and Thursday, we will go to St Andrew’s Magamaga, and on Thursdays we will plant some trees there. Uganda has a lot of trees and is very lush and green, but the land the school is on has very little shade, so we are providing them shade and something to remember us by.

After that, we are going to Kampala on Friday and Saturday. Friday, Jeremiah’s family is throwing a big party, an “introduction of the Bride,” because his wife is coming to Uganda this week for the first time in their four years of marriage. Apparently they’re going to dress the mzungu girls in their traditional dresses, which should make for some entertaining pictures later on! Sunday and Monday we are going to a nearby rainforest for debrief time, and we have one day, Tuesday, back in Jinja before we fly out on Wednesday. We will be very busy this week, but I know God has some good things planned. I will be very, very sad to leave this country. I may even come back one day; I don’t know where in Africa God has called us to yet, but I know that He wants us on this continent. I’ve actually had several Ugandans ask me to stay, but I joke and tell them that I have to go home to see my boyfriend!

So, this week, be in prayer that:

-The Lord would continue to move in our hearts and sustain us as a group; He has been so good to us!
-We don’t start counting down the days until we go home, but we give it our all, and work hard to make sure that these people know we love them, and that love is because of Christ
-We receive funding; to my knowledge, Jeremiah is currently operating on a deficit, and will be pulled from the school when we get back until he repays it. We’ve cancelled the safari we were going to debrief on so we could cut back on expenses, but that wasn’t enough.

A Lesson in Service for a Hospitality Major

1 July 2010

We have been in this country for three weeks and one day, and things in this country still surprise me. I guess cultural adaptation takes a while! But, I like Uganda a lot. We have been painting the Vicarage (where the Vicar lives, who is about equivalent to a bishop) at St. Andrew’s Church Jinja the last couple of days, and it has been a really fun, team-building experience! Mike even slaughtered a chicken, and I got it on tape! But, it really struck me that these people are true servants; they bring around a basin for us to wash our hands with, serve us tea, then lunch, and afternoon tea (I already loved tea; this just makes me love Uganda! Ha) and thank us for coming to paint by sending us home with a fresh chicken and eggs! Even when we come to serve, we end up being served—it’s beautiful! If I take anything back to the U.S. with me, I’d love to bring back this serving spirit they have. They take the Word to heart when it says in 1 Peter that serving brings God glory, and they serve in love and in honor to their God. What would it look like for us to serve and to love, and to do so joyfully?

Shem, the manager at Hospice Jinja, is a bubbly, 5’1 Ugandan man, always joking and laughing, and when he prays, you feel the Spirit; when he sings, his love for Christ pours out of him. Shem is just one example of the love and joy we’ve seen pour out of the churches and the people we’ve met here in Uganda. I love hearing the choirs sing hymns, English or Lusoga, and I love the passion with which the people pray. They spend a lot of time in prayer in their church services: praying for their country; praying against witch craft and child sacrifice; for their church; for us, their visitors. It is a blessing to be here and to experience this cultural immersion, and to learn what it is to truly live relationally. Sometimes customs are very different (you never know if a Ugandan will arrive on time or not, but that’s their culture) but so far, our group has done pretty well going with the flow.

We have two weeks left before we are back in Houston, and I know God still has a lot in store for us. In those two weeks, we have five work days (trips with the Hospice and to the school in Magamaga), and a “cultural experience” planned for next Friday. Jeremiah’s wife is coming to Uganda for the first time this Sunday, and since she has never been in their four years of marriage, they will have a presentation-of-the-bride huge celebration, with lots of dancing and food! We don’t know what to expect yet, but we are excited to go to Kampala and see what’s in store. Saturday following that, Callina and her father leave, and on Sunday our group is going to spend the night in a nearby rainforest. Hopefully we will get plenty of hiking in, and get to see some African animals! Then we have one day of rest, before we get on the plane to Dubai on Wednesday July 14, and I will try to meet my brother, Matt there! Pray for that opportunity, I haven’t seen him since Christmas, and a miracle may work out for me to see him for one hour when we get to Dubai! The next day we take a seventeen-hour flight, and we will be home. Two weeks seems like a long time right now, but I know it will be here before I know it, so I am soaking up as much as Uganda as possible.

1 Peter 4:9-11 (ESV)

“Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace; whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength God supplies—in order than in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Please pray for:

-words from the Spirit to share the Gospel with the street boys/beggars we see every time we go to downtown Jinja

-funding of our trip, so Jeremiah doesn’t go home with a deficit – we know God will provide the $4,000+ we still need

-us to be flexible so God can use us as He wishes

“This World” by Caedmon’s Call (feat. Sandra McCracken)

They start us from a golden rule
and I want to jump from a ship of fools
Show me a place where hope is young
and a people who are not afraid to love

This world has nothing for me
and this world has everything
all that I could want and nothing that I need

This world is making me drunk on the spirits of fear
so when He says, “Who will go?” I am nowhere near

This world has nothing for me
and this world has everything
all that I could want and nothing that I need

And the least of these look like criminals to me
so I leave Christ on the street

This world has held my hand
and has led me into intolerance
And now I’m waking up, and now I’m breaking up
and now I’m making up for lost time

This world has nothing for me
and this world has everything
all that I could want and nothing that I need

Learning Curve

27 June 2010

I’m sitting in my room at the guest house that we are staying at, which the hospice owns, thinking about this life I have here in Uganda. I mean, I really am living here. We’ve moved in, we’re here for another two and a half weeks, and we are adapting this culture as best we can. In these last two and a half weeks we’ve been in this country, God has taught me an enormous amount of things, and I’ll do my best to summarize.

I’ve said before that God is teaching me the effectiveness and essentialness (Microsoft Word said that was a word, I won’t fight it) of prayer. It’s like breathing for a Christian. If we aren’t in prayer as we ought to be, then how are we supposed to hear from God? I’ll confess that I’ve gotten into times of my life where I hang up this prayer line that I’m supposed to keep open, but I know that when I leave it on, God speaks so clearly into my life. He shows me the things He wants for my life, and how He wants me to serve others.

Another huge thing is service. My family will readily agree that I enjoy being served. My mom will tell you that I like free pedicures, and free meals. But, they will also tell you that I take my brother’s laundry bin upstairs as well as his clothes when they’re clean—not because I’m asked to, but because it’s an easy way for me to serve. Lately God’s been teaching me to be more of a servant; not to expect anything in exchange for giving of myself to someone else. I’ve had the conviction in my heart for a while, but it seems to be louder here in Uganda. As human beings, we all like being served. It’s so easy to be selfish and demand things of others for our benefit, but as Christians, when the Spirit moves us to give of ourselves to others, we are blessed because we are a servant, and those who we serve see it, and wonder what is different. And there’s a difference, God says, between serving because I feel like I have to (some kind of guilt) and serving with a cheerful heart.

He’s also impressed on my heart what justice is. I’m reading a book (yes mom, I’m reading a book!) called Revolution in World Missions, written by the founder of Gospel for Asia. The book talks about the abundance with which God has blessed Americans, and asks this important question: “Why do you think God has allowed you to be born in North America or Europe rather than among the poor of Africa and Asia and to be blessed with such material and spiritual abundance?” It’s a tough question to answer. Considering this and the great commission, I had to ask myself if I were spending my money properly. I’m not. I don’t watch it closely enough. I know I spend money on things that are pointless, like Starbucks, and I know that money could go toward sustaining a missionary and spreading God’s Good News to people who are unreached.

This trip has been opening my eyes every day. I haven’t gotten used to seeing mud huts, and school buildings constructed out of long tree limbs and mud, falling apart. I still stare when we drive through towns and see most of the children are only half-clothed or that their shirts are hardly a shirt at all because the holes have overcome it. These are the children that the Lord wants to bring His justice to. These people are oppressed by evil here; witchcraft claims the lives of people here far too often, it’s actually a huge deal. Human sacrifice is something that Uganda is struggling against, but Satan is at work. Not to mention that just earlier this year Joseph Kony and his LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army –a misnomer, because he is possessed by something evil) finally left Uganda, though they are still a threat, as they are thought to be in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Joseph Kony and his rebel army used to rip children from their homes, rape them, and force them to be child soldiers as young at 6 years old. The DRC and Sudan are another story, especially DRC, with the violent warfare that is going on--it’s just next door to Uganda. You can’t even travel through the DRC without being ambushed; you have to fly over it to get to a neighboring country safely, because the violence is inescapable.

Africa is a hurting continent, with warfare, genocide, rape, witchcraft, and overwhelming political corruption at every turn. It’s heartbreaking to think about, because these things seem to relentlessly oppress this continent. If you want to help, here are some websites that I can think of off the top of my head that you can donate to, or just find out more information so you may pray (please, please pray!) for Africa. God hears prayers. Cry out to Him, that His Spirit would come to this continent and save these people from this oppression.

· fallingwhistles.com –a simply devastating truth about child soldiers too small to carry a gun being used as a barrier against enemy fire… heartbreaking.

· invisiblechildren.com – has great information on the political past of Uganda (so does Wikipedia!) and ways you can help – donations for schooling and other opportunities

· livingwater.com-bring clean water to those who don’t have it: the shocking reality of half of the world (what Austin and I want to do in Africa)

· worldvision.com – sponsor a child in Africa to go eat and go to school!

· compassion international (not sure of the website) – same premise as the above

Feel free to comment if you know of more!

Thank you for being in prayer for our team here in Jinja, Uganda :)

Bujagali Falls and Rafting the Nile

26 June 2010

I am proud to say that I have officially gone white water rafting on the Nile River! You probably read that on Facebook, but I just don’t know very many people who have. I didn’t even know you could do that: I thought there were crocodiles and hippos and the like, so you couldn’t feasibly do it. Well, our guide told us that there are parts of the Nile that that is true of, but we didn’t go anywhere near it. We rafted through four class 3 rapids, and were on the river for about 2.5 hours. It was a 15-kilometer trip, and it was quite a workout! They fed us a delicious breakfast before, and an awesome BBQ after (I actually had everything but the meat—side note, turns out I don’t have to eat meat here!) and we stayed the night in rooms at their campground, which was included in their rafting fees. It was a pretty good deal. We went to celebrate the fact that we have made it halfway through the trip, and have only 18 days left before we are in America. It was also a bit of a retreat, and we got to relax. We even had toilets and HOT WATER—that was an unexpected treat!

After the rafting, Tammy, Daphne and I went just outside the campgrounds to where the shops were. They were mzungu price, (higher because tourists come and pay what is asked of them) so I didn’t get anything, but we went through a few shops. In the second shop, an adorable little boy, probably two years old and covered in the red dirt that is abundant in Uganda, came and laid down on the floor and just smiled, sticking his limbs into the air. He was one of the few

Ugandan children that we’d met that was not afraid of mzungus, we learned this was because his mother owned the shop next door. We played with him a little bit, and he followed us to his mom’s store. Then he came and hugged my legs like he wanted to be picked up, so of course I picked him up! He was absolutely adorable, but covered in dirt! We played with him some more, and he followed us to the next shop. He was pretty sad when we took him back to his mom’s store and didn’t understand why his friends were leaving, but this little boy brought smiles to our hearts.

Reading this story from an American frame of reference, you would think that it’s weird that his mother let him wander off. Actually, it’s all too common in Uganda for the children to wander on their own; mothers seem to worry about their children less and providing for their family more. Often, older children (6 and up) will tote around younger ones (1-2 or so). It’s also not uncommon to see three children under the age of 10 walk a few miles to the nearest water pump. If they are slightly well-off, they will have a bike to tote the yellow jerry cans on. If not, their tiny frames will carry the 20-pound jugs both ways.

For those of you who I told we were going on a Safari on the last few days on the trip, the Safari has been cancelled. We don’t have enough funds for it, and we decided that the conference we are putting on July 3^rd is more important, because it feeds both the body (breakfast and lunch) and soul of 15-25 year olds in the community, for free. The conference is relatively inexpensive, considering that we are paying travel fees for the worship group we invited and our one Ugandan guest speaker, as well as all the food costs. Two people from our group will be speaking, Tammy and Jeremiah, and I am acting as secretary, gathering numbers of attendees from the 23 local churches and secondary schools we invited to the conference, as well as fielding any questions these churches may have. Ultimately, our team felt that we should forsake the Safari entirely so that the people of this community could be ministered to through us by God.