Dear Uganda,

My heart aches for you so much it hurts. Not just sometimes... many, many times.

When will I see you again?

Love,

A.

It's about time.

Sorry for the photo delay. I must admit I was doing good just to post pics on facebook, but I realize that not everyone who follows my blog has a facebook so I thought I'd add a few more on here from time to time. Though I've been home for what seems like forever (and yet still, it could have been that I left last week), Uganda is ever-fresh on my brain. I daydream, night dream, and sometimes even breathe Africa these days (true story: sometimes I try and take a deep inhale from my scarf that I got there).

Katie Snyder sent me some photos from their stash, and from the day she joined me at Amani. Check out more on her blog as well. She also mailed me a rosary that Daisy made me but didn't finish before I left. I am just floored by the fact that Daisy thought of me, and our time at mass together. Not only that, but she sat and hand-rolled these tinier-than-usual paper beads. I have a one-of-a-kind Suubi-esque rosary that I will definitely treasure forever. 

I can't believe he's smiling AND looking at the camera.

awww. i love this candid one.

(photos by katie s.)

Spread kit!!!

Yesterday I received my Suubi spread kit in the mail... I can't believe I didnt know about these until right before my trip. In a way, I'm so glad that now I've been... I've seen... I've heard...I've hugged...

Jja jja Margaret showing off her new hairdo

Beautiful, beautiful smiles

Daisy is making YOUR necklace, folks! And doing her thing, laying down the law at a Suubi meeting :)

I've had the pleasure, albeit far too short lived, of meeting and buying directly from these women, and about 120 more. And I hope to do them justice when I talk to people in stores, and person to person and try to increase the local market.

Today I went around to 3 stores in the area where my favourite coffee shop is. It's kind of a hub for the college life in Nashville... the trendy, the fair trade, the bohemian crowd. I've always envisioned Suubi being the perfect product in these stores, so I'm praying that we can get at least one. And if just one here in the Village carries it, I can most likely convince one on 12 South... and maybe one in Cool Springs or Green Hills. Argh. Melissa told the women to be praying for market in the states, and I feel like these are some STRONG prayers coming from these ladies! I'm just praying for God's favor as I talk to the store owners (who have so far all given me the "email this person and send a picture of the product"). I think it's the one bad thing about living in such a crafty little area, because I'm sure they get tons of people coming in pushing products... but I dont care. I'm passionate about this and just hope I can portray that. Even as I sit here, in that coffee shop, I've got my necklace from Agnes around my neck, and several boxes laying across my table. I'm in a high traffic area, just praying for ONE person to talk to, ha. Alright, alright. I'm insane. I've got the fever. And it feels so good.

I've been struggling alot about what I can do here in the states. I feel a little resigned to my fate at work, and I dont know what God's got in store for me next. But I refuse to just sit here, so I've been trying to stay involved as much as I can. Right now, I'm trying to get Suubi placed around town. There's not much to do with Global Support for the time being, no events for now because Travis is traveling and promoting and we just had the This Is Love banquets. I've been floored by the recent development on the Amani adoption front that's going on right here in Nashville... and am hoping that God can use me somehow in assisting these families. Makes me wish I could be some sort of stateside liason for volunteers or families (though I dont feel like I have much expertise in the latter since I havent gone through the process that they will). Anyways, it's a lot to chew on, but I'm happy to do so.

Praying for market, for friends back in Uganda, and for new friends here.

Love.

The Lord really does work in mysterious, mysterious ways.

I've spent the vast majority of yesterday quietly sobbing and praying in between seeing patients at work, because my Grandpop is very ill in the hospital. They aren't sure how long he has to live, and I am faced with the difficult decision of if and when is best to travel to Pennsylvania where he is. I have no money, because I just had to pay 800 dollars for unexpected car and tire troubles this week, and rent and loans are due early next week... but money isn't the issue when it comes to going to see him. It's merely an inconvenience. It's the decision of do I go now? because Grandpop is under sedation and may not know I'm there? or do I wait and go when he is feeling better perhaps next weekend? or *gulp* if things take a turn for the worse...

It's been hard. 

And yet late last night, in the midst of me drowning in my own selfish problems and sorrow, comes a phone call from someone I've never met. Someone in my same town, literally 3 miles away from where I sat, asking me about adoptions from Amani. Dear, sweet, Jesus.  You are unmistakeable in times like these. You remind me that life does go on despite one area feeling like it might collapse. That one or more families are having a burden for your children laid on their hearts from overseas... and that You are providing for them. 

Hallelujah.

a bit of important self-definition.

If any of you wanted to know what God's been doing with my heart while I've been in Africa, I don't know if I could tell you. I can say that it was full to the bursting point, nearly every day, with an ever-expanding definition of love; that I was learning so much but at the same time couldn't put my finger on any of it. It was only upon returning that I've started to see where the growth has been in my heart, and now it's only fitting that I testify to a big part of it. If you love me, you may want to read this. No guilt trips if you don't, but I feel that you'll understand me and this past year a little bit better.

I feel like this note is an explanation I owe to many of you. Please don't worry, but I need to get this out of my brain. In a good way. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, here goes.

Somewhere in this past month, this trip saved my life.

Honestly. I was heading nowhere good. I'm not the kind of person who would ever, EVER, do anything to harm myself (so please don't freak out, loved ones). But every day was a struggle to get out of bed, to put myself back into my routine and wait for everything to go wrong no matter how hard I tried. I didn't want to *be* anymore. I was literally and emotionally tired. Broken. And still breaking. I couldn't find much of me left. And when you feel bad enough to where you wish you didn't exist, but firmly stand against the idea of suicide, it can get pretty incapacitating at times when you're just sitting there, alone with your thoughts. Very alone.

I actually Didn't.Want.To.Be.Anymore.

It wasn't just for the days immediately preceding the trip that I felt this way, but weeks and months at a time. Sure, there were great, wonderful times last summer that were key to lifting me out of the deep depression from last winter, but somewhere around the time that the days were getting darker, I felt like I was losing the battle again.

I asked myself- what on EARTH happened to me this past year? A boy broke up with me. So what. That happens. My family was falling apart yet again, not to mention the individuals within, and as the only child I felt like it was my responsibility to clean up. But all of these things I've taken on before. More important than any of these things, I gave up. Subconsciously, then very consciously.

I let an enemy come in and steal nearly everything that was on the table. In fact, I said "Here, I'll help you," and piece by piece I fell apart. I no longer had the strength to resist anything. I had the ideas of strength, the remnants and memories of the strong young woman I had started to grow into, but no actual strength. And I was ashamed of myself for it.

-----------------------
I don't think things were immediately better the moment I stepped onto Ugandan soil, or even when the plane from Nashville took off... maybe it started with the decision just to go this year...maybe it didn't. I know by the end of 2008 I was desperate for change, and while I knew that Africa couldn't be my easy out, my fix-all, I also knew that I couldn't live in America any more. Because I was barely alive inside. So I prayed my heart would awaken while I was there, through forgetting about my situation and trying to be open to someone else's.

I don't know at what point things changed for me on this trip, but they leave me here, changed for certain. I know there were moments that had a big part in it, like talking to Betty at the top of the Adrift Bungee tower, and taking the very conscious plunge towards the Nile 150 feet below. I think that was the first time I truly trusted God would take care of me in exactly a year. And every time I got a crazy piki driver, or walked barefoot through filth somewhere, or had to go out by myself at nighttime, I could feel myself trusting him a little more. I was beginning to think my God could do anything again, and most importantly, that he could do this for me. To tell you the bits of strength and wisdom I witnessed from friends in Uganda (both locals and volunteers) would take another entry entirely.

As I sat in church the day after returning to Nashville, my heart overflowed with gratitude. For the past month, God met me. He said, "Here you are. This is you. And I am here, too. I wasn't really that far away."

In 2009, I've felt like myself again. I feel beautiful inside because I don't feel alone inside like I did last month... and I can't even fully explain why, because I never turned my back on God, but I just couldn't feel Him there like I wanted or needed to at the time.

to wrap up this mini-memoir, I've been thinking highly about this verse this week (something I read first thing when I got home in Katie Davis' blog):

"We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.
So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."- 2 Cor. 4:8-12




Good riddance, 2008. In 2009, I am a new creation. And life is at work in me.

homecoming.

(from yesterday's journal entry)

This morning, I woke up in Kaihura, with the sun, after about an hour of rooster crowing. I had a cup of tea and conversation with Faith and the guys who were also up early to start digging on the well while it was still cool. There was much waiting, heat, and sweating: waiting for the bus to Kampala, waiting for 4 hours during the ride to town, sweating immediately after arrival in the heat of the day, waiting in traffic to finish some errands in town... about 5 hours of waiting in a nice missionary's house where I could shower and repack my bags, and then a 3 hour wait in traffic to Entebbe. 

Bribes paid on Friday: 1 for 20,000 shillings to a rude Kampala policeman who claimed my driver ran the one stop light in town that probably wasnt even on, and he wanted to take us to the prison.

Weird foods eaten: 2 grasshoppers, and Fanta Passion. I'll let you guess which was my favourite.

Random thoughts during the flights: "Grasshoppers taste like pork rinds." "Is it weird to find it weird when I blow my nose and the snot is clear instead of Uganda-dust/dirt colored? or to go to a toilet where there isnt a 5-10 second delay before you, um, hear things hit bottom?"

I have had a week's worth of experiences in even one day. Kaihura to Kampala. Kampala to Entebbe. Entebbe to Amsterdam, to Detroit, to Nashville. Roughly 3 hours of sleep in a two day span means that the entire thing felt like a huge CHUNK of day. Went from 50 degrees, to 80 or 90, then to 8 degrees (Detroit) and back to 30 at home. From village life, to bustling city, and then back to westernized civilization. And the contrast through it all brought this strange, weird "leaving" feeling. "I am a visitor here; I am not permanent," played through my head at times.

Here I go. Back to life. The weirdness is inevitable, and it will creep in, but I think I'm ready for it.

will type up more soon, about experiences in Jinja and Kaihura that I couldnt type because of lack of internet. Actually there was internet for the most part, I just had better things to do that sit at a hot internet cafe for 2 hours a day :)

ps.

the sunset outside of Love and Hope internet cafe is breathtaking.

and is a stark contrast to the boy sitting to my right playing Grand Theft Auto II. What?