Waiting To Go Back

Praise God for new life!

 

I have been back in America for exactly 8 weeks today (not that I’m counting).

I have loved every second that I have spent with my family.

Staying up late making puzzles and playing games with my mom.

Working with my dad.

Running around with my little brother and sisters. Holding my first nephew, my sister’s son, just a few minutes after he was born.

I love my family.

But my heart aches for Uganda.

Uganda is my home.

I know this is where God has put me.

I have been spending the past 8 weeks spreading the word about what I am doing in Uganda.

This is mainly a fundraising trip.

I am raising money so that I can continue my work and hopefully reach out to people in different ways.

Speaking about my trip has often moved me to tears.

I miss the boys that I work with so much.

I can’t wait to get back to them.

I can’t wait to love on them.

These are my boys, and I can’t wait to get back to them.

Please be praying for me while I am in the states for the next few weeks.

Pray that the funds come in for my return trip.

Pray for the boys as we are apart and that they will be protected and taken care of.

Most of all, pray that they would know and love Jesus!

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas as we remember the birth of our Savior!

Trusting Fully

   One of the most important lessons that I have learned here in Uganda, it is to trust the Lord with everything that I am. I wish I could say that my entire life before coming here has prepared me for this lesson, but it hasn't. Not to say that I haven't trusted God before coming to Africa, but being here is a whole different ball game. Sometimes I feel a little crazy when I'm on my way home from the slums and praying quietly to myself asking God to let the power be on when I get home in hopes that I will be able to cook my supper and get some work done on my computer. I need to trust God when I go to the internet cafe and make sure the internet is working on that particular day. I need to trust that it won't rain so that my overwhelming amounts of dirty laundry can dry on the clothesline after I wash in a bucket for three hours out of my day. I need to trust that the boys are taken care of, and that someone will provide food for them when I'm not around that day. The list goes on. I have to trust in such a different way than I ever had to in the States. It's times like these when the world seems so big. Just a 24 hour plane ride away from the place that I used to call home, everything is so different; tradition, culture, religion, trust. Everyday is a new day- unexpected, somehow difficult, a new experience, another lesson learned, a new phrase of the language memorized, one more friend in the slums made, witnessing something beautiful.

   Life here is full of trust. It has to be. And I think it's exciting! I know that I can't make it through the day without spending some time in my Bible. It's incredibly difficult to filter through the sermons and theology taught here if I am not spending time reading a good book about Christianity. Living here has taught me something that was harder to grasp while I lived in the States; it's completely, fully, and absolutely NOT about me! Without Him, I can't even be here. And it is wonderful! It is relieving to know that He doesn't even expect me to be here and do it all on my own. He never intended for me to be in Africa trying to figure it out alone. He knows that I make mistakes, he's knows I'm not (and never will be) prefect, and he knows that I'm too weak and sinful to be here on my own. While this might sound depressing and discouraging, it's the best news any one could ever hear, because it doesn't end there. God was here before me, he is working before me, he chose me for this work, and I trust that His power will be made perfect in my weakness; His grace is sufficient (2 Cor 12:5).

   The other day I was on a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) on my way into town and a man on the side of the road yelled out to me, “Mzungu (white folk)! You're good!”. It got me thinking. Am I good? This man doesn't know me. I could be a serial killer, a robber, a drug lord, a streaker, or I could have just gotten out of prison for urinating in public (which is actually not an illegal offense here in Uganda, and is part of everyday life to see someone taking care of business on the side of the road as you walk by). Okay, I realize I got a little crazy on that last bit, but my point is, that man had, and still has, no idea who I am. Truth is, I'm capable of being the worlds most dangerous killer that will show up on tonight's showing of Uganda's Most Wanted, or I could be the most notorious streaker in all the major cities combined, yet he still yelled to me that I'm good. I realize that he probably had other motives for yelling that to me, but it still got me thinking. I want people to see me and yell something different. Though I don't encourage anyone to yell “Mzungu” at me (it gets old after a while), I want someone to yell at me, “Mzungu! I see how God is using you in Uganda. And God is good through you! Rejoice that God chose you!” I'm probably dreaming to big to think that this would even be said to me as I pass by on a boda boda, but I think you get what I'm saying. It's just nice to know that He doesn't expect perfection from me, He doesn't expect me to save the world. It's not my job. My job is to follow His Word, and trust Him. His power is made perfect in my weakness, not my strength. What a great reminder! Praise the Lord! Mukama Ye Bazibwe!

Update from Uganda!

   I have been living in Uganda for almost three months now, and in this time, I feel that my heart has been broken so many times by the struggles of the people and the heartache that they have endured. But then there are the times when my heart has been put back together by seeing the joy and passion that fill the people here. I love every minute of it. Before coming to Uganda, I had some crazy idea in my head that when I got here, I would be teaching people here and be reaching out to them, but I’m going to be perfectly honest and say that many people here have spoken and taught me more deeply than I could ever dream about doing for another person. I hope that I can make even half the difference in their lives as they have made in mine.
    In the next few weeks I’m going to share with you some of the opportunities I’ve had in my time here! My hope is to speak to you of how I am growing; of how the Lord is teaching me. I want you to see into my heart and see how the Lord is challenging me.
I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to be a part of several different ministries while I have been here, and there is much to tell you all about. I came to Uganda under Rafiki Africa Ministries, which is a children’s home in Kampala (the capitol of Uganda) in a small village/town called Namugongo. The children’s home cares for 12 children that have been abandoned by their families or have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS and poverty. These children are beautiful inside and out and I have come to love each one of them more deeply than I ever thought possible. There are five precious girls and 7 feisty boys who all have very different personalities and it has been so special to me to get to know them all; their interests, their dreams, likes and dislikes, and the things that make them bust up laughing. Fauziya loves when I sing to her and she is terrible at staring contests because she can’t go five seconds without smiling and giggling. Annet loves when I speak Luganda (the local language) and she thinks it’s hysterical when I miss-pronounce the words she teaches me. Brenda thinks she’s a monkey and always jumps on me when she sees me as if I’m the mama monkey, even though she’s too big to carry around now. Esther get’s huge eyes when she gets excited and becomes speechless when you do something she likes. Carol is miss prim and proper and she loves everything to be just right; she’s the little lady in the house.
    Joshua dances every night and sings his heart out, I’m always surprised that he has any air left in his lungs. Joel is quiet and reserved, but when you get to know him he lets himself go which is a beautiful sight; he loves to draw and to be held, even though he’s almost too heavy now! Oscar is a smarty-pants; ask him anything and he probably knows the answer; his nickname in the house is Professor and he giggles every time he hears it. Cocus loves hugs and he pretty much lives for any moment he can get to cuddle with someone. Jerom smiles constantly and thinks that "play dough" is really called "potatoes" (and that just cracks me up!). Don is a surfer dude and he’s a little punk (the good and funny kind of punk); whenever he comes home from school he’s the only one that doesn’t have his shirt tucked in. He’s a prankster and I think it’s adorable! Emma is tiny (I just want to clear this up- in Uganda, Emma is a common boy’s name); he has a tiny raspy voice and loves being the baby in the house, being held and being completely spoiled.
    I wish you could get to know these kids. I love them dearly! A few weeks ago I was sitting on the ground while the kids were running around playing and a couple of them jumped in my lap and started laughing uncontrollably, I was suddenly overwhelmed with this feeling that I would do just about anything for these kids. The Lord as given me a special love for them and they will always have a place deep in my heart.
    Another ministry that I have been able to work with is called Sanyu Babies Home. Sanyu is located in downtown Kampala. They house babies and toddlers who have been orphaned or abandoned. It’s always heartbreaking to spend time there. This is the oldest babies home in Uganda. They have grown in children faster than they have grown in resources and you can only imagine what sort of outcome that has. These babies need so much love and attention and there just aren’t enough people to give it to them appropriately. I’m still not sure how to help there more effectively, but for right now I am there once a week for a few hours doing laundry, mopping, playing with the babies, and feeding them all during lunch time.
    I am also involved in another ministry called A Perfect Injustice (API) and I love every minute of it! This ministry works with street boys who live in a slum in Kampala. These boys have been in the streets for years and for many of them, that kind of life is better than the life they had at home. These boys collect scraps and sell them for an incredibly small amount of money and many of them use that money to buy drugs. API has “project days” (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) when the boys all get together and meet at a church (more of a roof with two walls made out of scrap sheet metal) in the middle of a slum. On these days they have a school lesson, game time, worship, and a Bible lesson before being served dinner. Rachel (a girl that I work with) and myself are in charge of the Monday program. Every week I plan a school lesson and then we play games and Rachel plans a Bible lesson. The rest of the time we hang out with the boys- building relationships which they so desperately need. The other day I was walking down a road in Kampala and I ran into a few of the street boys. We were excited to see each other and stopped in the middle of the busy sidewalk to talk. Street kids aren’t hard to miss. It’s sad to say, but they are usually dirty and they wear clothes that look like they’ve been around the world a few times over the past century. People usually avoid them, so you can only imagine how people were reacting when a Mzungu (the word used for a white person) stopped to have a conversation with them in the midst of afternoon traffic. In less than a few seconds a group of people surrounded us and I was a little nervous about what might happen. Nonetheless, I was determined to talk with these boys. They’re my friends, and I wasn’t going to ignore them because people were watching. I would trust these boys with my life- I love them so much! They are good kids and I’m not going to let anybody tell me otherwise. As soon as we finished our conversation I started walking away and the crowd around us began walking as well, whispering to one another, and I knew it was about me talking to the boys. But honestly, I trust those boys more than I would trust a lot of people. They’re good. I know they do things that are wrong, but don’t we all? I’m going to keep spending time with them and it doesn’t matter what anybody thinks! I’m happy to say that I am now able to spend two days a week with these boys at API instead of the one day that I have been spending with them for the past 3 months. I’m really excited to spend some extra time with them!
    Our God is amazing! He is doing great things in Uganda! I am so blessed beyond belief that he is letting me be a part of it! I want to thank you all for your support. Because of you, I get to be here in God’s presence. Because of you, I see miracles. Because of you, my heart breaks every day for the needs of the people. And because of your support, I get to be apart of meeting those needs.
    I would love to hear from you all. I want to hear how the Lord is speaking to you. If you have any questions, I want to hear them. If you are interested in more information about a specific program or organization I am working with, please let me know! Email me any time. I hope you are all being blessed this year!

madrid.stephanie60@gmail.com

If you would like to read more about any of these ministries on your own, check out these websites:

Rafiki Africa Ministries

~http://www.rafikiministries.org/

~http://rafikiministries.blogspot.com/

A Perfect Injustice

~ http://www.aperfectinjustice.com/#!

~http://aperfectinjustice.blogspot.com/

Sanyu Babies' Home

~http://www.sanyubabies.com/index.html

 

My Savior's Always There For Me

  It’s been so long since I’ve updated, and now I think there’s so much to tell about that I’m not going to get it all into one post! I’ll do my best!

  All the kids are doing really well here at the Rafiki home. School started a few weeks ago so the days have been pretty quiet around the house. There’s still much to do, though! Laundry can be an all day job at times, and dishes are quite the commitment. The other day I swept the driveway with a Ugandan broom, which was no easy task! I don’t know if any of you have ever seen a Ugandan broom, but when you have to sweep an entire compound with it, you would understand why they’re evil. It’s basically a bundle of small sticks that are about 2 feet long held together with a piece of elastic something or other, and they call it a broom. It does the job alright, as long as you’re okay with not being able to stand upright again for the rest of the day. So other than house chores, I’ve been pretty busy. The kids are doing pretty well- except that chickenpox is in the house. Two of our girls (Fauziya and Annet) have already gotten them and we’re just waiting for the day when we wake up and the whole house has broken out in it! Even some of our staff is saying that they’ve never have chickenpox before so it’s likely that they’ll come down with it, too. Prayers for survival would be much appreciated! Poor Fauziya is still miserable but Annet has made a quick recovery. Aside from that, the kids are just being kids! It’s great to see them playing like crazy little rascals and just knowing that this is exactly the kind of life they weren’t born into but knowing that the Lord brought them here so that they could just be kids. They are beautiful kids and every day with them is countless smiles, continuous laughing, and more stories to tell. Kids are kids, though, and people are people, and not everything is easy. But the Lord continues to be faithful. He continues to strengthen in the moments of weakness. He encourages in times of opposition. He comforts us when we feel broken. He prepares us for our battles and fights alongside us.

   There are definitely struggles when living in Africa that I have never thought of while living in America. Some of these, no matter how petty they may seem, include not having water, not having power, bathing in basins filled with cold water, having constantly dirty feet, and no matter how many times I wash my hair, the red Ugandan dirt is always visible in the soap suds, turning them equally as red as the dirt. This is the first time that I have ever seen dirt come out of my hair, and somehow, this is now the least of my worries. No, not somehow, God is how these became the least of my worries. The truth is, God can use people no matter how dirty their hair gets in less than 12 hours. He doesn’t care that my feet can get as dirty as a two year old in mud puddle. He can speak to our hearts when the power is out, and He still stands by us when the water is out and we can’t flush the toilet. The lord has really been working in my heart to close my eyes to the petty, materialistic “issues” and has been working on opening them to bigger problems that are in the world. I’m visual. And sometimes I can’t be spoken to, I have to be shown. God has shown me poverty, He has shown me hunger, He has shown me a need for love. These things are important. I have been thinking the last few days that God is working in my heart to teach me not to care what level of cleanliness my hair is, but to reach out to those around me. Rafiki has a ministry day once a week that we are able to get involved with. I thank God for this. These days are times to not focus on ourselves. We can step out of our little Christian bubble with our Christian kids and Christian employees and Christian volunteers where we have been so blessed by the Lord and been able to see the lives of the kids here so drastically changed, and we get to see how the Lord is just starting to work in different areas of Uganda. We get to see how he is just beginning to change lives. We get to see when people are just beginning to understand Christ’s love. It’s indescribable, and so much more important than dirty hair.            

“If our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what could stand against?” These are words to a song that we sing here at the Rafiki home that have really been on my heart lately. Sometimes there are days where it just seems that nothing is working out and that there is actually something that is working against what we try to accomplish. This song is so encouraging! I find myself singing it often. If God is for us no one can stop us! If God is with us, nothing can stand against us! God speaks in different ways, and I found that since I’ve been here, he has spoken to me most through the kids. How cool, and how humbling! These kids are smart. They can counsel and encourage without having the slightest clue that’s what they’re doing. There are so many times when I think that I came here to teach, but since coming here I’ve done very little teaching, but have been taught more than I ever thought possible in only the 2 months that I’ve been here.

   This isn’t exactly an itinerary of what I’ve been doing here. It’s more of an overview of what I’m learning. I guess the itinerary will come later. But for now I want you to know that our “Savior loves, our Savior lives, our Savior’s always there for me. Our God he was, our God he is, our God he’s always gonna be.”These words are true, and I don’t know that I ever fully believed them until the Lord brought me home to Uganda. Praise the Lord!    

Completely and Fully Sealed in His Presence

   I have been living in Africa for 9 ½ days now. Every minute of every day has been completely filled with God and His amazing and perfect love. Never before have I heard or seen God so clearly, and it is so incredible!

   Every day here at the Rafiki home is the same, yet somehow everyday brings new experiences and blessings. Almost every day is filled with mounds of laundry, more dishes than I care to count, 24 baths a day, and washing chalk beards off of 12 tiny faces everyday before lunch. It doesn’t sound so great, but somehow it is. Seeing how much joy the kids are exploding with makes the mounds of laundry worth it. Seeing these little children dancing and praising the Lord every night during devotions makes the countless dishes worth it. Watching little Emma dance around on his tiptoes all day long, Jerom wrinkling his nose with every huge smile that he gives us 100 times a day, Annet throwing her head back and laughing at every little thing, and the countless other little quirks that I’m sure you will be hearing about. These things are completely worth the 24 baths a day. I love every one of these kids and it is such a blessing to be a part of their lives. s

   Twice a week we have the opportunity to be involved with other ministries around Kampala. Last Thursday, and again on Monday, we were able to visit Sanyu Babies home. This is one of the oldest babies homes in Uganda. This home has grown so much since it’s beginning in the 1920’s. Babies are left at their gate almost everyday. The last time I was at the home, there was a new baby there that I swear was born just the day before. There are so many helpless and desperate babies that are just craving the love and attention that the limited staff is unable to give them as often as needed. Just going there and holding a baby for just a little while, letting them know that they are loved can make a huge difference in their lives and is all that they want. This is a weekly ministry that we are going to be visiting.

   Another ministry that we will be visiting often is A Perfect Injustice.  This ministry works with boys who live on the streets in the slums of Kampala. The boys gather a few times a weeks to have some school lessons and do Bible lessons.  I loved being able to go there and hang out and just be a friend to these boys. They don’t ask for much, they just want to be with someone that cares about them.  I am so excited to go back!

   God is here in Uganda! I’m convinced that he has made this his home. I know that he is working here and I am so glad to be a part of what He has planned here. The Lord is working in the hearts of so many people. Just on Sunday at church, I was overwhelmed with how much passion there was in their worship. The room was filled with such a wonderfully devastating love for the Lord! He is everywhere. He is in our home at Rafiki Africa Ministries, He continuously loves the babies at Sanyu, and He is the greatest friend that the boys at A Perfect Injustice could ever ask for. It is not only me, not only everyone at Rafiki Africa Ministries, but all of Uganda that is completely and fully sealed in His presence! Praise the Lord!