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!