Week 1:

I arrived at Entebbe International Airport on Thursday, 6 June at around 2:30 a.m. after 23 hours of travel. Saying that I was disoriented was an understatement. I met our caretaker, Tracy, at 4 a.m. and went to bed shortly after. The first day was met with a little bit of panic as pickup was at noon and I slept through my 11a.m. alarm. The office is only a 5 minute drive from where we are staying for the summer. I was exhausted and in a serious mental fog all day; nonetheless, I smiled and did my best to learn people’s names. They didn’t seem to know what to do with me as my boss was in Liberia. I did an orientation Thursday afternoon and Friday in order to learn how the ministry operates. They have a ton of departments and all seem to love working with each other. Christ is central, that you can see. We did devotions on Friday which consisted of singing and dancing. Anyone who knows me is aware that I do not like to dance in any form so it took a while for me to loosen up. It was special though, it was very upbeat and happy. I still haven’t met my boss, Steven. I was struggling after the first two days of work because I had done literally nothing and had no work to do. It was a huge relief when my boss reached out to me and gave me some reading and a big task. Strange, at USAFA I was someone who liked to avoid work, here I’m hungry for it. I guess the purpose behind it is something that I’m on fire for, that makes all the difference.

I learned a lot about the projects that are headed at the Uganda Office. Children’s Heart Project finds kids throughout Uganda that are in need of heart surgery and provides it for them. Some of the staff are people who received this same care as children before and are so invested in that. This gives them a chance to share Jesus with people who have never heard. A lot of people here don’t necessarily know what it means to be given something for free. That is what we claim that God’s love and grace is, free. We could never earn it in action. It is beautiful how in being given the free gift of a desperately needed heart surgery, a child might understand in a tangible way just how available God’s love is to them. It’s free, its yours because he loves you and he is good, not because of you. The surgery is free.

Keeping Families Together is another amazing project. In Uganda, a lot of parents put their children in orphanages. This is not because they don’t want them but because they don’t have the means to support them, it’s a heartbreaking reality. One part of KFT is working with parents to give them a skill that they can use to make more money and be able to support their children. Then SP works to bring the kids home if they’ve already been placed in an orphanage.

The last one I know of is the Human Trafficking Project. There is a ton of it in Uganda, people will sell their daughter for 50,000 schillings, less than 20 d0llars. These girls are abused all throughout Uganda and are even transported across borders to Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda. This ministry works tirelessly to bring these women home and help them reintegrate though their lives can never be normal after the trauma they’ve experienced. SP helps by giving them land, goats, skills… whatever they can do to help. The ladies that work in the department seemed burned out. I suppose this can be the least uplifting of their projects. The women they work with are often cynical wondering why a good God would allow their story to happen. It’s a fair question, one that many people including myself wrestle with. SP helps them regardless of if they are receptive to Christ. God loves them, he hates what happened to them, he wants us to love them unconditionally.

One thing I’ve been thinking about quite a bit is introspection and it’s value. I naturally am a very introspective lad, however I find almost no time for it here. I’ve been wondering why that it. I suppose that there’s too much to do here, a bigger purpose that distracts from this. Don’t get me wrong, introspection has its place and it can be good, however I’m starting to think that it can be overdone with some serious consequences. Something I read by A.W. Tozer comes to mind, “The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do”. I do think this is true, however I’m starting to know it in experience as I’ve been so wrapped up in what God is doing here though its been just 4 days. I can’t really explain the feeling. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says something similar in his letter and papers from prison, speaking of his work in prison and his concern for people Berlin living in constant fear of bombing he talks about how his concern for his own state has diminished and has become less significant. That has stuck with me as well. I haven’t come to any huge conclusions on this, but its been coming up in my reading and devotions… I’m listening

After 4 days here, my sleep schedule is already on the right time and I’ve had a ton of energy all weekend. On Friday I ran 8 miles, today I ran 10. I plan on returning from 60 days in better shape than I started. On Saturday the 15th my boss and I will be flying to Durban to support and Operation Christmas Child event their, we will be there for 2 weeks. Very very excited for this.

Week 2:

I finally met my supervisor, Steven on Wednesday. Steven is an ex-Green Beret and is currently the Security Director for the Sub-Saharan region of Africa. I was pretty nervous to meet the guy as anyone who knows what green berets do should be, however he is super down to earth and easy to talk to. He is very comfortable with silence like myself but likes to talk if its something worth talking about. I work well with him I think. I asked him a few questions about his expectations for me, he said he sees this internship more as a mentoring opportunity for both him and I, he has work for me, but thats not why he picked me. To quote him, “I knew after watching your spark hire video interview questions that I wouldn’t have to babysit you, I can’t say the same about the Liberty students.” So that made me feel good, he at least thinks i’m competent…. for now :). I was telling my dad that I could have never orchestrated an opportunity like this had I taken 60 days into my own hands. I’m currently traveling around Africa with an Ex green beret who is much more interested in teaching me about the Lord and being a man than about loading me up with work. Pretty amazing how it’s happened. I’m glad that God provoked me to want to do this. Its not my good heart, its by God’s grace that he gave this desire to me.

On Monday I met a little girl that came into the office, she was on her way to Nashville to get heart surgery. When she lifted up her shirt, you could physically see her heart beating on her chest. She didn’t say a word to any of us, but she came over and sat in my chair. She was only a little bit older than Sergio… so I thought, what would Sergio want to do right now if he was here? 30 seconds later we were watching “Baby Shark”. Unfortunately, Sergio has a much more fine tuned sense of humor than this little girl, as she was not amused in the slightest. It was worth a shot though.

In the day of the Instagram relevancy competition, everything foreign seems like it will be fulfilling and everything about your current life seems normal, however with time everything becomes normal and you are left fighting for joy through the inevitable monotony that will always be found in life. Missions is a romanticized field of work for sure. For years I’ve been scrolling social media and slowly coming to believe the lie that traveling and adventure would make me a richer person and that mission work would fulfill me. No, none of that is true. When talking to Kenzie last spring about her semester in Cambodia, I was so enthralled by what she was doing. I still remember what she said to me, essentially that we have to decide daily to bloom where we are and to choose to invest in the relationships we have daily. “If I can’t love my mom well, how am I supposed to love some stranger half way around the world”. It’s so true. Because even this becomes normal rather quickly, life’s monotony sets in, and you have to choose to love the people around you once the high of something new wears off. The work is incredibly meaningful though, there is no doubt that the joy of helping people by playing your small role in God’s story can have you waking up excited. However mission work can never take the place that is meant for the King. I believe that the best thing that can ever happen to us is that we would know Jesus personally, deeper than we know our siblings. I can’t imagine what that would be like, I’m not there yet. I’ve only had a glimpse.

I’m incredibly thankful that God is using me here. I never really knew what I had to offer. I thought this work was just for doctors. I’ve experienced that God will take you up on the offer. There is a need that can be met by you, a vital role for all of us to play in God’s story, a story of redemption and love. I want to come back and be driven by that truth. And it’s just as true in the states as it is here, the need is just more outward here.

Week 3

This week was spent entirely in Durban, South Africa.  It’s a pretty interesting place, it looks very nice, very first world, however it is incredibly dangerous, and crime is very prevalent.  The hotel we are staying in is incredibly nice, I can charge room service to the company card whenever.  It has me a little bit confused though, I thought this was supposed to be a sacrifice haha.  Oh well, I offered 60 days to the Lord and this is what he’s come up with, I know there is a reason for me being here.  The first couple days me and Steven went to 18 churches and schools to scope out the Operation Christmas Child distribution cites.  Nothing too dangerous really, there just is always the chance that someone shows up with ill intentions, in which case we are here.  It’s one of those things where you’re useless until the moment you become vital. 

I’ve been reading and discussing this book “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life” with Steven.  It’s been pretty interesting, I don’t know that the emphasis has been on “discipline” which is rooted by the word “Disciple” in my life.  It’s a good read for sure. If you’re like me and occasionally find yourself not knowing the next step is to know God even more, these disciplines are good things to think about.  In it, the author writes boldly and believes what he says is true about certain disciplines such as reading, prayer, meditation and worship.  He has perspectives on these topics that I haven’t really considered. Although too be honest I haven’t thought critically about meditation or worship. He writes in a way that he doesn’t care if he steps on toes.  I always thought I liked men like that, bold and unapologetic about saying and doing what they believe is right…. HOWEVER… it is my toes that he is stepping on here and I don’t like that so much.  When someone is bold in saying things that are true about God and what the Bible says I always have this reaction of “oh you think your way is the only way to know God more?”  It’s a strange reaction, one rooted in pride I think… as well as a over-inflated sense of my own spiritual aptitude.  I think its true that if I actually knew how much I didn’t know I’d be more open to teaching and authority of other men… so I’m going to try to practice what this guy is preaching.

There is a worker here at the bar of the hotel, his name is David.  Every night I’ve come down to the bar to get a cup of coffee and hang out.  The guy is incredibly kind and seems needy for conversation.  Every night I’ve gotten my coffee and left to sit down and be alone… one night I felt compelled to ask him about his family. He shared a little about his daughters, I gathered that he’s a pretty normal guy living in South Africa trying to make ends meet.  He asked about me and I told him that I’m a lieutenant in the US Air Force and he couldn’t believe it haha I was surprised by how excited he was by that.  He asked why I was here and I told him about SP and what we are doing.  He backed away from the counter pointing at me saying “good man” “you a good man”… (say those quotes in a Chinese English accent, that how he talks haha).  He brought me back to his closet office and pulled out a newspaper article from 13 years ago when a bunch of men saved David’s house from flooding. He had gone bankrupt 4 times and was about to lose his home to a ton of flooding.  He couldn’t get help from the city because he wasn’t important.  He prayed to God to save him and the next day a bunch of guys showed up to do thousands of dollars worth of work to protect David’s home. Crazy, just crazy.  The lesson learned, God is good, he cares about me.

We did distributions for OCC on Friday and Saturday, that was something to watch.  I think America has made me cynical and ungrateful.  I saw the kids holding shoeboxes and I was thinking “eh they’re going to be wondering why people sent them a bunch of useless Dollar General stuff”(I have PTSD from working for Carol at Dollar General in 2014). When they opened their boxes and saw what was given they couldn’t believe it… they literally were screaming over “100 Word Searches” books and slinkys. I’m remembering one kid waving around a photo from his box of the family who sent him his box.  It kind of left me scratching my head.  I’ve seen videos of kids smiling with their boxes however I guess part of me figured it was probably not that significant in real life… It was humiliating to me…. my cynicism, pride and ungratefulness to see what a plastic whistle did to little boy in front of me. I’ve been wondering why this happened to them. And I think what this boy as well as all these children were realizing was this, they felt like they mattered. And that is the message of Christ.  I have a father in heaven willing to give all, including his son, for me to know him.  If you feel the weight of that, I don’t think anyone can resist that. The OCC shoebox is exactly what SP claims it is.  A tangible representation of God’s love.  “I can’t believe I matter to this family in America” is the look on their faces… and that family loved them out of an overflow of the love the Christ showed them.. That message is powerful in a life that has been regarded as valueless. It points these kids to Christ absolutely.  I’m really thankful to have witnessed what I did. Yesterday we went to our second distribution cite. 

While I was walking around the perimeter of the church an old guy got out of his car and walked over to talk to me.  He was about 60 years old and was missing his two front teeth.  He would talk to me for a few minutes and then look at me smiling while he backed away still facing me… then walked back up to me to talk some more.  It would have been awkward in America however I just smiled and watched and did my best to understand what he was saying.  There were a few moments of clarity in the conversation though.  The part I remember in particular was when he said to me “we have no idea how much power we really have”.  He followed this up with some points about our society and how the world blinds us to our own power given to us by God.  In the context of my experience at the OCC events, it is clear to me that God was speaking to me through him… either that or this was an unbelievable cosmic coincidence. It was the same realization that I had watching the kids react to their cheap toys.  The power we have to change lives through Christ is huge.  When we care, when we love, we help people to understand that they matter and have value.  When we do it in Jesus’ name and live lives of love that point back to Christ, they understand where their value comes from.  When they know where their value comes from, they know that it cannot be lost.  God’s love for us didn’t begin with us being “good” and it doesn’t end when we sin and fall short, no matter how much.  God’s love for us began with his goodness. So this is power.

Despite all of this awesomeness, over the past week I have been struggling heavily with a variety of different thoughts that have come to my mind.  It has felt like chaos running through my mind, however I do believe that it’s spiritual.  I’m hopeful in a weird way because I find that I often feel the worst at the times when God is changing me the most.  Satan fights the hardest when he’s losing his grip on parts of your life, that has been my experience… every one of your moves toward godliness is a painful and costly in a sense, part of the old self is dying.  What is crucial in those moments is to hold the right views of God and who he is. I realized today that the root of all of the things I’ve been struggling with is this… what do I believe about God?  The first thing I have to believe is he is good, he loves me and wants the best for me.  Part of humility is understanding my imperfect relationship with God and being open to the idea that I hold the wrong views of who he is.  However that first one I mentioned is unquestionably right and I hold firmly to it in times where I’m struggling. God is good.

Week 4:

It’s pretty mind-blowing has fast this has all gone by. I have 25 days left here. Steven is quickly becoming a good friend of mine, I have more respect for him the more I get to know him. The most shocking thing about him is that he is 35. On Friday he gave a sermon at a church in Entebbe and it was powerful. He used the story of Hosea to illustrate who we were and what God did for us. I’ve heard the story before but the way he unpacked it and connected it with the Gospel was jaw dropping for me. I haven’t left church with answers in a good while. Normally I leave with questions. Last week I wrote about some of the struggles I was having and the question of “what do I believe about God”. I left that building on Friday with peace and thankfulness, it was an answered prayer for sure.

Today I was running with a friend in Jinja, when we passed a point on a dirt road she pointed to a spot on the road and said “last year I saw a little girl get raped there.” I don’t really have anything to say on this, I have been thinking about it all day. For her privacy I wont put her name but if you can, please pray for her. I think she feels the pain of that trauma.

This weekend we went to a hotel called “The Haven” near Jinja. For 20 dollars, we got a four-course dinner, a house with 3 rooms and 4 beds, and a huge breakfast with eggs, bacon, tons of fruit and great bread. Money well spent. We had breakfast overlooking the Nile. It was an awesome weekend and brought some much needed rest and fresh air.

As I’ve said before, I don’t really know my role here. It seems like we do a lot of odd jobs in security. But whether I’m in Colorado or Kampala, God wants me to continually pursue him as he pursues me. That comes first wherever I am. There are endless things to learn about God and challenges to face in your walk. I think I came here with the thought of ‘doing’ something, where as in my experience so far it seems God has me here to learn. I’m not only learning about him but also what he expects from me. It has become apparent that Steven doesn’t really want to be here. Every morning he walks out the front door greeted by the smell of car exhaust. His family is walled into less than an acre of land in the middle of a dangerous city. Caroline, his wife, takes care of 6 kids under the age of ten while her husband has to travel for weeks at a time for his job. She can’t drive far because there are few traffic rules and its a zoo. I’m sure they are both tired. But their purpose here has not been forgotten and their faith has compelled them to stay. Steven has a full time job and yet he preaches two days on the weekend and is currently helping a local paster plant a church in a Somali slum. If you see this man from the outside you would think “man that guy loves what he does” and he definitely does. But it costs him a lot of time and a lot of comfort and a lot of relationships in his life that I’m sure he’d love to be closer to. So loving what he does is not the same as it being easy for him. I think it helps, but its still a sacrifice. So that has become more real to me while I’ve been here. A lot of people who do this sort of work always speak of the passion they have for it and the desire to be in the field. But I think that no matter who you are, the passion dims at times. Then you’re left in a hot, filthy and smelly place thousands of miles from your family trusting God despite the good feelings being gone. That has become more real to me.

Week 5

This week I got the chance to meet with the Country Director, Tred. He’s a British chap, his full name is David Treseder which I think could be one of the coolest last names I’ve heard in a long time. I brought in the Security Manual that I had been writing for the entire time I’ve been here. The base document was about 50 pages and there were nearly 10 appendicies. He spent some time looking through it and said that it looked good and had pretty much every thing he was looking for and more. That was a huge relief. Steven told me it was great too haha I had no idea what I was doing and managed to put something together that was acceptable to the big cheese. It’s cool to know that if something bad happens, the office will have a plan of what to do and I was a part of that. Apparently they are going to use the one I wrote as a model for all the other country offices and standardize the manuals for all of Africa. So yeah, that was the one task my boss had for me for the entire internship and it is pretty much done.

Steven has a bunch of random ideas for the rest of the internship that mostly include showing me the best food in Kampala, its a strange internship I have had so far. One thing he mentioned doing was going to a Somali slum with his friends that he’s planting a church with and doing street evangelism… which to be honest makes my stomach churn just thinking about it. I’ve been pretty sure that this sort of thing is ineffectual and just makes people assume you’re crazy. I have always had this image of a bearded white guy yelling at people not to burn in hell from the street corner when I think of street evangelism. The idea of “getting outside my comfort zone” is pretty much embodied by the prospect of doing street evangelism. So I figure that my level of discomfort and apprehension about it is a pretty good indicator that its something I should do. So if given the opportunity I will go and give it a whirl. I’ve been convicted that the power to change lives is best wielded in a friendship with someone who doesn’t know Jesus, a friendship that costs you something, one in which you bear the weight of someone else’s sin and struggle and don’t put up wall of fake perfection, one that isn’t easy for you and one that you follow up on for a lifetime. I still think this is true, however its a real possibility over here that some of these people have never heard of Jesus the messiah. It’s easy to assume that people both here and in the U.S. have hard the gospel and just think it’s ridiculous, but I think there are a lot of people in the U.S. especially who have only ever heard a message of condemnation and conformity or maybe know vague things about Christ. We should stop assuming that people know what it is that we claim, its an easy cop out. The true message of Christ as we know him is a lot harder to resist.

On Saturday I went to get coffee with one of the employees here. Her name is Liezel (I LOVE THAT NAME: Hannah, Gioni, Steven, Addie, Jake, you are not allowed to use this name for your daughter). This girl reminds me of Stacy so much I can’t even believe it. She is very straight forward, very good at directing the conversation and keeping things lights. She’s from New Zealand and apparently people there are very blunt. I like it. We had some good conversation which surrounded her experience in Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge and my experience in Poland at Auschwitz. She being a nurse recognized how much that knowledge of the genocide in Cambodia was vital to her job. Essentially in Cambodia you have an entire population that is suffering from trauma. Every single person was affected by what happened there. She is passionate about helping people overcome trauma through Christ’s power, but most importantly she believes that if she helps people deal with trauma but they never hear who God is and what he’s done to reach them then she’s done practically nothing for them. That was interesting.

I talked to Hannah yesterday for a solid hour. I’d just like to take a quick moment to acknowledge how awesome she is. Any time I call her she has a compassionate ear for me and cares what I have going on. I really appreciate this about her, not just that she’s always there for me but also the fact that I know she always will be. That’s huge. I know this about all of my family as well. I really felt loved and missed yesterday while talking to her, so thank you for that Hannah!

There is a story about Martin Luther I was told earlier this week that I thinks resonates with us all on some level. One thing about Martin Luther is that he was absolutely convicted about the potency of his own sin. Martin Luther was a catholic and deeply involved in the church. On his first attempt to lead his congregation, he left the pulpit half way through the procession, he did not feel he possessed the purity to fill the role he was filling. There are accounts that he would be turned away from confession because he would so frequently come to the room to confess. He was troubled that nothing he did was pure, everything good he wanted was accompanied by some sense of self-service. We can’t honestly say we can walk away from doing a charitable work without feeling good about ourselves, even that satisfaction is our gain. I have to realize that this cannot be a hindrance to my desire to do good and my commitment to doing it. The bible says that our best efforts are rags before the throne. It is Jesus that makes our efforts worth anything at all. Jake and I have talked about this before, that it is impossible to do something with 100% pure motives…. but we can’t let that stop us from doing something good for someone and enjoying the satisfaction of meeting a need, Christ makes it perfect.

16 days left of the internship, its been interesting. It’s been challenging in ways I did not expect and also in very ordinary ways. I’m so glad to have had this opportunity.

Week 6:

Week 6 went by very quickly. The first day was spent in the office by myself. My boss took a comp day so I just looked at dirtbikes for hours and did nothing. Toward the end of the day I was pretty annoyed with the wasting of time, felt very much like I was watching the internship slip away. The next day looked like it was going much the same and I was not going to let it happen.. so I went to the CHidlren’s Heart Project Manager and asked her for work. She obliged and sent me one of her newest employees, Michael, who had previously been a truck driver for SP for decades. His back was bad but SP loved him and moved him to a ministry role in the office. A job that requires the use of a computer. Long story short, Michael had no idea how to do anything at all so I spent a large part of the day helping him learn how to use email, Word and Excel. It was quite a bit of fun surprisingly. My boss came in at 1 and after that we had things to do. On Wednesday we ran interviews for a new security job for a Ugandan National. We had 5 candidates come into the office. Steven let me run the whole show which was really cool to do. Thursday I just went around to different places in Kampala with Steven. Friday and Saturday were my weekend days because I spent Sunday traveling to the bush in a region called Karamoja.

On Wednesday I ran devotions in the office. It went really well, I think leading those mens groups the past couple years has helped me to not be so nervous about giving a message. A couple of people wanted to talk to me afterwards about the message and what I talked about, that was very rewarding and I’m really satisfied that the message struck a chord with some people.

I didn’t have a ton of time to write this week so I know this is kind of brief. 10 days left…

Week 7:

Last week was an experience that will stay with me. Every day I was anxious to go out into the field, not only because of what I would see, but also because of what I was seeing in my own heart and mind. Everyday I was wrestling with something different, even random. God exposed me this week I would say.

It was a 10 hour drive to Karamoja through towns, villages and dirt roads. Karamoja was way out there in the bush. It is the most food insecure region in the country. We got there Sunday night and were staying at the Mt Moroto Hotel. Monday morning we went to a sight for a project called Maternal and Child Health. It was training for mother and fathers to learn how to prevent simple illnesses and issues, most of which seem like common sense to us. They also use it as a sort of bible learning time. On the drive back I remember seeing a little boy, maybe 2, standing about 30 yards into a field totally by himself. I could see the joints of his knees. His face was grey, his eyes were cloudy. He looked like he was in a concentration camp. It was very common to see boys barely older than Sergio herding a flock of goats, but this was different. I was about to explode in the car on the way home. I had to face the serious question of if I would really follow God if he called me to missions. Could I take this? I wrote in my journal “I hope God never calls me here”. If I ever end up oversees, it will be because God calls me here. Otherwise I would not want to do this. I would have done a year mission on a whim before this summer. Absolutely ignorant of what this costs. I would have said “yeah I think I’d like to be a missionary” while having no clue what I was saying. I was in shock on Monday. I think I experienced culture shock for the entire week. Monday was hard, God exposed my weakness. I couldn’t control my mind.

On Tuesday we went to a project called Model Parish Project. A parish is a collection of villages. The project provides means and hygiene standards for a parish to meet. There has to be a certain number of latrines, houses have to be clean of and free of waste, and people in these parishes learn the gospel. I was struck by the culture and how broken it was. I was angry with the Karamojong men who sit on their asses and do nothing all day as the women work in the fields with all of their children. Even now it makes me mad. There was a lot of cultural things that I couldn’t stand. It left me with this question of “are we even doing any good here”? Their understanding of the gospel is so basic, I was frustrated by my perception of them, that they seem to want God because a bunch of white people come and give them stuff if they do. I don’t think this is true, I was in a really dark place in my mind with it. I look back on this journal and see how blinded by arrogance I was in the moment. Our culture is just as detrimental to our walk. We sat and talked with a guy named Josef and a bunch of other villagers. At the close of the conversation, Josef asked if I would remember and pray for them. I didn’t even have time to say yes before I had to drop my head as tears were filling my eyes. Eventually I was able to say yes. Josef asked to pray for us and it was healing. I felt love for them for the first time as they were praying in the Karamojong

Wednesday was the day we went to livelihoods, where they provide bags of a genetically superior kasava stem to villagers. They choose a couple villagers per village, give them 20 bags of stems to plant and in a year return to collect 20 bags of stems and give them to a neighbor of the villager’s choosing. It was crazy how much food they had in one year. One lady was able to use the money from the kasava she didn’t eat to buy cows and goats. Spectacular to see her wise use of what she was given and her enthusiasm to start someone else into the prosperity she found. I loved this project. Think I got through today without a major struggle? No, I didn’t. All day I found myself resenting all the people we were helping. Everywhere we drove people would stop and hold their hand out saying “give me something” and it drove me nuts. I have spent two months in which people see that I’m white and come up and ask me for something. It gets old. Its even worse in Karamoja than it is in Kampala. And I had no sympathy or compassion for their plee. They were often very thin, very frail, asking for help, yet during the day on Wednesday I couldn’t see past the annoyance I had for their helplessness. I came to some clarity on this on Friday.

Thursday I spent the day in the office writing a security report for the office. I also got to ride dirtbikes which was awesome! Started looking at 2019 hondas later that day….

On Friday we left for Kampala early in the morning and I had some time to reflect on Wednesday. I had such a powerful time of prayer and peace that I will just share part of my journal with you:

I didn’t look up at the sky at all this week. I just stared at my feet. I didn’t marvel at what God is doing here or find peace in the fact that he is in control. The truth is that the Lord is at work here. He is present and he loves the Karamojong more than I can understand. It was so hard to not be cynical this week. So difficult to not be discouraged by the flaws and fallenness of the Karamojong. Hard to not hate the culture, very blinded by arrogance. The people ask for hand outs constantly, holding their hands out as we drive past. One thing I’ve known about myself is that I don’t have a lot of patience for helplessness… as is evidenced by some of my relationships with people who act helpless, I tend to get very annoyed by them. This can be a good outlook, it stems from my belief that people are not helpless and they can make their situation better. However sometimes it hates those who are actually in need of help, so much so that I can look on at people who weigh less than 100 pounds and not feel any sympathy as they ask for something. If anything, God exposed me this week. He showed me how impossibly unlike Christ I am. He revealed my hatred that I have for him. I was so encouraged by the work people were doing for the Lord, but so discouraged by what was in my heart; no mercy, no compassion to be found. A hardened heart. I want to be broken by their brokenness, to weep for them. I want this love in my heart that only Christ can give me. That’s the only way I could ever do this job or be in this place. I had a brief taste of that love when Josef asked for us to remember him and pray. And then asked to pray for me. God let me be aware of my own utter helplessness. When someone hold their hand out to me, let my first instinct be to remember the 1,000,000 times I’ve asked you for a free handout of grace and mercy when I sin so horribly over and over. God help me not to withhold what you have so freely given me. I’ve done nothing to deserve what I have in you and in this world.

On Friday, God exposed to me that I am so far from Jesus, just as far as the new believers in Karamoja. He exposed that I’m arrogant, that I lack real actionable compassion on my own. He showed me things that I needed to see.

I look back on the week and can say that I learned a ton. It was an emotionally volatile week, on Monday being in tears over the little boy in the field and on Wednesday feeling no compassion. The rose colored glasses are off, not only about who I am apart from Jesus, but about the mission field. I would say that no one should consider doing such work unless they are pretty darn confident that they are called. If you are super enthusiastic about it, check yourself. You can not open yourself up to this place and the level of brokenness here and to the second-hand trauma you will inevitably experience without God’s provision of healing and understanding. Maybe you can for a short time. I think eventually you will either become hardened and stop caring, seeing it only as a duty to endure with no consideration of the lives and people stories…. or you will not be able to stay for very long. God is still refining, molding me and growing me. It is clear that sometimes he has to move us out of our own way and reveal ourselves to us.

Note:I would maintain that the dependency mindset that has been created by the 270 NGOs in Karamoja is terrible and doesn’t empower the people, however my heart is the point here. I was hardened and I didn’t care about their need I blamed them entirely for their situation.

Its Sunday. I fly home on Wednesday. Can’t wait for Sergio to meet “unnnnncle beard doo doo doo doo doo doo” 🙂

Week 8

It’s currently Tuesday, last full day in the office. There is a send off party for me tomorrow at lunch which I think is just an excuse for us to have cake haha. Very excited to return home and start the next chapter. I wonder what I will make of all of this once I’m back home, that will be interesting. I just wanted to use this to remember some of the names of people I knew in the office for memory and prayer.

Conci: the cleaner with the servant’s heart

Alfred: The driver who picked us up every morning and drove to Karamoja.

Tracy: Our caretaker

Benji: The IT master

Julius: Led worship every morning

April: Lead the OCC trip

Moses: The groundskeeper

Scott and Josie: Membercare staff that stayed with us

TB: Lived with us, Eretrian in exile

Today was my last day. I slept in, got up and did some packing, then went to the office around noon for my going away party. I got there a little early and went to the office. Steven asked me what I thought of a book he asked me to read about mortifying sin. I told him I read the whole thing while thinking about the struggle with porn in our culture, something that has touched the lives of every person I’ve talked to about it since highschool. We talked for a half hour about this sharing ideas and experiences. It was a powerful conversation. One thing he said was that “all sex outside of God’s design is predatory in some sense”. I think that rings true. He talked about two books, “Secret thoughts of and Unlikely Convert” about a lesbian college professor turned christian and “Crime and Punishment”, a book whose title i’ve heard about 5000 times in the past year. I think I’m going to check it out. I won’t go into any detail about the things Steven shared with me abou this own life, I’ll just say I have a ton of respect for him and appreciate his willingness to share it.

Before I got into the building, I talked to the groundskeeper Moses. Moses is about 5’7, 130 pounds and has the best smile I have seen. I didn’t get to know him as well as I would have like, but as I talked to him he said some incredibly kind things about me and the way I interacted with him and others. Sometimes you don’t know how small day to day things can carry a lot of weight to people who need so little encouragement. He told me “I like the way you preach” about my devotion I led. That was a weird thing to hear being said about me, that I preached haha I told him I wrote his name in my journal, he said thank you and flashed his humble smile. He said “I hope one day that God remembers me”. It was a beautiful and simple thing to say, it warmed my heart.

This evening I spoke with TB, an Eretrian exile for his religious beliefs. He was interrogated in tortured before leaving Eretria. His family is still in South Sudan and they are trying to reunite and claim asylum in Canada. He is the most loving man I have ever met in my life. We prayed together and have never heard such solid and childlike belief in someone’s voice as he was praying, it was incredible and powerful.

I’m sitting here in the room I’ve slept in all summer wondering where all the time went. I know once I’m in the airport its going to feel like none of this ever happened, like Steven and Hannah and Tred and all of this is an ancient memory. It hurts but feels so good, I don’t know how to explain it. I’ll never get this season back, I’ll never be the person I was before I came here. I’ll never regret this time spent in Uganda. I guess its fitting that I finish this story as the tears are landing on my keyboard. Praise you Jesus.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton