Abandoned but not forgotten

(Our little foam nativity set, Joseph & Mary !! Tks mom!!)

It's true. George was right. EVERYONE eats meat on Christmas, I witnessed it on Christmas day. Our Christmas was unusual, but not in a negative way. The air wasn't filled with carols on the radio, snow wasn't falling, decorations were lacking, no candy cane fences and if you didn't remind yourself that it was Christmas, one could easily look around and think it was just another day in Africa. People selling their goods on the streets. Boda boda drivers zipping by trying to earn a little extra cash. There wasn't any traffic ,which is definitely a sure sign that it was a holiday. I guess I never realized how much all the 'fluff' of Christmas could almost become Christmas. When you strip it all away, what you have left is Jesus. This year we found our Christmas to be one of fellowship within our little family and our Savior. Simply that. No Honey Baked ham, no blinking lights (I did miss the glow of white lights & Starbucks eggnog lattes) , no gifts (except our handmade ones), and no Christmas tree. And although our hearts ached from missing the ones we love SO MUCH back home...It was still a memorable day!!


After some thought and discussion, we decided we would cruise over to Mulago Hospital and see if we could visit the kids ward. In 2005, Jeff and I were in Uganda and hooked up with an old vineyard pastor who pastored a international church in Kampala. We just happened to visit the church a few days before Christmas and their outreach team was planning a visit to Mulago childrens ward to pass out gifts donated by Samaritan's Purse. We were invited to come along and it was a life changing experience! It was on this trip that Jeff and I met a little baby named Stella who had been abandoned and left to die in the hospital suffering from AIDS. We spent a good hour with this little girl, who was nothing but skin and bones. She reached out and wrapped her hand around my finger and we fell in love. The nurses told us she wouldn't live as she had stopped eating. Our hearts broke and in that moment God watered the seed of adoption that was planted in our hearts. At that time Jeff and I had looked into adoptionn in Uganda and met with a social worker who told us we would have to live in Uganda for 3 years and foster a child before we could officially adopt. Still to this day we talk about Stella and how she impacted our lives. So, we thought what better way to spend this Christmas than with the kiddos in the same ward of the hospital. Osobie and Fatu picked out some toys they brought from Arua to give to the kids and we bought a couple bags of sweets. We didn't have much but with what we had we thought we could brighten someones day. We got to Mulago and had to do a little maneuvering to be able to get in to see the kids but once we got the O.K. we were in! We prayed and asked God to show O and F which child they should give their toys to. Osobie found this little guy curled up in the small crib and handed him one of his matchbox cars. The boy beamed a glorious smile! Soon enough, Osobie and his friend were racing their cars down the ramp into the childrens ward. What a precious moment!!




I could tell Fatu was feeling a little uncomfortable because of all the crying kids, but she was brave and gave her Polly pocket to a little girl that was in pain in hopes she'd stop crying, she didn't as you can see by the photo.



As we shuffled through the ward, we made our way to the exact area where we had found Stella, 4 years ago. There in a crib sat a little boy, skinny, dirty, sitting in his own excrement. I turned to the nurses to ask his condition, and with a solemn face, she answered "he's abandoned". I guess I should have known that we'd once again find a lost and forgotten child and of course the heartbreak that comes with this. There he sat, alone, scared, confused, and sad. We prayed over him and held back tears. Then, more piercing words fell on our ears, "there are more". Sure enough, 2 more kids were abandoned by their moms that month. One was a baby named Joshua who was being cared for by another mom who was getting treatment for her son. All of these abandoned children will have to go through the system of the hospital and then be transferred to any baby home that would take them. Fortunately in Kampala, there is a baby home called Watoto Bilrushes baby home where a precious American woman works and cares for many of these little ones. We met her while we were in Kampala and plan to visit the home next time we are in Kampala. There are 2-3 other baby homes in Kampala where the children can be taken. Some of the homes try to get the kids fostered by Ugandans and foreigners, but many kids grow up never knowing the love of a mama or papa. They are raised by older girls and boys, street kids, or overlooked and ignored at orphanages.



As we held babies, and played with the kids the nurse aids came in with lunch. The little boy, Uwalu (oowalu) dug his little fingers in his food and tasted all the options that were on his plate. He grabbed a brown heap of mushy stuff, tasted it and put it back on his plate. I was shocked that he wouldn't eat everything on his plate even if it was mushy beans, seeing as he was severely malnourished. But, to my surprise, the bit of brown stuff was actually chicken!! It wasn't that he didn't like it, he tasted it, realized it was chicken and saved it on his plate to be eaten last! Sure enough, EVERYONE, the least of these, the poorest, the forgotten, and abandoned eat meat on Christmas. Thank you Jesus that you care for us!! "Though my Father and mother forsake me, the Lord will recieve me" ps 27:10 YOU NEVER FORSAKE US!! "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" Heb. 13:5 He does not leave us as orphans. He loves us and watches over us, sometimes through strangers, neighbors, and hospital workers. He's inviting us all to be His love, his care, his touch to the lost and lonely of the world. Every day, He's inviting you and inviting me into this extravagant display of love. Every day we have a choice to make. We have to choose how we'll live our lives, how we'll spend our time, what we'll invest in, what we'll care about, and how we'll act if we act. I don't know about you, but I've already wasted many years worrying about things that are worthless, unimportant and self serving. I don't want to waste another day!!

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Eph 5:1-2

We visited Uwalu the next day. I held him in my arms as he laid as still as a doll and I wondered how long it had been since he felt the warm embrace of mama's arms. We brought him some clothes, toys, and more candy. In the grand scheme it wasn't much and even offering it felt so shallow, so meaningless..., but we had hoped he'd at least feel he was loved that day by His heavenly Father. He desires every child to know His love and be loved, and the truth is, there are too many who have experienced neither. But we can change that...we can...because the One who is inviting us is more than able.

Distraction

You don’t realize how much of your life is swallowed by the death of distraction, until you are in a place without any! I lay awake at night pondering the way I live my life, the things I feel like God is teaching me, the junk in my heart that needs to be reckoned with and the ways of Africa. You can’t help but lay awake thinking when you are transported to another land, culture, people, food, climate, language, and lifestyle.

In all my journeys to Africa, I am usually always in awe at how much I feel like I am much more in touch with the Lord here. I mean it’s not like the Lord isn’t at work all around me in Fort Collins, at the grocery store, at the park, you name it. He is! He is at work all around us, 24/7 but are we aware? Am I aware? Are we listening? Am I listening? Are we conversing with our great God, our amazing creator, friend, and kind Father? I feel the Lord more intensely here because there is nothing to distract me. I don’t think God is anymore alive here in Africa than He is in the states, I just think our need of Him and our acknowledgement of Him is minimal. I call my girlfriends, I blog, I race around town doing errands, I make play dates, I hang out on the Internet and dive into hours of photo viewing, chatting, and joining worthy causes. And yes, many of these activities are life giving and in some of these Internet places there are journal entries, confessions, and ponderings that have taken my breath away and have dropped me right into the lap of God. But…I found that my days and weeks disappeared right before my eyes.

It saddens my heart to think of how much I cheat my Savior. It’s as if He takes last place on my list of things “to do”, when all He really wants, is to do these things with me. I don’t know how or when I started to live this way. When did I start condensing God into a time slot? As if the only time I can hear Him or see Him or understand His heart is in “quiet time”. I do admit that I personally, am in need of a time set aside just for God, and I believe it is where we can be at one with Him, but if that time is erased or overlooked, then what? I have heard it all before, probably a gazillion times, that we should always be “open” to the Lord each and every day for His direction, leading and surprises. We should arise and greet the day with the words, “What are you doing today Lord?” But have I? Did I? At times, yes, I would be on a roll and wake up feeling good, ask the Lord to keep me open to Him and pray for a divine moment with someone. Then life takes over, the kids drive me nuts, too much to do and too little time, and then BAM!! Back to boxing God into my “quiet time” if I even find time for this. Now it’s not like Arua, Uganda is so different from the States. It’s also a little honeycomb, with worker bees coming and going, buzzing with activity and movement; but, somehow, there is little to distract one with. I am not sure what it is, but I love it! I love that each day moves slowly enough for me to communicate with my creator as we walk the dirt roads together. Even when our day is “full” or “busy” which could mean one trip to town, there is still a quietness in my soul that leaves room for His whispers, and it’s lovely. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Duet. 6:4-7

Safari ants & cockroaches

We moved into our house!! Praise God!! We have a beautiful home, way nicer than I would have expected. We have beds and more furniture will be on the way this weekend. When we leave in April, the landlord will have a furnished house to rent, which will be the first one in Arua! He has already had NGO’s and missionary families ask about renting the house when we leave. We have orange, lemon, mango, guava, and avocado trees in our yard!! You can bet we’re going to be harvesting as much fruit as we can eat and drink in the next 6 months. Our yard is pretty big which Osobie and Fatu are happy about. The kids are sharing a room and we are turning the spare bedroom into our “school room”. We are definitely blessed!! And on top of it all, we get to have some roomies! There is another building next to our house called the “boys quarters” with 4 small rooms. Susan, a waitress from the hotel and 2 of Jeff’s coworkers will be living there until April. It will be nice to have some new friends around. We are planning to have a house warming party once we get more organized. Jeff’s hoping to grill some pork and I am going to “attempt” to make matoke, rice and beans for all the Ugandans! I’ve already had the comment made from Jeff’s driver Jackson that if I’m cooking matoke, he’ll be having a Nile Special (Ugandan beer)!! Can you believe that? Well Jackson, you just wait and see…this muzungu might just surprise you with some mean matoke. (Okay..so this was written almost a week ago… and we already had a small little house party but we kept it simple so no matoke was made, maybe next time). So, we are thankful, we are well, we are healthy, and we are cooking our own meals!! Now that is something to celebrate!! Especially when you can eat mondo sized avocado’s everyday!!
Side note*One thing that we didn’t expect was a dilemma with power. We have just gone our longest stretch without power, 4 days. There have been some serious problems in Arua with the power situation. So far we’ve lost power every weekend from Friday night until Monday morning. We might need to invest in a generator so we can have light! Please pray the power problem gets sorted out! But anyway… did I mention that the bugs here are scary huge?? Let me share some bug tales..:)

It all started at 9 am as we loaded the truck with our luggage and household goodies some missionary friends sold to us at a great price. At 9 am, the power is supposed to come on. The schedule is power from 9 am to 11 pm, which is actually amazing, that is when things go as scheduled. Well, the Sat. morn of our big move into our house began without power and didn’t come back until Monday afternoon. So, our first 2 days in the house went something like this. Moved in our luggage, put sheets on our beds, hung mosquito nets, cleaned like mad, then the much dreaded “darkness of night” blanketed us. Now I am not afraid of the dark or anything, although the kids aren’t fond of it, but what I am dreadfully fearful of are cockroaches!! I know they don’t bite, I know they cannot harm anyone, but they are stinkin’ creep-ville! I don’t care what anybody says! Now I am not talking about the itty bitty sized roaches found in shady restaurants and crawling across sidewalks in big cities. No, I’m talking about AFRICAN sized cockroaches!! These things are as big as a half dollar if not bigger and they move so fast I swear they are running at the speed of light!

So, after going out to eat (we still didn’t have groceries or cooking gear just yet), we came home to a pitch black house and began our long first night of cockroach hunting and Katie freaking! Can you believe it? I mean I am not the type to care much about spiders. I am not the shrieking type, but boy did I ever reveal the “wimpy” side of Katie. I wasn’t a good example for Osobie and Fatu and soon they feared the roaches. After many hours of surveying the house with flashlights and killing roaches we attempted to get some sleep. Right as I was slipping into sleep, I peeped open my eyes one last time and there again was the monster size cockroach crawling on the wall under the curtain. Poor Jeff thought his wife had finally given up on her paranoia and was certain I was asleep until I yelled for him to come and kill the beast. Once again we settled in under our net (which I forgot to mention was too small and so ineffective) and lay there hoping that we were so tired we would just pass out. WRONG!! Within minutes our ears were pierced with a loud hissing sound coming from the hall. Jeff armed himself with DOOM (bug killer) and searched for the animal. It came from a hall closet or the ceiling. We called our night watchman, George to see if he knew what African animal was living in our attic. George first announced it was a cat. Then he decided it was a rat! At that point I was ready to head back to the hotel! Then the final verdict came back that it was a large insect. Jeff sprayed a whole can of DOOM in the attic but the insect refused to die! We fell asleep to an awful sound of hissing, and that concluded the first night in our house in Africa!

The second day went similar to the first. Our first activity of the day and last activity of the night was chasing after cockroaches! Osobie and Jeff had a wonderful papa-son talk and soon Osobie was my brave hero telling me, “Mama, I can kill them for you!” He knew the routine. He slipped his beefiest shoe on his hand, I carried the flashlight, and together we went around the house lifting up bags, sliding curtains back and killing cockroaches. Fatu was sweet enough to come along but never with any intention of killing. She’s definitely a lot like her mama when it comes to these things.

Then came the next adventure, safari ants. Sunday night we were walking through the yard checking out our bounty of fruit trees and stumbled upon some ants. It was just a small line of ants marching towards their destination, no big deal right? WRONG! We followed the trail and discovered millions of them in piles and marching in lines all across the yard weaving through the grasses. I am talking biblical proportions here!!! We couldn’t believe our eyes and then looked further to see they were taking over a whole building! They covered the walls of the “boy’s quarters”. The building is white and it was now painted ant-black. O and I ran inside to get the bug spray and started spraying them until the can ran out. Thousands upon thousands of safari ants, the kind that spread up your legs and bite you like mad! Maybe some of you have read Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver?? They crawl between your toes and start biting and man does it hurt!! Jeff’s coworker said that safari ants would “undress you”! Meaning you will have to rip off your clothes if they attack you just to get them off of you. Jeff chuckled and Nicholas said with a stern face, “No really, they will!” So I hopped up and down spraying insecticide everywhere hoping to end this ant attack. I am sure I was a laughing stock to all the passerby’s on the street!! That was day 1 of safari ants. It took 3 more days of spraying, burning the lawn, setting fire to them and their homes (which you have to find first), pouring gasoline and boiling hot water on them to finally put an end to the ant ambush. Our neighbors taught us all the techniques for killing safari ants and I sure had at it!!

Okay… so now I’ll have to tack on another week of fighting safari ants since I wrote this post last week. Our latest invasion happened Saturday evening when our neighbor yelled at our window “they’re coming”!! We all knew what he was talking about! We grabbed our paraffin (kerosene) and newspapers and starting burning the ants, hundreds of them taking over their yard and marching towards ours. There was a team of us outside fighting the little buggers until finally we felt we had burned them all. We came back in to sit down to dinner. Fatu said prayers for us and we began to enjoy our meal finally. We were pleasantly surprised because our beans were still warm, when all of a sudden I heard a crackling sound. “Did you guys hear that?” I asked. Jeff saw an orange glow from our bathroom window and yelled “Fire”!! We grabbed cooking pots and our pitcher filled with water and ran out to see our papyrus fence on fire!! Luckily our water tank was nearby so we all heaved water onto the fire and soon it was out. Oh yeah…
After 2 days of no power and not much to do we had our first bit of excitement and thrill killing ants and putting out a fire! Never short of adventure around here!!

*I had to include this pic..we are making Christmas cards and this was Fatu's first nativity scene..check out baby Jesus,...isn't that cute or what??

Pics!

okay, so some more pics! just random ones again. I forgot to put my blog post on my jump drive so i thought i'd just add some more photos while i am at the cafe. thanks for all the comments, i just love hearing from all of you!! i'll try to stop by your blogs as soon as we get internet at the house (pretty amazing eh?)

• brandi & the kids, not sure why my photos are looking so dark on the screen?? anyway,

• the kids and i in a beautiful church in the villages where jeff works.

• the next photo is for our friends Dono &Laurie just for a chuckle!! shouldn't all our toilet paper be named JOY!!!!!!!!!
• jeff --the rat trapper, in his element! last Saturday the kids and i went with him for a day of checking rat traps in several villages
• the kids in their make shift bed in the hotel, gotta love the mosquito nets!!
• the last pics are taken on the 15 seater airplane to Arua
  

love ya

Leaving, leaves me pondering...

Joy and pain

Like sunshine and rain

Joy and pain

Like sunshine and rain

-Rob Base & DJ Easy Rock-

I know....many of you may have NO idea what song I am referring to but this is just what popped into my mind as I was thinking about leaving for Uganda. I feel like I am walking in 2 worlds and maybe that's because we are starting to. We haved lived a full and blessed life here in Colorado and now for the other half of our year we are moving to Uganda. Really, when I consider it, it's better than anything I could have ever dreamed. I LOVE my life in Colorado and I LOVE my life when I am in Africa. What I am understanding more and more is that no matter where I am at, there is a subtle ache. While we live life in Colorado we are surrounded by incredible followers of Jesus who inspire us, challenge us and love us. I depend on these people for just about everything!! We laugh until it hurts and cry until the tears run dry. We pray together, play together, cook together, and struggle together. I have come to really LOVE this life God has given us, but admist all that is beautiful and well in Colorado, the ache remains. This ache is AFRICA.


In 1997, the seed was stirred. I was at a missions conference in Denver with guest speaker, George Verwer, president of Operation Mobilization (OM) on stage. My parents were missionaries with OM when it first began. My dad and George packed a van full of bibles and headed to Mexico for their first "mission" trip. Now OM is a mission group serving all over the world with thousands of missionaries. Anyway, it was that night that the Lord told me he had called me to missions. Of course I had NO idea really what it all meant other than I had committed to where ever and whatever God had planned for me. About a year later the seeds started to stir. AFRICA. It all started with a simple prayer. I was attending a church called "Tool Room", a vineyard church plant aimed at reaching the street kids, homeless, and Gen X ers like myself. We were simply praying. I was a new believer and new to prayer. I sat silently and started praying for this and that. What I remember is saying a prayer for one of my family members, when all of a sudden BOOM...I saw vivid colorful movie-like pictures flash in my mind. It was like a slideshow. The first picture was myself walking down a dirt road holding hands with little African children. The next picture was me laying down on a mat on the dirt floor of a mud hut with a little African child. The last frame was me with an African child wearing a red tattered and torn shirt. WOA!!! I was freaked! I didn't know what the heck that was! Needless to say, I was a little confused and scared. Other than my mom supporting a World Vision child named Rapheal from Ethiopia, never in my life had Africa entered my world or mind. Eleven years, 4 mission trips to Africa and a gazillion more words, promises, pictures and prayers later, here we are. This ache is Africa. At times I had asked the Lord to take it away because it kept me up all night in tears, crying out for orphans I had never met. At that time the doors to Africa were closed. A year later I went, but I didn't go alone. I had gotten married to my best friend and we had the opportunity to go to Africa within our first year of marriage. (I can see now why the Lord didn't let me go earlier) It was that first trip that solidified everything I had felt, dreamt, prayed for , cried about and felt called to. My heart had the ache of Africa beating in it and it still beats today. So while I adore the people God has woven into our lives here in CO., my heart still aches for Africa and I am exstatic to go back!

But, what I also know is that while I am in Africa, in the very place of my dreams and all that I have prayed for for 11 years, my heart will ache again. This time the ache will be a different ache, one for those who are a part of us. The friends and family that make us who we are. The people who have cried with us, fought with us, celebrated with us and loved us everyday on this journey of life. They have spoken the truth of God's love into us. They have crawled to the cross with us, recieving life in exchange for brokenness and sin. They have been the hands and feet of God. We'll be in the place of our deepest longings, in the country we have felt called to for many years and surrounded by our beautiful Ugandan friends whom we love, but there will still be an ache in my heart for our family back home. (my secret prayer is that they will all come to Africa one day)

I hope the ache never leaves because what it means is I AM ALIVE!!

It means my heart is ALIVE and FULL!!

P.S. We leave in 2 days! Thursday 18th at 11 am!!