Explore Uganda: A Video We Made

AMA Post-Uganda: Part Two

Part Two of the questions sent to me on Facebook. 

Still curious? 

Give me a topic and I would be happy to write about it!

How was worship different?

The town that we lived in was very heavily influenced by westerners, which was both good and bad. We began by attending a “house church” led by other American missionaries, and it was such a gift to grow in our faith with others who understood our lives. We made some great friends who ended up supporting us like family over the course of the year.

In December, we really felt God calling us to move to a Ugandan-led church, specifically the church that all of our closest Ugandan employees and co-workers attended. It seemed more natural to be worshipping with those who we were also doing life with throughout the week. So, for the rest of our time in Uganda, we attended Calvary Chapel Jinja. Although the directors are American, the pastor and church leadership is Ugandan.

I think I expected a loud, movement filled, energetic worship time, but honestly, the biggest differences were in the sincerity of prayer requests and praises shared. We did sing and dance to worship songs in both English and Luganda and the sermon was translated verse by verse, but when a sick child was better, or a family was able to afford school fees, or there was enough food to last until payday, those families dropped everything to come and thank God publicly for the way He provided.

Worship was very humble and the sermon messages were based on verse by verse reading of scripture rather than being more story-like as we tend to be in the U.S. Because of the fact that the prosperity gospel is rampant there and the fact that most Ugandans don’t read the Bible for themselves, but have to trust what they hear on the radio or in church, most reputable churches stick to the scriptures very closely.

At certain times, where we might add an “Amen!”, there was a special, high-pitched “Aye. yay, yay” type chant that would be shouted. It was sort of a combination between the noise my mom used to make to call us home for dinner and the noise my kids make when they are bombarding each other with water balloons. It is a wonderful, celebratory sound that I miss.

Coming back, do your kids feel like they missed anything, or do they feel like the rest of the people missed out on what your family was doing?

Watching the kids transition home has been interesting. Returning physically and practically hasn’t been hard, but emotionally and reflectively it has been challenging. Even our older children are just beginning to enter the stage of life where they can grasp abstract ideas such as justice and the great “Who am I and what on earth am I here for” questions. Since thinking about and communicating these issues is tricky, it manifests itself in heightened emotions, being overwhelmed by simple tasks and a good deal of denial and avoidance.

For the most part, they haven’t had a strong desire to talk about Uganda. Sometimes it’s just too hard to even think about the people we love there, so it’s easier to pretend that life as we know it was just frozen in time. To not know if we will ever have the chance to see these people again is hard, so remembering is painful. I think that is something that they will unpack gradually as life goes on and memories surface.

We have had some great Skype sessions with David, our guard who became like family, and the kids have really enjoyed those!

Carter, getting the sigiri ready for us to cook lunch. Things like this are so hard to describe to peers and makes talking about Uganda difficult.

With their friends, it’s hard to share simple stories or memories because they require so much explanation.

The older ones have mentioned that they think their friends have missed out by not having the opportunity to see Africa first-hand. There are so many things that simply cannot be explained or contained in a photo.

They definitely feel like they have had an amazing opportunity and feel like they go the best of both worlds by being able to do life in two very different places. While in Uganda, every day was such an adventure that the kids didn’t long for anything, but now, being home, they appreciate being able to play sports, hang with friends and ride bikes all around the neighborhood.

Do you dream about being there and wake up to realize it was just a dream?

For months I would dream about familiar places in America, and then wake up in Uganda sort of sad. My dreams were always simple, like picking the kids up from school or driving past familiar places. For some reason, my recurring dream was simply driving eastbound on Raab Rd in Normal past Steak-n-Shake. I never seemed to have a destination, but that is the part of my dream I remembered and that struck an emotional chord with me. I so longed for simple things when we were away. I longed to drive familiar roads, to sit in “my spot” in church, or to take a deep breath that didn’t smell like burning garbage.

Since being home, I haven’t had any dreams of Uganda that I can remember. I actually can’t think of any dreams that I have remembered since being home. Much of that probably has to do with stress levels and sleep patterns being all mixed up.

I do hope that at some point I can visit Uganda in my dreams. What a gift it would be to walk the familiar roads and greet those friends that I miss so much, even if only in a dream.

What was the first American cuisine you had? Or what did you miss most about American food?

We did sit at dinner many nights and discuss the question, “If you could have one thing to eat right now, what would it be?” It was pure torture! We missed ice-cold milk, sour cream and real cheese. There was one dairy in town where they made these things specifically for the Westerners, but it was too expensive to have regularly, so for cooking we got boxed milk that didn’t need refrigeration and we ate the “cheese” that never actually melted.

Although the food was not bad by any means, it was simply more complicated. It was so difficult and time-consuming to prepare meals, and due to all of the creepy, crawly bugs that lived with us, even storing food and having it in the house was often a problem.

We were greeted our first night in America with a dinner from Biaggi’s Restaurant which had been dropped off by a friend, so it was a delicious start! Many of the things that we missed so much or that were part of our discussion over Ugandan dinners we still haven’t had yet. I think we simply missed them because we couldn’t access them at the time.

Although we didn't know we missed them, we all have been eating our weight in bagels and cream cheese since our return. I am also enjoying Drumsticks ice cream treats and Charleston Chews. 

Do you feel dissatisfied & disappointed with American life since it is customary to take so many things for granted?

We are not dissatisfied with American life. If anything, I think we are much more grateful. I appreciate our home and air conditioning and the ease of traveling on good roads to see family. I am thankful for the opportunities that we have and the freedom to create the lives that we want for ourselves without oppression. Even though our justice system has its issues, the corruption that we see in this country is NOTHING compared to Uganda. I see my privilege more clearly now whereas I used to focus on what I lacked.

Something that I am struggling with currently, and I don’t know if it is an American thing or simply a human thing, is taking sides on any issue.

As many of you know, I am and have always been a very opinionated person. Give me a topic, and I used to be able to tell you exactly where I stood. I have always been very sure of myself and I love researching topics and learning to gain knowledge on many topics.

My foundation was shaken in Uganda though.

Things that I was absolutely sure were truths, turned out not to be.

Things that I had read as an American turned out to be absolute lies.

Ministries and people who I had followed on social media and blogs, in real-life were not all they had claimed to be. One good picture of a sad, little African child could raise thousands of dollars even if they never did anything to help that child or anyone like him.

The deception is great, and to live that was hard.

I am trying to differentiate what I can really know to be true and what makes me feel better to believe is true. We are so quick to jump on bandwagons and share articles and have opinions on any given topic on any given day, and honestly, we have no idea of the truth unless we are directly involved.

I need to re-learn how to trust information and people again. I am much more skeptical of everything that I read. I am doubtful of anyone who claims to know anything for sure or who has a passionate opinion. I am much more drawn to someone who would say that they don’t know, but are seeking truth.

Please share a few cultural differences that you admire about the people you met.

I LOVED the relational emphasis on life in Uganda. You would never walk up to someone and just start talking or wave at someone as you passed. When you see someone, you stop what you are doing, engage in a thorough and genuine greeting and only then can you continue. You might even continue to hold hands the whole time while you talk. I miss that pace of life and that nature of relationships. No one seemed to beat around the bush or pretend to be something that they aren't. That was refreshing and made doing life imperfectly much easier. 

People always seem to come back from developing nations and say that the people had very little, but were just so happy. I find this sort of cliche, and slightly inaccurate. If you observed from the outside or only met someone one time, I see how it could appear this way. Most Ugandans would not burden you with their struggles, just as we wouldn't lead with our failures when meeting someone new, but there is deep pain, oppression, and a lack of hope in the lives of many who live in poverty. 

Although the people are incredible at finding joy, creating joy, I wouldn't say that they are overwhelmingly happy. Many have the same dreams and goals as we do,  but due to circumstances beyond their control, a society that is set up to "keep people in their places", and an overwhelming amount of ineffective ministries, they simply cannot live the lives that they want without outside help. 

I love that despite all of this, when given an opportunity, they will do just about anything to succeed. They will humble themselves, work harder than you or I could ever imagine, and sacrifice everything that they have. Many Ugandans truly want more, want better for themselves, but the systems are not there to enable them to improve their lives without help. 

The kids seem to have adjusted well. Is that assumption true and what (if anything) was the hardest thing for each of them to adjust to- being back home?

The kids truly have adjusted well. They were incredible travelers and were so easy going with all of the changes when we first got to Uganda, and they are being troopers now that we are back as well. They truly are resilient. So much of their identity is based on us as a family, so as long as we are all together and well, then each of them seem to be confident and secure. Dave and I just began couples counseling last week to keep our foundation secure. The greatest gift we can give our kids is a solid marriage, and we are in a season right now where that takes a little more work than usual. 

As I have written about previously, the emotions are all bubbling very near the surface, so we have had some breakdowns every now and again, but that has been the worst of it.

The hardest part for them, I think, is having these big emotions, but not being able to define the cause. They are used to being mad about an event and crying, but to feel so overwhelmed with sadness and not be able to pinpoint the cause is new to them. We have had to explain quite a bit that sometimes our bodies just need to cry, and that we should let them.

Did you ever feel unsafe or in danger? I have no idea what the political culture is over there.

We lived just a few blocks from the home where the Ugandan President stays when he is in Jinja, so we were in a great “neighborhood”. The country is pretty stable politically also, so overall, it was peaceful, but at the same time, if there was ever a crowd, we would not want to be caught anywhere near it and pick-pocketing was a constant threat.

I really missed having the ability to call 911. My mind was really good at racing to worst-case scenarios. There was no 24-hour emergency room, no ambulances, no fire trucks, and no way to call police…even if you walked to the police station, the police only work on bribes supposedly. There was no sense of security for me in that respect, but fortunately, we never had a need for any of that any ways.

Although we were in a peaceful city, things get out of control very quickly, and you can’t just call the police to diffuse a situation. If someone is accused of stealing from the market, a group of people would just catch the person and beat them, and everyone would be satisfied that justice was served. Everyone is guilty just by accusation, and there is no chance to prove innocence. Beating someone to death if they stole or broke onto someone else’s property is acceptable and almost expected.

One time we were driving down Main Street and we don’t know what started it, but a pick-up truck with about 10 guys in it came barreling down the road chasing another vehicle with no regard for the crowded streets or the hundreds of people. They were on a mission to “serve justice” at any cost. While all of the Ugandans ran to follow and see the outcome, we quickly turned around and drove the other direction as fast as we could.  

Politically and culturally, due to the color of our skin, we were respected and admired, for the most part in a very positive way. It is a great social boost for a Ugandan to have an American friend, or to be seen with Americans, so the kids especially felt like rock stars. In that way, we felt safe. Ugandans were happy to have us there.

What, if any item/luxury item would you consider doing without now that you are back in the states if you had to pick one thing?

This is a hard question for a few reasons. 1) We went for so long (years leading up to Uganda and then the year itself) without many luxuries, I feel like we deserve them now more than ever. 2) We live a fairly simple life, so what are luxuries to us are most likely the norm to others.

One luxury that we now enjoy: air conditioning. As soon as it got hot, it wasn’t even a question, we just turned it right on.

Although we missed our dishwasher and garbage disposal, we could do without those. In fact, once we moved back into our own house, I had gotten completely done washing our first set of dinner dishes by hand when I realized that I could have stuck them all in the dishwasher!

I enjoy air conditioning in our van. I appreciate the luxury of paved roads.

I lived without a dryer, but I didn’t enjoy it. I like warm, soft, bright, clean clothes.

We discovered long ago that we could go without television and we haven’t had cable in a really long time, but we did just sign up for Netflix and ordered our own wi-fi instead of sharing our neighbors like we had been for over a year before we left. Many family members do enjoy television and movies though, so we do own a few and are enjoying movies and shows.

Once we start working again and can save up some money, we will buy a nice sectional. The furniture was so, so uncomfortable in Uganda, and even hurt my back quite a bit. A good couch is so much more than a luxury though, it is also a family snuggling spot, a place of fellowship for guests and a welcoming part of our home.

So, I didn’t really answer the question well, but I do know that guilt does no good for anyone. If you are feeling convicted, like you would be happier or more engaged in life by eliminating certain luxuries from your life, then I believe you should honor that and try living without it. If life is more stressful and you are more engaged by using those luxury items, then I say, “Go for it!” There is not one right way for all of us to live. We are all on different paths with very different lessons to learn.

How did you learn the language? I know younger kids often pick up on the language faster that adults learning a new language.

The official language of Uganda is English, so that is what is spoken in schools and is what kids are taught to read. Many Ugandans don’t have the ability to attend school consistently, if at all, though. Many of the people we worked with in the villages did not speak English, but spoke Luganda, so our Ugandan co-workers were interpreters for us. There are many, many languages native to Uganda, and different villages spoke different languages, so although we learned some, it really would only be beneficial if we went back to that exact area of Uganda.

While we did pick up some greetings and frequently used words, that was the extent of it. The kids did pick it up much faster than Dave and I. I even tried studying flash cards and practicing phrases with anyone who listen to me, but nothing seemed to stick in my brain like it used to.