Some things I have learned so far

1. There are many grades of rice.It is worth the few extra shillings per kilo to get the better rice. We are now eating wonderful, fluffy, white rice.

2. Charcoal goes on TOP of the sigiri, not in the little compartment on the bottom.

3. Beans will only cook if you are using the sigiri the way it was intended to be used. We all (even WREN!!) are eating delicious, filling beans every day for lunch.

4. You can NOT trust the pot of beans to balance on the sigiri. Charcoal moves as it burns and your pot will spill a week's worth of beans all over your back porch.

5. You know when you feel something and you think it's a bug, and then you look, and it's just a hair tickling you. Well, in Africa, it is always really and truly a bug. Never assume it's just a hair.

6. Children in ministry are phenomenal. When the adults are busy planning and organizing, the kids are observing, loving and allowing God to freely lead them. The kids cover more ground more quickly than we adults ever could, and in doing so, have found children needing medical attention, a new mom who had passed out due to high blood pressure, and chameleons...they find so, so many chameleons.

7. I need to check my attitude and my heart multiple times every single day. I can wake up on the right track, but one negative thought can completely derail me for the entire day. In my down time, my thoughts get the best of me if I am not being proactive and getting my focus on God. I don't know who said it, but "Don't forget in the dark what God promised you in the light" has been such a great reminder for me. God's hand was over the preparation and planning for this journey in an incredible way, and I have no reason to doubt that even the hard times are in His will.

8. Dogs can be sweet.

9. As hard as it was to leave home and as much as I miss parts of our old life, I can already sense how difficult it will be to leave Uganda when the time comes. As I build relationships and begin to truly love people here, I understand what it means to leave part of your heart somewhere.

10. Love grows best in little houses. 8 people can share a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment for a month with no internet and be perfectly happy and have so much fun together. Just last week, we moved to a much bigger guest home, where we will live for the remainder of our year, and we have great wi-fi. We also are playing less card games and spending less time in good conversation and prayer as a family at night. Boo! How do we get so easily distracted? We MUST be intentional with our time.

Loving on Little Ones

With the directors of Healing Faith, Dave has been leading teams who visit from the US on malaria education days. These are long days of walking for  miles, visiting homes in the village one at a time, hanging nets, documenting who has been covered and teaching about malaria. On these days, due to vehicle space, and not wanting to overwhelm the kids quite yet, the kids and I have been staying back at the house. 

A friend of mine mentioned a baby home that she visits, and invited us to join her. We went one time, and the kids fell in love. They want to be there constantly. We have been visiting a few times per week, and the "aunties" who care for the babies are very welcoming. All of the Mc kids are incredibly helpful, and they do such a great job with all of the children in the orphanage. There are children ranging in age from newborn to 5 or 6 years old, some with severe special needs, and some completely typically developing...if such a thing exists in an orphanage. 

I love that the kids love going, but it is hard on my heart. We continue to visit, and God is absolutely working in our time there. 

Some of the children with special needs are immobile, several cannot sit up on their own even though they are 2 or 3 years old. One of those children is a little girl who is 2 1/2 years old named Esther. She is a real-life starving child in Africa. She has the stereotypical dirty face with flies,weak, scrawny arms and legs, and she can barely hold her head up, yet all day she is left lying on a blanket on the hard ground. What is absolutely atypical though, is this precious girl's smile! It lights up in such a big, wonderful, dimply way!

Many of the kids can be found running and playing happily, but God drew me to this child. 

I have virtually no experience with special needs. I have no experience with orphanages. I can not speak the language of those caring for this child. I need God to guide this in a big way. If there is some way that I can help here in my time here, I want to be obedient to that. If I can provide nourishment in some way, or get her medical care that might help, I will, but I need to be acting in the center of God's will. I will not act on emotion or logic or to comfort my mama heart. It is so complicated, in so many ways. 

Esther has a mom and a dad, who she had been living with for the first 2 years of her life. I don't know anything about that life or what went wrong, but her mother decided at some point, for some reason, that this beautiful girl was possessed by evil spirits, and she needed to leave their home. 

3 months ago, they brought her to this orphanage. I have met Esther's father. He came to visit her, which the "aunties" say happens often. She was such a happy girl when her father was here. He lit up at seeing his little girl. I pray for restoration. They need each other. 

Brice's expalnation of why we are here and what we do:

"We are a ministry called healing faith we work for malaria. It is only musktoes that have malaria. only female can give you malaria. Malaria gets in your body two weeks. If you get malaria we will do a finger prick and test your blood and give you piles. We play games with them but we do not give them toys because they will beat up the child who has the special toy."

By Brice McMorris, 9 years old

God's Presence Always

Tuesday, Jun 24, 2014

Three more cases of malaria in the village today.

I can never decide if it is a good day or a bad day when we find new cases. It seems the worse the test results, the greater God’s presence. The more illness, the more God is glorified in the healing. With each new case, a reminder of why God has called us here.

Today, Jonah, a boy who just 3 days ago followed the Healing Faith team for 2 ½ miles as they educated and hung nets, who was showing off his dance moves and entertaining the team as they traveled, walked himself to our area and showed us the worst case of malaria I have seen so far. 3 days ago he was running, laughing and playing. Today, he was wrapped in an old suit coat, shivering violently, crying and weak. His fever was obvious to the touch. His eyes were barely open. I don’t know how far away he lived, but I am so thankful that he knew to come find us. He knew that we could help.

As Jonah lay there on the hard, wooden bench shivering, Jason gave him Tylenol for the fever. We began praying knowing that this was going to be rough. He couldn’t sit up on his own. Jason gave his first dose of malaria treatment, and someone brought him a drink. We helped Jonah sit up to sip the water, and no sooner than he swallowed, all of the medicines came back up. Another symptom, but if he can’t keep the medicines down, then the disease will not be treated. Jason quickly decided that the parasite had come on fast and severe, and this boy needed treatment beyond what we could give him. He needed to get to a clinic where he could receive IV fluids and malaria treatment.

We can’t simply whisk children away to clinics though. We need parents. We need permission.

This sweet boy, in so much pain told us that his JaJa was gone. Gone to market? Gone for good? Gone to where? For how long? We didn’t know. There was a teenage girl near us holding a baby though. She said that she is caring for Jonah, but she cannot go to the clinic because she is caring for other children, too.

Fortunately, Jason has developed a good relationship with the chairman of the village and was able to get permission as well as a recommendation for a trustworthy clinic nearby where Jonah’s family could check in on him.

Before we could gather and head to the clinic though, a group had developed around Jason. Sometimes crowds gather simply because there is something to see, but when a little girl laid her arm on Jason’s leg, he could feel the fever right through his pant leg. Another test, positive for malaria. A few children with cold and flu like symptoms, and then a third child with a positive malaria result. We begin treatment and pray healing over their little bodies.

In the midst of all of this illness and treatment though, there is Jesus. God’s presence can be felt. It is obvious that God is at work in this place in mighty ways.

11-year-old Chloe is leading a group of 5 pre-school aged girls in singing Jesus’ praises. Chloe sat with one of these girls just a week ago crying tears and crying out to God for healing on her behalf.  Today, they were practicing “group hugs”, dancing and playing. A group of older girls came over to hear their singing, and even joined in with Chloe. That would be ministry enough. That fellowship would be enough. But then, a 12 year-old tells Chloe that her little sister has just tested positive for malaria, and asked if Chloe would pray for her. Without skipping a beat, Chloe gathers all of the older girls in a circle, and they begin to pray.

Only by the hand of God. 

Update: 2 Weeks

We have been here 2 weeks now. Some days it feels so comfortable that I think we’ve been here much longer, and other days I feel like we must have just showed up because I have no idea what I am doing!

Thankfully, the Segner Family is feeding us most meals because cooking here is so much harder than I imagined. I felt pretty good the day that we purchased things from a specific woman in the market who we knew would give us good prices. We got some staples; rice, flour and beans. We got some produce; green beans, peppers, pineapple and bananas. And then we got home…and realized that preparing all of these things is so much different than at home.

I have made rice 2 times, and neither time has it tasted as good as it does at the Segners’ house. It has tasted dirty. Rice from the market needs to be sorted, and although I have attempted sorting it, I really don’t know what I am looking for. Luckily, when you add enough salt to it, it doesn’t taste so bad. The kids have even complimented me on the rice, so I know it must be so bad that they don’t want me to feel badly about it. They are so sweet.

Dave attempted to make beans. The directions are to soak them overnight and then cook them on a little charcoal grill, called a sigiri, for 3 hours. Easy enough, right? Dave worked on those beans for 3 ½ days before we decided it was just best to give up this round and try again another day. We think that our problem is that we are not keeping the fire hot enough. Dave is out there stuffing charcoal in and blowing on it and poking it with a stick, but evidently we need a little more practice!

The produce is amazing, and we are thanking God for that every day. Even I can’t screw up peeling and slicing a fresh pineapple or a cucumber. The kids have been eating cucumbers and carrots for “snacks”, and I couldn’t be happier about that. Snacks are not a thing here, in Uganda, but it is hard for our American bellies to understand that they don’t always need to be filled to overflowing.

We knew that we would struggle with Wren and her picky eating. She does not care for any of the main sources of protein here; beans, peanut butter, or g-nuts. She is living mainly on carrots, rice and bread and butter right now. I do make her try some of every meal served, and when there is a “sweetie” on the line, like the cake that Mimi made a few nights ago, Wren will clear her bowl. I need to decide when it is time to bring down the hammer and just make her eat a good portion at every meal. Those battles are never fun.

(I wrote this Saturday, and am just getting to post it today, Monday. I am so happy to report that Wren ate ALL of her beans at lunch today! Just 2 weeks in and I consider this major progress!)

Another surprise has been the difficulty of drying our clothes. Hand washing them is not exactly fun, but trying to hang clothes to dry when rain storms are an almost daily occurrence is much worse! The first time, Dave spent a morning washing a week’s worth of clothing, got it hung up around noon and at sunset, when we had to bring it in, realized that we needed many more hours of sunshine to actually get it dry.

The second time, I got up early to wash clothes and get them hung as early in the morning as possible. As we finished lunch around the block from our house, a storm began rolling in, and we had to run home to quickly grab our damp clothes off the line…3 lines actually…it takes three clothes lines to hold our wash. When that storm passed, we hung them out again. Until the next wave of rain came. At that point we decided to hang them all over our house and let the fans blow them dry. Our couch was covered in drying underwear, each of the chairs were draped with towels, and every hanger was drying some garment. It took about 2 days for most of the clothes to be dry enough to put in our drawers.

(Again, progress has been made since the writing of this entry. I washed all of our clothes today, hung them out to dry before 10am, and it has been a beautiful sunny day all day! It is 4:30 now, and I think all of our clothes will be dry by the time I bring them in before dinner! God is good!)

Our hearts were so ready to just jump right into ministry work when we arrived, and in some ways it would be easier for us to see progress and success in accomplishable tasks each day, but we so need this time to figure out life. We are learning, just slowly. The kids are excited about the adventure of learning to do all of these tasks, so that is motivating for me.

We do go into the villages a few times per week, and seeing our kids interacting and caring for other children as if this is exactly what they were created to do in life is truly a gift from God. When we go around the giant circle to introduce ourselves and quiet, meek Wren shouts out her name so loud and proud, I also know that God is growing us all in great big ways.

What a journey we are on. 

Father's Day

It was Father's Day yesterday, I completely had forgotten. Believe it or not, Hallmark doesn't advertise here. Funny enough, God did place this on my heart on Saturday night, and it ended up being the perfect gift for my kids' wonderful Daddy!

I was just realizing today that I am really good at taking giant leaps of faith. I hear God, I listen and I go. But, I get scared and filled with doubt every single time I step out. Much like the disciple, Peter, I take my eyes off of the One who called me, and I focus on the crashing waves instead. I get scared, I convince myself that the leap was a mistake and that someone else could do it much better, and I want to quit. Most of the time, if it were just me, I would quit, honestly. I tell Dave that I am done, I don’t know what else to do, so I quit.

Dave though… Dave doesn’t let that happen. I get us into these situations, Dave gets us through them. He simply picks up the reigns and takes the lead. He is suddenly empowered with persistence and confidence and he just keeps us moving in the direction that God set us. I know that many times Dave is just as nervous as I am, but still, he just puts one foot in front of the other and forges ahead. Eventually I come back to a place of faith and I can be productive again, but man, there is no way that we could persevere without Dave’s endurance. What a blessing our partnership is. God knew what He was doing when he paired us up! 

Happy Father's Day, Dave!

Reminders of Home

What an answer to prayer! We went to Acacia Church and it was amazing. The worship music was right up there with Ben Matthews and Scott McCormick, the pastor was quoting C.S. Lewis just like Dave Berry, and the guest musician sang, “Oceans” just as beautifully as Katie Eckeberger!

This past week has been so hard without the Christian community that we are so used to. We were completely drained from traveling last week, and without Christian radio here, I just never felt refueled…until today.

The Segner family, who direct Healing Faith have a house church that we will attend this afternoon, but the interns who are here for several weeks this summer wanted to visit Acacia Church, too. They haven’t had a vehicle to get there, but we were happy to pile all of us in our van and make the short journey.

One intern, Katie, had been to Acacia once before, and sort of knew the way, but that was all the direction we had. I figured that, worst case, we would worship together on the side of the road somewhere. That wasn’t necessary though. We stopped and asked as we went along. We asked one boda (motorcycle taxi) driver if he knew where it was and he said, “Yes, do you know how to get to someplacewehadneverheardof?” I said no, and he said, “Well then how do you expect to get to Acacia?” I just smiled, he gave us the best directions he could, and wouldn’t you know, it lead us straight there!

Acacia Community Church began 10 years ago as a house church meeting with Pastor Terry and his wife in their living room. They outgrew the house and began meeting in their yard. A storm last year destroyed all of their shade trees, so they began meeting under the Eucalyptus trees in a field. We happened to arrive today, their very first Sunday in their beautifully constructed, open-air church shelter.

I couldn’t stop crying through the first several songs. God’s presence was so strong. The Ugandan voices singing familiar lyrics brought such peace to my heart. Once again on this journey of obedience, God calms my heart and soul with simple, familiar occurrences that let me know He is still leading. I simply need to follow.

The very first words we sang, “Blessed be Your Name, in the land that is plentiful, where Your streams of abundance flow.” These words, this praise, it is true still. Here, in Africa, a third world country where the people we will be serving for the coming year do not even know that simple protection from a mosquito will save their lives and the lives of their children, THIS is the land that is plentiful. THIS is where the streams of abundance flow. Why? Because it’s not about the stuff. None of this life is about any of the stuff. It has nothing to do with resources or education or opportunities.

It is about us praising and worshipping Our God.

Our God that is enough.

In Him, even when we have nothing else, even when we know nothing else, we have the abundance of grace and love. We will never be without.

When we are found in the desert place, when we walk through the wilderness, we will turn every blessing back to praise. In the villages of Africa, in the neighborhoods of America, everywhere, regardless of our situation or our lives, we have enough by knowing, loving, and following Jesus.