Murchison Falls 2

My thoughts on the actual falls, "...wow, breathtaking, no words, can describe the absolutely perfect magnifience of it all...amazing, spectacular, wonderful!!" I mean i could just word vomit on a page every superlative i could think of and it still wouldn't do it justice, just as these photos never could either. I have some video of hte falls which is pretty amazing and ill show some of you when i get back, but for now here's a taste of the absolute fierceness of the Lord's creation. You take the Nile, (at the risk of being wrong here) the longest river in teh world and shove it through a seven meter opening then you're bound to get something powerful and spectacular. So check it out...


This first one is me not really sure why im making that face but, I am, trust me i really was happy to be there (also i apologize about the size of the pictures on the last post hopefully these will make up for it). Actually im not really sure what's up with my faces, apparently it was, make stupid faces day for me. Anyways, enjoy:








 

Murchison Falls 1

Why hello there my beautiful friends and family. Including today there are exactly 5 days left for me in the wonderful, yet odd country of Uganda. This past weekend I finally went on safari and all i can really say is, "wow", the absolute majesty of the Lord is so manifest in all of these fierce and lethal, yet beautiful and gentle creatures.

Before the pics though i think my words would be best shown if i just copy my journal entry from the night before our game drive, enjoy:

In the midst of your creation (well that statement is not really a suprise at
all since i can't go anywhere to escape your presence) here I am in Murchison
falls national park in Uganda w/ no real outside ocntact since my phone doesn't
work here, and in the midst of so many wild animal's homes.

Just on the
way to camp tonight i saw a lot of wild picgs grazing in the camp area
itself.

I am so incredibly excited to see more, even the crocodile I
managed to be about 30-40feet from today on accident really inspired alot of awe
in me as well as fear. I think of William Blake's poem, "Tigre tigre burning
bright, in the darkness of the night..." And it goes on to ask how God could
make something so horrific and dangerous as a tiger.

It's really
beautiful to be reminded of that aspect of our Lord. That fierceness about Him,
that He's definitely not tame or domesticated, He's wild (like He's made me to
be) and He's free, and along w/ His love, His danger and awe inspiring fear is
also to be embraced.

I think that can better describe the fear we think
of when fearing God. It's notthe fear of punishment that guilts us into feeling
bad, but to see His beauty and His danger and His utter unpredictability, and
yet to trust him, to see that and be afraid not because we are scared, but
because we are absolutely overwhelmed w/awe and inspiration and thus fear of
something so incredibly mighty, that is what I think we should feel
instead.

I love how N.T. Wright points out that so many people, and sadly
even so many Christians, think that the Christian God is a "spy in the sky"
waiting for you to screw up, and they really don't nkow the God of Israel who
loves, who forgives, who willingly dies for our sakes.

That is why we
find ourselves so unsuccessful hwen we seek to serve God and we find we cannot
grow, that's because that is a false God. That doesn't match w/ the character of
the God I know. I worship the God of love and awe inspiring fear, and no other.

This picture is of a baby crocodile that i arguably got too close to. But man the amazing feeling I got of placing myself in God's hands like that, I know it's wreckless and stupid, but again that awe inspiring fear and danger is absolutely incredible.


Here's some water buffalo



Here's an elephant that definitely chased our safari van, and put on a "masculine show" of sorts that I don't have pictures of but will definitely get from the other guys



Lastly, here is a massive group of giraffes. I can't possibly describe to you what it felt like to see such majestic creatures. Mark was able to get a video of one running and it was nothing short of breathtaking seeing such a massive animal gallop

 

random around town shots

All these pictures were taken on saturday when Mark and I ended up walking probably 3 or 4 miles (note the second one, it's my favorite)

walk to work

I thought you guys'd enjoy some pics from the normal path i take to work every day...

retrospect

Besides letting you guys know how the safari goes this weekend and showing you some pictures of that, I think the next few entries will be me looking back on this summer and summarizing what i've thought about/done for the past two or so months.

I've been so busy here with work for the past two weeks that i've really not been doing alot of thinking about anything. And it was in the past few days that i realized how normal i feel here now. I still cannot believe that i have 9 days after today before i am on my way home, it's so surreal, and i dont even nkow what to expect.

So i look back at the spiritual state i was in in May and am completely floored by the work the Lord has done. I went back and read alot of journal entries and looked at all the prayers that were answered in me in just the past two months. How much has the Lord restored me to Him and grown my faith in Him by simply showing me His love.

I look at my character, and see how the Lord has slowed me down. I mean just at my tactfulness and sensitivity to not say certain things around locals. Or i can see someone say something and think, "wow that was really untactful" and it sucks to be reminded that I am like that as well, but it's good to see how He's moving me beyond that. I knew i cared about people, but the Lord has relaly taught me alot about loving people for who they are and where they are at, not where i want them to be or where they are not. Just like Jesus loving people regardless of who they are what they've done and where they are at. I mean love won't change anything if it's conditional.

Love for the simpler things. Like a walk to work, or a boda ride in the rain with my rain jacket on. All these simple easy to miss things are gifts, and gosh i've enjoyed all of them.

Then I look at all the sad things I've seen, all the pot-bellied kids, all the governmental non-action, and i've definitely come to realize that all these big problems cannot and never will be solved by big governments with lots of money and power, and ultimately these problems are in God's hands. Honestly if you had a billion dollars you couldn't fix one country over here, you just couldn't it wouldn't work the way we think it would. I've definitely seen that good intentions really dont do squat over here, it's only Him that allows anything to happen at all.

I am almost positive engineering is not hte direction my life will take me in, and you guys have no idea how excited i am to finally say that for real, rather than half joke about it. I really want to learn more about the world, about people, and somehow do something that will allow me to be back over here someday for a very long time. If not here then somewhere else besides teh states. It's a big world, and the future is bright, and i cannot wait to see what God has in store for me.

One thing that's definitely been drilled home is how amazingly blessed I am by Texas A&M. Nowhere else, and at no other university could I find this many amazingly god fearing men and women, nowhere! I look at the amazing people this university attracts, and i realize how incredibly awesome my friends are there. Jared, Wes, Andy, Jspence, i seriously miss praying with you guys, i mean that could be the reason for a get together because i feel so energized after doing so, i love you all and ill see you very soon! Amby, Kristin, Yaks, and whatever girls i know will frequent our house in the fall, you are so welcome and i can't wait to see your amazing faces!!

well this was ramble after ramble so im gonna stop and get back to work....10 days left...

this is it

i cant believe it took me this long to figure out something so simple, but maybe it's so amazing that's why it took me so long ot figure it out.

Every day, every single day, we have the opportunity to make a choice. All of us, in our walks with Christ have struggles, have ruts we get into, have downtime where God just doesn't feel intimate or close, and even when we know He is there but we just dont feel it as well as the times when he's so presently there we can't contain ourselves we have a choice.

We have a choice every morning to say, God you created me to enjoy you and so today I choose to, I choose today to lay down my cares, my worries, my sin, my pride, my selfishness, my righteousness, my holiness, my talents, my skills, my hurts, my pains, my guiltiness, my shame, my self-loathing, my depression, my etc... Thanks to His choosing us we now have the ability no, opportunity to choose Him back! The spiritual ruts or dry times i woudl assume almost if not always are our own creation, or at the very least our succumbing to lies of our own flesh or of the enemy, both of which have been defeated.

So I challenge you as well as myself daily, to dedicate and declare yourself to God, not for salvation because you can't receive something you already have, but just for personal dedication, for quality of life, for joy and for peace.

This is so beautiful in it's simplicity and i love it, but that's what i've found here, no matter what, no matter what hte situation or problem we can always choose to glorify and exalt Him and that in turn gets our hearts right. How funny that all is seemingly right in the world when our hearts and minds completely exalt Him in all that they do, it's probably because that means everything is right. The problems will be fixed as He sees fit, so this is me looking back at an entry from last week where i was talking to Mark about how i should be having a crappy day. Thus the power of God to transcend the temporary and put our hearts on something bigger, something more.

If something is not eternal, it is eternally worthless -- C.S. Lewis (horrible paraphrase)

something to look forward to...

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

-- John Donne (Holy Sonnet X)

There is always more, and He is always beautiful...

From my journal this morning:

Ahh...Saturday, here at last, this has been the slowest week of the trip so far but apparently even it turned out to be a good thing.

"He works all things to the good of those who love Him."

I was sitting w/ Mark yesterday in teh Namuwongo market drinking a soda and was sayking to him how much the Lord has changed my heart, that I'm still slightly sick (from what we now think to have been contaminated water), it's been a crappy day outdoors all day, i'm tired from working so much and i've ridden in a taxi way too much. as of two or three days prior i woudl have been having a crappy day, but yesterday I was so excited about the Lord that none of those other things mattered, it was amazing, how all circumstances, annoyances and hindrances literally pale in comparison to His brightness and His greatness.

I am so excited about how good Jesus is, how much He loves me, how much He cares for me, and how much He watches over me. Truly to hide ones heart from pains, irritations, and altogether hurts from things uneternal, all one has to do is hide ones heart in THE MOST HIGH GOD!!, and all previous cares will seem to drift away.

...

But i've finaly hit the down hill here...I actually would be ok right now if (sorry guys i want to be both places but this hasnt been true till recently) Impact got canceled and i could cancel my lease and stay here all fall. That woudl be ok b/c I know I willmiss this place so much...So anyways, life is good and I have the lord breaking me to thank for that...

Thus i want to encourage you guys that it can always be better than it seems, that there are unconscienable (wow butchered that word) depths in Him that we will never be able to understand, and we really ought to never be satisfied with what we think we know about Him, because no matter how far we've gone we've just skimmed the surface of who He is. In fact I've found the further one goes that much bigger God seems to have become. As we become more and more aware of our depravity and more and more aware of His goodness He seems that much less attainable, and that's ok because he accepts us where we are at but seeks to constantly change us as He makes us more holy. So seek Him hard and deep, press in to the heart of God, and while i can't explain how to do that becuase that looks different for everyone, I encourage you to ask Him to help you if you dont know what to do.

There is always more, and He is always beautiful...

more random pics from today

The rails seem to be a preferred method of travel/commerce/whatever...




















Afro tech!!















And naturally the Florida Restaurant...














This is scaffolding, but holy crap would that be fun to take a mountian bike down that! 

Littering and...

As promised here is a picture of a trashpile/dirtpile, there is a really bad one near there but i forgot to get a pic of it today since we were in a hurry...













and here is a fire presumably burning trash not a block from the office...















this is a public transit sign, Ugandans love their speedbumps!














Bid daddy Property Agents, gosh am i gonna miss the signs here...

Littering? No...well yes

Yesterday I realized I have yet to talk to you guys about this, and i wish i had a good picture to portray my thoughts but anyways here goes:

Well, here in Kampala, and in other parts I'm sure you can pay a weekly fee for someone to pick up your trash. You just set it right on the curb and they come and pick it up no problem right? well not exactly. First of all, every kid in the neighbourhood will go through it for any scrap of food, any reciepts that might say how much money goes through here etc, basically creating a mess most of which im sure the garbage man doesnt bother to pick up.

So I've lived my entire life in Texas under the "Don't Mess With Texas" campaign, and really i don't litter and I'm sure that's a reason why. I leave trash in my car and make sure it all gets in teh dumpster/trashcan/etc. and i can trust that it all goes to a landfill somewhere far away from where anyone lives right? Yea for the most part, or maybe it's an "out of sight, out of mind" thing. Either way, here I don't actually know if real landfills exist perse, and I KNOW they don't dispose of certain trash items the way we would at home. This realization really hit me when Mark and I were cleaning out the refrigerator where we have been living back in early June. We filled up our trashcan and had no idea what to do from there. So we asked the guard, he came in and grabbed it, poured it in a pile behind the guardshack, and lo and behold the next morning the pile was burning, plastic and all.

This is completely normal here, as can be evidinced by the smog and smell all over (which is why i loved being out in the country at the end of June so much, i guess in the IDP camps they can't afford things that create trash to burn). So I'm thinking, well, i could throw this trash in the trash can at the office which supposedly goes to a landfill, which is more than likely just a poorer neighbourhood....So this house of white people is throwing away garbage sending it to a poor black neighbourhood (soudn a little racist? I think so). Or perhaps there is a landfill, or the more likely word to describe it woudl be a "dump" but i can garauntee people live on or near it and probably aren't benefitting from the trash coming from every direction. Also when i was on a taxi coming back from Mabera forest back in June i was drinking from a water bottle and put it in my backpack, because experience tells me to saveit and put it in the trashcan so i don't litter...But when i get home i'llput it in a trashcan that will get poured in a pile outside and burned...

All this to say, I guess i have justified littering here. Everyone does it, I mean one time i was on a taxi and had a bananapeel (bad example but hte same thing would happen with any sort of trash) and was holding it and hte lady next to me said, "you throw away" and opened the window.

The Ugandans are equally unmodest about throwing trash out of cars as they are about public urination, which i saw alot of last weekend. [Sidenote: I love what the Ugandans say (probably an english thing really) to describe where they are going, either a "short call" or a "long call" ill let you use your imagination to figure out what that means. But when you're on a bus for 8 hours inevitably you have to stop and take a "short call." So imagine a bus of 200 people all filing out women/men/children to pee on the side of the road, it's definitely a sight to be seen!]

So yesterday as I was walking with Mark to the bank, i realized i needed airtime for my cell (which had about 10 shillings on it, i.e. half a cent or absolutely no ability to make a call). So i stopped to buy some airtime cards and after i took them out of the plastic wrappers and dialed in my time to my phone i gasp!! threw them on the ground. I was thinking, that's definitely an aspect of life here i have not shared with you guys, so there you go!


oh here's a really bad example of a trashpile, or what is left of one, but it will suffice I guess, ill do my best to get a picture of a big one next time i see it.










i love you all so incredibly much, have a wonderful day!

PR's and just to ramble

part of a journal from this morning:

I'm not sure if this is jsut me focusing on my physical state and thus being very negative w/my outlook on the rest of my time here...maybe it's also the fact that I've been cooped up in this office for two days this week and I'm starting to dislike being in doors. Regardless of the reason, I am cranky and whiny and thus it affects my outlook.

I am worried that i'll get back and love all the time i spent here except the last three weeks and see those as a complete waste of time.

Those were my musings last night and it's possible I'm completely wrong.

Well since this morning i feel alot better actually, I felt like vomiting on the car ride from the house to the office, and even today i dont feel like shooting myself in the face after having spent the entire day in teh office. But my PR is in there as well, guys please pray for me that I woudln't waste the time I have here dwelling on home and things i miss, and rather my vision would be for the here and now (in an eternal sense). I mean afterall if i wanted a vacation it cost an awful lot to come here, thankfully you guys provided the means to get me here, i realize I havent thanked all of you yet!!

Wow, how selfish have I been! Thank you so much for your help in getting me where I am at right now. You have helped fulfill the Lord's will in my life because He truly has changed alot of things and broken alot of thigns down in my heart and really grown me and shown me different parts of Him, and all of that is realyl very exciting, but none of it woudl have been possible w/o your help! You have been a blessing and through your blessings have come countless more!

all i can say is thank you thank you thank you!!

So here are a few more:

I'll have to explain this one a little bit, but Impact is an organization I'm involved in back at A&M, it "seeks to glorify the Lord in every aspect of it's existence by giving incoming freshmen [christian (or not)] their first glimpse of the body of christ at texas a&m" (there Laura do i win a tshirt? haha). Anyways the structure is like so, there are two sessions and alpha and an omega session, the alpha and omega sessions host 10 and 9 camps respectively at a retreat center somewhere in east texas called pineywoods. Each camp has two cochairs who lead 12 counselors and 2 prayer teamers (all of whom are current students and have been cultivating a family sort of back at a&m since around february), also at impact we will get another 40 someodd freshmen per camp 4-6 of which will be assigned to each counselor partner ship (a boy and a girl) called a BASIC group (brothers and sisters in christ). It is also led by an exec body (also students). all that to say is that I am a cochair, and in august impact will happen when i get back. So i was hoping you could pray for impact as a whole and for the incoming freshmen in my camp specifically. Each camp is named after a tribe of Israel and combined with teh session, so my camp is called "Omega Gad." Sorry for such a long winded explanation, anyways that's my life back at a&m in case any of you were interested.

Next I really want to begin to hear and see and perceive God and His Spirit and all that goes on in the spiritual realms outside of this time space dimension whatever better. I know He desires this too so please pray for that in my time left here as well...


Ok the power died so we'll see if there's enough juice left in the batteries to let me post!!

Much love from Kampala!

update on my health

This is just to quell some worried minds (mostly mom's) and just inform you guys on yet another part of my experience whilst here.

This afternoon Mark started feeling ill as well, and i guessi haven't felt horrible all day, but really really gassy, ha. So steve was taking him to the clinic and i opted to go as well (there you go mom, probably the first time i've gone to the doctor at a sign of illness in a long time). Well after some tests we foudn out i didnt have malaria or worms (although i thought as long as it wasn't going to be any worse since it's very curable if foudn in time, that it woudl be cool to go back and say i got malaria, i suppose the mothers among you would be to differ, but im sure others of you can understand perfectly). The doctors we talked to were a man and woman from Israel who were both Jewish working at a Christian clinic (they thought it odd as well) but they were very friendly people, and they agreed with my initial diagnosis that it was food poisoning of some kind, perhaps viral or bacterial, but they gave me antibiotics to be safe. I want to say the pills are called something like "flagella" or soemthign like that, not really sure, but they're supposed to have an analgesic effect which is never a bad thing.

Here's to hoping i get a little less gassy since i opted to eat dinner tonight after not eating anything but bread or fanta (i've fallen in love with orange soda!) in the past 48 hours. and for that matter feeling alot better tomorrow morning after another good night's sleep.


i'll leave you with whatever random goofy pictures i can find on the harddrive...







This is me right as i walked into the office after having been rained on alot, i also have my backpack under my jacket, anyways i felt i looked wholly ridiculous and i figured so would you guys, so enjoy...

some more low-res shots of Kibarara

So here is the road that the bus dropped us off on, as you can see it is literally in the middle of nowhere...











This is the other direction and is equally depressing...

















These are about the coolest animal i've seen yet. Blue tail, yellow body, green head, not really sure how that helps them in the wilde but it sure looks neat...








another pic from the top of the "mountain" we climbed... 

Definitely a different sort of weekend...

I wrote before of my plans for this weekend, and unusually enough (for africa) they stayed the same. Mark and I boarded a bus that we thought was the 6 oclock bus in the bus park at 5:45 am. I was loving the amount of people on the bus right around six cuz it would mean i'd get a whole row to myself, at least for awhile. Sadly the bus didn't leave till 8:30 and we were left sitting on it till it completely filled, or for that matter overfilled. One thing i became painfully aware of this weekend, is the American idea of "personal space" has no meaning here. People pack into painfully close quarters in the effort to make more money, so needless to say the next charter bus i take anywhere i will be hardpressed to find a reason to complain about comfort. Because at lesat there won't be a guy in the aisle sitting next to me taking all my leg space, or some guy standing up in the aisle with his elbow in my face.

So we finally got to a small village outside Kasese called Kibarara. this place is about as "middle of nowhere" as you could possibly get. There is absolutely nothing there except for fields of dead maize stalks, matoke trees, and a house with a tin roof every few miles or so. We arrived there about 4 in the afternoon, or three hours late, and went to see Alan on the worksite. He is the construction manager for an irrigation project that eMi designed for Western Uganda Baptist Theological College, or as we affectionately call it, Wub-t-c. He'll be out there till the day before i leave and so it was good to see him once more before then. There isn't much to do out there besides read and talk, so we all did our fair share of both. Meals there were interesting to say the least. We paid 5,000 shillings a day for a big lunch and dinner. Each meal though, only men were at the table. For example, the first night we ate dinner at Foston's house (the director of teh college) with he and his son Padwin, His wife and daughters were in the kitchen the entire time and only came out to refill the water jug. Then i think they ate whatever it was that we did not eat.

On Saturday Mark and I were determined to climb one of the foothills in front of the mountains, which looked to be very close due to the sheer massiveness. It turned out to be a little further than we thought just to the foothills, and i have no idea how much further it was to the mountains. We started out at 10:00 and got back at 1:00.

Saturday night i was in for a surprise, my stomach started feeling a little weird right before we ate dinner, and then i coudlnt eat very much at all. Afterwards we were about to go to bed and i had to make a few trips to the toilet, i.e. a hole in the ground you squat over. Then eventually I had what looked like food poisoning. Let me tell you, nothing is more depressing than food poisoning (or at least the symptoms) with a squat toilet, it's not fun at all. [forgive me if this is too graphic but i thought it was awesome] So after trying to throw up for about half an hour i think our neighbours heard me and went to get Foston, the head pastor for the college. I was laying down fruitlessly as i had been most of the night because sleep was impossible, and he knocked on the door and asked if he could do anything. I told him all i could think of was to pray, so he came in i stood up and he put his hand on me and began to pray. Probably the instant he put his hand on me i could feel my stomach about to empty and promptly did so when he finished. I just thought that was an awesome blessing from the Lord because i needed to vomit badly. So, Foston, Ngungu, Storiko, and our neighbour Eric brought me medicine, Promethazine to stop vomiting, and Flegella which is apparently for worms. Still not really sure what i have, and i'm not totally well yet, but i'm getting better, and needless to say it was an interesting night.

We woke up at 4:30am to catch the bus to Kampala at 5:30. Man the bus was amazing, we get on and there was practically nobody there. So i ended up with a whole row to myself and sucessfully slept for about 5 hours there and didn't have any GI problems the entire way. Although i definitely wasn't and still am not feeling up to par physically. About two hours before we got back (the bus ride lasted about 8 hours) the bus stopped for a "short call", so naturally after being on the bus so long i had to go. I traversed aroudn a trashpile to do my business and on the way back was accosted by several men who wanted me to pay them for peeing in a no-urination area. One pointed to a sign that was not written in english except for "urineting" yea it wasn't even spelled right and wanted me to pay him since i did something wrong. I refused and kept walking but they tried to block my way. Finally at the entrance to the bus i told him, "look, i'm sorry forgive me!" and pushe dhim aside and boarded the bus, thankfully that was the end of that.

We reached Kampala at about 1 and walked to the taxi park then reached home around 130. I slept till 5 came to the office for dinner, didnt really eat and went home. Last night i slept from 8:30PM to 7:00AM needless to say i needed rest.

I guess this is me asking you guys to pray for health, and also saying, "mom dont' worry, if this persists i will go to the clinic, and if it's really bad the best hospital in Uganda is a five minute drive away."






Here was my view from the shower stall on saturday night before the sun went down.
















This is a shot from the top of the "foothill" which was more like a mountain itself, it was probably another 5 or 10 miles to the mountains themselves.












Here is me, dead on the bus...















Pic from the cornfields of the sunset over the mountains...













UT, eat your heart out...









check this out, this article was found on http://www.newvision.co.ug

Night trekkers fewer
Sunday, 16th July, 2006	E-mail article Print article
By Chris Ocowun NUMBERS of night commuting children in Kitgum district have reduced, according to a head count report by UNICEF and other agencies. The report says as a result, six night commuters’ centres have been closed. Kitgum RDC Nahaman Ojwee on Thursday said the number of night commuters reduced from over 20,000 in 2002-2003 when there were regular attacks by the LRA rebels in the suburbs of Kitgum town to only 5,164 because the rebels have not attacked the town in three month. The RDC and the LC5 chairman, John Komakech, said by August, all night commuter centres shall be closed. “We want to sensitise the parents and the rest of the community around Kitgum town so that they can be prepared to receive their children home, instead of moving every evening to town and yet there is no major security problem now. “However, partners will continue to give whatever assistance they want to give the children at their homes,” Komakech said. He said there were cases of prostitution at the night commuters’ cenres, including rape and defilement. He said parents were not even bothered to follow their children to the centres. “Dismantling of the centres shall be part of the return of IDPs to their homes,” he said. Ojwee said some of the partners were against the idea of closing down the centres because they were reaping from them. He said such violated the children’s right to parental care.

Thus sad to say, and i can't articulate this as well as James can, but the invisible children campaign is alot of wasted energy. I mean don't get me wrong, they are all well meaning, but I get an email this morning talking about the invisible children global tour 2007, and i'm thinking, "why are they still focusing their efforts toward a problem that is/is being taken care of?" Right now there are 30 IC college student staffers in Uganda and about 30 more on the way, and James points out, "for about $2,000 round trip times 60 people, that's about $60,000 and couldn't that go to accomplishing something more than 60 well meaning, albeit ignorant college students can accomplish?" So, all i'm saying is, and i am guilty this too, before a bunch of college students, or anyone for that matter jumps head long into a cause like this, it woudl do well if they researched it a bit. Couldn't these kids willing to spend all that money work on problems at home? or at the very least on problems in places where they actually exist and where the government isn't actively trying to fix it? If you don't believe me check it out : www.newvision.co.ug

Ok now i'm looking at the IC website and wondering what the people that are over here or are coming will be doing, turns out IC has no idea either:

Volunteer in Uganda
Timeline: Future.
Unpaid.

Although all of our programs are, and need to be run by Ugandans, we are going to need more and more volunteers to go to Uganda and help implement many of our future programs on the ground. These volunteers must be there for a minimum of 14 days. A basic description of your work on the ground is not available yet, because we are still developing these programs and creating partnerships to be able to most effectively use people’s time and talent once they are in Uganda.

So basically they want you to come, spend way too much money on a plane ticket and be there for fourteen days to accomplish what, absolutely nothing, not to mention they are taking volunteers for programs which either don't exist or they haven't figured out what to let the people do while they are here.

Or maybe really what needs to happen to inspire the millions of cause-less 18+ kids in america, is for someone else to come along with a well edited, entertaining, documentary that is readily available and in dvd format...

(sorry for they cynicism, some frustrations needed to be vented)

kids and foks and brothers and sisters and mothers and father etc

Here are some pictures of me playing with Sofia and Madeline yesterday. Sofia was playing the "Josh's head fell off the couch so i have to put it back on, and hten knock it off again" game with my head. And Madeline was playing the "i'm an airplane game." Man I love playing with kids, and how will i miss these two!




















Family,

I've been thinking alot lately about how I am and how people view me and talking alot to some of the guys here about it as well. I knew this all along, but i never had it articulated into words. i put myself out there alot, by that i mean i am so ridiculously open and out there and no holds barred unadulterated me, that I do get on people's nerves, especially people that are very different from me. I know for a fact i have a knack for making people feel uncomfortable as well, and usually it's not on purpose, and i can see how me being so deliberately up front can really make some peopel feel way outside of any semblance of comfort.

Natural reaction is such, and not even that i am a special case, everyone reacts the same sort of way to people that they dont like or dont get along with. We make snap judgments, we make fun of them, we talk about them behind their backs etc. It's so funny how many problems would be solved if we simply had the courage to go up to another person and just talk to them about what is bothering us if it was legitimately something that hurt the other person. On the flipside, so many problems woudl be avoided if people woudl realize that nothing they can do will actually change a person. I mean we hear at church all the time that the burden of salvation isn't upon us, all we are is vessels for Christ, so in that aren't we jsut vessels for Him in affecting change in His people? We even look at Christians we perceive as being less far along than us, and look on them in pity, and as if we are these amazing crusaders that are going to fix them and make them ok.

Well that's trash too. We cannot change anyone, not one person can be changed by anything we do. If we react badly to the way a person is (and i'm speaking of people who aren't acting maliciously) then it is not their problem, it is ours. So why do we react in such petty ways to it? First of all i know you guys can quote Romans to death and know that "...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And i'm sure most of you have realize that this is the great leveler, this is the thing that shows that none of us is any better, deserves anything more, than anyone else. Yet we insist upon it.

And i guess i could steer this conversation toward self love and why we love us since we have nothign inherently good in ourselves, which is true and helpful in this. But I guess i just want to point out how horribly the church treats itself. I have seen non-christians love peopel better than I see Christians love peopel. What kind of a testimony is that? Yes their love for peoepl comes from God and yes He is glorified by that love, but why can't His people love each other well? I can't qualify it, but i'd venture to say that there is just as much if not more gossip within the church as without.

The main point of this is to point out something i'm learning here, but that can and should be applied anywhere. It is never my job, NEVER, to make people like me. It's never my job to please people at my own expense, it's never my job to seek recognition from my peers, to seek approval from those around me, to seek acknowledgement and validation from any other person. I can't help but go back to Eldredge over and over again no matter how little scriptural backing his book had, but NOBODY can tell me that I am a man, nobody can validate me as a person, nobody can tell me that i'm ok in such a way as to satisfy me. If you rely on men they will fail you.

But there's hope! We have one job, that is to love God and love people. That's it, the greatest of the two commandments. I wish more people knew Deuteronomy 6 just as well as the story of Jesus giving the two greatest commandments. It talks about loving god, but it goes further, it says we are to meditate on loving God all day long, everywhere we go, talk about it with everyone we come in contact with, and even to put it on our doorposts. So my job while i'm in Africa, while i'm in the States, while i'm anywhere, is to love him and love His people. This is an encouragement to everyone as well as myself, because i suck at this more than anyone, but no matter how much somebody gets on your nerves, how much they hurt you, you exist to glorify the Lord, to show His love to them.

So I encourage you/me to love, let that be the motivating factor behind everything, meeting people where they are at, like Jesus did, not trying to change them so that we can feel more comfortable aroudn them. Let the church take the plank out of their own eye before they seek to take the splinter out of their brother's eye. I woudl even go as far to contend that it's not my job to take that splinter out of my brother's eye if it's not causing Him to sin.

So lastly to reiterate, it's not our job to change people, it's God's. It's our job to love Him and His people. Life boils down to that, and it's amazing how that truth can change everything. 

10 weeks and goin strong

I wanted to share with a few fans, or people that absolutely might hate it, either way i wanted a reaction. Check out 10 weeks of growth, you can even kind of see the blonde hair on my face. Needless to say, my blonde mustache that you can't see unless the lighting is right or you are close enough definitely gets all sorts of food stuck in it as well as stuck in my mouth all the time. But hey guys, i'm goin strong. Jspence, you'd be so proud of me and know that this beard/beardish thing partially goes out to you, and then a part of it goes to andy's european beard thing, basically guys pray that someday i can be grizzly adams...







...that is all 

ramblings

I've been thinking alot about the things that i miss back home and i think i'll list a few here:

1. Peanut butter (we have it, but it's just not the same w/o all the preservatives and partially hydrogenated soybean oil)

2. cheesecake

3. chips of any kind, i mean they are here too, but just rare

4. my own car

5. real roads (if this country was more developed you could drive across it in about 8 hours, whereas now it woudl take about 30 i woudl guess)

6. street signs (no joke)

7. clean air (apparently kampala is home to what is called, "the kampala headache" there is so much pollution here whether it be from cars spewing out black smoke or burning trashpiles which inevitably have plastic in them. I miss the north for that reason first, the air was amazing. I mean if i take a picture at night here i'll probably get some specks of dirt in them because of the flash, that's how much stuff i am breathing in)

8. Not sticking out in a crowd (at least not because of my skin color), it's a little different having the tables turned and becoming hte minority

9. my friends, you guys have no idea how much i look forward to reuniting with all of you! mom, byron, dad, laura, john <---all my parents really

ok that was enough negativity, here are things i will miss when i'm gone:

1. the people (College Station is supposed to be known for it's hospitality, and people ther are definitely more friendly than in Austin, but neither have anything on this place, the people here love more and better, and talk and listen, it's grand)

2. the kids (there is no better place to be a college aged guy cuz these kids need some love bad, and they love so well, like little joshua who would just come up and hug my leg till i picked him up)

3. the undeveloped-ness (i'm sure this will stick out more if/when i go to langira island and get to see a place completely untouched by technology, but in the country side it's just nice to drive down the raod and not see anything metal or any poles sticking up besides the occasional cell tower)

4. the oppennes and honesty with the lord that is made easier by having the rug pulled out from under you.

...i dont think i want to make this too long, because really it's gonna be the people that i'll miss, so many beautiful faces. I read in sociology and i thought this was true for a long time that it's harder for people of different races to distinguish features of other races. But man, it's how i've gotten used to seeing so many different ugandans from so many different places who all look completely different.

i guess one last one

5. my new friends, Mark, Alan, James, Josh, Janet, Steve, Melinda, Sofia, Madeline, Kizito, Paddy, Steven, etc etc, they have touched my life in a huge way and were the exact right people that were supposed to be here at the exact right time.

6. Well crap i'm still listing, this one isn't that serious, but i'm gonna miss all the ridiculous signs i've seen, all the clay roof tiles, all the tin roofs, all the palm trees, all the well dressed people, all the barefoot people, the exchange rate!! well i coudl go on forever and so stop my list here.

"more than fine, more than bent on getting by, more than just ok"





Here are the plans for the rest of my stay in Uganda:

from now until i leave during the week work on tabitha project stuff, from CAD drawings to data calculation, to writing the report. The hope is that we'll get done a week before i leave so i can have a few days just to relax and do random stuff.

On monday Alan is going out to Kasese for about four weeks to manage some construction at West Uganda Baptist Theological College, or what we affectionately call wub-t.c. So Mark and I will go visit him next weekend, Kasese is amazing from the pictures i've seen and i'm excited to get to see some mountains before i leave.

The following weekend is open and this is tentative, but Mark and I woudl really like to go to Langira island which is about an hour south of Jinja on lake victoria. This island has a YWAM (youth with a mission) base on it and that is where we woudl stay, the thing im excited about is that there is absolutely nothing on this island technologically speaking, so i'm pretty pumped to hike up to the top and see miles of lake and trees

The last weekend (which will be my last weekend in Uganda) is going to be our safari at Murchison falls, because how can you go to africa and not go on a safari? So expect lots of awesome pictures, and then i leave on the following friday night for the states.

So for those of you wondering how is life over here, it is good, it is real, and it is beautiful, and here's why...







...takes you back doesn't it?

kids/rebels/the north

Hey there folks, i feel like talking about something completely different today, i want to bring parenting in Uganda to your attention, or for the most part the lackthereof.


Here is a picture of a little boy that stayed in the homestead where we stayed when we were in the north. So by the way the homestead was a big walled in compound of houses lining the walls and a few huts in the middle built to house the teachers for the nursery, primary, and secondary school in the area (for which most kids school fees are paid for through sponsorship). Anyways, so as far as housing goes these people have an amazing living situation compared to most people in the town to be sure. But sadly, as is true in most places in Uganda, the children are more likely than not to not know their father. Since there are no caretakers whatsoever, this cute little boy just walks around the compound by himself from the time his mom leaves for school to the time she comes back for lunch and from then till 5 when school is out. Basically little kids take care of little kids here.

So many times Joshua would be over on our side picking up things we were using and definitely didn't want broken, and some girls, maybe 4 or 5 years old would come and get him. Inevitably half the time he'd be naked and he'd come back wearing something, i think there was one day he came back wearing panties shorts and a very very pink little girls shirt. I guess this paragraph is an aside of how cute the kid was. I didn't hear him make any noise at all until the last two days i was there, but he'd always kind of just wander over (he's about one and a half by the way) naked or not, sticking his tongue in and out and looking absolutely adorable. (Look at the girly shirt he's wearing------------------------------>>)

But such is the case everywhere. When we were at church up there, or even just during the day when the parents would be out in the gardens, sleeping, or i have no idea what, you'd see five year olds with babies tied onto their backs with a blanket, the same way mothers tie the babies to their backs. And i'm thinking, why is this ok? what if there was a huge emergency or somethign happened? would you trust your infant with your five year old? i dont think i would. But then that kind of showcases the maturity level of children here as opposed to the states (good or bad i've yet to decide). But like how many kids like three years old have i seen riding in the seats on bikes behind adults, I mean in the states would you really trust a kid that old to hold on and not fall off, especially on roads as bumpy as these? And here cars have the right of way, and pedestrians have absolutely no rights at all. How many times in the states do you hear about a child running in front of a car, or something like that. I mean like i said a long time ago, there are one lane roads everywhere, yet they manage to fit one lane of traffic either way, one lane of motorcycles zipping through, and pedestrian traffice w/o a sidewalk, yet i've not seen anyone hit let alone kids.

So the kids are mature, i guess, in a kind of sad way they grow up too fast, or at least faster than our kids back home. Then now on to something that someone brought to my attention two nights ago. Uganda is i think one of the few if not the only countries that took to heart Bush's encouragement of abstinence to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa, and it actually worked, Uganda's AIDS rate has plummetted in recent years. But apparently there are alot of rural kids that it's hard to convince to be abstinent. Let's imagine you live in a one room hut with your parents and two siblings. It's completely normal and not unheard of for your parents to have sex with all of you right there, and you're getting this message at school about not having sex till you are married, but you have this thing going on at home and you are curious, as is the girl in the hut next door. I mean i can't offer a solution, but that's what's going on. Or maybe you are a 13 year old girl and the boda boda driver is offering to buy you some nice clothes or to pay for you to get your hair done if you have sex with him, and your parents can't afford to pay for those things, and they've inevitably never talked to you about sex and all the issues accompanying it.

It's just sad...and yet so many grow up to be amazing human beings, testimony to God for sure.


Praise God though, (Pak Lubanga) i dont know if i told you guys how incredibly stable the north has become. Kony and most of the top dogs in the LRA are in the Congo, actually separated from a mountain they believe contains the spirit that gives them power. Actually the reason Kony (who is Acholi), basically victimizes his own people is because there is a well on that mountain, and they believe the well gives them strength, and since the mountain is near Acholi-land (Gulu), he cannot venture far from there. Recently the UPDF completely cleared the LRA out of that mountain, and thus since they have been weakened, which indeed leads me to believe this is more of a spiritual war than you woudl think. I'm sure there are countless stories of Kony surviving and getting out of things that are humanly impossible, but most people think he's possessed, and i woudl incline to agree, by a very powerful demon. So anyways, praise god because they have been largely cleared out of hte north area, and all that is left is small raid groups that are starving out in the bush and come into towns to steal food once in awhile. And in Kitgum apparently citizens can walk around freely at night without worrying about their safety. And even the "invisible children" the night commuter numbers probably hit their high in 2003 at about 28,000 kids, but now it's down around 5,000.

I guess i was feeling a tad cynical, i'm supposed to be this dangerous crusader, and i was thinking i was walking into a lion's den and i would see some horrific stuff while i was up north. But i didnt, it was peaceful, which is good, but I dont know i hope that makes sense to alot of you.






So i'll close this one out with a picture of the bush, because i'm sure some of you are thinking, "what the heck does the bush actually look like?" Actually oddly enough it reminds me of the hill country in Texas, with palm trees, mostly flat, grassy, some trees here and there...


ok much love to you all, you all bless me beyond words, and i miss each of you dearly!!