I really had to deal with some questions that God was bringing to my mind out of my reactions to what is around me in current life. I have left behind some things to be out here. American comforts, family, close friends that I have been with for a long time and a church that I loved. I have not abandoned life or put it on hold as some people might say. I am simply continuing my life in different geographical locations. I take the same relationship that I cultivated with God back in the US. I really struggled with the question of whether it would be possible for me to be a long-term missionary in place like Africa. I think I could do it short term but doing it for life is something that I had serious doubts about when here. It was a big challenge that God posed to me. Would you be willing to serve long-term despite not having even brief comforts you would end up craving. It would be very easy for me to say I want to be a long-term missionary in a developed country like Europe. Clearly, God could call me to that, but it seems to be a very easy option and I think that it is a subtle way to hold on to comforts. I’m not going to live in extremes about comfort or absence of comfort being an indicator of what is right or what is wrong but it is something that God is getting me to consider.
There really was no place for genuine complaining here during this month. The reality of impoverished people who don’t have much at all and make less than either one or two dollars a day is always beside me here. Every time we would go out to see different ministries and be involved in day to day activities we always go through places with some of the poorest people in the world. Jesus was there to meet us through all of these people and I submitted 100 percent to his use. I know that being there meant a lot to these human beings who are mostly unnoticed by the world in obscurity. The gospel is for the poor in spirt and especially for the ones who are materially poor. This is something to not forget. I found out that I have a tendency to forget the poor sometimes. Even after seeing them face to face, it is still something that my mind ends up straying from.
This month is not without its humor. The latrines that some of us have had to use have an interesting design. They are mostly a concrete slab with a small rectangular hole in the floor for squatting. The hole is so small that one must be an “expert marksman” to use it correctly without trouble. It has been a month of moving from hostel to hostel or house to house. If I count the number of beds I slept in this month with all our moving around, the number amounts to seven. We played a lot of pool this month because Uganda has pool tables in every hostel. Us guys have been honing our pool skills or unleashing them on each other. We end up having these mini-tournaments or team matches with a game of pool.
