We arrived at 1139pm.
We have been on a bus since 445am.
I do not get into bed until past 2am….
I could not hate a place more.
Something isnt right? – but here we are. Its the portion we have been dealt. I feel like its going to be a bulgaria all over again…but pastor Vincent…he seems…ok?
[I realized during the next two days that my feeling was due to three things: having very little sleep and very little people energy when i started travel day and being stuck on a bus full of people for 20 hours and then being stuck at the place we were being housed with (couldnt leave for our safety) made me feel like id never left the bus! On top of that i realized there was a spiritual stronghold of isolation in this country.]
Nerves.
I asked the Lord to be with me in the pain.
So here we go.
#1. Pooping.
After being on busses since 545 this morning im a bit constipated. Doesnt help that im on my cycle too. Yay. Does this face look happy?
No, that yay is more of a nay…but this is again, the portion ive been measured. May i water it hard.
Day one has bled into day two without day one even starting. We had eggs and potatoes and the ketchup that fell out of the bottle in a certain unappatizing way that the color didnt add too. Turns out its kindof a spicey sauce tomato …jam.
119am saturday july 28th.
Uganda.
… in you i move and breathe and have my being,
I try to sleep – but no.
i read for a while…
Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you.
psalm 34
my heart is restlesss until i find my peace in you.
When our spirits fail, you know our paths: guide us, O Lord, as we stumble.
Psalm 142: I cry to the LORD with my voice: to the LORD I make loud supplication. I pour out my complaint before him: and tell him all my trouble. I cry out to you, O Lord : I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Listen to my cry for help, for I have been brought very low: save me from those things that pursue me, for they are too strong for me. Bring me out of my own selfishness, that I may give thanks to your name: you have been kind to me! When my spirit fails, you know my paths: guide me, O Lord, as i stumble. i can say many good things God, but unless the things i say are from you they will not have eternal life. lord i ask for words that have life and i ask that they find good soil!
…. Sunday.
Yesterday i was pretty grouchy so i stayed mostly alone.
Took a much needed bucket shower. Yay. In the dark squaty potty bathroom with my cellphone flashlight… Yay.
Preached this morning at church.
I was getting nausious and nervous as we walked to church and my heart was pounding in my throat.
But after we got to church the elders of the church prayed for our team – and i felt Jesus touch the side of my arm – shoulder, and his hand was hot there – and a veil was placed over my head….i felt Him say “youre chosen” inside my heart…during worship i broke down in tears and wept squatting among the dancers my hand over my mouth…
After that i felt bold and ready to speak.
I spoke about the fear of the Lord and the Lords very real desire for intimacy with them – – – – 2 girls came up to confess Christ as Lord at the end of the service – and i prayed for them. …
Pototos, cabbage, noodles, eggs, mashed green bananas, jack fruit, beans. Black tea. … Meegs buys red pepper flakes to season our food up. Yum.
… Monday.
I am not sleeping long. I fall asleep near 1am and then wake at 4 or 5. I lay in the dark – restless.
I cannot tell you how many times i roll over and over and over.
I pray. “In you i move and breathe and have my being…” i quote scripture. I pray for teammates who are getting cold like symptoms, teammates whove broken out in rashes, teammates who cant sleep.
I roll over.
Finally force myself to get up and use the squatty-potty. Ive been drinking more water than usual. I hate water.
The door out to the alley between the houses makes so much noise. Like a rusty train car on a train track. I feel sorry to Amy my jack-n-jill room roomie. Im grateful for the curtain so i can leave the door crooked open…i sneak into the other house – that door basically as bad as mine. I prop my phone on the sink for light and pee.
When im done i creep back to my room. The door screams and scrapes.
I lay back down and try not to roll around, but i end up at it again.
We spent the day getting orientation.
Tomorrow will be our first day of ministry. I have slept for 3 hours…i give up and read my kindle book for a while.
… TUESDAY.
i am with two others of my team who were lucky enough to be doing medical clinic ministry this month.
Today Grace, Lors (Taylor), and i went down the street to a nearbye clinic. The rest of our team left us there to head off to the school and we almost immediately got integrated.
Our first patient was coming in for a malaria and typhoid test and the clinic has free (mandatory) HIV testing included. So we were immediately taken around the small center and shown everything and trained step by step what their process was, and then asked to start stepping in, filling out paperwork, drop blood on test strips, and checkout the blood stains to verify results.
I was surprised that they were training us immediately and felt that the hands on medical curiosity i was searching for was being offered eagerly.
Later we got taken to their small medicine stores room where we were handed boxes of meds to inspect and told what each one was and how to administer them.
Then there were still quiet spells where we waited for patients and sat talking with eachother or the dear midwife who worked there.
This went on all afternoon – periodic paperwork, gloves donned, blood drops placed on testing strips, and waiting again.
Then, around 2pm we were asked to follow the dentist into his surgery room…for a tooth extraction!
We were handed masks and asked to don gloves and then the patient – a 14 year old boy was on the table and i was standing beside him as the doctor checked out the situation.
Apparently he’d had a bad tooth that had been pulled out at the government clinic, but theyd left the roots in and an abscess had formed. His swollen cheek was testament. There was a ragged hole in the back of his mouth with little shards of gum hanging down.
The doctor poked around a bit and then took a syringe and filled it from a small brown bottle – the way villans do – through the lid. Then he was prodding it into several areas around the gap, injecting the numbing agent and massaging the swollen cheek.
He moved away to fill out paperwork while he waited for the affects to take hold.
Then he was back prodding- then injecting more – deeper into the cavity.
He opened a small safelike box and extracted different tools into a little silver kidney dish along with cotton which he pulled from a nearbye bag under a blanket sitting on top of a box – beside a pile of boxes with files.
The instruments he placed in the tray looked like chisels and screwdrivers of different sizes.
The boys hands rested gently on his stomach. He didnt move – but i saw his eyes getting moist several times. He avoided looking at us most of the time and im sure he was more afraid of us than the procedure that was about to happen. His fingers did not clench or dig. I saw in his face the look of total resignation and im not sure where he went mentally – but i could tell he faded away to another place.
After the dentist verified that the boy felt nothing (he injected him several times – waiting between each injection with his preparations) – his tray on a simple wood barstool beside him, he pulled out his cellphone, turned on the flashlight and handing it to me asked me to help him.
The room is simple and very small.
The bed and the table with the boxes of files and instruments fill almost the whole room.
The rooms only window which is at the foot of the bed is open and clouds of dust drift by.
To my right Grace and Lors hunker against the wall while the doctor squeezes between me and an overturned urn over a basin for washing purposes.
An unplugged desk lamp juts out at me from the floor – and the dentist switches on a fan over the window – directing a waff of weak circulation directly on the supine patient on the old metal and leather exam table.
Then it starts. My first surgery i assist with.
He holds a small mirror instrument and one of the screwdriver tools. And he gouges. Every once in a while he pauses his hacking motions to pickup a ball of cotton in his tweezers and rolling it carefully soaks up the blood bubbling in the back of the boys wide mouth.
I see whats happening, but my mind focuses on the task of keeping the boys mouth well lit – and my hand from obscuring the doctors view. The boy has the most beautiful lips and perfect teeth. I wonder how the doctor knows he will not hit or chip bone. More gum is dislogged to free space for the roots to come.
And then one of them does. I can feel excitement as my prayers that the roots come out without much complication are answered.
He drops the root into a small metal cup – rolls a ball of cotton along the back of the boys mouth and drops that in beside the root. He probes around with a small chisel. I hear it hitting ivory, and he starts to dig and gouge again.
Finally, another root slips from the pit now streaming a dark ribbon of blood into the back of the boys throat.
The boy hasnt moved or made a sound. His hands are still laying ontop of eachother across his stomach. His eyes far away. … I pat his shoulder and sqeeze his hand. “You were great!” i tell him. He grins slightly but doesnt look at me. He is shy – or terrified. I cant tell which.
… Wednesday.
We wake up early.
Eat breakfast early…some breakfasts look like dinner.
Grace, Lors, and i walk to our clinic and the rest of the team – behind us – passes, waves, keeps going.
The sky is grey and the day is cool, we greet the doctor, who informs us that the other doctors busy extracting a tooth. He’s just finished.
We sit on the bench outside the hospital rooms/building and greet the midwife who has just finished showering. She runs past in a towel waving and smiling.
We wait for patients,…we read our kindle books. We chat with the doctor who has finished his surgery. His patient passes to the meds room…a pained expression on his face.
I get up restless…the water tanks basically empty…i help get it cleaned of the soot in the bottom (i later find that the dust on the roof runs into the bin when it rains. It gathers as mud on the bottom.).
Then the three of us follow the dentist to the storeroom where they have extra jugs of water for when the well doesnt produce.
The jugs are not easy to carry.
We empty them into the bin, which is a metal box with two legs, propped on rocks. Then we start the slow process of filling the jugs at the well spiggot, lugging them to the bin, and emptying them before starting the process again, and again. When we finish we refill and replace the jugs in the shed just as the rain starts.
It leaves dark freckles in the dust.
I stop to play with the kids who pop out of their houses nearbye. I sing some songs with them…then we sit on the bench and wait again, making conversation with the lab technician, midwife, and dentist/doctor.
He leaves and comes back with a snack for us! Its probably the best thing ive eaten on the race. Its a triangle shaped fried pocket of dough filled with a savory pea mixture.
… Later, we go home for lunch – and then leave to go to market. We planned to go to church after the market to do a service – but apparently most of the church members were busy selling produce at thr market…so we headed off down the road. And we kept walking for a long time, following the rolling red dirt road as cars, trucks, and motorcycles sped by kicking up dirt until it filled the air.
The farther we went the more children lined the roads.
Kids yelling, “Mahh-zoong-ggoo!” and soon i had an entoraje.
At first it was just 2, then 6, and at one point about 12 kids vying for my hand, arm, attention.
After walking for a good 40 minutes or longer, we reached an area flooded with uniformed students who stared at us with something close to shock.
Near the end of this trail of students, beside a large field about the size of 4 football fields – where it was clear the numerous crouds of students blocking the road played their games – we entered a gated compound lined with classroom buildings.
We met with the Principal and one of the Teachers to introduce ourselves and talk about coming the next week to do something special with the students.
The children who had followed me up the dirt road so far – and up the hill into the next village, clustered anxiously for me outside the door where theyd been told to stay by school staff. The staff member stood there holding them back.
When we were finished we all filed out of the small teachers meeting room and the children immediately relatched themselves.
It was a long long walk back, during which i sang and the children repeated along.
… Thursday.
Our day off.
I havent been sleeping well but we eat breakfast most days at 10am, so i can doze in and out until then.
Ive been sleeping 2 or 3 hours and then waking for a few hours only to go back to sleep, and then awake again.
Today i was hoping to spend most of it in an horizontal pose – but i also had to get laundry done, and our host from Rwanda was going to drop by and spend some time with us.
Amy, Shannon, and i spent some time after breakfast reading and discussing 1Peter 1. We ended up segwaying into future dreams, callings, and after the race plans.
Then Pastor Moses arrived.
It was a sweet time of fellowship punctuated with laughter and stories.
Pastor Moses went into town for a while with his host – he hadnt been here for 20 years and had spent time back then living here.
While he was gone i washed my clothes and one of the girl at our place came and sat with me – i could feel her shaking her head at how poorly i was accomplishing my task.
They do laundry by hand everyday and are real experts. I glance at her awkwardly and laugh nervously.
… Friday: Tomorrow will be an off day again, and then back to ministry Sunday and Saturday.
Time is flying by and the end of the race draws near like an approaching wave at the beach.
I stand, my toes in the sand ive become used to: world race routine – and i watch the wave gathering speed.
I dont want this to be over –
I dont want to leave my team –
I dont want to leave this every month a new place and new host and new people and new food life.
I dont want to leave getting up and following whatever is put before me to do.
I dont want….
.
Its wierd to think its August… For the past 10 months its simply been “month1” or “Serbia” – we never mentally thought or spoke about what calendar month we were actually in.
Now we are back to remembering. Its August, and with that the end of the race.
It looms…and we catch eachothers glance and sometimes feel the tears coming.
“Dang Amy! This is it! The race is going to be over in two weeks!” i feel something akin to grief in the pit of my stomach.
It was easier to leave while it still existed than to face the actual disolving of my team.
And – yes, Gods given me confidence that He is going to direct my steps after this month, but i still have no plans, and i need provisions.
Its hard to write that.
I am wrestling for peace, and praying that He will provide.
People i never imagined would sacrifice so much for me to do this last year of volunteer work have poured so much into me, and i am so grateful, i dont have words.
Even my Squad leaders HanaBeth and Charmagne have poured into me financially.
Thank you to each and every one of you who have loved me through a year with the Lord around the world. There are so many people i was able to serve because of you.
.
Please pray for me to have eyes to see, and willingness to surrender to whatever God has for me next.
Im praying that God would show me His plans for this next month after the race and that He would provide for that.
I have one final debrief at the end of September at WorldRace headquarters with my squad, and a flight back home that i need finances for.
I also flew back last month because my Grandfather had a serious stroke and then flew back onto the field to join my team again. I took out a loan for that since i didnt have the finances to cover that. I have had a generous donation towards that but still have that debt i will have to payback when i get back. If anyone would like to help i would be so grateful! I have a paypal under: [email protected]
.
When we return at the end of August i would like to stay on the east coast the two weeks before our final debrief and drive with my teammate Jax to see Maine and if possible take a day trip into NewYork for pictures and sightseeing.
I dont know if i will be able to since i dont have the finances for that – (for me, i think itd probably be less cost to stay on the east coast than to fly west and have to fly back east again for debrief) – but if anyone – and i mean anyone, has friends or family in Boston, and it would be possible to stay with them for a few days – id be so grateful!!! Please email me!!!
….- if not and anyone would like to donate anything towards that, again, id be so grateful! You can paypal me for that!
Im totally waiting to see what God will do, and will be updating more about this month and plans as God makes available.
Please pray for me and my team!
Theres many of us praying over the next months after the race, and its hard to think about parting!
Heres to the last month on the race!
(Pictures will be uploaded when wifi makes it possible…Sadly our wifi egg is too weak to do it right now)
