Uganda was a weird month for me. It was when I finally hit a wall, after being on the Race for six months, and I didn’t really feel like doing anything. I wrote about that here. But despite the burnout, some really cool stuff happened that I don’t want to overlook just because I wasn’t having the best time.
It started about a week before I got there. Our ministry for the month was supposed to be similar to what we had been doing most of the year – that is, preaching, evangelism, kids ministry, etc. I’ve grown a lot in all of that over the course of the year, and I was excited to keep growing in areas that I was becoming more and more comfortable in. But, as God often does when we are becoming too comfortable, our team was thrown a curveball in the form of an Ebola scare (don’t worry, I survived). Uganda is usually not affected by the disease, but a couple cases jumped the border from the Congo and were identified very close to where our team was supposed to be living for the month. In hindsight, we would have been totally fine – the cases were quickly contained and there was no outbreak. However, in a move to play it safe, (and likely to appease worried parents), albeit with no real backup plan, our ministry for the month was cancelled and we instead were asked to stay in Kampala and make out own ministry for those four weeks.
On the Race, these months are called ATL (Ask the Lord) months. With no ministry structure and no host, we became responsible for finding our own housing, providing our own food, and starting every morning by asking the Lord what He had for us that day. Remember how I said I was getting more and more comfortable with the types of ministry I had been doing? This was the opposite of that. I had no idea what this would look like, or how this would affect our team that was already not the healthiest that it could have been. I did not have a great response to any of this, and pretty much shut down until our bus rolled into Kenya a few weeks later. Again, reference the post I linked at the beginning if you want the full story there.
We had a lot of disagreements about where we would live, and how food would work, and what our days would look like. Most of us were worried about not having structure. It really did all work out eventually, but to be honest it was kind of a mess getting there. I spent a lot of time in prayer during that time trying to figure out what God had for me in this. I was frustrated with my team, frustrated at the change in plans, and frustrated that nothing seemed to be working out right. What I heard was something that was confirmed by a couple of my other teammates, and that was that this month, while we would still be doing ministry, would be focused internally on our team and some of the issues that we had been having. We started thinking that maybe we needed this unstructured time to figure some things out that we couldn’t have figured out as easily if we had an actual host. And so we moved into an Airbnb, found an English church, and started getting into some sort of rhythm. Here are some of the highlights:
1. Our Team:
This was our third month as a team. You’d think we should have figured some stuff out by that point, but then, the Race isn’t always the easiest place to be. Early on as I was praying into this, I was able to recognize my part in it. I’m a stubborn and opinionated person. Sometimes other people are also that way and don’t agree with me, and sometimes that leads to arguments where the rest of the team just kind of sits around trying to figure out how to make it stop. I’ve given my team leader a lot of conflict mediation practice over the last few months.
I was not the only one that started to realize their parts in the issues. We had a lot of long conversations about it, and the more we had, the more tensions started to ease. I felt like I needed to get to know all of the guys I was living with better so I took them all out to lunch individually during the first week. My team leader did the same thing with most of us. Other people on the team also started opening up more with issues that they’d been having, and we started getting better at talking things out, being vulnerable, praying for each other, and just generally cohabitating like normal people. Looking back, I can see that month was a turning point for us. That’s not to say that we figured it all out, but it really did get better.
2. Our Home
We had no host, so we went to Airbnb to try and find a place to stay for the month. We ended up with a gorgeous, two story, five bedroom, three bathroom house with a balcony overlooking Kampala, complete with our own beds, hot water, and a flat screen TV. We even had a housekeeper that cooked for us sometimes and did our laundry. Needless to say, we were not living a normal World Race life that month.
One of the most obvious ways I saw God work through this unexpected change of plans was actually because of where we ended up staying. Our Airbnb host was incredible from the start, and right off the bat he wanted to know about us and why we were in Uganda. That led to him share his story with us, and to tell us that he was a new believer and wanted to learn more. We started a bible study with him the next day, which continued for the duration of the month. He connected us with others that gave us more opportunities to serve, and at the end of our stay, he took us all out to dinner. It felt more like we had a ministry host than an Airbnb host, and it only served as confirmation that God knew what He was doing, even in the changing circumstances.
3. Our Church
With no host to take us to church every week, we took this opportunity to find an English international church to attend for the month. A quick Google search was all I needed, and that first Sunday, we attended an English church service for the first time since leaving home. To say that it was a breath of fresh air would be an understatement. I didn’t realize how much I had missed it until I was surrounded by it again, and the three weeks that we went there were truly a blessing. Usually we are also expected to preach or help with the services in some way, so having a month off to just relax and not prepare sermons was also a welcome break.
We were able to get connected with another American missionary there as well, who runs a ministry that provides food to children at underfunded schools. One of the things that we were praying about going into the month was that we could find ministry connections, and we jumped on this chance as soon as it came up. We went with her to the school to help with food distribution several times during the month, and we got to meet the teachers and the kids that she served.
She was also able to bless our team with a free place to stay for the last week that we were in Uganda, as our Airbnb was not available the full month. When she learned that we still needed a place to stay those last few days, she offered up her home to us with no expectation of payment. Her home even had a washing machine that we used as much as we could. Our clothes had been hand washed for months, and it was incredible to have that small service available for a short time again. God knew exactly what we needed, and provided abundantly.
4. Our Neighborhood
Even though our house was beautiful, it was not representative of the area that it was in. A vast majority of the area was very poor, and we were able to witness and minister to many people that we lived near, just by walking down the streets and making conversation. We shared the Gospel, passed out Bibles, and prayed over whoever needed it. Several people on my team were able to make connections that they grew over the course of the month, getting to know the people in the area and really share the love of God with them through repeated meetings and conversations.
5. Bonus: We Rafted the Nile!
At the end of the month, we took three days off, met up with another team, and went to a city an hour away that is home to the source of the Nile river. We went tubing, horseback riding, fishing, and white water rafting, which was one of the highlights of my year. It was a great way to end our time in Uganda!
