28 June 2011
I haven’t been doing my best at blogging, as you can probably tell. I think it is because things are starting to seem so normal. The novelty of Africa has started to wear off. The novelty of the Race has definitely started to wear. Things that may have seemed like great blog ideas at the beginning of the Race are just another day. On average, it seems like every two weeks we have to repack our giant packs and move them, and us, to a new place. I knew that it is relatively easy for me to connect with new people and develop rapport, but it seems exaggerated on this journey since we are always moving and meeting new people.
We stayed for the last ten days with Pastor Sarah and were able to meet her family and her house help (I was informed by one of the guys there that around Americans they were specifically asked to call them “house help” and I didn’t ask what they normally call them) and fall in love with them. My favorite was a lady named Mary. She doesn’t speak any English but I am learning time and again that it doesn’t always matter. She asked her friend how to say “cry” in English and kept repeating the word to me when we were leaving. They asked if we were going to cry when we left and I overheard one of my teammates saying that we have cried so much on this journey that our hearts are starting to harden. And it’s true. I vividly remember leaving the first two months with tears streaming down my face and thinking this is going to be a long 11 months if every goodbye is like this. I noticed in this month in particular that I haven’t been crying but I have felt a definitive ache in my heart.
This journey is interesting since we have been going to so many new places that it is strange to return somewhere that we have already been. I can only recall a handful of times returning to a place after a couple weeks: flying through the Singapore airport on two different occasions, flying into the Bangkok airport when we were going to stay in Thailand and returning to that airport after our month in Cambodia to fly to Kenya, starting and finishing last month in Nairobi and recognizing it when we returned. Now, this time we have only been going ten days but we returned to the same guest house and got to visit the children at the school we worked at for the beginning of the month. It is strange to be back and it is strange to recognize the children and fell reunited to them. It is hard to realize that tomorrow we leave and may never see them again.
I feel that the Lord has definitely placed some countries on my heart more than others. It is a blessing that almost every month the locals that we got to spend our time with often ask, “When are you coming back?” My safe response is, “When the Lord allows me/sends me back.” But with this country, I pray that the Lord will send me back and that I get to hug these little ones once again.
One thing that I have enjoyed about the Ugandans that we have spent time with is their willingness to receive feedback. I have heard on more than one occasion people ask our opinion on our observations and if there are any ways that they can improve on their ministry whether it is in a church setting, school setting, or whatever. It is a humble attitude that you don’t always find and I really respect it and hope I can adopt it.
Ok, so we are leaving Mukono, Uganda (where we have spent this month) tomorrow and we are headed to Jinja, Uganda which is where the source of the Nile River is. We will be camping there for two nights with our whole squad and some will be rafting the Nile and some will be bungee jumping as well. Then we will be traveling for two days by bus to Tanzania. I think our team will be staying outside of the capital by an hour or two. That’s the plan. This World Race seems to be rapidly coming to an end so I am living each day in the moment and trying to learn and grow as much as I can before returning to the states.
