Was I Just Mauled by Children?

Greetings from Uganda! Mbarara, Uganda … to be exact. Just a little update on life here in Uganda, I love it. We are spending the month living on an orphanage/school compound where over 700 children are taken care of in some way, 500 of those who are actually orphans living on the compound or near the compound.

We arrived here close to midnight on Tuesday, we had spent the previous two nights camping out about 50 feet from the Nile River with the whole squad and it was beautiful, gorgeous, and amazing. SO I mean pretty awesome start to my birthday week!

OH and … I have been really wanting to live with orphans sometime this year, and the Ugandan children are precious, although at night, they get a little crazy and like to surround you and grab your hair, pet your skin, pull on your head lamp, speak greetings to you in their language (which is not Swahili, so I’m still learning the basics of this new language, which is rather humorous to the kids), and pull you every which direction as you try and navigate through the dark to your headlamp/lantern lit dinner at the chapel. (Okay, this happens in the daylight too, but still, at night its intensified!)

We don’t have electricity this month except maybe a few hours a couple nights a week when they run the generator, BUT we do have a toilet with a seat – it doesn’t flush but we appear to have some never ending water supply to pour buckets of water in the toilet to flush. You know, legit. And cold bucket showers, those are my favorite. I almost didn’t take one yet, but my team leader thought my hair looked like I had washed it, now that my hair is no longer braided, so I was like “Hmmm … I better wash this oily mess – no thanks to the heavy African shampoo/conditioner and the children constantly running their hands through my hair.”

Anyways, I am still trying to process all that happened in Kenya, so those blogs will come later, especially as myself and some teammates from LinC 10:10 and Tuna Moto begin our 1-3 day fast tomorrow from food, to seek the Lord and to get some closure from this past month and some clarity going into this next month. Please pray in this time for the Lord to reveal himself to me in a new way, please pray for me to have more boldness this next month (starting with Sunday as I share at the morning service what the Lord has laid on my heart), and please continue praying for support to come in so I can stay on this Race. The Lord isn’t finished with me yet, and I truly pray that you would rally behind me and help fight for me in prayer to continue this. My life is changing right now in this time on the Race, and I’m not finished, so please campaign for me to stay, petition the Lord, and just keep praying because the Lord has a plan for me as I finish this Race and I know that I have more to learn and more to give. I love you all and thank you for all the Birthday Love from home!