I’m finally getting around to blogging again! Every day is an adventure, so I’ll try my best to summarize all that has been going on.
Christmas was definitely different this year, but our Ugandan family made it very special for us by throwing a party on Christmas Eve filled with Christmas music, popcorn, and Santa! Who didn’t waste any time in giving us our Christmas present: a pineapple!
{Insert picture of my team with our host who is dressed up as Santa– Poor internet= no pictures}
We had a mini debrief at the end of the month with possible team changes, but my lovely team Teleo is still all together! It’s cool to see how much we’ve grown individually and together, and it’s amazing we still get along after being glued to each other’s sides for 5 months now (being an introvert, I think that’s quite an accomplishment).
So here we are now in the lovely country of Rwanda. The flowers, the trees, the hills, the people, it’s all just simply beautiful. To see how this country has come together after the genocide is rather amazing.
We are living with a family again this month, and are doing door to door ministry, teaching english, and preaching at church every night. I’m not used to preaching or praying out loud in front of people, so that has been a challenge for me this month, but it’s fun to see how Jesus shows up to help me.
The hospitality we have received these last two months is incredible. Can you imagine having six kids ages 4-18 and hosting seven extra people? We completely disrupt these people’s lives and they absolutely love it. They give us their bedrooms and don’t complain about all having to sleep together in the other room, they go to the well twice as many times each day to make sure we have enough water, and they happily make food for seven extra people and even eat outside so we can eat inside. They do this for a whole month, and the only comment I hear is how much they are going to miss us when we leave. I don’t know about you, but I’d be excited to get my life back to normal…
Time is still going by super fast. The days sometimes seem slow, but the weeks and months fly by. Valentine’s Day is our halfway point (new undies for me!!), and although it seems like we’ve been gone forever, I really can’t believe we are already almost halfway done.
I am learning more every day about God’s love for me, which means I’m learning about his love for each of you too. It can be hard to see him in certain places or circumstances, but I’ve learned that that’s usually when I’m looking at the wrong things to find him. Just like a little child in Africa seeks out the mzungu (white person) every second of every day, and still tries to get closer to you even after they are already sitting on your lap holding both of your hands, that’s how Jesus pursues us too. He doesn’t care if we are dirty, he doesn’t care if we smell, he doesn’t care about what we’ve done in the past or what mistakes we will make in the future. He not only welcomes us in his arms, but he makes us clean (except for my feet, I don’t think those will ever be clean).
{Insert picture of my dirty dirty feet}
A big prayer request I have right now, however, is for patience. A lot of people we encounter each day are not used to seeing mzungus, so we seem to be a big hit wherever we go, but that comes with lots of stares, comments, laughs, getting asked for money, getting ripped off because they think we have money, children climbing on you, children sneezing and coughing on you, or people coming up to quickly touch you and then sprinting away, just to be able to say they touched a mzungu. It’s getting hard to give everyone the same amount of grace and love after two months of it. We are also flying to Ethiopia next week, so prayer for safe travels and easy border crossings would be much appreciated. And I have also had an eye infection of some sort for about six weeks now, so that’s pretty annoying.
I think that is all for now! I forever thank you for the thoughts and prayers. And if you ever run into my family, please give them a hug for me! Much love, Mol
