Rotten Bananas

I got home a little less than a week ago. The transition has proven tricky thus far. After a tearful goodbye with the kiddos, a lot of plane rides, and some seriously good pizza in Chicago with my friend Tom, I arrived in humid, beautiful Honolulu. And it didn’t quite feel like home.  To hug my family and be in my peaceful cozy room, play Explosions in the Sky while reading my bible with candles lit from my warm comfy bed with a belly full of spicy ahi was pretty incredible, don’t get me wrong. I just felt like in the midst of everything material I had just gained; I had lost some huge intangible part of myself. 

In addition to the overwhelming spread that is America during Christmas season, I have had to come back to MY abundance of things I don’t need. The past few days have mostly been purging, cleaning, unpacking and repacking, eating (the doctor yelled at my weight lost, so I have been happily eating whole grain bagels, eggs, pasta, hummus, carrots, pomegranates, yogurt, spinach salads, chocolate, and everything else I missed since my return), and a lot of talking to my mom, Jeronimo, and Jesus about everything that is going on in my brain.

I know I will slowly adjust, learn to not cry in grocery stores and be comfortable in a coffee shop. But it would be a tragedy to revert back to life as usual here, to not let what I saw change me...

I hate ripe bananas. Few people outside of those who live in my household know this, but I really detest them. My mom makes it a point to get the greenest bananas at the grocery store. I eat them as soon as they are able to peel. I just prefer the lighter flavor, and the texture of ripe bananas just freaks me out, the brown spots, the mush, the smell. Gross.

Whilst in Uganda, however, I learned to eat ripe and even slightly rotten bananas. Fresh fruit was at times really hard to come by, and for that reason I forced myself to eat them. And after a month or two, I actually grew to enjoy them. I didn’t mind the brown spots or the intense flavor or the mush. I knew that I was eating something my body wasn’t getting enough of, and that along with eating nothing else but rice and beans, made mushy bananas pretty exciting.

That’s what I learned in Africa. To eat mushy bananas. To be grateful. To smile and enjoy, not in a grin-and-bear it kind of way, but in a genuine joy for each breath and whatever else comes with it. To thank God for everything.

Nothing will ever be perfect.

People will keep giving up real relationships for relationships with their iPhones and spend more money on their coffee annually than on folks in need. Churches will focus more on their Christmas program than on orphans and widows. Uncles will keep raping their nieces without anyone trying to stop them. Kids will keep dying of malaria. Moms will still die in childbirth all alone.

But not all people, churches, uncles, kids and moms.

Light bulbs are being turned on, bibles are being opened, and the love and desire for possessions forgotten.

The scales are falling, you see. Simplicity, kindness, thankfulness and love are being rooted in selfish sassy girls like me. And because of that, because of the grace of God turning our insecure messes of selves into vessels of His love, the world is going to change. 

Cheers!

Well, I am no longer in Africa. This will be my last post. Thank you so much anyone and everyone who took the time to read what I wrote here. Blessings! 

Africa didn’t make decisions for me, solve all my problems, or turn me into Mother Teresa.

I came here with no presumptions, or so I thought.

As I boarded the plane from London to Entebbe, I thought “Here we go, I have no idea what the next four months will look like, but I am excited for it!” And in a very real sense, I had no idea what was coming. I had no idea where I was sleeping that night, how long we were staying in Gulu, if the kids were coming to the land, how I would be occupying my days. But I certainly had an idea of the person I would emerge as after all said and done.

I left for this trip very unsure about a lot of things.

I bought a one-way plane ticket to Denver a few days before I left. My years of planning to go to nursing school in Hawaii were traded for a completely last-minute spontaneous decision to go to nursing school in Colorado.

After a year of singleness and contentment with the idea of being single forever, I started having coffee with a man who did not in any way fit into my plan or my idea of what a dateable man looked like. Thinking ‘okay, he really loves God, makes me think, and, really, it is probably good for me to socialize outside of my unvaried friend group. If nothing else it will be a good social experiment’, I accidentally fell in love.

My heart has always been tugged in the direction of the third-world. Reading about and seeing documentaries filled with crushing stories of child prostitutes and soldiers, women tricked into selling their bodies, maternal mortality rates, and endless cycles of poverty made me furious. I had a firm idea that I wanted to spend my life in the midst of it all, fighting for God’s children.

In short, I thought four months in Africa would resolve all these issues. I would decide if the move to Colorado was the right one or I would come to my senses and stay home, I would have an epiphany whether I was meant for a life of celibacy or marriage, if I was meant for a life in the third world or the first.

More than all of this, I thought I would lose all sense of self here. I thought I would care about nothing but the orphans I was working with. I thought every bit of me that was greedy and unkind and preoccupied with self would die off.

Well, none of that happened. At least not in the way I thought.

I read through the New Testament while here, and one of the first books I read was James, which holds this jem: Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."

If the Lord wills, I am moving to Colorado, because it is a sound, smart decision. School will be cheaper, I’ll get done quicker, the program is better, and it will force me out of my comfort zone. A big thing we discussed between our group was the will of God, how it works, how to decipher it. Your pray through things, you get holy and happy in Jesus, and you live life, is the conclusion we more or less arrived at.

I have the love of a seriously amazing man. And if the Lord wills, I will continue to have his love. After much turmoil, I found peace in the knowledge that God holds my future, so I don’t need to worry about it, or try to make plans concerning it.

After months of playing with, teaching, and being the nurse to 67 orphans, I can tell you whole-heartedly I am in love with them. I cannot comprehend parent’s love for their children after learning how much my heart can burst for these kids. I like living in a grass hut, they are cool and simple, besides the dirt, I would prefer one to a house. Bucket showers are nice too, doing my own laundry by hand and eating the same thing twice a day has taught me appreciate things a lot more, and how little I need to survive and be happy. I am certainly not as well nourished or presentable as I am in the states, but I am healthy and joyful. I could live this way forever, and if the Lord wills, I shall. My fierce and unyielding desire to live in the third world is gone. I feel as though my hands have released the tight grip on my future. I have at last found trust that God really does love, protect, and want good for me. So with a deep breath (I have been taking a lot of those lately), I continue living for today, and see what tomorrow holds.

I am still flawed, selfish, and inconsiderate. I still put myself above others and care how I feel/look/am treated. I have trouble emerging from bed at night to but a band aid on Gladys or a hot pack on Justine because I want to sleep. I still have trouble resisting rolling my eyes, making a sassy comment, or writing people off when I am offended. I am still a mess, But perhaps slightly less of one, or maybe just more in awe and utterly thankful that I am forgiven of it all.

I also learned some unexpected things along the way….

That nursing isn’t just a means to an end (midwifery). I really love it!
Attitude can make or break your day.
To love people and be kind to them without any hope of kindness returned.
How to forgive, really forgive.
How to be joyful despite being ignored and overlooked.
To be still and know.
To be content in relationship with God alone. That he really is my light, salvation, refuge, and an ever-present help.
The value of memorizing scripture.
I always thought I would work primarily with women, but I have found that my favorite people here are twelve year old boys. Every single person is worthy of value, attention, and love, even the male sex.
How endlessly weak, selfish, and sinful I am, and how good and endless God’s grace is. The more I learn to walk in it the easier it is to live in the light.

I write this on Thanksgiving, which I feel is entirely appropriate.
The people I have met here have certainly taught me a lot about gratitude.
To close this, I will tell you, dear readers, a few things I am thankful for on this fine day.

The ability to wake up every morning and run and breathe and sing and dance.
My giant family of friends that I can pray, laugh, and live life with.
Music and sunsets and birth and everything else that fills me with wonder and awe.
The shade that trees offer, the breeze that cools the day, and Remi splashing water on me from his bucket tub.
For Fred’s crazy faces and Norman’s old man voice and Clinton’s hugs.
For my favorite walking, picnic, and dancing partner, head-kiss giver and pastry chef, Jeronimo.
I am thankful for Jesus. His love, grace, and beauty that makes life so amazing and that I have become increasingly aware of.

See you soon,
Suz

Providence

The past week was spent journeying around Nairobi. It was pretty incredible, from eating pesto and hummus to feeding giraffes to seeing the biggest slum in Africa and hearing women with AIDS share their stories of hope.

Along the way we met people who made our trip what it was. Norah, a beautiful Kenyan woman, saved us in the immigration line, and made sure we got safely to our lodge. Don and Pat recommended we go visit the WEEP center (Women equality and empowerment programme), the safari park, and eat at Tritorria, the best Italian food I’ve had outside of Italy. They also gave us their car to use for two days, for free. When I told them separately I was moving to the Denver area (where they live) come December, the first thing both of them said was “there is always a free bed in our house for you if you need it!”

On our way back to Kampala it hit me. We had a hotel room for two nights and nothing else. I sat in total astonishment of how well God takes care of His kids, how He sends angels and orchestrates everything, how He really works everything for the good of those who love Him.

How can you do anything but sing and dance and praise?

Treasures

I have been making a running list of ‘things I don’t want to forget’ in my journal; little snippets of life here that make each day glorious. Most of them are ways the kids have made me cry with joy and brightened my day.

Time is getting shorter and shorter and the kids are leaving soon, and before they do (and we also) I wanted to share with you what exactly makes this place so amazing to me personally:

Mama Cath welcoming me over every time I go to the bathroom. “Suzie, you come for chai, you are welcome!!”

Playing music for the kids and spinning around in circles with Gladys blasting Ingrid Michaelson.

Solomon telling me my stomach and intestines will cry “brrrr” because I drank glitter water.

Sharon’s bear hugs, pulling back to look and smile at me and then burying herself back into my chest.

The children bursting into laughter at the notion of drinking six cups of water a day.

Ocen’s strong handshakes and giant smile.

Pastor David borrowing my birth books and asking me questions about how to help his wife in labor (any talk about birth makes my day!)

Remi with his serious face, filthy clothes (if he is wearing any), and runny nose, putting up his arms for me to hold him.

Craft time, where the kids make us all tons of amazing art covered in glitter, googly eyes, and love.

Justine giving me 53 (slight exaggeration) perfectly crafted bracelets a day, and every night telling Brynn “Big hug to Suzie for me!”

Fireflies, the most stars I have ever seen, and lightning every night as I brush my teeth.

Clinton trying to logic with me why I should never leave.

The kids faces when they pray: I have never seen such real crying out, thanking, and praise to God.

8-18 year old children making it a point to pray for their teachers when they are sick, meet every night to study and pray, sing worship songs every morning, all without any kind of supervision.

Moji- the plural of Mojish (Moses), and Morrish (Maurice).

“For me, I am..” “Me also” “This one is soooo stubborn.” “I am Aggy!” and all the other wonderful Ugandan phrases we have picked up.

Solomon shouting “Hey Suz! Look over there!!!!” and when I glance over, shoving his extra food onto my plate.

The ridiculousness of African orphans trying to force-feed us.

Solomon holding up a lightning bug and proclaiming “It’s buttock is shining” with a huge grin.

Stella, the whole girl. From finding us to give us all sketchy corn that she made, to taking the shoes off our feet to wash them. I have never met anyone more like Christ.

Patrick’s sound effect for ‘fearing girls’.

Gloria putting berries into my mouth from the tree branch above and have hip slamming battles with me (damn my inferior 20 year old white hips to twelve year old African girl hips)

Aggy’s falsetto singing perfectly accompanied by her swinging clap.

Every single “Look Suz! I am brushing my teeth/wearing shoes/ going to the library to check out a book/drinking water/coming to you as soon as I got a cut!” (I taught health class and we set up a library, you see, and it was amazing to know they were listening!)

67 bear hugs before I go to sleep every night.

Janet coming up to me and proudly announcing that Leilah bandaged her!

The boys telling Brynn and Erin my leg hair is ‘very good’.

Norman telling Tom his Mohawk is ‘very nice fashion’.

The children coming to the nurses office and chanting “Suzie is the best nurse! Suzie is the best nurse!” in Acholi.

Double handed waves from children as we pass them on the street.

When I feel emotionally overloaded and everything feels too tough and I feel sick and ugly and tired and I announce “Children! I need a hug!”, everyone comes running.


It is clear that these children have blessed me abundantly. They have certainly given me much more to me than I could have possibly given them. They are such precious treasures, one's I will never forget, one's that have changed me forever.




Note: I always try to write this in such a way that portrays I am here with a team. I am, and we do most things together. But I thought this would be more meaningful if I did it from a personal standpoint. Excuse the focus on myself!

Currently Pondering:

"There are those who in their very first seeking of it are nearer to the Kingdom of Heaven than many who have for years believed themselves of it. In the former there is more the mind of Jesus, and when He calls them they recognize Him at once and go after Him; while the others examine Him from head to food, and finding Him not sufficiently like the Jesus of their conception, turn their backs and go to church or chapel or chamber to kneel before a vague form mingled of tradition and fancy." - George MacDonald

Apologies

This week instead of spending the time I usually spend writing a blog, I had a dance party with the children and a keyboard. Love you all!

An Ode to Kevin

Today is a day ended with legitimate gratefulness to be alive. Leilah and I, along with our less than trusty boda driver, our backpacks, our purses and a few other things piled onto a moped and took a 20 mile journey through the African bush. Our dirty, sunburned selves were greeted by a dozen happy children, welcoming us back with bear hugs. We sang and danced. And now I sit here, still dirty and now a little sweaty, very happy to be alive, am going to share with you my wealth of knowledge (sarcasm here) about how to make foreign aide work.

I have been running out of things to write about. Not to imply that their is nothing note-worthy taking place here. I could write four pages on how much I love Justine and how the things he says make my heart explode with joy. How Norbert's life at eleven has been more difficult than any other story of an individual I have ever heard. How much eating rice and beans twice a day is making me appreciate simplicity, being content, and the deliciousness of food all at once. The possibilities are pretty much endless. So if there is by any chance anything you want to hear about, please tell me!

Now to follow Kevin's request:

Reading every morning and night has proven to be a habit for most of us. A few of the books we share are about social justice and aide. This is where I pull a little bit of what I now believe to be sound advice, but most of it comes from living in the midst of a well-run NGO.

Thing One: As few white people as possible.

People need to be educated, buildings need to be built, and food needs to be grown by their own people. That way, things are done culturally appropriately, and they are set up in a way that will work for them. Looking at things practically, bringing in other ideas from the West is sometimes necessary. And it's good. As long as people are equipped to teach, built, and grow, and can teach others how to.

Thing Two: Education, education, education.

Geared towards the next generation, and moms. When people are expected to do well, and told they can, incredible things happen. Especially in places where knowledge is not so accessible. We teach English, and I have never seen ten year old kids so engaged, focused, and excited to learn about verbs. They are future social workers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, if only someone gives a damn and educates them. Things like health care fall under this category. There is a ton of value in short-term medical missions. Awesome. Do it. But real change will happen when more Ugandans and Cambodians and Haitians go to medical school and can help their own people. It all starts with some kind of school. Because of a micro-loan from my grandma a single mom can go to school to become a seamstress and afford her babies anti-malarial medicine from a doctor whose education was paid for by a couple from Tallahassee who wanted to do something nice, which brings me to my next point...

Thing Three: People to people

It works both ways. When there is a face to a sponsor, when there is a face to the person you are helping feed and educate, things change. It's no longer a meal or a check written for charity. It is someone you can love, pray for, hear from.

Thing four: Projects

Wells, beads, schools, and banana fiber menstrual pads get attention. People like supporting something when they know where their money is going directly. And finally...

Thing Five: "Come and See"

If we want things to change, we have to start with ourselves. If you want to love the poor, you have to meet them, get to know them. See that they are just like you and I, and are just stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty. We can change their circumstances. With thirty bucks we can buy a new pair of jeans we don't need or we can lend it to a kid in Africa to go to driving school so that he can take care of his siblings.

Now. Let me re-state that I know very little about all this, am probably wrong about a lot of things, and excluding a lot of really important things.

Shalom!

Seven Weeks In

As I have nothing profound to write, this is a simple ‘I’m alive!’ blog. I am learning lots, but things I am not quite sure how to word yet in any sort of beautiful way, so I will make a list. I love lists, you know.

I am learning:
-A lot about my selfishness, laziness, and hesitance to change. And how to change it.
-How much Derek Webb, Lauryn Hill, and Jon Foreman rule!
-How the simple act of holding chopsticks can bring inexpressible joy.
-John Piper and I can be friends (google his ‘The Prosperity Gospel’).
-The hilarity and frustration that ensues when four women (and all their stuff) live in a hut with a 25 foot circumference.
-How to make killer tangawizi (ginger) tea.
-How to play cards (Ugandans only have one card game, appropriately titled ‘cards’, SPOONS blew their minds).
-What a gift democracy is, and how blessed I am to have citizenship in a country in which is operates.
-How much more twelve year olds have to teach me than I have to teach them.
-That a bracelet made by a 5th grader that loves you is worth far more than a diamond ring.
-That I never want a diamond ring (don’t worry, anyone that wants to marry me, we’ll figure something out)!
-How much is sucks that I can’t minor in social work, peace studies, geography, linguistics, education, political science, and history.
-How much my hair, face, and feet aren’t doing so great in Uganda, but how much my soul and brain flourish here (I am pretty sure the latter is more important).
-How frustrating it is to see large amounts of money being poured into poverty-stricken countries with no change happening.
-How to effectively make change happen (thus fighting the last bullet).
-How to prescribe antibiotics, give shots, and diagnose illness (I am pretty sure this will come in handy eventually).
-How much fun it is to sit with a bunch of sisters and babies watching white boys try to play football with Africans.
-How to build a library, organize a medical clinic, and set up a child sponsorship program.
-How to teach English and set up a curriculum.
-How far redemption goes, how much pain and anger and loss and hurt people can go through and still trust and praise God.
-How much we in the West (wrongly) obsess over, well, everything.
-The importance of education, how empowered and benefited people are from it.
-How nice it is to be loved despite distance and lack of communication and life changes (Hi Jeronimo!).
-How to pray, really really pray, and trust, and be brave.


I am reading the gospels and realizing how many things I had wrong. I suppose being removed from everything makes things a bit clearer, a little easier to digest. I love the sassy, selfless, lover of prostitutes and tax collectors that Jesus is. I love the way he never waters down His message for anyone, how He speaks honestly, how he defends the helpless and poor, how He has compassion for everybody, but doesn’t hesitate to call out injustice and oppose it’s perpetrators. It is beautiful.

Okay, Clinton and Solomon want to play football!

P.S. Just so you know, the internet is ever-sketchy, so if you don’t hear from me in awhile, don’t fear. I am alive and well.

You Give Me

Along with the communal way of living here, comes a sense of ownership lost.
A good example of this is the way the children who makes the beads (villageofhopeuganda.com). They get paid as a group, for the amount of beads made. The oldest kids have access to the money. They buy things like goat for the entire village they come from and dance outfits for every child at the village. They share everything.

It is really beautiful to admire. But after awhile, you are expected to become part of it.

I have gotten pretty close with the cooks. Aggy, Esther, and Grace work seven days a week, from dawn to dusk, to make us, and dozens of construction workers, every meal we eat.

The other day, after lunch, Aggy told me she liked my headband. Then she asked me if I had only two. When I told her no, that I had more, she looked straight at me and said, “You give me.” I smiled and got up to find my spare headband. There was a moment of hesitation, a desire to be asked kindly, a sense of possession. And then I remembered, everything I have is Gods. Down to every little piece of elastic cotton. I relished in being able to give Aggy something she likes and will use. Over the past month I have gotten to know her better, heard stories of her children (who are soooo fat like Tom, she says), her husband, her parents. I felt really proud of myself. Until I realized that this should be the norm. I should be constantly looking for opportunities to bless people with the things God’s given me. But I don’t, I hold onto them tightly. On one of our girly nights, where we lay under the stars and talk about things whilst eating trail mix, we talked about giving everything vs. being responsible with the things God’s given us. Can we do both? How do we do both?

This is what I have been pondering this week.

Excuse the shortness of this blog! My parents are here. I have been enjoying them so much! And things always get a little nuts while people are here.

All my love,
Suz

I turned twenty this week.

I am greeted every morning by children singing and the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen.
I sleep right after a hot meal around a campfire and singing and dancing with people I adore, a few mzungus but mostly kind Ugandans who give amazing hugs and patiently teach us about everything from the history of the war to how to wash clothes properly.
I am seeing the joy and purpose found in discipline, and how much more meaningful a life lived in it becomes.
I am learning that taking hours to make a meal or clean a load of laundry is much more relational and fun than rushing through these activities as we do back home. I have had most of my amazing conversations, realizations, and joyful moments sitting with a bunch of women sorting rocks out of rice and chopping tomatoes.
I am learning that kids who never get to play with markers, jump ropes, and beads are much more respectful of each other and the materials than kids who have unlimited supplies at home. They share, put caps back on, and compliment each other. It blows us all away.

I am surrounded by folks dedicated to the message and work of the Gospel of Jesus, who not only think it novel and beautiful, but powerful and demanding.
I am inspired by them to really examine my existence and it’s central purpose, and to face the fact that materialism is not only sin, but proof of the harsh reality that you really don’t know God.
I am learning to give both love and truth, and to be patient with people (okay, this is coming slowly).
I am learning people don’t respond to harshness, but to the joy that comes from being free from the love of stuff.
I am learning that our lives are really supposed to be living sacrifices, and in the truth that because we have Jesus we shouldn’t care about or desire the things we fill our lives with.

I am learning that idealism is good, and one person dedicated to changing the world can.
I spend my days with kids who have come from unimaginably hard places. They have been completely unloved, abducted, beaten, shot, forced to kill, hungry, thirsty, sick.
I see them now, here, playing and laughing.
I dance with them, put antibiotic ointment on their cuts and give them big hugs before they go to sleep.
I pray with them, learn their stories, names, and language.
I fall in love with them.
I know this beautiful transformation of their lives is because they have been given a chance to go to school, live in community, be loved.
I know it is because one woman saw injustice and hated it so much she wanted to do something about it, and even though no one got behind her she fought hard enough to change the circumstance of these children.
I am learning that when you do something for God’s glory, He shows up and does crazy amazing things.

I am learning that I don’t really matter, not in a self-deprecating way, just in light of how many people die of a disease it takes $1 to treat. Or how many little orphaned girls grow up getting sexually abused by their uncle or grandpa without anyone caring enough to stop it. I am completely useless if I don’t spend my existence radiating the love of God, helping widows and orphans in their distress, and being set apart. And there is nothing more liberating than knowing life is simply that.

I had the best birthday of my life thus far! I got a nurse practitioner to teach me how to properly and effectively take care of the kids when they are sick. I got to carry baby Esther on my back and take a pretty stroll through the field. I got to take a refreshing prayer walk with Leilah. I got to eat chocolate pudding with my family of friends, and dance around a campfire to Erin playing covers of “I Will Survive” and “Single Ladies”. I got tons of people praying for me from half the world away. I got people to talk things out with, love me when I am whiny and sassy and completely undeserving of love.

I am entirely blessed and taken care of. I really could not ask for more.

Which brings me to my concluding point:


26,000 children will die today from starvation or preventable disease. Most of them without any idea that there is something greater than this life.

I would love if you would help me do something about it.
World Vision, Compassion, Kiva, International Justice Mission, and endless other solid organizations are dedicated to making poverty history. Sponsor a kid, give a loan to someone trying to provide for his or her family, help a well get built. Change is possible and happening. Be part of it. Go out to eat less, go on fewer shopping sprees, use cheaper shampoo. That really is all it takes to make the life of a child exponentially better. There are hundreds of places in the bible that talk about taking care of the poor (read James). I know a lot of people (including myself) are drawn to certain places and people groups, but we are biblically all responsible for this world.

I love you all! If you got through this entire ramble you probably love me too. Thanks for your time.

Masindi!

We have arrived at last on the land. Three months to spend walking through cassava fields, playing football in the wide open, praying in the freezing African rain, and learning bee keeping from Mike (our friendly neighborhood Indiana Jones). Today makes a month, by the way. We have been in Uganda for a full four weeks, and it is hard to fathom leaving. We have only been at the village for a week, but have already made such amazing friends and begun really exciting work. Gulu certainly has lots of perks (coffee shops, running water, electricity). However, it is really nice to live in a grass hut and run to the well to get our water. We are in Africa, after all.

As most of you know, I was coming here hoping to help some babies be born. In the airport hopping from Chicago to London, I got a call from the founder of Earth Birth, a women’s health collective 20km north of Gulu. She offered that if I came up for as little as two weeks and as much as I was here, she would pay for my housing and food if I served as their doula. Knowing I was dedicated to be with Village of Hope for the majority of the time, I was a little devastated as I declined. It was a definite die to self, serve whoever is in front of you moment. I really let go of my hope of doing births, and plunged into playing with the refugee kids, learning Acholi, and reading like a mad woman. And it has been wonderful. I could have been content doing that for four months.

But God had more (as He always seems to when we trade our dreams for His). As soon as we arrived, I met the nurse, Maureen. She has been told about my background and was excited to have a fellow nurse around to help. I explained to her that I was a doula and had not even begun nursing school yet, but there is something about being white that convinces anyone you are prepared for anything. I immediately began studying every antibiotic, antifungal, analgesic, and antihistamine in the office for intended use, warnings, and dosage. In the past few days I have preformed tons of simple medical procedures. And it has been so amazing. I love being a nurse! (This is good news).

On top of that, Leilah is working with Ronance, the social worker (as she is a social work major), Erin is teaching the kids guitar and painting designs on things (as she is an amazing musician/graphic designer), Tom is helping the men build things (as he is a rectangle), Collin is fixing computers and putting on programs (as he is a nerd), and Brynn is running around filming it all!

We are teaching English twice a week, doing crafts, teaching health, and I am having a weekly women’s health class (this is your cervix! Etc…) We play sports every night, well, I watch and get to know Africans, but everyone else does. We help cook, do laundry, get to know the kids. We are BUSY. And it is wonderful.

We google things like “How to make a documentary” and “Teaching health class”. We are completely aware that we are in over our heads, and it is beautiful. It means that we are completely incapable of helping anyone or doing any good unless we (I miss my pastor and his tired but true catch phrases) let go and let God.

So now that all that is explained, I will give you a typical day in Masindi:

We wake up at 6:20 AM, light is barely starting to fill the sky and we drag our yoga mats (we got them for $2 and they RULE, although they are nothing like traditional ‘yoga’ mats) onto the football field. We stretch, talk, pray, laugh our way through down dogs and intense leg lifts. The kids stop on their way to class and stare at us (the idea of working out in pretty foreign). We scoot over to breakfast where the entire team, Mike and Janelle (awesome married ex-pats who oversee things at VOH), and the construction crew come together. Breakfast is white bread and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” (Hi, Mom and Dad, please bring peanut butter). We read for a bit and split up. I head over to the clinic, where there are usually a line of kids waiting to get their cuts and headaches tended to. Maureen, her baby, Kevin (in Uganda, Kevin is the name for girls and our imaginarily seventh team member/ scapegoat), and I scoot around the clinic and put iodine and band aids on wounds (even kids who have shoes don’t wear them so we see about five foot gashes a day) pass out ibuprofen, and rub anti-itch cream on bites. I usually take a break and go over to the cooks, some of us help them sort rice and peel potatoes, and we learn some Acholi. Lunch comes; rice and beans, we get together and talk about what we are doing. Lillian (she is teaching Acholi to us mzungus) and her daughter Esther, (the cutest, cutest child I have ever come across) laugh and play. Sometimes we make trips to pick up sand or supplies with Mike. We all ride in the back of a dump truck. We bounce around as we go drive over the bumpy dirt road. We hear stories about the war, adventures with snakes, bees, and hippos, but mostly stories of families. We go back to work, whatever that happens to be (picking potatoes, painting the church, playing soccer) and keep at it until the sun starts to set. We eat dinner like a big happy family around the campfire. We sing songs with Erin’s guitar and our adungus and there is so much joy. Lights out by ten, with some prayer, group time and reading before then. And we all sleep well to the peaceful sound of thunder and rain.

In the midst of begging babies and people with 10 chickens on their bicyles...

There is Coffee Hut, and Kope Cafe, and Sankofa. Little homes away from home. Refuges that offer muffins and pizza and Heinz ketchup. We are planning to go two hours South in a week or so, and stay there living on the land with the kids until December, but we first must get some stuff done here in Gulu. Interviewing kids, taking their pictures, and imputing info to the computer can only happen after about 3pm, so our mornings are free lately. This is a nice break from the nonstop moving we were doing for the first two weeks. We spend them writing in our journals and reading and well, this. So blog, I am utilizing this free wifi to say hello! I am alive and very happy. Read Half the Sky, Radical, Just Do Something, and The Ragamuffin Gospel. But mostly, your bible. All these books have been shaping me and certainly having an impact on what I am doing here.

Amaro,
Suz

A Day in the Life!

Every morning, we wake up at 8:04 Erin’s alarm clock. We groggily walk to breakfast at the porch of our hotel, looking out into a busy street, where we see Tom, Collin, Brynn and Leilah already waiting for us. Our omelets come, we make toast, tea, and take our malaria meds. Gideon, a photo journalist from Tanzania, and Fred, a Kenyan writer ask us about our plans for the day and try to convince us girls to come home with them or at least “let them take a white lady on a walk”. We decline. We thank God for Col and Tom. We devour our food. We take our Nalgenes and filter the swamp water and wave our magic wands in them. We hold our nose and drink. Charles, our kind Acholi driver, picks us up and takes us to the safehouse. Sometimes he tells stories about when the LRA was operating in Uganda, how they burnt down his hut, how they killed his best friend, he smiles because death is different here, much less serious because it’s much more common. We drive past markets, broken down restaurants, women with water jugs on their heads and babies on their backs, bodabodas (mopeds) holding six people, and George (a twenty something carpenter we met when our van broke down) waving us by.
We get to the safehouse, Bright, the most adorable, helpful four year old you will ever meet, Colleen, a sassy ten year old who relishes in any opportunity to laugh at us, and Clinton, a brilliant pre-teen who has a huge crush on Leilah greet us at the gate. They give us huge hugs and practice their English. The neighborhood kids gather around us and ask our names. Sheila, a two year old terrified on Mzungus (white people) cries and tries to run. When we get too close to her she points her finger in our face and shouts her favorite English word: MEAN!!!! We go inside, and Richard, a gawky painter directs us what to do with our brushes. We paint for hours, getting to know each other and sweating buckets in the heat. Julie calls us in for lunch, a feast of rice, beans, cabbage, and nasinasi (pineapple). We eat, play with the kids, and go back at it again. Sometimes we do laundry, we are all learning to do it by hand and we are pretty laughable. Our wrists are not as tough as the locals so they bleed. We sing Black Eyed Peas and laugh anyway. Sometimes Adam (my first self-found Loveland friend) comes by and we talk about life plans and how to best bless people with the talents we’ve been given and how to deal with everything we are seeing here. He is building a medical center twenty kilometers north of Gulu and is a seriously amazing man. He is going to treat my pets when they are sick (he is going to vet school in a few months) and I am going to deliver his wife’s babies. He sticks around and helps us compile bags of rice, beans, and posho (flour). We load them into a van and take off.
Charles smiles and greets us, the safehouse kids and their surrounding neighbors gather to wave goodbye as we go. We set off for a camp. Either Abili, La Roo, Ti-Tuku, or Obiya. We play with the kids, give them a ball, they dance for us, we take their photos and interview them for sponsorship stuff, we pass out the food, hug them, and something as the sun is setting I run off after kids in the fields. The way the light hits the grass makes something more beautiful than I have ever seen. I look at these orphans, in all of their joy, and choose it with them. I tickle them and they hold me tightly. As they run back to their huts I do some yoga gazing at the sky and Tom comes and tells me not to run off by myself. I shrug him off until a man comes up to me and starts to give me an invasive hug. I decide to listen to Tom from now on. We get into the van and wave goodbye.
Then comes dinner, after a long, hard, sweaty dirty day. We pray together, laugh about the miscellaneous events of the day, such as Charles getting a 500 shilling (25 cent) fine for waiting too long for us in the car outside our hotel, or a kid squatting and peeing through her clothes during a dance. All of our germaphobe tendencies have been killed off. It was either them or us. TIA. Nothing is exactly ‘sanitary’. We play cards, I drink a beer, the girls drink Stoney’s (more intense ginger ale) and we laugh until we cry. Sometimes Erin plays her guitar, she sings like an angel and the staff and other residents crowd around the door to hear her. We shower, some of us check email, write blogs. We all end up in someone’s room just talking. We discuss poverty, video games, oppression, America’s greed, what we are reading, how to improve life for the lower 80% of the world, love, marriage, relationships, life histories. We change our opinions. We encourage one another. We really do all love one another. We say thank you for everything (Tom taught us that), we remind each other gently that our purpose lies only in glorifying God, and the rest is details, we point each other to scripture, books, blogs that will help us along our journeys. We tell stories. Everything is surrounded in love and laughter and sometimes tears.
As it gets later, we all shuffle into our rooms, say goodnight to Dennis and Goddy and Mrs. Ocot (our loving staff, eternally ready for a conversation), we read our bibles and books and write in our journals and pass out despite the droning sound of club music coming from nearby.
And there you have it!
P.S. Excuse the repetitive nature, grammatical errors, and lack of eloquence in this blog. I am usually exhausted, hungry, and have just finished sobbing my eyes out. Your patience in this is much appreciated.
P.P.S If you would like to contact me privately, please email me at suzinafrica@gmail.com

Day 8

Hello!
All six of us are happily eating pancakes at Kope Cafe, a non-profit whose profits go entirely to HEALS. We are meeting all kinds of amazing folks here, and they have super fast internet!! We'vbeen bonding like crazy. It already feels like a cozy family here. We have made lots of friends with our hotel staff and the kids at the safehouse and at the refugee camps. Lots of crying and thinking and ranting from all of us, and lots of growth too. It has been hard but beautiful. I have never been so dirty or eaten so much rice and beans, but I have never laughed so hard or realized so much. Thank you for your continued prayers everyone!

Greetings from the Safe House

Hello everyone! I am so sorry I have been neglecting this blog. The internet has been sketchy! I am currently in a big room with my team, Asunta, and a rad guy named Adam we met at church who happens to live in the little town I am moving to in Colorado. God is really cool. We have been spending lots of time dancing and playing with the children, paining, cooking, and just trying to be helpful. Things are incredible. Thank you so much for your prayers, I feel them.

For more stories and details: whereisleilah.blogspot.com and whereisbrynn.blogspot.com

Tomorrow!

Greetings from Milwaukee!
For the past five days I have been with Leilah, one of my team members, and her family. Today the whole team got here. We ate impressive amounts of food, prayed, and watched an amazing sunset whilst listening to Alexi Murdoch. Needless to say, this is going to be an amazing journey with really good people. I feel good. Not too nervous, and with just enough excitment to get sleep. There is so much peace. The next four months aregoing to wreck me, and I'm ready for it. I know it is for my good. I know it is so I can bless people, and ultimately bless my Creator.

Here we go!

T-7

In a week I will board a plane for Africa. In a little over a day I will board a plane to Chicago to pray, fast, and get ready for the journey that lies ahead with fellow vagabonds. My plans are up in the air, and my heart and hands are open, simply seeking to bless people and glorify Jesus. The past few months have been a whirlwind, months I'd previously thought would be dedicated simply to preparing for this trip. I currently find myself at one in the morning a day before I boogie with not a thing packed. But packing is simple. The bigger question is am I emotionally, physically, and most importantly, spiritually prepared for what lies ahead of me? Something I have found abundantly true in the past few insane months is that God is so incredibly, unceasingly faithful. I worry too much. I spend too much time concerned with tomorrow. A wise handsome friend of mine keeps reminding me we are to be anxious for nothing. So here I go. I take a deep breath and plunge forward, trusting that the Creator of the universe knows my steps.