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.