The Difficulties of Blogging

Blogging is really difficult. Half of my computer screen is missing. I haven't taken english since high school. Things like that make it a tad tricky..but the biggest problem in blogging is how overwhelming it is to even try to put my experience here into words, and I've only been out of the country for 7 days.

There is a lot of joy here, honestly. The people here are incredible and when the kids see a white person, they all run out of their huts to introduce themselves to you and shake your hand.  I'm not going to lie, its difficult at times to see the way Americans are celebrated here, but the people are so hospitable and their trust in God is mind-blowing.

It's entertaining to see how babies are terrified of us…quite literally start crying, jump out of their mothers arms and run the opposite direction. We celebrated a 26 year anniversary and a birthday last night. We danced and sang with the prisoners who have more faith and passion than probably anyone I've ever seen, despite their circumstances. 

There really is so much joy here, but I don't know if I could count on my hands how many times my heart has been broken here, even just in the last 24 hours. It's shocking to me how much has happened here over the last few years, and how little I knew about it. I've heard about the LRA and how they capture little kids, kill their parents and make them child soldiers, but I never really thought I'd be able to talk to one of these recovered kids like I was able to yesterday. He told us about being captured, seeing his best friend killed, so so much. He told us about his escape – a story I could spend hours blogging about in and of itself. So many kids are still being held captive and stuck and its really overwhelming feeling so helpless. So much that none of my friends or family has ever had to deal with, and at the end of it all, he was the one surrounded by crazy crying americans trying to make us feel better. Not a situation I really thought I'd ever be in haha. 

The hospitals here are pretty overwhelming. The language barrier gets in the way a lot. I've attempted to learn like 13452345 words…and the only one i know is apoyo. which is thank you. Actually..I also know apoyomatek. which is thank you so much 🙂  also…i have no idea if those are spelled correctly. 

oh yea..but the hospitals…actually just wanted to share another memory that I think will mean a lot to me. There was this girl named betty in the womens ward who was literally skin and bones – nothing I've ever seen in person before and only rarely in pictures of people with eating disorders, or the holocaust or something. There was something wrong with her chest and the look on her face seemed pretty hopeless. She wouldn't look at me the whole time and I know she couldn't understand me but after I spent some time with and had to leave cause my team disappeared, she looked up and said apoyo.

Then I went into this other building where people seemed to have all sorts of massive burns on them. There was this little girl by herself on one of the beds in the corner and she was squirming around. I went over to pray with her and was sure she had no idea what was going on. Afterwards, I just scratched her back and sang to her…which I cant imagine would be all that comforting due to my lack of vocal skills…but she finally fell asleep. I have no idea who she is or what happened to her…or even if she has any family, but I think she felt at least some sort of peace for a little bit, so I'm super thankful for that.

Anyways…yea. This is a tinnnnnnyyy bit of what Uganda is like and just a few of the things ive seen and felt. 

Love and miss yall 🙂