“I’m Obsessed With My Life Right Now.”

Okay! Can’t believe I’m finally getting to blog. The past few weeks have been beyond words. We keep saying to each other, “How are you supposed to describe this feeling to people? How could this ever be put into words?” This post will be mostly highlights and things that happened, and hopefully I can post a couple of others that are more in depth.

 This past Sunday I led the worship part of service at the church (Praise- faster, Worship- slower). I even attempted to lead a song in Luo (the local language), but thankfully someone took over for me when they realized I was losing all semblance of confidence. Singing in front of people is close to the top on my list of fears, and it was made especially wonderful that practice had been cancelled the day before so no one, including the keyboard player (the only instrumentalist), knew what songs we were doing. It was quite an adventure. When you ask God to grow and stretch you, be prepared for what you may be getting yourself into!

 Tomorrow morning we are leaving for Amolatar (one of the many villages, many bumpy roads and a couple of hours of travel away from Lira) and will be back on Sunday. Village life is a lot more like a camping trip than what we have been experiencing, since we live right outside of the city. We’ll be ministering at a primary school there, celebrating Makyla’s 19^th birthday, and generally having all kinds of fun getting to know some people who live around us and learning how to live like the majority of Ugandans do.

Bullet point time!

• We ran into this incredible looking building that we learned was an unfinished mosque begun under Idi Amin’s reign in the seventies. It looks like ancient ruins, and has a huge flight of narrowing stairs to the main level. I would upload a picture if I could. How amazing would it be if that would be turned into some kind of church?

• We’re still going to Nairobi, Kenya! We’re leaving next Thursday and will be back the following Wednesday (22^nd-28^th).

• I got the opportunity to help name twin baby girls a couple of weeks ago, Apio Jubilee and Achen Peace (last names here are based on birth order and are said and written first). They were so adorable I didn’t even care when they peed and pooped on me.

• We’ve been helping out in the kitchen (or, slowing them down and getting in the way- it depends on how you look at it) at our hotel for dinner lately, and I wish I could describe to you how hilarious, hardworking and fun these ladies are. They care about us more than we care about ourselves, and we have to force our way into helping with anything. I’ll probably continue bringing them up in every blog and will cry when we have to say goodbye to them in a couple of months. I now really want to learn how to cook when I get home.

• Pork Joints. For the equivalent of $1.50, you can get a skewer of grilled pork that tastes stinkin’ amazing and makes you look like a barbarian while trying to eat it, a bunch of fried cassava (like fries, but better), cabbage and tomatoes (salad, I guess). Nothing more needs to be said. I don’t know what I am going to do when I get home and meals at fast food restaurants are six dollars and less than half as good. Another fun food fact: I got five oranges for about $0.35 yesterday. And the oranges here are green, not orange.

• We went to Gulu (the only other somewhat large city in northern Uganda, a few hours away from Lira) a couple of Saturdays ago. We spent some time with a girl named Collins we had connections with in her dorm at Gulu University. Their dorm didn’t look much different than a typical college dorm in the states, except that it was significantly cleaner and more organized! Collins has been to the U.S. as a roadie for Invisible Children, and previously had been sponsored by them for her schooling since her family had been affected by the LRA. We heard some of her story, and then visited Lacor Hospital, where many children from all around Gulu had fled to sleep at night for fear of being abducted by the rebels. We also attempted to drive to a nearby village that you can take a tour of because it has so much history, but our van/taxi/bus whatever it was ended up hitting a pile of rocks and punctured a hole in some sort of oil/gas tank underneath. More adventure! We ended up getting a ride back to Gulu in a sweet couples’ pickup truck. We’re getting to be professionals at fitting 17 people in one small vehicle…

• Kony 2012…if you haven’t watched the video yet, look it up. I have only been able to see a few minutes of it so far. More on that later. It is absolutely crazy to be in Uganda, Africa when this is becoming known worldwide.

• Flags by Brooke Fraser has been on repeat on my ipod almost every day. I couldn’t word better the way I so often feel when faced with the very real problems and unexplainable suffering here. Hearing a story secondhand when you’re halfway across the world is hard enough to reckon with, but when you’re looking a beautiful ten year old girl in the face who has lost both of her parents, her uncle who was her only guardian, and wants you to pay her school fees it’s a different range of emotions and thoughts entirely.

While spending time with some incredible ladies and munu (white person) loving babies, taking tea, painting their nails and talking about life yesterday morning- Logan said something that summed up exactly what I was thinking- 'I'm obsessed with my life right now." God is just so….agh! There aren't words good enough! Like the compassion kids say every Saturday morning, "Good is good, all the time, and that is his nature- WOW!"