I’ve spent 7 months of this year in Uganda. So hard to believe. Here is a list of somethings I have definitely been missing since moving to Kampala.

• My family and friends- Not to start this list as a downer..but….sorry not sorry. This first one nearly goes without saying. I have spent so many nights alone in my house over the past four months. Nights when I feel lonely and I wish calling home didn’t make me feel even farther away. I’ve spent a lot of time remembering all the nights I used to sit in the breakfast room with my mom talking and complaining about how there was nothing on tv. I have missed when I could call up a friend and ask if they wanted to get Thai food and watch Netflix. One day I’ll be able to do something similar here in Uganda, but friendships like that have proven difficult for me to cultivate so far. So I have found myself missing my friends and family back home so much. I miss those relationships that came so easily, without cultural or language barrier and I am so so grateful for the two weeks I will have with them, praying it will somehow be enough time.
• Bailey: I have three dogs on the compound I am now living on. But none of them are even close to being as great as Bailey. I cannot even wait to snuggle up with that furry log of a puppy when I get home. She is the greatest dog companion and I have no idea how I’ve lived seven months of this year without her.
• Running Water: Maybe you would think that living in the city I wouldn’t have problems with water, but you would be wrong. It’s hard to explain the defeated emotion that comes when you have to wash your feet after walking home from work barefoot through mud, but when you turn on the tap in the bathtub, absolutely nothing comes out. My whole life I absolutely took running water for granted. Now I’m thankful for rain water that I can use to fill my toilet and public showers at my job. I didn’t notice how much my life had truly changed until I realized how I excited I was to go home to America to have the promise of a hot shower.
• My Cello: I am so grateful to my job for purchasing a cello for me to play and teach on. This year I’ve learned a lot about how much of my identity I put into a piece of wood rather than the actual person God made me to be, but I know how much of a blessing it is to have that part of my life back. However playing on a student cello after spending years crafting my talent on a beautiful, fine instrument, proves to be difficult. I now have to work twice as hard to play while trying to keep the cello from squeaking. I can’t wait to play just anything on the glorious chunk of wood I left in the States. I might even practice scales just out of sheer joy.
• My Car: I had access to a car here in Uganda for one week while my friend Sally was out of town, and it was crazy. Because of the British influence on Ugandan culture, nearly all of their cars are set up the English way. That means everything is on the opposite side. And I mean everything. I spent that whole week in Sally’s car turning on the windshield wipers every time I was intending to switch on a turn signal. And driving in Uganda is STRESSFUL. So along with missing my car, let me add in, driving on the right side of the road, roads that don’t have a million pot holes, roads that don’t disintegrate every time it rains, cows not in the road. Maybe you get the picture. It’s possible I could be going back home to driving on ice (though not likely with the record breaking weather you’re having), but let me tell you, driving on mud is EXACTLY the same.
• Snacks: It’s not so much in Ugandan culture to snack, the portion sizes of their meals are usually pretty large and starchy, so they’re filling. I know it’s not the greatest part of American culture, but I miss my snacks during the day. I don’t miss the super unhealthy stuff, but I have been known to eat three granola bars throughout the day at home, which is not the case here seeing as granola is not so easy to come by. In America we definitely take for granted the access we have to choice. Here, I’ve been eating the same brand of digestive biscuits for a snack every day since August.
• American Terminology: I live with four British neighbors and work in a British school. I feel like I’m learning two languages at once: Luganda and British English. I’ve lived next to these people for four months now and still struggle to understand each of their unique accents and word choices. It took me so long to adjust to the British school system and what everything is called. I miss people understanding my accent (which I don’t feel like I have) and understanding what people are saying around me, even when they’re speaking English.
• Water Pressure: This goes along with running water, but when I am lucky enough to have water at my house, often it’s very little. It takes me about five minutes to get all of my hair wet in the shower. Oh, how I’m looking forward to showering in America. I might just do it three times a day. Not kidding, I have completely missed things people have said to me at work because I was honest to goodness, day dreaming about a hot shower with proper water pressure. How sad is that?
• Washing Machine and Dryer: Even when I lived in the village in Uganda earlier this year, I was spoiled. Oh the luxury of a washing machine…Yes, now I do my laundry by hand, and sometimes come away with embarrassing scabs on my hands afterwards, displaying my weak skin. True I could hire a maid to do it for me but I just never got comfortable with the idea of some random woman having a key to my house and coming in and organizing my house and cleaning my clothes while I’m at work. However, I am lucky to have friends that have given up their time to teach me to wash my clothes by hand. I wouldn’t say I’m great at it, but I’m getting better. I’m sure I’ve been wearing at least partially dirty clothes for the past few months. But if you’ve never tried it, you should. It’s a very humbling experience.
• Not Standing Out: I can sit in a taxi and know everyone there is talking about me, but have no idea what they’re saying. I hear “muzungu” a handful of times and hear snickers and I know something is being said about me. And I can’t go anywhere without getting the price jacked up for whatever it is that I need, just because I’m white and they assume I don’t know what it should be. I draw attention wherever I go, and really, I’m just looking forward to fitting in again.
• CHEESE!: Good cheese is such a rare commodity in Uganda, and not a normal part of the diet at all. I normally only eat cheese when I order pizza or a burger at a restaurant, so I’m missing mac and cheese, string cheese, parmesan, cheese ravioli, and tons of other things that I can’t even think of because it’s been so long since I’ve had cheese! Ah!
• Unlimited Data: I am so so grateful to have data on my smart phone, two luxuries I did not have when I was last here in Uganda. But now that I’m spoiled having data on my phone, I miss not having to worry about how much I’m using. And I hate kicking myself when I accidentally leave my data or internet on over night. Seriously, we’re way too blessed in America.
• Microbrew Beer: I don’t drink very much at all, but I sure do miss the variety. We are so blessed in Michigan-nearly every city has its own microbrewery with its own signature beers. In Uganda we have about five kinds. So sad. I’m looking forward to getting some tastes of the flavors I’ve missed.
• Being Clean: I am seriously never clean. The shower head in my house is shorter than I am (I would love to have a talk with whoever designed that) so it’s difficult to clean myself. Seriously, I find an ant on me around 2 times a week; I have no idea where they come from! And my feet get so dirty just walking around my house, it’s insane. When I get back, one of the first things I’m doing is taking a very long, very hot shower. On a daily basis I’m no where as dirty as I was when I lived in the village during he dry season but it’s still pretty bad for a teacher who spends most of her days in a classroom.
• Going to Biggby with my mom: Oh how I miss those excursions. Tea is plentiful in Uganda but Iced Chai Lattes are not. I somehow managed to get one once after doing a lot of explaining, but it wasn’t easy. I’m sure when I’m back, several Biggby trips will happen. Gotta love those buy one get one free coupons.
• All my friends being in one place: This will be my first Christmas season after most all of my friends have finished college and made a life for themselves. With Alyssa in Asia, Megan in Miami and other friends scattered around the midwest, this will be my first holiday season without everyone by my side. Feels a lot like growing up.

 

This list may sound sad but’s it’s not because in 24 hours I will be reunited with most all of these things (except Alyssa, boo) for two glorious weeks!

So a Merry Christmas to all of you! See you soon!

Sekukulu enungi!

Sometimes a little boy on the street will ask me for money. Sometimes that same little boy will run up and offer to share his ground nuts with me.

Sometimes I want to cry looking at the poverty and dirt around me. Sometimes I want to cry because a whole cluster of Ugandan children just called out to me, “our white person!” in their local language.

In the four and a half months I have known Uganda, I have always found it to be a place of contradictions. A land of one extreme and then the other.

As I walk around my neighborhood I see my landlady, who owns several apartment compounds.   She is covered in jewelry, hair and nails done nicely. Her clothes are fashionable. She gives me a glare as I play with children on the street. Not far from her is an elderly woman I’ve never met. Her head is shaved and she is walking barefoot down the rocky hill. She wears an old, modest dress and says “welcome back” to me as I pass her. I think, “How is it possible that these two women live on the same road?”

When I was last in Uganda, I used to live in a village where I worked with the poorest people I have ever met. Children and adults alike who have never owned a pair of shoes, but people so joyful, so thankful, so eager to praise God. Now I work at a school made up of some of the richest kids in the country-kids that are told they have to have new shoes that fit the uniform requirements by next week, kids of privilege.

I used to sit in the dirt and pray for the sick, lay hands on those with Malaria, Typhoid, HIV, and teach bible stories and verses to kids who understood faith better than most adults I’ve met. Now I teach advanced levels of music, I give merits and detentions, I write extensive lesson plans and pray that I’m possibly having an effect on someone.

I’ve known a Uganda where kids just want to go to school and now I exhaust myself trying to keep kids on task in class.

I used to share my faith daily. It came out so easily, like breath. Now I’m not allowed to talk about my faith, and I have quickly realized that I don’t know how to not talk about Jesus.

Even within me my emotions are constantly contradictory. I can feel loved and scared, generous and selfish, surrounded by the presence of God yet lonely among people. I pinch my pennies (or shillings) feeling like I’m making hardly anything each month, while knowing I am rich in a country of poverty.

Uganda is a place that rattles me, consumes me, confuses me, and welcomes me into its messes and beauties.

Lately I have been re-reading Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis, a missionary in Jinja, Uganda. Katie is only a couple years older than me. She moved to Uganda directly after graduating from high school. She taught kindergarten in a rural village and one day began adopting children and caring for the poor. She now has 14 daughters and a well-known ministry called Amazima, which is a Luganda word meaning “truth.”

I read her book before the first time I came to Uganda. Back then I had very little context for anything she was saying. It’s incredible to read again now and to see lines that resonant so deeply within me and explain exactly what I have been feeling.

Katie Davis went through many of the things I am now going through. Reading her words makes me feel less alone here. Like I said, I’ve read her book before, but I can’t explain the jolt I felt when I reread these words that have ran through my head numerous times in the past six weeks: “The contradiction comes when I realize that all these experiences and emotions were real. The happiness that gave me chill bumps was as deep as my loneliness. My sense of certainty about being exactly where God wanted me was solid, but just as firm was the fact that I wondered at times what on earth I was doing here. The frustration that threatened to overtake me on some occasions was just as deep and true as the unbounded joy I felt at other times.”

There are so so many beautiful things about living in my little corner of Africa but there are just as many challenges and concerns. I remember saying before I left that I already knew the transition to Kampala would be difficult, but really, I had no idea what was in store.

Often I wonder why.

Your first teaching job is hard enough even when it’s in your own familiar community.

Why in the world did I decide to spend my first two years as a teacher, at a British school, in an African country, with a culture completely different than they one I’ve lived in for nearly the whole 23 years of my life? Am I trying to set myself up for a breakdown or something?

I’m gonna be honest (as always), in the last 3 1/2 weeks I’ve had a lot of stressors, some questioning what in God’s name I’m doing and whether it was the right choice. Why is Kampala so big and busy? Will I ever meet friends here? Is it possible for me to be a light to my co-workers?

My fears may be legitimate but that doesn’t mean that’s where my mind has to linger, because there’s a bigger truth out there.

Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

I like to think of it as the Nike of Bible Verses, telling us to “Just Do It.”

When times are hard or unclear, you have to keep pressing forward to get through it. When tragedy happens, you don’t sit and wallow forever, you eventually learn to move on the best you can and put your life back together, because you have to.

The bible says it so clearly: You, me, we all, can do ANYTHING because Jesus Christ gives us strength. And who could have more strength than the man who was beaten, ridiculed, murdered, dead for three days and then rose from the grave and loved the very people who tormented him and called out from the crowd for him to be killed?

Time and time again I’ve seen myself and others fail or not reach full potential because we’ve tried to do something out of our own strength. But that’s not how this world was created to be. Things are difficult and scary and uncomfortable, but YOU can do all things when you ask Jesus to be your strength. You can ask God to take away your troubles, but He doesn’t want you to weasel your way around your problems, He wants you to power through them, relying fully on Him, not yourself. Even the stumbling blocks the devil puts in front of you God can use for His glory, if you depend on Him to carry you through.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

-Matthew 19:26

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” -Romans 8:37

It doesn’t matter if my job is hard or if learning to live in Uganda is hard; I can do it all if I ask for God to give me the strength.  When you’re a Christian, there’s no need to ever wonder if something is possible because we believe it is. Jesus said so.

So when you’re struggling, keep pressing on towards the Father. Don’t stop and question the goodness of God because the enemy is begging to see you stumble. When you don’t know if you can, just do it, because the creator of the universe is rooting for you and He gives strength to all those that ask. Just do it, because, with God, you can.

Often things feel hard as I continue to settle into my new life but I hold tightly to the promises God made to me. He promised to deliver me back to Uganda and He did, so I have to believe it was for a purpose. He doesn’t do things on accident or just willy nilly. As I squirm and complain and wonder what in the world is going on with my life, He is molding me to trust more deeply in Him and He is continuously preparing me for what is to come.

With God “Can I?” turns into “I Can.”

And Just Do It into Just Did It.

I have been living in Kampala, Uganda for about two and a half weeks now and it has taken me that much time to put together some sort of commentary about it.

If there is one word I could use to describe the last two weeks (and every road in Kampala), it would be: bumpy.

I’m constantly back and forth, up and down. One minute I absolutely love my job at Rainbow, the next I suddenly feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. One evening I’ll be content on my own in my house, and the following evening I’ll miss my family enough to bring myself to tears.

Before I moved to Kampala I knew this time Uganda would be very different. Between January and April I lived in a village with very little access to internet, no tv, electricity that went off every day, no data on my smart phone, but I grew to love my simple lifestyle. I loved sitting on the porch of my house with two close friends, having nothing to do but chat and listen to the croaking frogs. I became accustomed to telling others about Jesus every day, to thinking about my relationship with God all the time, to expecting to see His miracles happening around me. But I knew this time, Uganda would be different.

I came prepared with the knowledge that life in the capital city of Kampala would be very different than village life in Uganda but the little things still surprised me. I immediately found it difficult to carve out time to spend with Jesus every day, like so many people with 9 to 5 jobs have a hard time doing. I have been desperately wanting close time with God but I’ve found myself struggling to do that while I’m navigating a new city and a new job, and trying to do things like get groceries home on a boda. I also became overwhelmed with the sudden realization that not every muzungu that comes to Uganda is a Christian; I had come to equate Uganda with an extremely Christian lifestyle, because that’s how I first experienced this country, but that’s not always the case. I’m also still trying to understand facets of the British school system that Rainbow utilizes and all the British terminology that goes along with it. I comprehend only about half of what my English colleagues say. And it’s still weird to be able to do things like leave my house at night. I’ve realized I’ve begun to basically live my American lifestyle in a very un-American place.

I’ll be honest and say it makes me a little sad to feel like I’m trading in my missionary life for an expat one. I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable with it yet. I miss the Uganda I first fell in love with- the lifestyle of simplicity, gratitude, and hospitality. Here in Kampala, poverty is still all around me but so are decent sized super markets, cell phone stores, fancy restaurants and hotels. I now have internet and tons of movies and my iPhone which are convenient for staying in touch with people back home and passing time, but I miss the days when, if I wanted entertainment I would go out of the gate and chase around the kids at the local well, or play cards with the little boys who lived next to the Field of Dreams. I am so grateful for my job and a concrete reason to be in Uganda for two years, but often I miss the days I spent the morning laying hand on this sick instead of discussing department budgets and photocopying. Sometimes I actually have to remind myself that I’m the same person that did those things back at Show Mercy. Even though I’m in nice teacher clothes and I’m tired after work, I am still the same girl I have been and I’m not too good to play with street children. But to my dismay, people in Kampala are different, and sometimes when I say hello to a child, they respond by asking me for money.

I am still very much adjusting to my new life in this city, and trying to figure out why it was so much easier for me to settle into a life in the village than in the city which is far more westernized. But what brings me comfort is knowing that God knew this was part of the plan for me all along, and He knows what is to come. He sees my heart’s pull to be out in the village again, among the little children who beam up at me with smiles blackened from sucking on sugar cane, back among people who invite you into their home and call you their granddaughter upon meeting you. He sees that I haven’t made any real friends yet here and He hears my call for relationships. He understands my pain of feeling disconnected from Him as I try to do the strange thing of living a ‘normal’ lifestyle in a place that is not at all normal to me. He sees it all and He knows it all and yet He has big, big plans.

I hope I haven’t sounded too negative and defeated because, most of the time, that’s really not how I feel. This lifestyle God has chosen me for is genuinely hard, but I know it will get easier. I might quit, pack up and go home if I didn’t honestly believe that God has magnificent plans for me here, plans I cannot wait for Him to reveal.

Daily I miss my family and friends, and wish I wasn’t alone so much of the time, but God is so strong, and He does not withhold that strength from His children that ask for it.

I’m excited to keep settling in to Kampala, to get into a routine and be able to fit in more time to spend with Jesus, more time to get out to the village, time to study Luganda, and more opportunities to teach people about the God who chose me.

Prayer Requests:

-Please pray that God will put great Christian friendships into my life, particularly with woman who I can relate to without a cultural/language barrier.
-Please pray that I will quickly adjust to my new job and be an effective teacher for my students.
-Pray for my family who I miss so much and God’s continued love and blessings in their lives. Also that they won’t miss me as much as I miss them.