Better Days

I'm finally broken, falling too far

Burned up in pieces from chasing your stars

With twilight approaching all that I've seen

I could never get over what you've done to me

I am at a loss for words of how to express this past week of walking home with the children from school. But as I was riding to school this morning on the boda, the lyrics above played through my headphones. The truth is, I am finally broken and am falling way too far into something I never saw myself getting involved in. I have burned to pieces chasing after God's stars. But I see twilight approaching and I will never get over what God has done to me this past week.

You've probably read my posting about what occurred on Monday, but if not you can go back and read that. I won't bore those who have previously heard the story by retelling it. Tuesday was less eventful including my backpack weight like 95 pounds, taking the back roads with Anna, and then helping her wash her clothes after arriving at her house. 

Although, on Wednesday, God truly began to work in my heart. I walked home with a large group of students and stopped at a super market along the way to purchase a football. Of course at least eight of my students insisted on coming into the store with me. The workers just laughed at the sight and joked with me about it. After purchasing the football Anna, Simon Peter and I crossed over the road to head to their house. After arriving I asked them if they had brought all of their requirements (pens, pencils, books, toilet paper, and brooms) to school. They had not, so I wrote down everything them and their older brother Patrick needed, and told them I would take care of that for them.

Their mom is currently in Sudan working. Three primary school students without their mom and not enough money to purchase their school supplies. This broke my heart.

Thursday was another walk with a big group of students, but Anna, Simon Peter and I managed to cross the road and enterd into a super market by ourselves to purchase their school supplies. We ran into Sherry and chatted with her, picked up what we needed, and also grabbed a knife and the biggest pineapple possible. We walked the rest of the way to their house where I cut the pineapple, Anna washed her clothes and Simon Peter washed dishes. I asked Simon Peter if his dad stayed at their house and he told me that his dad was also in Sudan.

I cried the entire boda ride home. My mom was there at home every single day when I arrived home from school. In fact my mom picked me up from school each and every day. My dad always arrived home after work and I am quite sure I never went to school without my requirements. I had all the simple things that these children don't have. Why am I the one taking them to get school supplies and walking them home from school? Don't get me wrong, I love doing it, and it's what God called me to do and what I'm honored to do. But it breaks my heart that they don't have their mom around to do those things with them and for them. When they arrive home, no one is ever there, and no one ever comes home. They have their older sister, but that's it. Can you even begin to imagine living a life like such?

Friday morning at school I was talking to the other teachers about requirements and found out about five other students who have families who are really struggling. Students who they knew would not be able to bring supplies. So I pulled those students aside and am working to also have their requirements taken care of. I will most likely pay no more than $20 for all of their supplies. We spend twice that on school supplies just for ourselves. $20 for five students.

Walking home this afternoon was a struggle to say the least. I walked six miles home from school today. It was a farther walk than the previous days and it was not even all the way to the homes of a few of the students. I still can't wrap my mind around  the fact that students walk six miles to and from school. Every day.

My shoes have seen better days and my heels felt quite better before this week of walking. But I would not trade any of it. My students held my hands the entire way each day, they asked me each morning if I would be walking with them, and I have never had children say thank you to me so many times. My students love walking with me and I have thoroughly enjoyed walking with them; the quality time spent with them, the laughter, and smiles. And most of all, I have enjoyed all God has been showing me. I am so incredibly blessed. And I am simply called to bless others through my blessings. Whether it be walking home with my students, purchasing school supplies for them, or simply loving on them.

I have never felt more joy in my life than I have this past week. It was humbling and such a blessing. Walking home with my students was better than Disneyland.

So here is to the 12 miles I walked home from school this week, and here's to walking many more in the future. Because let's be honest, I really enjoyed this past week, so I am sure I'll be walking home with them more often from here on out.

I will never get over what You've done to me. I have had a total perspective change on life.

And you ask me what I want this year

And I try to make this kind and clear

Just a chance that maybe they'll find better days

'Cause they don't need boxes wrapped in strings 

And designer love and empty things

Just a chance that maybe they'll find better days

When you find out your students' parents are living in a different country, or others are going to bed without food in their stomachs, your life changes. Nothing else matters other than helping them and loving them. All they want is love and if it's walking home with them from school, then I will do that. If it's playing a game of football on a Saturday morning with them, then I will do it. I will make them PB&J sandwiches, I will buy them school supplies, give away my lunch, and love them with everything I have. 

They need some place simple where they could live

And something only you can give

And that's faith and trust and peace while they're alive

And the one poor child who saved this world

And there's 10 million more who probably could

If we just stopped and said a prayer for them

I wish everyone was loved tonight

And somehow stop this endless fight

Just a chance that maybe they'll find better days

Week of Walking

Nearly one year ago I was sitting in a weekly Resident Advisor staff meeting. We were having a rather heated discussion, or argument, about new rules that were being put into place for our Resource Room. One of the rules included, was that the door would be locked at 10pm each night and from that hour on we would have to walk to the front desk to check out a key that would let us into the room. After about an hour, which seemed more like four to me, of everyone arguing/debating over how ridiculous it was for us to have to walk all the way to the front desk, I became quite fed up with it for numerous reasons, but I won't get too deep into that.

At this point in time I knew I would be traveling across the globe to teach in Ugandan in a few short months. I also knew that many of the students who attended the school I would be teaching at walked miles to and from school each day. Let's not get too deep into that either, because many people in Africa walk long distances each day. We all know that. There are also starving kids in Africa and that's why you should eat all of your food. 

After everyone shared their two cents, I finally spoke my mind. It went something on the lines of, "My students in Uganda walk miles to and from school each day and you're going to complain about walking one minute further to the front desk for a key..." I went on but that's the main point I wanted to get to here. 

And that was that. The rule stayed in place and people got over it. 

Now let us fast forward to present day, where I am here in Uganda serving as a teacher. And yes, my students do walk miles to and from school each day. I have walked home with my students every once in a while, but never have I truly experienced what it's like to walk that far each and every day. And after walking home with them this past Friday, and a good chunk of time spent in prayer on Saturday, I recalled those words I said to my staff members a year back. 

What is it like to walk that distance every day? It's exciting walking with the kids when I do walk with them, but how would it be to walk every single day? I'm sure it would get boring and tiring after a few. I began to feel convicted and that's when I made the decision to walk home with the students every day for a week. 

I knew it was something God was challenging me to do and something He would teach me through. So the decision was made. Although once at school this morning, I didn't really feel like walking anymore. I wanted to just jump on the Boda and head back home to the comfort of my room. But of course Simon Peter had to ask if I was going to walk with them (God reminding me of the commitment I made). I told him yes and the day went on. As I waited for the kids to finish school, I read a book out in the sunshine. The sky was as clear as could be and it was the perfect temperature. Just the right weather for walking home in. 

Let me also take a moment to state that I was not planning on blogging about this commitment until the week was over. I was sure God would teach me a thing or two that I could share, but I didn't think He would teach me so much, so soon. But here I am, sopping wet, sitting on a church floor with ten other soaking wet students from school writing the beginnings of this in my also wet notebook.

I had used my students walking home in Uganda to show my staff members how great we have it in America. But did I truly know what it was like to walk the distance to and from school each day? My mom's "I walked up hill both ways to and from school in the snow" story has nothing on my walk home from school today. (By the way, my mom is from Sacramento...so bull-hookey on the snow part). 

As I previously stated, the weather was just spectacular as we headed on our way up the road; Anna and I holding hands. All was good and dandy until we were about a third of the way into our walk when one of my students, Issac says loudly, "TEACHERRRR!" Pointing behind us toward the sky. Clouds darker than I have ever seen in my entire life. We continued to walk, but again stopped when another student pointed out that the clouds were "running." And oh were they! 

We made it about halfway when wind stronger than ever picked up. People scrambled as their tents were rumbling and goods went flying. We passed an alley way and that's when the dust storm hit. Anna had my sunglasses on to protect her eyes, I think I just opened mine as little as I could to drag her to safety. My lips were covered in dirt and my eyes had the entire Sahara Dessert worth of sand in them. Simon peter was even crying his eyes hurt so bad. There was a moment when myself and five other students were stuck on a center divider being pounded by wind and dirt. Once the cars slowed we all booked it across the road, trying to get away from the wind and dirt. And that's when it began to rain. 

It has not rained in days and it rains on the day I start my week of walking home with the students. The kids wondered what was going on and I told them that God is a funny fellow. So there we were after being pounded by wind and dirt, now being slammed by a huge rainstorm. And when I say huge, I mean huge. We were soaking wet within two minutes of the rain starting. 

My freshly washed shoes muddy and wet, and pretty much every other part of me wet as well. My students reminded me that my hair was wet as we ran as fast as we possibly could to the church we all attend on Sundays. We knew we would have a place to wait for the rain to pass inside the church. 

I wonder what people though as they watched a white girl with a group of school children, running down the road in the pouring rain. Even dragging one behind her to make sure she kept up. I would have laughed if I'd seen it. 

We made it to the church where we removed our shoes and waited out the rain before walking the rest of the way home. I relaxed with a few of the students in one if their homes before my boda driver picked me up and drove me home. Of course I was not thinking and left my jacket in my backpack and got to endure the freezing air blasting against my wet body the entire journey home. 

God truly is a funny fellow. I surrendered and committed to experiencing walking home in Uganda. And boy did he give me an experience. I was reminded that this is the life of people here. Back home I was able to walk to the front desk in dry clothes, in a heated building, and it only took an extra minute to get there. It took us an two hours to get home today and it included dirt, wind, rain, mud, wet soggy clothes and much more. 

I have been so blessed to be able to jump in my car or even on the boda here and quickly return home. I can arrive home and put on some fresh warm clothes and not worry about it. Here, my students are worried about having to wear wet shoes to school the next day since they only own one pair. They would wash their uniforms as soon as they arrived home to make sure they were ready for the following day at school. 

I have another pair of shoes for tomorrow, more than another even, and a whole suitcase of clean clothes to choose from. Do I need all of this clothes? Probably not. Do I need to drive everywhere I go? Surely not. God has blessed me with these things, but I think I needed a good reminder of how blessed I truly am. 

So I will continue to walk home with the kids each day this week as God reveals more and more to me. May these extra hours spent with the kids on our trek home be hours that glorify Him. Will we be reminded that God leads us through the dirt, wind, rain and sogginess of life. And that sometimes, we are left with some of the sweetest, yet dirtiest memories. 

Today was a slammer from God, reminding me of the greatness of the blessings he has provided me with and also the joy that's found place in my heart. I once would have been frustrated and annoyed with today's situation, but here and now I find joy in it. We laughed and made the best out of a sticky situation. And I'm thankful for that. And I am happy to be experiencing what it's like to walk in the shoes of a Ugandan child. To an extent. I still have clean and dry clothes to wear tomorrow. 

We will deal with that at another time. For now, let's keep on walking. 

"God is good all the time and that's His nature, wow!"

"I'm Not Called"

I feel like we all too often forget just how blessed we are. I once thought that being in Uganda would keep me reminded of this fact. Although, I've found that I get so caught up in the craziness of life here, that I forget to stop and smell the roses (or shall I say exhaust) every now and then.

One of the rare moments I have alone to myself each day is when I'm on the boda riding to and from school. I typically pop some sunnies on and put on some feel good music on my iPod. With the wind blowing in my hair and the harsh sun warming my skin, I can finally have a few minutes to think.

It's on that ride home from school each day where I am reminded that I'm a pretty lucky teacher to be given a kitten by my P.4 students. Where I think about how blessed me P.4 class is to have a whole collection of school supplies, donated by junior high students in America, to use each day. And as much as a majority of the Ugandan men drive me crazy, I love Uganda.

I sat down at the dinner table last night, when Margret Mae set a chapati she had bought for me, down at my place setting. Little did she know, I had been craving a chapati all day long, but I was much too busy at school, never having a chance to walk down the road to purchase one.

I have been blessed beyond measures here in Uganda, but I've only been blessed so that I can further bless others.

My mom commented that now that I have been given a kitten (which I named Milo), I am never going to leave Uganda. I'm sure I'll leave Uganda eventually (when my kitten dies), but I'm not quite sure where I will end up next.

God has given me the gift of teaching, but he has furthermore commanded me to go. "He has created each of us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and I propose that anything less than radical devotion to this purpose is unbiblical Christianity" (David Platt, Radical).

When I read that, I was rather convicted. Missions is not a two week or even two year long thing. Each of us, all of us in fact, have been commanded to go. Missions is something we are commanded to do throughout our lives. "God loves me so that I might make him--his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness--known among all nations" (David Platt, Radical).

So, whether I stay in Uganda, move on to England, or settle back into California, I will go and make disciples, because that's what I have been commended to do. I don't know where I will end up down the road, but I am confident that God will lead me exactly where he desires for me to be. I will continually choose to go into the world, wherever that may be, and share the gospel.

I will close this posting with another excerpt from the book Radical by David Platt. He titles this segment, "I'm Not Called."

"I wonder if we have in some ways intentionally and in other ways unknowingly erected lines of defense against to global purpose God has for our lives. It's not uncommon to hear Christians say, 'Well not everyone is called to foreign missions,' or more specifically, 'I am not called to foreign missions.' When we say this, we are usually referring to foreign missions as an optional program in the church for a faithful few who apparently are called to that. In this mind-set, missions is a compartmentalized program of the church, and select folks are good at missions and passionate about missions. Meanwhile, the rest of us are willing to watch the missions slide shows when the missionaries come home, but in the end, God has just not called most of us to do this mission thing. But where in the Bible is missions ever identified as an optional program in the church? We have just seen that we were all created by God, saved from our sins, and blessed by God to make his glory know in all the world. Indeed, Jesus himself has not merely called us to go to all nations; he has created us and commanded us to go to all nations. We have taken this command, though, and reduced it to a calling--something that only a few people receive. I find it interesting that we do this with other words form Jesus. We take Jesus' command in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations, and we say, 'That means other people.' But we look at Jesus' command in Matthew 11:28. 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,' and we say, 'Now, that means me.' We take jesus' promise in Acts 1:8 that the Spirit will lead us to the ends of the earth, and we say, 'That means some people.' But we take Jesus' promise in John 10:10 that we will have abundant life, and we say, 'That means me.' In the process we have unnecessarily (and unbiblically) drawn a line of distinction, assigning obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all. In this way we choose to send off other people to carry out the global purpose of Christianity while the rest of us sit back because we're 'just not called to that.'"

Oh, and here is an adorable photo of, Milo.

 

 

A Father's Love

I grew up and spent the entire of my life up until now in a small town called Fair Oaks, which lies on the outskirts of Sacramento County in California. Both my mother and father were raised in Sacramento so a majority of my extended family lives in the area as well.

I wouldn’t consider my family to be extremely wealthy, with the fact that my dad has spent at least 5 days a week working at his glass business, since before I was born. He earns a decent salary to provide his wife and children with a  life they deserve. And in my eyes, he’s provided us with much more than we deserve. What fifteen year old has the opportunity to fly across the globe to spend her sixteenth birthday with her mom and her best friend in Paris? Or every summer at a beach house with her family? I didn’t get a new car when I was old enough to drive and paying a part of my cell phone bill has always been a responsibility of mine.

When I turned seventeen I got my first job at an ice cream shop called Cold Stone. I recall this one morning attempting to open the store, when my key to the front door wouldn’t work. I was sent to a co-worker’s house to retrieve his key, with no luck on that key working either. It took me calling my handy father and him taking out the front window of the store for me to open the shop that morning. I never told anyone what my dad had done for me and a few weeks later quit working there. I am confident they would have fired me had they known what he had done anyhow.

Working and earning my own money was an important concept my parents wanted to teach me and today I am glad they taught me that. I’m glad I have had to pay my own car insurance, my phone bill, and for anything I have wanted to spend money on. Surely my parents still spoil me, I’m not even going to try to deny it, but I do take responsibility of paying for most things that are required to be paid for.

My father is the bravest man I know and has taught me how to stand up for myself and of course all of the handy things I know today. Let me tell you, I sure as heck know how to hang wooden letters in a straight line on a wall, how to put an Ikea desk together, and even how to kill a spider if there truly is no one around to help; take a huge wad of toilet paper, hope you’ve captured the spider somewhere within and run screaming to the toilet where you throw the wad in and flush as quick as humanly possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But that’s not the point. The point is, my father can show me how to capture a spider a million times, but I still will probably never listen because I just don’t want to face the spider.

When I think of my father I am reminded of my Heavenly Father. I have found that God has taught me many different lessons throughout my life. Some of these lessons I have learned, I use in my life on a daily basis and others I just don’t feel like using because I don’t want to. I question myself when it comes to these things I just don’t feel like doing. The fact is, I am absolutely terrified of spiders. But when it comes down to it, my father has taught me exactly how to tackle the spider situation and honestly, what is there really to be scared of? I don’t think the spider is big enough to eat me or anything.

God spends day after day teaching us exactly how to tackle certain situations and then finally gives us the opportunity to put what we have learned to good use. And we have the option to say yes or no. He’s told us what to do and has given us the necessary tools. If we have that, we really have nothing to fear. Next time I see a spider, I think I shall waste a tad less toilet paper, not fear it eating me alive, and walk to the toilet to flush the thing. Well okay, let’s be honest here, I will still probably make that mad dash to the toilet.

In life we shall face some tough situations, but we have had training on how to deal with those situations and we can either say yes and face the situation head on, or sit back and watch things either go downhill really fast or see someone else shine. I think I am going start saying yes a little more often to the things God has prepared me for.

And as for my earthy father, I am just as thankful for all he has taught me as I am for all my heavenly father has taught me. They have each helped mold me into who I am today and have set me up for success throughout my life. 

My family on Christmas before I returned to Uganda