A Day in the Market

I’m confident that most people, like me, are victims to the Target syndrome, the syndrome where you walk into Target with a list of 3 things and walk out having spent $150 or worse. Of course all the things you buy are somehow justified and at the time you were pretty sure you ‘needed’ them. It turns out I have found my Target here in Uganda. It looks a bit different and is really more of a collision of a Target and Goodwill, but nonetheless Target Syndrome kicks in.

Markets are very common in Uganda and each Friday our village has their market. It is a place where you can find food, light bulbs, extension cords, shoe polish, soap, hair extensions (something I am not tempted to buy), radios, fabric, new shoes, secondhand shoes, new clothes, secondhand clothes, bras, bags, bread, mangos, on and on and on. I love market days and look forward to them each Friday.

A few Fridays ago I found myself having experienced the Target Syndrome. Honestly, I went to the market with a list. I needed 4 items: light bulbs, a pad lock, 1 pair of shoes for a student and flooring for my room. I walked out with the following:

Flooring for my room

A pad lock

2 pairs of shoes for 2 different students

2 kilos of sugar

4 plastic cups

A loaf of bread

A slip or petticoat as they call them here

21 pieces of clothing for kids (secondhand) – that is always the kicker, I can’t help myself. I love love love buying kids clothes.

Bananas

The reason I bring this up is because as I was spending money like it grew on trees, I thought it may be interesting to share with you the cost of things here in Uganda and provide a bit of insight to how things are not that cheap here, especially when given the monthly income of most people.

I bought 2 pairs of secondhand shoes for students at the school, one pair for $7.50 and the other pair for $12.50. Shoes for $7.50 isn’t so bad until you figure the same pair of shoes would cost around $3 at Goodwill in America. I bought 2 kilos of sugar for $1.25 each. The bread was $1.20, the clothing for around $.50 each piece and bananas for $.50. By American standards these prices are really good but consider that the average household here makes probably between $30-$100/month and it changes everything. Most people probably pay between $10-$40/month for rent for their one or two room apartment. If you are making $50/month, one pair of shoes for $7.50 is really expensive and children’s clothing at $.50 apiece is by no means a bargain. Please also take into consideration how quickly children grow. Given the high cost of school fees and cost of the uniform, it is not surprising then that children may go without shoes to school or only have 2 or 3 outfits. You can see how foods like bread, butter and sugar quickly become luxury items. Other locally grown foods are also extremely expensive given the income levels of the people.

I’ll be the first to admit that I often times look at children without shoes or socks for school or clean clothes and wonder why their parents can’t provide these things for them. But when I take a minute to think about Abdul’s mom who works 6 days a week, over 10 hour days and makes less than $50/month, I understand why Abdul didn’t have shoes for school. It makes me terribly sad to think of a little 5-year-old boy walking over a mile to school everyday in bare feet (one pair of shoes was for him). I truly cannot imagine how difficult it must be for parents in these situations. I have never experienced anything close to this in my life. I try to be careful with how much money I spend and go without things I don’t need (although ‘need’ is a very relative word) but I have never been in the position where bread, soap, butter or sugar were luxury items. Can you imagine bringing soap, toothpaste, salt and sugar as Christmas gifts for somebody? These are the very items we gave to people in our community for Christmas and they were so incredibly grateful for the help. It is truly unbelievable.

What’s also incredible is that if you were to visit any of the people in my community, they would gladly share with you their food, tea, sugar and anything else they had. You would be welcome in their homes, regardless of what they had, and you would experience true joy. Abdul is a joyful child who is always smiling and he is one of the many blessings in my life. I believe that these people choose to be joyful and they choose to be grateful. I would guess that many of them have discovered something many Americans have missed – God is truly all we need and He absolutely provides for us all. Sugar or no sugar, bread or no bread, shoes or no shoes, God is it and He means more than salt, mangos, clean clothes and school shoes.

I suppose I should get off my soapbox now but I hope this provides a bit of insight into the lives of the people here. I pray that as you put sugar in your coffee, have toast and butter for breakfast and use soap to wash your clothes, you are reminded of the dear and wonderful people of Uganda.

That’s all for now.

Fasting Days 7 and 8

I should have posted this last Friday and apologize I didn’t make time for it. Wednesday morning I woke up and instantly thought, “I am sick of feeling hungry. I’m tired of this fast.” That was how I felt, I wanted it to be over. However, one of my dear friends had agreed to fast with me that day so I knew I wanted to continue and fast with her, even though we were 10,000 miles a part. The day ended up being awesome and I got an amazing email from my dear friend sharing with me how her day was. I’m grateful for her and I’m grateful that God has blessed me with the best friends in the entire world. What a blessing to share that experience with an amazing, Godly woman?!

Thursday I woke up and instantly thanked God for the week. While I was very ready to go back to my regular eating schedule, I loved that my priority for the week was time with God. I suppose one of the many things I learned was my life outside of fasting doesn’t always put time with God at the center. I always try to make decisions that honor God and always try to put service to Him first but I don’t put spending time with Him first and that needs to change. If I compare this to my relationships with one of my friends, I think that while they would appreciate that I was trying to honor them and serve them, I know that above all they would just want to spend time with me. They would want to talk with me, and they would want to hear what is one my heart. I picture it as if I am running around trying to do 100 things at once while God is just asking me to come sit on the couch to talk for a bit. If I think about it like that then I need to make a few changes in how I spend my time. I need to spend more time in conversation with God and more time in His Word and less time moving around, giving myself lists and lists of things that need to be done. I know that serving God and kids are wonderful and truly pleasing to God but they can’t take over to the point where I am not spending quality time with God.

I’m not sure when I’ll do another week long fast but I will definitely make fasting a bigger part of my life. I read Isaiah 58 and wonder why it took me this long to fast in the first place.

Fasting Days 5 and 6

When I first had the idea to blog about the week long fast I thought it would be great and somewhat easy. I thought I would have all these profound, spiritual things to say. As it turns out, I don’t have much to say (and we all know that doesn’t happen often). God hasn’t opened the skies in Uganda and spoken to me. He hasn’t given me dreams about my future or told me pick up and leave. He has spoken to me as He always had, through His Word and other people. My prayer time has been really good but nothing out of the ordinary, just great, quality time in conversation with Jesus.

I will admit that each day (days 5 and 6) I ended up having something to eat with tea in the morning. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure if it changes anything or means anything that I did. I still managed to have really good time with God and still managed to feel hungry for several hours during the day. I thought about not including this in the blog and let people think I was able to go the entire week with only tea, water and dinner but I don’t think there is any reason to withhold it. Maybe somebody will judge me, be disappointed in me or feel like I didn’t truly fast for the week but oh well; I suppose I’m willing to risk it.

More to come – who knows, maybe the skies will open up :)

Fasting Day 4 (Happy Independence Day!)

I had every intention of updating my blog yesterday with day 2 and 3 of fasting but I didn’t manage my time very well and traffic out of Kampala was a disaster.

Day 4 was good and surprisingly easy in terms of not feeling completely distracted by hunger. I went to Kampala for church and spent several hours after in amazing, encouraging conversation with my dear friend afterwards (that is were poor time management came in). By the time I got back home it was time for a wedding meeting for one of our friends (I'll explain that more later) and then time for dinner with Ivan. All in all it was a great Sunday.

As the days go on I continue to learn more about fasting and what it is truly like to deprive myself of food for the sake of my relationship with God and precious time with Him. I suppose one thing I am sad to realize is that fasting doesn’t automatically mean more time in prayer or more time with God. The same distractions that keep me from focused, heartfelt prayer and time with God are still there and it is just as easy to go about my day separated from God. It makes me sad and frustrated. I am 100% confident that the Enemy uses any distractions possible to keep us from quality prayer time with God. As the days continue I am going to be more aware of the distractions that could potentially rob me of time in prayer and I will take more charge of not letting the Enemy get his way. And as an extra precautionary measure I will cut back on the black tea.

More to come….

Fasting Day 3

I have learned that fasting is manageable if 1) you keep food out of sight or 2) you keep yourself moving around and distracted. Today was difficult and I wanted to cheat so badly. I suppose I could have had a slice of bread or soda and I am sure God wouldn’t have struck me down dead but I know I would have been upset with myself (a bit of pride stopped me as well). This morning I had 3 kids come over to help me clean, hang out and do a few things around my room. I served them tea and bread both before and after and it was so hard. I joined them for tea but giving them bread with butter made me feel like I was giving them grilled salmon and asparagus or ice cream or chocolate, it was really that tempting. After we had a great morning, I took them to the beach to play and enjoy time away from the school. Again, I struggled as I got them sodas and french fries. It was around 3 pm and I could have easily devoured the entire plate of fries in 30 seconds flat, honestly I felt like I hadn’t eaten in years. But overall the day was great. Not only did I get good quality time with a few kids, I got good quality time with God. I actually feel like this is somehow fun, maybe because it is my first time and it seems both like a challenge and adventure. I also think I am enjoying it because all of my friends in Nkumba are doing it too and I usually prefer doing things with others. It also makes it harder to cheat – accountability is a powerful tool.

Fasting Day 2

So, day 2 of fasting was good. I don’t have much of an update other than I have learned 2 things that I want to share. First, taking 5 cups of black tea before 2 pm tends to pump so much caffeine into your body that it makes it hard to concentrate and pray. I came home from work around 3 pm on Friday to spend some time reading the Bible and praying. Of course I made some tea to help keep my mind off my very hungry stomach. As I was trying to read and pray I started to feel a bit jittery and all of a sudden my mind was racing and 10 different things where going through my head. I was trying to read the Bible but I was getting distracted by the things I wanted to buy at the market, wondering if the bank system was up and running so I could withdraw money, back to reading, then trying to focus on praying, but immediately forgetting what I was praying about and then back to making a list of what I wanted to buy – all in about 10 minutes. I had so much caffeine in my body I physically couldn’t sit still.

Second, I didn’t so much learn as observed how fatigued I got around 5 pm, it was as though I had run a marathon. I got to Ivan’s around 7 pm after the market and felt like I could barely stand up. I wasn’t trying to be dramatic but literally collapsed on the sofa. It makes sense when you think about it but I suppose I wasn’t expecting to feel so exhausted and weak. It was as though all the energy had been sapped from my body. The truth is that feeling that tired gave me something else to pray about – strength and endurance. It became very apparent to me that without God, not only is there no reason to fast (that would just be called starvation and no fun at all) but there is also no possible way to fast. I need Him to get through this week.

So far so good, as difficult as this is I am truly enjoying it.

Fasting Day 1

The day isn't over yet, it is only 4 pm but I am at the internet cafe and felt like it was a good time to give an update. The best part is I only have another 3-4 hours before dinner. I'm a bit spoiled because I'm having dinner tonight with Aunt Rose and her food is so wonderful, it will be like a reward for making it through my first day.

The hardest point was definitely from 11-1 pm, I was so hungry and found myself looking forward to lunch only to realize I wouldn't be able to eat it. I think I'll have a new appreciation for beans and rice when this is over :) I know fasting isn't so much about food and I hope at some point I can get my mind off of it but right now, I think about it a lot. It makes me realize how much we take food for granted in America - probably something else I should fast about :)

My time with God today has been good and I am truly looking forward to the next several days.

More updates to come -