Quick Update

Warning - this update is poorly written and may not even be worth sharing. I am a bit tired and the last several weeks have been difficult. However, I beat malaria and that feels good :)

I have been meaning to write an update for several weeks now (I think I start too many of my updates with that) and am sorry for the delay.

As you can see from the previous two entries, I have been blessed by the work we are doing in Katakwi and had an absolutely wonderful time on our last trip. However, many other things have been going on here in Nkumba since mid-July. I won’t go into too many details but will give you an overview of what life has been like these past 5/6 weeks.

The end of July was a fun and crazy time. The kids went on holiday from school and with that 2 of my favorite girls (yes, I have favorites) moved in with me. Sarah and Gift have been close to my heart since I first visited Nkumba last June and since the woman they had been staying with had gone back to school full time, I decided to have them move in with me. And with that life changed dramatically. My current apartment (if you can call it that) is one room with a bathroom. It is probably the size of small to mid-size bedroom in America so you can imagine how things changed when 2 girls moved in. I bought an extra mattress, the girls moved in with all their clothes and stuff and we had a party. Honestly, it was quite the experience. I think the girls were used to getting up around 5:30 am and for those of you who know me, that is about one hour before I am capable of opening my eyes. So each morning, Sarah would jump out of bed and start washing something. I would literally have to ask her to stop washing the floor or the dishes and tell her to get back into bed. Gift took pride in cleaning the bathroom and thought it was pure joy to clean the toilet everyday and I’m not exaggerating. Since I didn’t have the heart to tell her the toilet didn’t need to be cleaned everyday, we went through at least 2 containers of toilet bowl cleaner a week. I really never thought I would have to ask a child to stop cleaning so much but with Gift and Sarah it was a daily occurrence. At one point Gift was upset with Sarah because Sarah washed the clothes 2 days in a row and she wanted to do it by herself. I promise you I was not telling these girls to wash their clothes everyday and do so much cleaning, but I think they were having fun. Also, with Gift and Sarah came other girls as well. Since it was the holidays, a few of their friends would usually show up around 7:30 am ready to play. I was lucky if I was out of my pjs at that time but given my lovely Ugandan daughters had been up since 6 am, they were ready to go. For several weeks my house was filled with children. The came in, they played, they ate, cleaned, colored and left until the following day when we did it all over again. The few weeks they stayed with me were filled with a lot of laughing and joy. I wish I had written down other stories b/c there were so many funny things that happened while they were with me.

However, soon after the girls moved in we discovered that the place they had been staying was not a safe environment for kids. The 2 girls and 4 other children had been staying with a woman near the school and through a number of conversations we found out that the kids were not being given the best care. I absolutely loved having the girls stay at my place but I am not their mom and living with me was not a permanent situation. Once we the reality of the situation, we decided to remove all the children from the house and reunite them with their parents. Sarah went with her dad for the remainder of the holiday and will probably attend a different school soon. Gift and her brother, Roger, went with a friend of their mother’s for the holiday and will begin a new school this week. This was all played out over the course of 3-4 weeks and as you can imagine, left me extremely sad. I know it was the right decision to reunite the kids with their parents but I did not want them to leave and am still sad about it now.

I think that is the biggest update I have to share now. But I will add that when I first decided to move here and work in Nkumba I remember thinking the work I was set up to do would most likely change once I got here. There is very little one can do to prepare to live and work in Africa. You can come with one idea and very quickly be doing something completely different. And this has remained true. I came 10 months ago with a certain idea of what I would do but I can honestly say that everything is changing. I am not sure what the future holds but I am certain of God’s word and that is why I came in the first place. God clearly tells us to serve and love others. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor and to care for the orphans, widows and the poor so that is what I will do. I am not sure in what capacity this will happen but I know I need to stay focused on what God calls us all to do.

I am taking the month of September to pray about what God has next for me and will keep you all updated.