The Final Hurrah!

Let me just tell you that I have no idea if you will be able to read this post because I don’t know if I’ll have internet connection ever again in Uganda. The internet has been hardly working since our return from rural home stay.
Well this past weekend our little IMME group took its last trip. We will be leaving Uganda one month from today, which is hard to believe. This weekend, we went to Luweero which is about as far North as we are allowed to go in Uganda and is specifically an area with a large HIV/AIDS rate. Before I get into the details about the weekend I must start the weekend from Thursday.
On Thursday (as many of you know this is lunch with Stella day) my African Traditional Religions class went on a last minute field trip to the Uganda Martyrs Shrine. This was the place that one of the Kabakas decided to burn alive about 35 Christians sparking a region wide killing of the Christians. We didn’t spend very much time there but it was interesting I suppose. As soon as we got home Kiersten and I headed out for lunch. This week we brought with us Justin Lane. I told him that I knew Faith would be terrified. It was a great lunch as I was right Faith screamed whenever she was in the same room as Justin. She was his friend for about fifteen seconds when he broke out some chocolate, but as soon as that was gone she started to cry.
On Friday the ATR class went on another field trip to a Muslim mosque where we talked to some people about Islam and it was really interesting. I learned a lot. Here is where I will enter my toilet trauma stories for the weekend. Upon exciting the toilet at this Muslim mosque one of my biggest fears came true. My skirt was tucked into the back of my underwear. No worries not like I was in a conservative environment or anything. Luckily I don’t believe anyone saw as I caught it pretty early. Later that day I was coming out of the toilet at UCU and a girl started yelling to Kiersten. She looked behind me and died laughing as again I was walking around with my skirt tucked into my underwear. My whole right back side was exposed as I walked by classrooms. I was laughing too hard to be embarrassed. As soon as we got back IMME left for our trip. It was only a three hour drive. I decided that when I finally get home I’m going to be a master at sitting in the car! No problem there! It seems the average driving time here is 6 hours (we have gone for as many as 18) but the roads are always incredibly bumpy. When we got to Luweero we met with an Anglican Bishop who runs the Luweero diocese as well as a couple in the United States, in California and Arizona. He was interesting and served us popcorn and juice and hot chocolate and fried cassava.
On Saturday the USE group came and met us at a house that supplies families with AIDS. We met about four or five families they work with. One was headed by the oldest girl. She was 17 and the family had seven members, all of which had AIDS except for the head. Another family was a young girl who had no shoulder blades and whose grandmother would place on the side of the road each morning in hopes she would get run over by a boda. Luckily the older sister (maybe about 7 or 8 at the time) would go and grab her and drag her to a safe place. The day was really fun. We lead tons of songs and played tons of games. I started holding this little boy (of course only half clothed as most of the children here are) and he fell asleep in my arms. It was so perfect. The house looks forward to our coming each semester as we offer a glimpse of joy into lives that would otherwise not look so joyful. I was wishing my mom were there to teach us some fun games with the parachute as that was a favorite toy of the children!
Later that night a Catholic priest came and met with us and told us of the work his parish is doing in the community. I really appreciated his because he spoke to us from his heart in a real and meaningful way. He was asked the question of how does he fight getting burned out and quite honestly he answered, “I don’t know.” He wasn’t afraid to ask the question of why isn’t God fair or to admit that there are pains in life. For a country so often full of a prosperity gospel this Father was very refreshing. On Sunday morning we went to his church. It was huge and beautiful as Catholic churches so often are, and the choir sang like angels. Of course I didn’t understand anything going on as it wasn’t in my language, but I felt a certain assimilation with the early church goers who had to listen to mass in Latin. Thank you Martin Luther.
As for the rest of my time here my “to do” list is as follows:
- Finish a paper integrating African Traditional Religions, Islam, and Christianity
- Continue to beat Justin Lane in any game possible
- Give an hour presentation on Christianity in Uganda, specifically the East African Revival and write a paper on that… (don’t worry it is a group project)
- Bother Stella as much as possible
- Write a reflective paper on the role of women in missions specifically relating to my life
- Convince Stella to name her first born daughter Kjersten
- Do a project connecting the use of the New Testament in Africa to teenage girls at Fair Haven Camps
- Conquer rafting the Nile River at the height of the rainy season
- Learn how to cook chapatti
- Write a 6 page history research paper on a topic the professor has yet to assign
- Convince Shannon to name her first born daughter Kjersten
- Write a capstone paper summing up my entire experience in Uganda. With academic sources.
- Eat as much pineapple as possible
- Write two missions journals
- Live the moments
- Register for classes and find a place to live next year (pretty easy considering we have no internet connection)
- Make a multimedia presentation
- Continue being victorious in Rook against Justin Struik and Justin Lane
- Be able to walk up the big hill without breathing hard.
That’s all I have! I have a final prayer request… USP is leading worship next Monday and doing the lifehouse skit that I took part in at camp. It is a powerful skit that I’m excited about sharing, but the spiritual warfare is intense! So I would love your prayers for strength and that the Holy Spirit would be moving in powerful ways. Much love and I’ll be home for Christmas…