Fantasticness and Frustrations in Uganda

7-1-12
I think today was a turning point for me; at least it felt that way. I realized it when I was watching The Vampire Diaries in the living room (don’t judge me, there’s very limited TV choices in Uganda). Anyway, this morning I took a “mental health day”. Instead of going into town with the rest of my roommates and going to church and then to work I decided to take the day off—on the schedule today and tomorrow are actually supposed to be my days of anyway, but as of last night I was planning on going in today. But anyway, back to the point. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to go to church and hear the message, but God provided a message for me to hear! There’s a channel in Uganda that plays Christian shows and sermons sometimes, and this morning when I got up a pastor named Joseph Prince was on. I had watched him once before a couple weeks ago and really enjoyed it. His message today was exactly what I needed. He was talking about God’s finished work, and he was referencing a lot from the book of Hebrews. I didn’t have my journal with me while I was watching the sermon, but I journaled about 5 pages of things I remembered afterwards. There were several take-aways I got from this morning that I journaled about and I’m going to touch on them in this blog.
1. Do you fight for victory or from victory?

If we fight for victory we will lose. If we do this we aren’t believing that Christ already won the victory for us when He died on the cross. If we live from victor, believing in Christ’s victory, our attitude and lives will look different. We’re called to live like we have victory through Christ (because we do)—we need to trust and really believe this truth and live it out. We don’t need to put human effort into it.
2. Have a “throne attitude”

The Bible says that Jesus sits at the right hand of The Father and waits for His enemies to become His footstool. He sits because His work is finished. That doesn’t mean He doesn’t have enemies, but He knows He has victory over all of His enemies and all He has to do is wait for them to come under His feet. We are called to have this same attitude. When we feel attacked we must trust and believe the truth that we (who are children of God) are seated with Christ—that since we’ve accepted Christ into our hearts and He is in us we have victory (because Christ has victory), and our enemies will become out footstool. If we have an attitude of victory in times of attack or trial things seem…less hopeless.
3. We don’t need to fight Satan because he’s already defeated

When we hear/feel Satan saying “come on, fight with me. If you think you and your God can win why don’t you prove it” our response shouldn’t be “Okay, I’ll show you how strong God is”. Our response should be, “Why? You are already defeated.” (then walk away in a cool, Fonzy-type way). We don’t need to fight or prove anything to Satan—the battle is already won. Jesus Christ defeated him, and Christ is in us.
4. Believe in God’s finished work

The word “flesh” is the Bible usually refers to human effort. God is not pleased with the flesh in these terms. Our effort is useless. We need to live in belief/rest, not unbelief/unrest. I need to believe that God is working on the hearts of loved ones, and treat them as if God has already fulfilled my prayers for them. I need to believe in His provisions for finances, and live as if my debt (yeah students loans) is paid—because it is, He sees the provision already. I need to believe that He is working on/changing my heart and live as a new creation.
5. Sow seeds

We harvest what we sow. If we don’t like the harvest we have now, we need to sow different seeds. When we are jealous of other peoples’ harvests we forget that we’re not seeing the sowing they did, we’re only seeing the results of it. We must sow the seeds that we want to harvest.
6. We’re still righteous even when we sin

Just because we follow Christ doesn’t mean we don’t ever sin again. But even when we sin we are still righteous, and God still sees us as righteous. To use an analogy—we went from caterpillars to butterflies when God called us to Him, when we sin we don’t turn back into caterpillars—salvation and the transformation that goes along with it is a one-time thing. The more we realize we are righteous in the sight of God even when we sin, the less we want to sin. We must confess and repent, yes, but we must also move on from that sin and lean in on God and ask/trust Him to help us and change us, believing that we have victory over that area of sin through Christ. Since we have victory over sin we are no longer slaves to sin—so we should live a life in accordance with that.

Some of you may not understand a lot of that, or it might just seem really crazy, but that’s ok. I was hoping for a great message today and I got one. I feel like I have a renewed perspective on life, I feel refreshed and energized. I feel whole and solid, like I was missing a few screws or something. This morning I read the first chapter in Colossians, and verse 17 says, “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” It’s nice knowing that Jesus is holding me together and keeping me whole and solid—it’s a good feeling.
I just got done talking with my parents on the phone. It’s so nice being able to talk with them for a little while to get caught up on life and catch them up with my life here. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve been in Uganda, which seems so crazy. Only two months left to go…I wonder how fast that’s going to fly by. But for now I’m just going to live one day at a time and savor each moment I have left in Uganda. I just found out that tomorrow a bunch of my toddlers are going to be moved to a different babies home in Suubi—I’m debating whether or not I should go in tomorrow to say goodbye to them.

7-3-12
Yesterday I did go to Suubi with the toddlers to say goodbye. It was pretty hard saying goodbye to my little girl Sonia…she’s the cutest most nearly perfect baby on this planet. I fell in love with her about a week ago, and it was hard having to give her to one of the Suubi nannies and walk away, not knowing if I’d ever see her again. Now that all the toddlers are gone now, however, it does give me a chance to fall in love with some other babies in Kampala…actually I took care of one today that was around 3 months old that melted my heart. I can’t remember her name at the moment, but she is ADORABLE!! We’ve also gotten a few new roommates in the past couple of days. Candice and Cara are sisters from Missisippi, Cara is going into her senior year of high school and Candice with be starting her second year in college. Anna and Rosemary are a mother daughter duo from New Zealand, Anna is 23 and it’s their first time in Africa. Raphael is going into his junior year of high school, and him and his sister (Camila) are originally from Bolivia, but moved to the states 6 years ago. And last but not least, Annette—a married woman with 4 grown children who is also from New Zealand. It’s cool to have such a wide range of people from such different backgrounds; I really get to learn a lot from them. Anna is still here too of course, which is really great. I like having a bit of consistency here in Uganda. Tonight for dinner Rosemary, Anna and Annette made beans on toast. I’ve decided that I need to try that once I get back in the States. It’s just a piece or two of toast with baked beans on it, and then you sprinkle shredded cheese on top…sounds pretty good to me. I’ve also started getting cravings for American food I usually never eat back home, mainly corndogs. I have no idea why, but a corndog sounds SO good right now. Maybe it’s because tomorrow is the 4^th of July, I don’t know. I’m a bit sad that I won’t be seeing any fireworks tomorrow, but when I get home maybe I’ll have to buy sparklers or something to make up for it. Later this week I’m going to e-mail the head of the volunteers department at Watoto and request to be moved to Gulu for the month of August, I’d really like to start working with the child soldiers sometime soon! I’ve also started looking at safaris to do in Uganda. Another volunteer (Rebecca) and I were thinking of doing one in August, I just don’t know if I’ll have enough money or not. I would LOVE to do one, but we’ll see how much money I have left once August rolls around; I have over $600US right now so hopefully that will be enough. If not, well I guess living out my dream of helping little African babies will do J

7-6-12
Yesterday was my day off, and it was much needed. I didn’t do anything really, it was fantastic! And tomorrow I have another day off…sweet! I’ll probably do laundry and update my blog and add photos, and probably do the video of the tour of the house. Today Anna and I left work after lunch to go do some shopping downtown. We looked at clothes and souvenirs and also bought quite a few movies. The movies here are all bootlegged, and they’re SUPER cheap; Anna got all 7 seasons of How I Met Your Mother for less than $4US! I bought a couple as well, and we’re probably going to have a movie night tonight.
Today I worked with the special needs room again; they’re stealing my heart, in a good way J. There aren’t a lot of babies in there, but all the ones that are in there are boys and I love them. I think God is really giving me a heart and a passion for the kids with special needs here; I never was really interested or felt confident working with kids with special needs before, but I really enjoy hanging out with them here. I think part of my heart for them comes from how I see them being treated at Watoto; compared with the other babies in the facility I feel like the kids with special needs are often times seen as a burden even though I’ve never heard anyone say that or act negatively towards them. They don’t ever get toys to play with, and people rarely just sit and talk with them. I changed that today—I brought them toys to stimulate them and to give them something to do rather than sit around looking at the walls, and I just sat and talked and played with them. Their faces lit up and it made my heart happy to see the smiles on their faces and the ways their eyes had life in them.
There are five boys total in the special needs room at the moment, and 3 in particular have melted my heart: Elisha, Christian, and Justin. Elisha has a seizure disorder and cerebral palsy, Christian isn’t able to eat via mouth without choking so he has a feeding tube (like all the babies with special needs) and he hasn’t been gaining weight and no one can figure out why, and Justin…I’m not quite sure what Justin’s issues are, but I think he has a shunt in his head for some reason, but the good news is he has been putting on weight recently. A lot of the babies with special needs experience pain throughout the day for one reason or another, and it just breaks my heart to see that and not being able to do anything to help. Today during nap time Justin kept tensing his whole body and crying because of pain (I’m not sure if it was gas or something to do with the shunt) but I just stood by his crib, held his little hand and stroked his hand and his forehead until he dozed off. He kept waking up on and off after that from the pain and cried for a little while. It’s so frustrating at times seeing those babies and thinking about the kind of care/treatment they would be given in a Western country, but knowing that they will most likely be in Uganda for their entire lives with inferior care. I recently found out that even though Watoto babies are not allowed to be adopted, Watoto is open to the idea of the babies with special needs being adopted so that they can obtain proper care and treatment. I’m considering how difficult it would be to bring Justin home with me…hmm J. I just wish there was something I could do to help them and make their situation better; I’ve been SO blessed in my life, I feel guilty for having it so easy while these poor little babies struggle every day.  

7-7-12
Today I tried to upload the video tour of the Buziga house to my blog, but after over 3 hours of waiting it still wasn’t loaded, so I decided to skip it for now. Photos have also been taking a long time to load and I’m not really sure why. It may be because my internet time is so low, but I’m not really sure, so I may just wait until I refill my internet stick before I add anymore photos or videos.
Today was quite a productive yet relaxing day. I washed my bedding and towel, and also did a load of dish towels. I cleaned up a bit around the house (because I knew I’d be taking a video of it later on). I also got some groceries and even had time to watch a movie and have a quiet time on the balcony. It was a good day. Oh and I made a budget for the rest of my time here in Uganda. I’ve budgeted my money for filling my internet and phone, food, souvenirs, transportation, and miscellaneous things, I even budgeted a safari trip in there, but I’m not 100% sure I’m going to do that yet even though I really want to. Tomorrow I, Cara, and Candice are going in the early shift for work tomorrow (7-1), it’s a half day on the weekends. Then we’re going to stop at SOHO, a restaurant near the Babies Home, and then head to church at 3pm. It should be a pretty long day, but since Monday I have ANOTHER day off I don’t really mind J.
I sent Jonathan (the head of the Watoto volunteer department) an e-mail the other day expressing my interest in going to Gulu and why I want to go. Hopefully I’ll be able to be in Gulu my last month, the girls that moved there from here just a couple weeks ago have nothing but good things to say about it. But I ultimately need to be prepared for going somewhere other than Gulu, even for the possibility of staying in Kampala. I need to remember that no matter what I want God’s plan for me may not be exactly what I want. I can’t believe I’m been in Uganda for a whole month (actually one month and 2 days if I’m getting technical). Time here is flying by, so much more now that I’m more comfortable being here in Uganda. I’m trying not to think too much about the time I have left or what it’s going to be like once I get home, or all the things I have to do once I get back to the States. I really want to focus on my time here, one day and moment at a time.