Worship sunday

This is just a fun little comparison. On Sunday, in the morning service, my friend Ronnie participated in worship in our little church in Obulle.

Another friend, Karen, also participated in worship in an afternoon service in a church in Soroti town. Same idea, little bit different look and feel.



The pictures of the service Karen was in are dark and grainy because I was outside the church. To say it was standing room only would be an understatement.

Karen's blog is here if you want to hear more about Sunday from her perspective.
Ronnie writes here if you want to hear more about their ministry.

His faithfulness

 

Psalm 91:4

He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

 

 

 

We keep chickens here, mostly for dinner. There are often chicks running around and I think of this verse when we have a mother with a brood. A good mother hen is able to protect her chicks from hawks and even though a chick is technically able to feed itself from day one a good mother hen calls her babies when she finds food. She teaches them safe places to hide and shelters them under her wings. When it gets cold (falls below 70 degrees) they huddle up in her feathers.

God compares himself to that. 

Pumpkin Muffins

(A few weeks back I posted about a cooking challenge. This is a continuation of that)

I’ve started out cheating. But I guess if it is my game then I get to make the rules. So it is now a new rule that it has to be a smitten kitchen recipe but it doesn’t have to come from the cook book. I had a pumpkin and this last trip up to Karamoja I searched her whole book and the only pumpkin recipe is Marbled Pumpkin Gingersnap Tart which looks and sounds wonderful but I can’t even begin to list the things I don’t have up here from cream cheese to a tart pan. The rules of this game allow many generous substitutions as long as the intent of the recipe remains but for this one it would have been lost. Maybe in Soroti it will be possible. But back to the pumpkin. So I found a recipe on her online list for pumpkin muffins. I wrote it in the back of the book and decided it was perfect. Muffins can’t be cooked in my cooker so it became sweet bread loaf. But dang, after four hours of work it really hit the spot. And the upside is that it is a recipe that the ladies here can replicate. My afternoon plans fell through and earlier the ladies from the “women’s union bakery” had seen what I was attempting and so with the extra time and left over pumpkin they also made two loaves.

It really was a lot of work though. The pumpkin alone took two hours by the time I got the fire hot enough and boiled the pieces until soft and then cooled and shelled it. (Do you shell a pumpkin?  Seems like it. Wasn’t there a nursery rhyme character who “…put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well.”?)  And baking here is more time consuming too. Fires just don’t maintain heat the way an oven does and needs frequent tending to keep the coals hot enough. But as long as time allows it is usually worth the work because there isn’t anything else even comparably nice to eat here. 

Peaking at it in my "oven".

Esther giving it a try.
 

The women's union cooking theirs.

Roller Coaster

It really seems like these 6 weeks that I’ve been back in Uganda have been full of ups and downs. Mostly lot of gut wrenching downs with some sideways twists and turns that have left me feeling dizzy and nauseated. Within my close Soroti team we’ve had a lot of division, deceit, discouragement, and even depression that Satan has seemed to send in order to destroy the work that is being done. We have had 3 families leave Soroti and International Teams in the past 2 months.

My first trip back up to Karamoja was good in that it was easy to settle right back into my home up there and the ladies seemed genuinely excited to see me.  However, out in Nakayot there was anger and dependency all around. Their fatalistic attitude was overwhelming and discouraging. There has been next to no self-motivation and within moments of our arrival, they were demanding that we take care of their problems for them.

Twice in less than two months I’ve had to race to Kampala to try to get necessary medical care for team mates and been frustrated both with myself and lack of ability and with our lack of access to anything helpful closer than 7 hours away.

Honestly, today is probably one of those days I shouldn’t be allowed to blog because I’m feeling sick and tired. But that is how it is right now. Please pray for my team and our ministry.

Love of the Karamojung

I know that the Karamojung are a struggling, hurting people. I know they desperately need the gospel. I know that they are God’s children and He grieves that they don’t know Him. I know that this is the place I’m supposed to be serving. I know I’m supposed to love them. But some days all this knowing doesn’t help…

Yesterday, we had a sack of empty water bottles when leaving the village of Lomoruchabi. These are a hot commodity, mostly for the children, but the adults also like them for their homemade booze. One of the ladies I was with handed the sack to an adult and suggested she distribute them. She just tossed them over her shoulder into a group of gathered children where immediately a cloud of dust rose over the fight that broke out.  Have you seen those videos where meat is tossed into a calm, drifting school of fish and suddenly the water turns into froth as the piranha rip into the meat?  It was like that. As the dust settled, several of the biggest girls were laughing over their water bottles as they walked away and two little ones were laying on the ground crying. I’m not exaggerating.  To make matters worse, one of ones that had gotten hit and kicked to get his bottle was laying in the road as we were trying to drive out and so to get him to move they started throwing stones at him.  I know it is a dog eat dog world here but do none of them have compassion for each other?!

It makes me so angry! Why do they choose to behave as savages?

I find myself praying often lately that I may have love for them. 

Cookbooks

 Many of you know I love to cook. A few months back a friend blessed me with a classy cookbook.  It is unlike any I've had before. It isn't like my Mennonite book (I strongly recommend, More-With-Less) which is very practical here in Uganda. Nor is it like my very old fashioned Betty Crocker, printed in 1982 that also works well in this place where a "stick" of butter isn't happening. This new cookbook uses words like milanese, crème fraiche, and mandolin. It is far from economical or practical. But I love it. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is also now at the center of my newest challenge.  The friend who gave me the cookbook is in Karamoja nearly as often as I am lately and together we are going to attempt to do these delicious and elegant recipes over a fire in one of the remotest places on the planet. We'll be taking pictures and writing about it. And while I'm sure nothing we make will look remotely like the picture on the front of her book (or the ones on her blog) it should be comical if nothing else.

So, I'm setting off with my beautiful cookbook with nice glossy pictures all covered over in brown paper to protect it up in Karamoja. We'll see how this little adventure goes!

 

 This is a pictures of my cooking space. (I refuse to call it a kitchen because it also contains two nesting chickens, 50 liters of diesel,  and more creepy, crawly things than your wood shed)
 

Goals

We all have and like goals, right? We need goals. Exercising a few days a week. Checking things off of our todo lists. Our goals are endless. We know that we can't really succeed in school, business, sports, or most endeavors without purposefully applying ourselves to move forward. Yet what about goals in regards to our relationship with God ?

Is our spiritual goal to just survive this life, one day make it to heaven and along the way not lose our salvation? This seems to me like having an amazing racing bike (or insert your favorite thing here) and keeping it locked in the garage so that it doesn't get stolen and making it to the end of life still possessing it.

Earthquakes, termites and Karamoja

Termites ate holes through the kitchen shelves.

A few nights back at 10:22pm there was a rather large earthquake in Congo which translated to a rather small earthquake here in Uganda. At that time of night I'm usually asleep and even if I am awake I may not normally have felt it (many here didn't) but I was in bed and my sleeping situation is a bit precarious at the moment. While I was back in the states termites took over the house. I anticipated this as I've had termite problems since the moment I moved in and I packed clothes, books and papers all away in plastic.  But the termites still did a number on furniture and the legs of the bed were victimized. (They also consumed a kitchen towel, the bar of soap in the shower and part of a shoe.) On top of the instability of the termite damage the bed is also raised so that I can store supplies under it. I'm not sure why I'm writing all of this except to say that the earthquake felt really intense until I got down off the bed and then it seemed much more subtle and less dangerous.  I guess this is all just a little glimpse of life here.

Bed about 4 feet off the ground. Pay no mind to all the pillows on my bed. It also doubles as a couch.

On a completely different note I'm finally headed back up to Karamoja!! Monday I'll pack the truck and head up to check the condition of my other house. I'll be up about a week to catch up with people, resume language lessons and start to determine the next step in ministry.  Will you pray with me?

Congratulations Nick and Katie!

When I was 7, he was the adorable little baby I couldn't wait to see come home from the hospital. When we headed off to Kenya, he was 18 months old. I loved taking care of him, protecting him and carrying him around. He was old enough to play with and have fun with, but not yet old enough to be a pain. When I was 15, he was a pain. (But then, what isn't annoying to a 15-year-old?) When I was in college, I was kind of astonished to learn that he was one of the popular kids in high school. And as a young adult, much to my surprise, I learned he was becoming a mature, accomplished young man. Wait, who am I kidding?! I guess that part isn't true, Nick still isn't mature.

It was only after I bought a house and he wanted to live rent free (just kidding!) and he moved in with me that I really got to know him, and began to understand what all the rest of the people had seen in my dorky little brother. He's smart and he's funny, generous, well-read, and he doesn't really care what people think, and those are great characteristics. He never asked me to fix him up with single friends of mine which is good because that would have been really weird.
Good news was he found his own girlfriend. Or she found him. I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm really glad it did. She is a funny, organized, mature and a wonderful, godly woman. They got married two months ago, and I couldn't be happier for them.They bring out good really things in each other and I can't wait to see what God does in their lives.

Katie, you rock, I love you, please take care of my little brother. Nick, I love you too.  I wish you both the best of everything!

 

Kragt family mugging

I love that my family goes along with my mildly strange ideas. When I was home we took lots of pictures with coffee mugs and I turned them into printed coffee mugs for father's day but also did a collage that now hangs by my bed. Here is my cool family:

I love you and miss you guys!!

 

Bobby and Rachel

Its been an emotional week for me. I have some teammates that have had to leave the field suddenly yesterday, rather permanently and I find myself really grieving their loss on so many levels.  They had amazing ministries with runaways and orphan kids living on the streets.  With kids in the area schools. And with neighbor kids who are just around and want to play. I'll miss them and their kids a lot but I'm having a hard time identifying why I'm hurting so much.  Is it over the problems that forced them to leave?  The suddenness of their departure? The hole that it leaves in Team Beyond here in Soroti? That it seems like they aren't doing all that God has created them to do? I know in my head that the last one isn't true but it is hard not to feel it in my heart. I want to see their ministries continue. I want to just stop by and have dinner with them. But more than all of that I guess that in my first few months here, when I was at my loneliest, Rachel was there for me. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know, as this is the first time I'm admitting it.  But when I wasn't sure I was going to cut it here in Africa, I would go over and have dinner with them and Rachel was strangely impressed with me. I have no idea what she saw but it seemed like if she thought I was tough and able to handle it, then maybe I was. Maybe she could see something I couldn't.
Thanks Rachel for your encouragement and for knowing I could manage. I'm going to miss you so much!!

Seems a bit ugly

Two weeks since my last post. Arrived back in Uganda, had some wonderful friends pick me up at the airport and were willing to travel with me as tired and cranky as I was all the way back to Soroti that same day. Getting back in the grove and feeling like no time has passed. Was I really back in the States or did I just dream all of that?  I guess Soroti feels like home, feels normal, if I have been here two weeks already and have not had anything new or exciting to write about. But actually there are plenty of things to write about- just nothing that seems unusual any more.

• Saw a old, old man squatting in the road sharpening his machete on the asphalt.
• While running, Ronnie and I saw a dead dog being dragged down the road on the end of a rope.
• Had a meeting and was told it "starts at 8" but knew that actually means everyone leaves home to come to the office at 8 and the meeting will not likely start until after 9.
• Paid $80 (200,000/=) for a tank of fuel. Wait, I did that in the states too. But here at least I understand why I pay so much.  
• Cobras in teammates yards.

One of  Sliedrecht's Cobras

Obviously, it isn't that there aren't things to write about. I guess it is more that I'm avoiding sitting down and doing the processing that it takes to do a good post. The ugliness around me here is so obvious as I settle back in. After being out of it for a bit it is hitting me harder than before.

• A 5 month baby at church Sunday who looks like a little old lady because her HIV is very advanced.
• The kids as I walk down the street demanding that I give them something with hands out stretched.
• The dishonesty and deceit that is acceptable within the church.
• Unnecessary death and suffering because of lack of medical care, education and false beliefs.
• The filth and trash and dirt EVERYWHERE.
• The lack of care for the environment and their animals.
• The expectations that I can't meet.
• Having to say No all the time to requests for money, help, clothes, food.....

The dumpster next to my house finally got emptied, months after it had been overflowing with trash. After lifting it up to dump it, it was just set back into the mountain of trash that had come out. Even better that any more trash that people put in it will also come out because the dumpster is practically sitting on its side it has so much trash underneath.

I'm being reminded afresh this week that this is not home. Not here in Uganda but not in America either. My citizenship, where I REALLY belong, is heaven. Philippians 3:20. As long as I'm on this earth I'm a foreigner. Nothing will feel right, nothing will be as it should be until I'm really home. Where there will be no overflowing dumpsters to say the least.

Layovers....

Sitting here in the airport with more than 12 hours to fill so I'm going to hammer out a few of these last blogs that were started but not finished....

Try (Tri)

Last weekend I competed in a triathlon. I love to do these and five months ago when I signed up I hadn't swam much (living in a semi-arid country will do that) but I was running often and biked almost daily. Then I got back to Michigan and my new hobby became eating. I didn't run much and this snowy spring keep the bike in the garage. Thankfully a generous person loaned me a wet suit so I managed to at least start swimming but in the weeks leading up the race I wasn't super pleased with how my training was progressing. I figured my goal was simply to finish and be happy with that. And that remained my goal until the first 7 minutes of the race was underway. I was easily mid-pack in the second heat when the gun when off. However, I had the best swim of my life and as we made the final turn of the swim and headed the final 100m back to the beach I realize that I had passed all of my heat and caught the men in the heat ahead of me!! 

See those guys behind me?  All the men went into the water 10 minutes ahead the women!



That meant I was coming out of the water pretty dang close to the first female.  At that point I decided this was no longer a race I was aiming to just finish. So here it is a week later and I'm final able to stop taking Motrin because finally the joints have stopped aching so much.

(Anyone know why this picture distorts so badly every time I post it?)

But I was the 6th Female finisher (and missed 5th by less than 20 seconds) so the aches and pains don't seem so bad.

(8:16 swim, 2:58 T1, 43:10 bike, 0:38 T2, 24:47 run, 1:19:50 finish time) 

Waiting for my heat...



Traveling!!

I haven't smeared sunscreen on before 7 am in 3 months. I haven't killed, well, anything in 3 months- dinner or unwanted visitors. I haven't struggled to be anywhere or do anything "before dark" and as a matter of fact I don't know even exactly what time the sun set as I haven't seen one in 3 months.
But all that is about to change again as I head back in a few hours. I feel like I've got tons yet to do and every one of my suitcases is already too heavy. Please pray for grace from at the British Airways ticket counter in Chicago. Also please pray for traveling mercies. I leave Grand Rapids the morning of the 12th and won't be "home" until( hopefully!) the night of the 14th.

Weep, hope fight, pray

I know I need to write in this space because I haven't in weeks. But for a combination of reasons, I'm having a very hard time.  Right now I'm both without words for some of the things spinning in my head but also feeling so driven to process and write. 

I only know that I'm feeling a certain an enormous amount of heaviness in my heart for the hurt, incomplete, and broken in this world.  That heaviness leaves me in a place of contemplating the depth of our need for Him and for redemption. It also creates an internal battle and dialog that exhausts and frustrates.  It says "have hope - don't quit" while in the very next breath it tricks and whispers "it is hopeless".  It rears its head later to remind me "His mercies are new every morning"  while simultaneously saying "this nasty world is so full of ugliness, pain and sin". 

It weeps and hopes and fights and prays.


On the topic of suffering and pain, I read this a little bit ago ... 

"An athlete, in the midst of a record-breaking run, has never in his life been so fit and strong. Yet his pain-racked body may have never felt so weak. Likewise, in the midst of a spiritual trial, it is not uncommon to be stronger and yet feel weaker than ever before. And to fellow Christians you might seem hopeless. An ultra-marathon champion staggering up the final hill looks pathetic. A small child could do better. Anyone not understanding what this man has gone through would shrink from him in disgust. Only someone with all the facts would be awed by his stamina as he stumbles on."   -Grantley Morris

I know so many people, possibly even myself, that are stumbling on right now. I know that every step is so terribly painful. I feel frustrated and helpless and I only know to pray for God to show Himself to them in their dark places. 

I only know to weep, hope, fight, and pray. 

Answered Prayer

This furlough is wrapping up and it is official- I head back to Uganda June 12th. I've seen God answer so many prayers. The first of which is that I've got a work permit!! This poor thing already looks well used and I plan to wring every bit of usefulness out of it. Also,  I'm fully funded again! I've spent way too much time with my budget and calculator but I know that several more wonderful people and churches that have come onboard with support and God has shown clearly that He has had his hand in it.

After spending the past 3 months talking about what God is doing in Karamoja, I can't wait to get back out there and be a part of it again. I've even already started packing, though it is mostly because I've already accumulated a lot of "stuff" that I want to bring back and I know I don't have much weigh left. (I'm allowed two bags of 50 pounds each.  I estimate that I have less than 20 pounds of room left.)

Thanks everyone for your prayers and support!