[ Uganda, Africa Mission Journal – Final Entry ]

HOUSTON, TX – MARCH 20, 2012 – My final note on our trip to Uganda is going to be a reflection on what I learned about myself and what I learned about the world God has given us to live in.

Let’s start with the least important. That would be me.

I am a very emotional person who forms a deep bond with people and places, but that emotion is not manifest in my demeanor. Outwardly I am an observer. When my father died – wow, almost eight years ago now – I was the one they called to make all the arrangements for his services in Arkansas where he lived. I rubbed my head and paced the floor and did all the things I needed to do. Inside, however, I was filled with loss, with the feeling I had never done enough for the man, that I had disappointed him too often. When we got to Hot Springs and I saw Dad, I hoped he knew how much I loved him. That’s kind of the way it was with the orphans at Mashah. I wanted to grab every one of them as they ran by and put them on my knee and kiss them and love them, but I sat on the steps of one of their houses and watched them. Instead they ran into the arms of those that reached out for them and giggled at their caresses. But when they did come to me, curious, as all children are, and I held them in my arms, I hoped they felt the love that had been there for them all along.

I am also a pretty organized person, but not a rigid one. I like things to be the way I like them to be. But when they’re not, that’s okay, too. I kind of let things slide when they don’t happen the way they were supposed to happen. I may grouse about it, but in the end the way things are at any given moment are just the way they are. So, I’m always reorganizing my plan based on the ever-changing circumstances. I think this was an essential attitude in Uganda, from losing our bags to deciding and then changing what we did every day. It was essential because we were on African time. African time means if a school said they were bringing kids to play at 10 a.m., it really meant they would start getting the kids ready to come at ten and they would be there sometime around eleven, maybe later. If we were going to work on the playground at 7:30, we’d get there sometime before ten. It is just a rhythm of the place, a rhythm I actually like quite a lot. It says, “Today we will do what we can do today, and tomorrow we will begin again.”

Now let’s talk about the world God gave us, and what we’ve done with it.

We’ve perverted it. I think that’s the simplest way to put it. We have given precedence to what we can get over what our souls can give. We have made self-worth a monetary term. And we have forgotten that happiness is never found in something we can hold with our hands. What I saw last week was happiness abounding. Was it a happiness of ignorance because they did not know of all the great things they might could have? When they learned other people had cars and electricity and fresh water and they didn’t, would they never be happy again? No, happiness does not come from such things. And that’s the perversion; we think it does. Happiness is the peace that passes understanding whatever the circumstance may be. Just read Philippians 4, and then read it again. Read it in the King James. Read it in the NIV. Read it in the New American Standard. Let it be a light unto your soul. Because happiness is what we all have sought since the first man put pen to paper, and it can only be found in one place.

What it all means is this. I am convinced that our lives are wasted when we pursue our selves and not the good of others. Please God, do not allow me to waste mine any more.

[ Uganda, Africa Mission Journal – Entry 8 ]

JINJA, UGANDA – MARCH 16, 2012 – In golf they call Saturday “Moving Day”. For us, moving day was Thursday. Jill and I spent our first night in Uganda in one of the outer bungalows, a giant round room with a king size bed in the middle. Sweet. They next day we were quickly moved to one of the regular cottages. Still sweet. We stayed in that room three nights. In the meantime, The Haven rented out our rooms, which Loren had booked for the entire week, to a group on photo safari for Thursday and Friday. Not so sweet.

We had a choice, we could sleep in tents for those two nights in a field out by the bungalows and move back into our rooms on Friday or we could go elsewhere. Luckily Jill’s bags finally arrived Wednesday afternoon while we were in the village and the group decided to move into town to Surgio’s Pizzeria and Guest House. Loren had stayed there before and on the way into the market on Wednesday, the guys checked it out. They had room for all of us and the place looked great. The stone-fired pizza was even better. It was just past the dam where the Nile begins to flow out of Lake Victoria in Jinja, the largest city in eastern Uganda. It was a little farther away from Wakisi, but it was all on paved roads (or what passes for paved roads here), no dirt paths.

That meant, even though we had just gotten Jill’s luggage, there was no unpacking Wednesday night. Jill just went through her bag to get the stuff she needed. The rest stayed right where it was.

[Okay, this is an aside about Jill. So Jill if you’re reading, skip this paragraph. After a few panicky moments when we realized the bags weren’t there and the next morning when we still didn’t know if they had found our bags or if they were coming at all, Jill was remarkable. She had one extra pair of pants and one extra t-shirt in her carry-on bag. Every morning she would wash what she wore the day before in the sink with a packet of Tide she got from Beth, and wear the other change of clothes. Thursday morning was the first day she could wear something new.]

As Jill went through the bag she realized there wasn’t much there she really needed after all. But there was a week’s worth of clothes in there that were going to waste. Maybe we should just stay another week. Just kidding Grandma and PopPop, and Mimi.

Thursday was moving day at the village, too, finishing the playground and bringing in the first kids to play there. It was a long, luscious, hard, satisfying day. And at the end of it, the entire group’s bags were on a flatbed truck headed for Jinja to Surgio’s. We followed them in the van and I can’t be sure, but I think Jill watched closely to make sure her new bright orange bags (bright orange so we would be sure to see them at baggage claim) didn’t come flying out. They didn’t. We all arrived safely at Surgio’s, people and bags.

The next day we were back at the village for the second day of the Grand Opening of the Mashah Community Playground. We had over 150 students from two different schools, but it was a much more orderly day. That doesn’t mean there were any fewer smiles or hugs or squeals of delight on the swings. It just means we had learned from our mistakes from the day before. We got back to Jinja in the early afternoon; the Smiths had to get ready for their flights back to Houston.

Jill and I spent the last few hours of the day being tourists, shopping for souvenirs. We got Grace a…and Troy some…Nope, we want it to be a surprise. Pastor Mathias even took us on a little sight seeing tour. We saw the Port of Jinja (a boat dock), the charcoal distribution center (dozens of people putting charcoal in hundreds of huge bags to be sold as fuel for cooking fires and the like), and Jinja’s only golf course. It was right on Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile.

There were no golfers, and storks were making themselves at home on the fairways, but the yellow flag on the final green was rustling in the wind. Must be moving day.

[ Uganda, Africa Mission Journal – Entry 7 ]

JINJA, UGANDA – MARCH 15, 2012 – The first half of the day was all work. The second half, all play. Jack is not a dull boy.

We got to the village early to finish the playground. We still had a lot of work to do, and the children were coming at two. Everyone was working hard right through the morning and into the early afternoon. I didn’t see how we were going to finish in time. The older children from Peter’s Primary School were scheduled to come at two o’clock. As two rolled around, the sand arrived and the Bobcat leveled the playground area. The kids were late, but it gave us time to finish. African time, we’ve learned, is approximate and the children came walking up the path in their school uniforms just before three.

We had lots of activities planned for them – games, crafts, snacks, and, of course, the playground. Jill and I were in charge of the snacks, fresh, bottled water and cookies. We greeted the kids with hugs and love, told them what we had planned for them, and separated them into groups for each activity. After we had served our first group of kids their snack, which they received with a bow or a curtsey and a thank you, a second wave of children arrived on a bus from the school. It was that second wave that made our well ordered plan more of a guideline. The games became an impromptu soccer match, the lines for the temporary tattoos and friendship bracelets became burgeoning groups trying to be next, and the snack bar was inundated with thirsty children. There was never not a line for another cup of water. Most of them wanted more cookies, too, but the crumbs at the corners of their mouths told us they had already had their snack.

But everyone was having fun, even the overtaxed Elevare crew, and the smiles on the children’s faces as they ran through the playground to climb the rock wall or swing or attempt the monkey bars made it all a joyous time. We asked the kids before the festivities started if they had ever been on a swing set before. None of them had. So, they lined up to take their turns in the swings, their eyes wide with wonder. They all had the kind of smiles only children have. And the squeals of exhilaration as they flew into the air and back again lifted up through the village.

I finally got a chance to escape the snack stand (sorry Jill, but they asked me to go over there) and watch the children play. When I got there one of the boys was standing off from the others. I went up to him and asked if he wanted to swing. He nodded that he did, so I held his hand and led him over to one the lines for the swings.

“You can go next, after this girl,” I told him. He nodded quietly, but he was nervous.

Before his turn, he pulled on my arm and I bent down to listen to him whisper, “I don’t know how to do it.”

“That’s okay,” I whispered back, “I’ll help you.”

I gave him a little push and in the seconds it took for his legs to reach up to the sky and tuck back under him as he cam back down, he was an expert. And I could tell he thought he was flying from the shear look of amazement on his face.