Helplessness

For one of my classes here we are required to submit to journal entries a week.  We had to write about a "beast" we are battling, and the best I chose was helplessness.  I have attached a part of the journal entry here. 

 
"I have never felt so helpless before in my life then how helpless I feel right now.  This was the exact thought going through my head as I lay helpless in my bed when I couldn’t sleep the other night. 
 Last Friday I received an email from a job at home that I didn’t get a position that I applied for at my summer camp... I was able to text my parents afterwards and face timed a best friend from college for a few as they tried to comfort me, but there is only so much they could do as they saw me cry over the screen.  I finally was able to move on and get through my day but then when I was lying in bed that night I was thinking about it all, and I had the realization that there nothing I could do and no one to talk to.  I was tempted to go into my sister’s room to lay in bed with her, but I didn’t want to wake her plus I knew she wouldn’t really understand why I was so upset.  All I wanted to do was be with friends from home, I contemplated calling someone from home but then realized I had no airtime.  I have no internet at my house, so no way of facebooking them.  I felt so trapped in my bedroom with absolutely no one to turn to.  I was completely alone and HELPLESS. 

God is telling me in these moments to turn towards Him to seek comfort and strength but I find that it is so hard.  I am realizing that I depend too much on earthly things rather than in Him.  I don’t think that it’s a bad thing to depend on earthly things, after all God put those things on this earth for you, but when you have grown to depend on those things, and they are taken away, you feel so helpless, and this is me now.  I have grown to turn towards my friends and family for comfort and strength and not the Lord.  Not getting a certain position at a camp that I already have an amazing job at is just a small incident in my life that God is asking me to seek Him.  I think in these next upcoming months a lot more things will happen that I will have to turn towards Him in the stillness and quietness of my bedroom at night time.  He has literally removed everything that I feel is so valuable and necessary to me in these moments so I can have all eyes on him...

 

Having an awesome support system when I get to school has been great.  I am now starting to make some great friends and have deeper relationships with them.  When I feel helpless, I turn towards them to learn on and receive support from because they understand exactly what I am going through since they are going through similar things.  But ultimately the one person that is helping me slay the beast of helplessness is God.  I know I am not seeking Him nearly as much as I should be, but this is a very challenging thing for me to do.  It’s hard for me to sit in a room alone quietly talking out loud and find comfort in that, but eventually I know that’s what has to happen in order for me to conquer this beast.  Today a friend from home asked me what I am learning about the Lord.  I told her that I am learning to listen to the Lord in new ways that I am used to.  It may be as simple as blessing me with a good night’s rest after a stressful day, and just being able to recognize that it’s God comforting me.  I know through this all I will hear God in new ways, and He will comfort me and give me strength!

 

Jinja!

This past week we had the opportunity to going rafting and bungee jumping! Of course I took full of advantage of this opportunity and it was amazing.  The weekend started with rafting all day Saturday on the Nile river.  There was 8 of us on the raft with our raft guide Roberto and we had a blast.  I think we went over 4 class four rapids and 4 class 5 rapids.  I have never gone rafting like that before so it was just so much fun and I couldn't believe we were going down the Nile River.  The Nile is by the most beautiful river I have ever seen before and there is so much history behind that river I was just in awe.  The next day we went bungee jumping and it was one of the scariest moments ever.  The jump was 144 feet drop and the hardest part wasn't jumping but just putting your arms down at the very start.  Once you are all tied up you hop to the edge and then you have to gain your balance.  You are suppose to make a huge dive out, but I think I barely stepped off the edge.  Its hard to jump when your feet are tied together.

Gulu

This weekend we took a 3 day trip to Gulu in Northern Uganda.  We left Thursday night and returned Saturday evening.  It was an 8 hour bus ride with many bumps and much dust along the way.  We stayed at guest houses attached to churches and ate some amazing food!  On our way we crossed over the Nile River and even got to see some Baboons on the side of the road. 

 

On our time at Gulu we visited 3 organizations: Gwed-g, the recreation project, and Amani.  I don’t know how much you know about the history of northern Uganda, I didn’t know much, but about 20 years ago a civil war broke out.  During this time many children were abducted by the LRA, lord’s resistance army, and taken from their families.  These children were then brainwashed and sent back in to their villages to kill family members or neighbors.  The age range of children taken was mostly 8-14.  Some children were freed, some escaped, and some killed.  This all ended in 2006.  I didn’t really know much of this other than in the last 2 years there was a huge push for Kony awareness in the States and I’ve heard a lot about invisible children. 

 

The recreation project and Amani were organizations targeted towards the victims of this war.  The recreation project does recreational based therapy mainly for the children born in to captivity and has now expanded towards youth groups, schools, juvenile delinquents, and organizations.  This site was started by a man from the US who was originally sent over here to do psycho therapy back in 2008.  The organization works a lot with one day interventions with hope of longer week long therapy sessions after they get more funding and a steady income.  Considering one of my favortie things to do at camp is rope courses with my girls, i really liked the mission and vision here.  In fact a lot of the courses were the same, whale watcher and spiders web. :) While at the site we got to hear about what he does, try out some of the rope courses, and even do the zipline. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other organization was Amani.  The women of Amani make purses, bags, and other crafts as a source of income.  We heard the testimonies of 4 women while being there.  These women were all abducted between the age of 10 and 12, were forced into marriage with the soldiers of the LRA, and then forced to have children.  Some even had gun shots wounds from being shot at when trying to escape.  Luckily all of these women survived by escaping or being freed after it ended.  A lot of families were weary of taking their children back due to the fact they thought their children were demoned possessed.  It was really hard to hear these stories but really eye opening.  It is one thing to hear about the injustice on the news, but then to hear it from the victim themselves, it’s a whole another level.  Also, the fact that these women have so much power and hope in God after being through so much is crazy to wrap my mind around. 

 

 

It was a great opportunity to travel this past weekend and see these different organizations and hear these different stories, but now I am just trying to wrap my mind around everything and really soak it all in.  But I thank God for allowing us to hear these stories and for giving strength to the women to tell their stories, because I am sure it is not easy and it truly is a gift to be able to listen to them.    

Starting to get settled in and living life!

These past 2 weeks have been full of adventures.  I have been getting into the swing of things with classes, my family, and hanging out with the community.  Its been really great to finally start to feel at home and have a routine. 

The other day walking home from school I met a group of girls all around the age of 11 and 12!  Being the age of some of my campers from summer I immediately fell in love with them.  We hung out like 4 times last week and one day I even painted their nails.  They would be waiting for me outside my house when I would get home and we just talked and hung out.  Its crazy to think about how similar 12 year olds are no matter where you are.  They like the same things and talk about the same things.  This really is one of my favorite ages so it has been a blast getting to hang with them.  Saturday night I had to say goodbye to them though because they all left for boarding school yesterday.  Its crazy to think that children here start boarding school at the age of 9!!

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This past weekend at school we celebrated sports day.  We played some soccer, ultimate Frisbee, some tug a war and even a egg race.  It was a great way to get to know some of the honors college students and work off some energy.  We took a break and had pineapple, watermelon, and passion fruit.  All amazing and delicious. 

We tried making a pyramid, it was a fail!

Me and innocent matched. It was pretty precious!

Last night we went to see a dance show called Ndere.  It had a whole bunch of dances from all the different tribes, it was a really cool experience to get to see everything. 

For one of my classes I have to do community involvement hours.  For this requirement I thought I would help at a caterer business.  This lady owns the business and its been a really cool thing to watch.  The last 2 weekends I have gone and helped out.  The first weekend we spent hours digging holes at her farm to plant banana trees, it was a tiring experience but really fun.  She has 2 sons my age but then the rest are older.  All her sons have families and jobs now but they still come back on the weekend to help their mom out witch I think is a really cool part of this culture.  This past weekend I spent about an hour cutting up onions and I learned how to make chapatti which is a really common food here. 

 Last weekend we dropped my brother Deo off at boarding school.  He is about to begin his final level of senior year school and I really am excited for him but it was sad to see him go. 

 

 

 The other day I did my first load of laundry.  Lets just say my sister thought it was necessary to redo all my clothes because I didn't do a good enough job!

 

Well this has been my life the last couple of weeks, its been going pretty well and I have been getting tan which I am enjoying.  I am really starting to get comfortable with the Americans and the Ugandans here so I am really excited about that.  We also have a lot of stuff planned in the upcoming month so that's gonna be a lot of fun too. 

 

Oh and also this past week, we went to go visit the Buganda parliament which was really cool.  We also visited the place where all the former kings and royalty is buried.  Since we don't have a king in the US it is a really interesting concept to learn about and that was a really cool field trip we got to go on!