"Behold My Hands"

Hi Everyone!
Happy Resurrection Sunday to you all!
Today has been quite a different Easter for me than any other year. I am 10,000 miles away from all my friends and family celebrating at church.. for the first time ever!
We have some friends that live in Entebbe (around 4 hours from where I live). They run an orphanage for children affected by HIV and AIDS. Since I have 4 days off of work for Easter, we thought it would be a cool idea for me to come visit them for a few days.. have a change of scenery.. get to visit some friends, and experience a small part of their ministry.
This morning I began the long (longer than four hours by public transportation) trek to the agreed meeting place with our friends. Turns out they had some major car trouble, and were about three hours later than expected. I was at a nice little coffee shop,  I had my Bible to read, and journal to write in.. so I didn't really mind.


I was sort of bummed to be spending Easter without my family, and without my church back home. But I have actually been very blessed today, in a way I didn't expect. It was strangely refreshing to have nothing to focus on but the SOLE meat of Easter. I was able to celebrate my King's victory over death just quietly with myself and the Lord. It was very peaceful, intimate, and beautiful.


While I sat and waited for them, I decided to have myself my own little Easter service, and read the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The story is so amazing to read.. it gave me chills. There was one part in particular that actually made me a bit emotional.
Thinking about the story from the disciples' point of view... Jesus spent three solid years with his disciples. No spring break, no summer vacation away from them. They were all together day in and day out for 1,095 days. They weren't just disciples, they were close, intimate friends. And not just socially intimate friends, but spiritually intimate friends...there is a big difference. They discussed the matters deepest and closest to the heart with each other. They prayed for each other and grew each other spiritually.Their bond was undoubtedly closer than any other human friendship that has ever existed. With that said, I can't IMAGINE all that went through their heads as they watched their beloved Jesus crucified on the cross. He was responsible for SO much growth, so much clarity, so much joy, and so much purpose in their lives... Now He's been killed? For no reason?? If you know the story, you know that they didn't understand why all those things were happening.. they didn't understand that that "Good" Friday would one day be considered a "good" day.. I can imagine how much hurt, sorrow, confusion, doubt,  and lack of purpose overwhelmed their spirits on that day.


But here's what I love.. Jesus, their adored teacher, mentor, and friend.... He came back. He rose from the dead! That is EVERY loved one's DREAM... To have a dear one die, then COME BACK just a few days later?!?! How amazing would that be?? I've heard so many people say  "I just wish they could come back." I have no doubts that the disciples said/ felt the same thing.. I can't imagine the stomach drop that happened when they found out it was true! He WAS back! He was alive! Their sorrow was no more! Confusion...yeah, confusion was still a little present.. But their beloved, familiar, Savior was with them once again.


My absolute FAVORITE part of this whole story, is Jesus's response to them when he appears before them. In their astonishment, He says "Behold my hands, touch my feet, feel my side. Touch me and be assured I am myself!" One of my  love languages is physical touch. I love to touch and be touched. I love the IDEA of touch. I love that He not only came back to them, not only did he explain, and give them understanding, but He invited them to touch Him. The intimacy was back. The familiarity of their closest friend had returned! Their precious Jesus- whom they thought they had lost- He was back, and better than ever. I really cannot imagine how they felt! How much joy and fulfillment must have been in their hearts! Their eyes were open, they knew their Savior, and they finally understood His sacrifice. Man.. how cool! I love the resurrection story for MANY reasons, but this is just one thing that popped out at me today!


Hope you all had/ are having a blessed Easter remembering/ celebrating our King's triumph so many years ago.
He is alive. Hallelujah. He lives!
Blessings
Gracie

Waswa

I've been going through ALL my pictures from the last few days, and this one came up.. all the other pictures are coming soon, but I just had to share this one.. This little boy's name is Waswa. He is 11 years old, and goes to the school (Kisega) that I work at on a regular basis. I have absolutely fallen in love with him. Just seeing his picture just now almost brought a tear to my eye. He has one of the sharpest minds you'll ever come across, but the ability of his limbs have not caught up to his mental ability. He can talk perfectly clear, but he can hardly use his arms or legs at all. He walks with a small metal walker, and has almost no motor skills in his hands at all. In the dictionary next to the word "sweetheart"...yep, I checked.. his picture is there. He is a little bit unsure, so he is quiet and shy, but man when he smiles, the earth starts melting. The Spring of Hope staff have started calling him my "boyfriend" because I gave him a part of my chapate (fried tortilla) once, and he's been my little pal ever since. Pray for Waswa with his abilities in school. It's very difficult for him to write because of his lack of motor skills. Also pray that his peers continue to encourage him.. Pray that people would realize his worth and value even though he can't play soccer, or run and play tag with them. Also pray that he realizes his OWN worth and value as a child of the King! He is truly a gem, and has completely, COMPLETELY stolen my heart. Pray for my Waswa!

Luganda

Living in a foreign country, most of the time you can't help but learn the native language.. In Uganda, the national language is called Luganda. It all sounds like complete gibberish to me! haha, but I HAVE learned a good amount of Luganda while I've been here, so I just thought I'd share some it with you guys!
(I totally had to google the spelling for most of these. They are hard to spell!)


Nedda- no, or "I don't want"
Yae- yes
Oli otya- how are you? 
bulungi- good
Weeraba -goodbye!
Weebale- Thank you (sounds like "wave-ah-lee)
Weebale nyo- Thank you so much
Kale- means "okay" or "you're welcome" (pronounced "kah-lay)
Wangi- what?
Ssebo - Sir
Nnyabo - ma'am
Maama- Mom
Taata- Dad
Nkwagala nyo- I love you so much
Ndi mumalirivu- I'm full
When greeting people, you say "Jebale ssebo" or "Jebale nnyabo", which means "well done".. then they will say "Kale, nnyabo. Weebale" Then you say "Kale" back.
Fuma- get out or go away
mpola mpola!- SLOW DOWN! (This one is used daily with the boda drivers ;)
Tugende- we go (used like "okay, I'm ready, let's go.)
Kotono- small
Katonda- God
Owange- excuse me
Selinye liange- that's not my name (I use this a lot in the market or with the boda bodas when people shout "Mzungu! Mzungu!" to get my attention. It gets very annoying! So I specifically asked someone to teach me how to yell back "THAT'S NOT MY NAME!" haha
Tambula- to walk- used when all the boda drivers in town try and get your attention to give you a ride. You just say "Nedda, ndi cotambula"- "No, I'm going to walk.)
Ndi kaloza- I'm thinking


the numbers (to 10) are:
emu, birri, satu, nya, tanu, mukaga, musanvu, munana, mwenda, kumi.. and yes, I did that without looking! I'm getting better! 
funny side note: the word "tomato" is "enyanya" .. so if you were to say "4 tomatoes" it would be "nya enyanya" .. say that 10 times fast! haha

Godliness with Contentment

This is just a small realization/ personal growth achievement, but I think it's worth posting about!


About a week after I arrived here, my mom sent me 2 "care packages" with some food, more conditioner (I was already running out), more skirts, dvd's, etc.. The post office said it would take 7-10 days to make it here. HAH. Boy they do NOT know what they're talking about! When talking to people here, they said it sometimes takes more than 2 months for the package to arrive here. This was disappointing to hear, but we were hoping and praying that it would make it here sooner! Last Saturday, I was out with my friend Jess all day, but I knew that Israel had gone to the post office that day. On the boda boda ride home, I said "Lord, can the packages just be there when I get home? Please? I really really really really would love to have this stuff before I leave here!" And the Lord said to me (super abruptly, I might add), "Well are you going to be content if they never come? Am I enough for you? Or are you just going to keep complaining until they come?" I then realized that I had been crossing my fingers waiting for these packages to come, thinking that when they came it would be easier to be content.. if I had some familiar food, more skirts so I didn't have to wear the same one every day, conditioner so my hair wasn't a rat's nest every day, etc.. And when the Lord said that to me, I just decided that it wasn't true, and said "absolutely, Lord.. you're enough for me, and I will just be content with your love no matter if they come or not" , and just changed my attitude about it.. and at that point, wasn't concerned about it anymore. Then lo and behold, when I walked in the door 10 minutes later, the first thing Teresha said was "look what's on the chair!" and there on the chair sat my two lovely packages from my mom. 


I was so in awe of the Lord! He knew my heart. Psalm 37 says that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, that He will give us the desires of our hearts. But we need to delight in HIM more than we delight in the desires in our hearts. I'm learning every day how the Lord is my everything. He's everything I need. I have to be reminded of it EVERY single day, because I'm a human, and I tend to complain more than I realize how much the Lord has given me. There's a song called "I'm Sustained" that has become sort of a theme song for my time here. It talks about how the Lord's love is so completely satisfying, we don't need anything else. There's nothing we need that He hasn't provided, and He can give us peace even in the toughest situations. The chorus is 
"Jesus, your love is enough. It's efficient for me. All I have needed you've given for free. Your love is enough, don't need man's applause, I know what I'm worth, I remember the cross. I'm sustained, Oh Lord. When your light surrounds me, the world goes away. I'm sustained, Oh Lord. My heart knows your love like it flows through my veins. Such peace and contentment, I found in your grace, I can't think why I ever complained. You love me what more could I want, I'm sustained."
I literally sing this song every single morning in my freezing cold shower that doesn't really leave me feeling clean. I'm not even kidding, every single morning, I just have to start singing this song- because otherwise I will go nuts, and be an extremely ugly person. It's really made the world of difference!


1 Timothy 6:6 
"But godliness with contentment is great gain."

Safari!!

My 2 days of safari was a very humbling experience for me. All of these amazing animals live and exist completely in spite of me, or anything that I've done. It is real live EXISTENCE! Untouched! The way it was originally created by the Lord! Life on the Savannah is so natural.. the food chain, the water sources, the migration cycles, etc.. I feel like in American society, almost everything is determined or managed by something or someone.. (was that vague enough for you? ;) What I mean is that humans don't "guide" the elephants to find shelter when there is a massive storm, we don't make a schedule for the watering hole "Okay, the zebras need to come at this time, and the lions at another time so the lions don't attack the zebras"..we don't make sure the water is safe for the animals to drink, we don't go in and cut out all the poisonous plants so the animals don't die.. Everything happens so naturally.. if the zebras show up to the water at the same time as a pack of lions, well, that's just how life goes! It's how God created it. The word "wild" seems so unruly, uncivilized, and unorganized.. But the REAL wild, where the wild animals live, it's the exact opposite! The LORD manages everything for them. Life for the animals in the wild happens exactly how it's supposed to- without human intervention!! What a crazy thought! I guess before the safari, I was just extremely egotistical, and had the notion that humans pretty much had a handle on everything in the world. It was so humbling and eye opening to see that that is SO not the case. And while I am an admitted, shameless control freak, this realization actually made me feel really at peace.. I love that there is a place where God is truly given all control. I think that kind of environment is the closest it comes to the original Garden, where God truly had total control.. but it's the place humans call the "wild"... strange, no?

Another thing that Jess and I talked about was how humbling it was to be able to hop back and forth in between realities. We got to go spend 4 days in a rather spoiled manner. Yes, we slept in pretty gross tents, but other than that, we were treated like royalty compared to how most of Uganda is treated. We had nice meals made for us, we had a big car to drive around, and we had nice cold water every day when we got back from driving. However, when we drove out of the gates at the end of our safari, I saw something that caught my eye. It was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just a boy pushing a bicycle with water jugs on it.. You see this EVERYWHERE in Uganda. It's a way of life. The children take their water jugs to the well, pump the water into their jugs, attach them to a bike because they're too heavy to carry, then take them home for their families to use. I saw women walking down the dirt roads with things on their heads, dirty children running around, etc... All things that I see every day in the village, but I was able to separate myself from that for 4 days. I didn't see any traditional Ugandan outfits, or fruit being sold on the side of the street. While compared to America's living standards, I was basically camping on my safari.. compared to Uganda, it was pretty plush! Around the safari camp site, and in my safari group were all white people.. hardly any Ugandans. I just remember thinking "oh, yes.. I'm going back into regular society now.. no more of this Mzungu [white person] society that I've been living in for the last 4 days." I had to switch my mindset. Seeing that boy with the water I thought "he doesn't even have the option to just switch over to that reality." He can't just hop out of his reality and just grab some bottles of water. He is always in that lifestyle. 24/7...and I wonder if he even KNOWS there's such a different reality than his (water filters, processed food, internet, etc)." I don't mind living in the Ugandan society that is more poor and dirty.. I usually don't have a problem with it. But I am so humbled by the fact that I have the OPTION to choose which one I want to exist in. The majority of people in the world don't have that luxury. It was definitely an eye opening realization

The Divine Romance

Hi Friends!
It has been soooo long since I have posted, and I am SO sorry! Changing schedules, late nights, and power outages have REALLY cramped my blogging style! haha
Well, there is a lot to talk about so I'm going to start with the stuff furthest back, then work my way up to the more current stuff. Enjoy!


Two weeks ago, I was amazingly blessed with the opportunity to go on a safari in Uganda. Coming here, I knew I would be able to go on a safari, but I was a little bummed knowing I would have to go by myself. Well, to say that the Lord "knows" me is an understatement, because not only did I get to go on a safari, but the Lord crossed my path with an amazing young lady named Jessica. The director of her organization (an orphanage) is very good friends with the director of my organization. We clicked instantly. The first 5 minutes we spent with each other (she came to help out at one of our clinics), I knew I was going to love her. She is SO filled with the Holy Spirit, you can basically taste it when you're around her. I loved spending time with her at our clinic, but I was bummed we weren't really going to be able to spend any more time together.. Then turns out she was wanting to go on a safari, but didn't have anyone to go with! OH I love the ways that the Lord works! I was so blessed to share the amazing experience of seeing God's creation with this fantastic girl, and to be able to TALK about and wonder at God's creation together was unforgettable.

Skipping backwards a bit to before the safari.. on my drive from Kampala to the rest camp in Murchison Falls.. Most drives in Uganda...ney..ALL drives in Uganda, no matter how long or how short, are very bumpy, and very loud. I was in a 9 passenger van with no shocks in the seats, and only the windows as air conditioning. Needless to say, it was a very LOUD 7 hour drive, and people didn't really get much talking in. While this was a tad of a bummer, I didn't really mind, because one of my favorite things to do here is just look out the windows and watch the untouched, beautiful landscape fly by me. My seating position in the van was not fortunate enough to be by a window that wasn't broken, so I didn't really get a whole lot of air blown on me. I mainly just tried to lean my head against the window and either watch outside or just close my eyes for distraction from the heat. At one point during the drive, I had my eyes closed and  my head against the window. All of a sudden a very soft, very light breeze blew over my face. Right when it hit my face, I just totally felt like it was the Holy Spirit trying to get my attention. It was so soft and so sweet. It felt so good! I opened my eyes, and the breeze stopped. KNOWING at that point it was the Lord, I said to the Lord "Lord! That felt so good!! Make it happen again!" And as clear as day, the Lord answered "Okay, Gracie.. Close your eyes." I closed them, and it happened again! That light, sweet breeze just came sweeping across my face. It was so soft, yet so powerful, I can't even describe it. It was just totally the presence of the Lord there with me. Growing up in the church and youth group, etc, I'd always heard the concept of the Lord being a romantic, and how he is so loving- like in a romantic way. I believed this was true, but I'd never actually experienced it before, and never really understood it.. not until that drive! The Lord really just spoke to me during that drive in a way I'd never heard before. He was so sweet, as if he was actually whispering the sweetest, most captivating things in my ear. He would say "Gracie, close your eyes...now open them." I would open them, and see the most breathtakingly beautiful scenes.. A lot of Uganda kind of looks the same.. a lot of green..random trees and random bushes everywhere.. But when I'd open my eyes, it was something completely different than I'd seen before..as if He put them there JUST for me to see.. as weird as that sounds. I've always loved the Lord, but that day I learned how to be IN love with the Lord.. and how much He is IN love with me.. which I had never realized before. It was the most REAL encounter I'd ever had with the Lord, and the amazing feeling. He's so charming! The creator of the universe is in to me!  haha.. something I'd never experienced before. The Lord really is so amazing how He reveals things to me differently at different times. He just captivated me in a way that had never happened before. I'm praying that every day he recaptures my heart, and takes my breath away. So far, it's worked! 

Stay tuned tomorrow for more about the safari! Most of it is written out, but I am so exhausted I can't finish it! It WILL be posted by tomorrow!! Stay tuned :)

Gracie

Kisega

Today I got to work in a school called Kisega. I was working with a woman named Erin who's been working in Uganda for almost a year now. Erin would teach a bible story to the kids, then I got to teach them a song. I taught the classic camp song "Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praise Ye the Lord." I split the class into two "teams" and told them it was a competition of who could sing the loudest. I did this with 5 different classes, and most of them (that really understood what was going on) LOVED it! They were singing at the VERY top of their lungs (and the headmaster said she could hear all the way from her office.. which to her, was a good thing :) I really had a fabulous time with the kids teaching them how to praise in MY language. Erin and I were talking about how much music and singing is a part of their culture, and how most of them probably went home today singing our song, and will remember it well for next time. I love that the Lord created something like music and singing that no matter the culture; is something ingrained in us. We were all made to praise the Lord. It may look different for each country, culture, or people group, but there is something about singing and clapping your hands that is universal. There is a natural part of us that wants to move to a rhythm sing a catchy melody (ABILITY to do these things is a whole different matter, but I think that the desire is there in everyone ;) As different as the cultures are, I think we have more similarities than we expect. Praise the Lord for our connections in Him!

 Saying "I can't hear you!! LOUDER!"