uganda: week seven.

i can hardly believe it. this is my last weekly update. i have five more days in uganda but by the time it comes for another update i will be back in the good ol’ USA. i can hardly put this experience in words. thankfully, i have many pictures and videos that will hopefully tell the stories for me upon my return. i thought about doing another weekly highlights list but the more i thought about it, the more i wanted to share things that i never want to forget. 

• absolutely for a fact number one on my “please don’t forget” list is the joy that swells in my heart when i walk past the toddler house and a certain little boy screams “AUNTIE HANNAH BETH” and runs full-force to me. and when he jumps into my arms and kisses my cheek with a big “mwah” and then looks at me with the biggest eyes and waits for me to say “i love you bugaboo” to which he replies “i love you my auntie hannah beth”. be still my heart. it is always the brightest spot in my day.
• second on my list to not forget would be the walk from house 1 to the guesthouse. to be honest, it’s a pretty short walk and could probably be done in 3 minutes. but when you walk past all of the kids houses’ to get to yours the walk turns into a 30 minute affair. you are constantly stopped to hug children and hear about their day and ask what they are eating for dinner and what they learned in school that day. it is the greatest to walk between houses greeting everyone on the porches. 
• i never want to forget what it is like to worship here. worship here is so free. i don’t feel like i have to perform or act a certain way. and the songs here are top notch. we sing songs in church like “jesus is the winner-man and satan is the loser-man” and “shake that body that jesus gave you. shake that body in the name of the lord.” absolutely. i can shake my body in the name of the lord. 
• i also never want to forget the level of contentment that is here among so many people. in america, i find myself getting caught up in petty desires when i need to remember how blessed i am. i NEVER have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or if i will have a good pair of shoes or if the power and water will be on that night. i always have more than enough and yet i struggle with being content. there is such a peace in being with people that are satisfied in what the lord has blessed them with. 
• i definitely don’t want to forget working in the office. there were so many moments of laughter and stories among the interns and employees that are normally in the office. 
• i also don’t want to forget what it is like to be prayed for here. in sunday school today, some of my kids thanked me for my time here and that i would give time to come teach them. and then in church, the interns were asked to come forward and people came and surrounded us and prayed for us as we journey back to america this week. the phrase i want to remember and pray forever is “just as they were given to us for a time, we give them back to you and ask that you would direct their steps.” yes lord. make it so.

so many more things i don’t want to forget: laughter, stories, quotes. this experience will stay on my heart forever. i am excited to come back but it comes with a price on my heart. i’m coming back a different person than when i left. and i wouldn’t want it any other way. see you in five days, america. 

uganda: week six.

two weeks from today. two weeks from today, i will be home in america. i cannot believe time has gone by this quickly. at the beginning, looking at eight weeks away from my family, i thought i would be in uganda forever. but now that we are at only two weeks left, only fourteen days, i am really sad it’s coming to an end. it’s a mix of emotions actually because i never want to leave these kids and the work happening here but i miss my family and friends back home. by realizing that my time left here is so short, i was given more motivation to experience a lot this week. i want my last days here to be full and this week did not disappoint. so here you have it; the week six highlights!

• this past sunday was the world cup final. now i don’t know how you watched the final game. to be honest, if i had been in america, i probably wouldn’t have even watched the game or i would have gone to a party with lots of food and a huge TV. my experience here in uganda has obviously been a little different. to watch the world cup final, a bunch of the missionaries, some of their kids, and the interns drove about ten minutes away to the village of kikube to watch the game at one of the teachers’ house. now this house is about 9 feet by 11 feet. smaller even than my room in america. and we watched on a maybe 24 inch TV. at one point, i looked around the room and counted 17 of us total but no one complained or argued. it was so great to be together and have a place to even watch the world cup. there is such a blessing in the people around you being content with what they have.
• on monday, i went into jinja children’s hospital with our american nurse here to observe her. this week was her last week at the ugandan hospital so that she could obtain her ugandan nursing license. i got to observe in a new ward that day but she took me on a tour around the entire hospital. i left feeling a little “traumatized” in her words. i don’t think i could explain to you how heartbreaking the medical system is here. and the entire time i was there, i just kept hoping and praying that the people i have met here and fallen in love with don’t use the type of care i saw that day. she also took me to jinja main hospital where she worked for four weeks. same heartbreaking story, just this time with adults. it was definitely a hard day to process.
• i also learned how to drive the ATV on monday! i got back from the hospital and two of the GSF guys knew i had been dying to learn so they took me around campus! it was great to mark one of the first things off my african bucket list.
• on tuesday, a bunch of us climbed the water tower! it was an amazing view!! you can pretty much see all of campus from the tower. it was such a neat experience to look over the land that God has blessed GSF with and to think of all the amazing things that happen all over this campus on a daily basis. it is also a really good way to look at the campus that you do life in all the time and feel really small. even from that short distance.
• on wednesday, because my parents begged, we took a break from doing daredevilish things.
• on thursday, auntie claudia (my adoptive mom) took me, kaitlin, and her kids to get street food in the neighboring village of nyenga. on the way back to GSF, we climbed up onto her roof rack and cruised through the sugarcane fields. if you have never driven through the sugarcane fields at sunset on top of a landcruiser in africa, i highly suggest you put it on your bucket list. easily one of the best moments of my internship so far. 
• on friday, the interns were in charge of campus! the missionaries and ugandan managers had a leadership retreat so that left the interns running the office. does that scare you a little bit because i don’t think you were the only one. luckily it was a very quiet day in the office for us.

God has been so faithful this entire trip to provide just what i need when i need it: whether that is rest or encouragement or a phone call from home. and i know and believe that for the last two weeks, He will continue to do the same. i am ready to be home but i am not ready to leave. does that make sense to you? okay good. me neither.

uganda: week five.

comparison is the thief of joy. i will be honest: i don’t know who said that but boy, is it ever true. comparison takes away our ability to see how blessed we are. this week, i found myself comparing my experiences and my struggles here and losing sight of how blessed i am to be here. this summer isn’t like any summer i have ever had. i can’t expect it to be like my other summers. i can’t expect my intern experience to be like past interns. when i start to compare my circumstance to others, i lose myself in a world of “what if?” instead of enjoying what God has given me now. God showed up big time this week. but if i had let myself become lost in my comparison, i would have missed it. that was such a temptation for me this week but i am pleased to tell you that i still have the week five highlights!

• this past sunday, the teenagers and the interns became monkey hunters. kaitlin and i were casually eating lunch on our porch after church when we hear this animal fight behind our house. we look over right as a troop of monkeys, about 20 - 25 in number, come running by our house fighting. right away, three of the teenage boys that live in the house across from us ran from their house screaming and chasing the monkeys back into the forest. well, one of the baby monkeys made the mistake of climbing into a nearby tree which two of the boys immediately started climbing in order to catch the monkey. word quickly spread that they were trying to get a new GSF pet and soon, lots of the teenagers were down around the tree with blankets to catch the monkey when he left the tree. long story short, the monkey jumped out of the trip and chloe jumped on the monkey. she had a hold on it for about three seconds before it wriggled its way out of her hands and into the forest. it was a very short lived dream of having a monkey as a pet.
• also on sunday, i got to dedicate daisy, the new toddler at GSF. GSF, once a month, has a worship service called family church and during that time, someone dedicates the new kids that came to GSF that month. i didn’t realize that i would get the opportunity to dedicate daisy until the middle of the church service when i was asked to pray for her. i was totally put on the spot but i am so glad i was given the opportunity to pray over her.
• funny medical story of the week: one of the GSF kids this week swallowed a pencil. i promise you just read that last sentence correctly. when i got the call from nurse ruth, i was a little confused as to what happened because all i heard was that she was waiting on “the poop to pass”. the child was given lots of food to soften her system and we basically waited to see the results of her decision. the pencil did in fact pass out of her system and the patient is feeling so much better.
• we also went to buikwe hospital for the second time to take some of our kids to get immunizations. it is always an interesting experience going to ugandan hospitals because of the obvious reason that i am a white girl with a troop of little black kids. so there are lots of deserved stares as we sit and wait for our turn to see the doctor or as i feed one of the babies with us a bottle of milk. you just have to chuckle when things like that happen.
• this weekend has probably been the most relaxing and the most necessary so far. the past two weeks have been very long and tiring and we were all in need of a little away time. on friday, we took a day off of work and went into kampala to celebrate hope’s birthday (one of the MKs here). we watched maleficent at a movie theater, ate amazing pizza, and walked around the mall. i almost convinced myself that i was back in america until we walked outside and there was a huge elephant statue out front. then on saturday, kaitlin and i went into town and went to a country club for lunch and wifi. it was so relaxing. right on the water of lake victoria with amazing green hills in the backdrop. a perfect day in my book. when we got back to GSF all the teenagers were running up to auntie claudia’s house for games and cake for hope’s late birthday party. the community here always encourages me and i love spending time laughing and making memories with these kids. 

if you want to actually see a little bit of what life is like during a week for us interns, my fellow intern, kaitlin, made an amazing video that just shows clips of things we see everyday. if you look closely, you can see me and you can even spot me and my baby joseph. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OYrH7faWNY

some quick prayer requests:

• i am feeling so much better than last week! praise! keep praying that my health improves and stays at 100%.
• pray that the interns would be taking time to be still with jesus everyday. that seems like such a basic thing to say but for me, my schedule becomes too big and full that i think i don’t have room for anything else. when in actuality, my quiet time with jesus should be number one on my schedule. pray that i would be more disciplined in that.
• pray for the ugandan leadership at GSF. there are several ugandans that are in positions of authority and because of their positions are called upon more to handle disciplinary issues and things like that. pray that they also find rest and that they have the wisdom to handle many different situations.

thank you so much for praying. you don’t understand how much it means to me to know that i have people at home taking my burdens to the feet of jesus. keep going prayer warriors. three more weeks until i am home!

it's about to get real.

sometimes life is hard. that is a fact of life. jesus promised us in john 16:33 that we would have trouble in this life. it has seemed this past week has been full of that sort of “trouble” that we are told about. i love this place with all my heart but it’s not perfect. i love the people here with all my heart but they aren’t perfect. imperfect places fall apart. imperfect people sin. (and i am not only talking about the people around me. i am just a part of this. i have never seen my sin more evidently than this past month here). it is very easy to get discouraged when you look at the imperfect places and the imperfect people to fill you up. yesterday was that day for me. i can’t trust in human medical ability to heal. i can’t trust in the beautiful children here to fill my heart. there are some success stories here in the medical field. and the children here do make me so happy when they yell my name and laugh so freely. but my heart isn’t full when those things happen.

my heart is full in jesus. 

yesterday was exhausting: it felt like i had been spiritually running a marathon and then, halfway through, stopped, realized what i was doing and skidded to an abrupt halt. my tank was at an all time low and i realized that i might not have been "in shape" to run the marathon. i think people could even see it physically on me. but thankfully, god’s promise doesn’t end at “you will have trouble”. he tells us to take heart because he has overcome the world! there is redemption in our story because of jesus. i don’t have to go to hospitals alone. i don’t have to handle fifteen different medical issues per day alone. i don’t have to love on these kids alone. jesus tells me to take heart because redemption is coming. at the end of the day yesterday, my heart was just drawn to several different psalms. and i just want to share some of the verses that really touched me. 

“You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” Psalm 4:7

“..you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and you guide me..” Psalm 31:3

“So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” Psalm 64:2-3

hard times happen. places fall apart. people disappoint. but there is redemption in those situations with jesus. and there is no reason for me to run this marathon alone. because on my own strength, i will fall and spiritually pass out. thankful that God doesn’t give up on my stubborn self. i am slow to learn some basic lessons. like i said, it’s about to get real.

uganda: week four.

week four. i can hardly believe it. this week, the interns spent some time talking about overseas experiences and the highs and lows that come with it. we were told that this week would be the week that reality would set in and we would see life for how it really was. and for me, that was so true. this week was a lot harder than most but there were still some really great moments. so with that being said, drumroll, here are the week four highlights:

• on sunday, one of the kids in my sunday school class gave his life to jesus!! sunday afternoon after church, he went to talk to uncle mark for a long time and realized, then, that he needed jesus. PRAISE GOD that He is still moving on this campus, that He is alive and well, and nothing is going to stop Him from bringing people back to Himself.
• on tuesday, nurse ruth and i took a trip to kampala to take two of our boys to see an ENT. medical trips are always an experience because the entire time i am thinking “if only these people had access to good, consistent medical care.” but despite that, this visit was actually a good and informative one. the best part about the trip was seeing the two boys so excited to see "motorcars" on the road. this was a first trip to kampala for one of the boys and he was so excited to see so many cars. the joy and excitement was the best.
• on wednesday, one of the missionaries here turned 40. so as is customary, we had a “funeral” for him. we all dressed in black and walked slowly up to their house singing a really pathetic version of “happy birthday” then uncle mark gave a eulogy, we sang a song, and then uncle robb was watered. in uganda, on your birthday, everyone comes and dumps water all over your head. so very thankful my birthday is after i leave.
• also on wednesday, i was a malaria testing fiend. it is a great feeling for me to be given more responsibility here but not at the expense of people hurting. i like the healing side of medicine for a reason. anyways, please be praying for several people on campus right now that have malaria.
• this week, we took our HIV positive kids to JCRC which is a clinic in kampala where they do checkups and give out medicine. the great thing about this hospital is that everything there is free: from blood work and x-rays to medicines. the bad thing is that it is all government run so sometimes there is corruption in the hospital. so much about that day was heavy but i think the worst part of the day was when i realized that these kids weren’t phased by the fact that they were in a HIV hospital. it was just normal and reality. it was normal to go by yourself to the lab to get blood work done because they do it every six months. it makes my heart hurt to think about these kids that i have fallen in love with that had no choice in their health status. it was given to them and now their reality is hospitals and 7 different pills every day. ahhh it makes me sick to think about.
• on friday, i got to try my hand at being a pharmacist. little did i know when i signed up for this internship i would be trying out almost every facet of the medical world: physical therapist, nurse, clinical researcher, and now pharmacist. after we went to JCRC, i had to catalog, cut and disperse all the medicines. so if you worried about me getting real hands-on medical experience, never fear. i’m busier this summer than ever before. 
• friday was also the fourth of july so obviously the mzungus had to celebrate! we had a cookout complete with hamburgers, hotdogs, pringles, and soda! definitely a treat. who knew pringles would make a group of americans so excited? we didn't have fireworks but we had something like roman candles that we stuck in the ground. they lit up like huge sparklers. it felt good to celebrate with such good friends.
• i am learning that saturday is one of my favorite days at GSF. saturdays here are so lazy and relaxed and refreshing. everyone hangs out and plays games and laughter abounds. today for instance, kaitlin and i made pancakes for brunch, then i hung out with isanga and steven while they did chores. after that we all ran to play a huge game of soccer and volleyball before we all dispersed for dinner. it reminds me of carefree days of growing up in china when all we did was play outside and only ran home for food. there is so much freedom and joy in it.

prayer requests:

• this entire week, i have felt under the weather with a cold. thankfully, i have stayed healthy so far but this cold has been a real bother. pray that this week, i will be 100% again.
• be praying for the boy that gave his life to jesus this week. the war for his heart may be over but his spiritual battle has just begun. pray for the people that will come alongside him to disciple him.
• there are several people on campus that have malaria right now so be praying for quick healing for them.

there is so much joy in every day life here. there is also sorrow in every day life here. God is here working in both emotions. God is also working in the lives of people in america. that is so amazing to think about. when i have to leave here, i won't be leaving the work He is doing because He doesn't only work in africa. He is active everywhere. so comforting to think about as i move into my last four weeks here.