twelve days in Uganda.

This is my 12^th day in Uganda.  Africa.  And let me tell you: the dirt really is a deep red that stains your feet that no amount of scrubbing can remove.  The sky really is bigger here, and stars shine out at night like pins trying to hold up the dark sky from falling.  The people smile and wave every day, calling “good morning!” and “good evening!” when I walk past.  Day by day it’s sinking in… that I basically live here for the next 6 ½ weeks.  This is no short 2-week mission’s trip.
This summer is a hard kind of fun, I’ve realized.  It is hard to live where you work, being surrounded with 60-70 kids daily, all clamoring for attention that can’t possibly all be given.  The longer I’m here, the more I get to know the kids, and find out their heartbreaking stories of how they landed at the Good Shepherd’s Fold.  There’s so much more to running a children’s home like this than I ever imagined.  And it takes a whole lot of prayer and teamwork, and falling down on your face before God to make it work.

I look around and see so many needs.  There are kids that need medical care, kids that need better clothes and shoes.  Kids who need to be assured that they are loved for by the staff here at GSF, and most of all, kids who need to be convinced that there’s a God who loves them so much He came to save them personally. 

So, what am I doing here??  Well, I’m leading 7 & 8 year old Sunday school and organizing files in the social work office.  I’m pushing Tiny Rose in her wheelchair and chasing kids on the playground.  Those are all great things, but sometimes I wonder what I’m really doing here.  And the truth is that the most important thing for me to do here is to spend time with the Lord.  Before I left for Uganda, a friend in Budapest told me that God is leading me to his heart, even more than he is leading me to a physical place… even one like Africa where I’ve always wanted to go.    

John 15 says it better than I ever could.  If I’m going around doing all these things, it’s absolutely crucial for me to be connected to the True Vine.   Verse 5 says “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bares much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”  Nothing.  How comforting and yet how challenging it is for me to believe those seven words.  If I wake up every day trying to muster up enough strength within me to love all those kids and do my work….it will fail.  That’s why staying connected to the True Vine through prayer and Bible reading is the most important thing I will do here.  Then all the other things I do during the day will flow from that time spent with Him….and instead of me wearing myself out by trying to do it all myself, God will be glorified.

I’m sure it’s a lesson I will have to learn and re-learn for this season of life in Uganda.