Big Decisions...

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” –J.R.R. Tolkien

I am deciding.
Watch this space...

FINALLY-- an African Recap

"All around you, people will be tip-toeing through life,
just to arrive at death safely.
But dear children, do not tiptoe.
Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tip-toe."
-Shane Claiborne

I’m not sure how it’s happened. A mere 5 months ago I was still quaking in my boots about the next step in my walk with God—following Him into what to me felt like a “deep-end”, following Him into a few months serving Him in Africa. Uganda, specifically. A country that I, to be honest, had no special affinity for on a continent I had only curiosity about, not fondness. I have already been back to the continent where He’s planted my heart for 46 days (O Europe, I do love you). 46 whirlwind days of happy reunions, meetings, work, and some scary bouts of serious illness (just thankful that didn’t happen in Africa!!), and sorting out all the details of the move to the next step in ministry, and all these days of reality later… I still feel a sort of vague, “So God, what was that all about?”

Some Unforgettable Moments (both the beautiful and the haunting)…

-

-          Swimming in the Nile River. The water was so clear and cool & refreshing, yet sun-warmed. We dipped completely under it in a little naturally deep pool under a small waterfall. Some hundreds of mile upstream and some hundreds of years ago, the baby Moses was hidden in a basket in the rushes at the river’s edge. And we swam in its flow, rode its mighty current. Incredible!

- Meeting the street children near Garden City in Kampala. They were mere babies. One little girl sitting by the side of the road all by herself couldn’t have been more than 2 years old and her tiny little unsmiling figure sitting so close to the crazy Kampala traffic literally jarred me. I walked on with stunned tears saying again and again, “But she’s just a baby...” We are told the parents use them to beg and are only hiding nearby, but the image jarred me nonetheless and I felt every bit of my little helplessness the rest of the way home that night and hugged the babies at the home where we were working extra closely the next day…

-          Being witness to little John Mark’s arrival to Acacia Tree on the afternoon of our very first day there. His frightened 15-yea-old mama was sitting outside the front gate for hours as if trying to gain the courage to come. Robin, Acacia Tree’s director, asked her if everything was alright, but was turned away. We could hear his little baby cries through our open windows throughout the day. Finally, Robin sent Blessed, one of the Ugandan staff, out to ask after her. And suddenly a VERY smelly baby boy wearing a dress, and wrapped up in layers and layers of awful, smelly blankets, despite the unbearable heat (I CANNOT understand that about Ugandan mamas…), was laid in my lap. He was beautiful,  just about 4 weeks old, and hungry, but otherwise healthy. I very swiftly fell in love and my favourite way to spend the hours at Acacia Tree each day became to cradle him in my arms and rock him in the corner rocker, whispering prayers over his little life as I did…

- Experiencing a miracle when my Boda-Boda wiped out! I LOVED riding boda-boda, which is one of the main ways of getting around in Uganda. They are simply motorbikes, ordinary motorbikes, used like personal taxis. One day the one I was riding hit a patch of road where the driver lost control. It was only a few God-designed acts of grace that kept me from being seriously wounded or killed when I went flying over that driver’s head. First of all, I was riding “like a man”. Usually when I was riding a boda alone (I most often was  riding along with a friend behind the driver), I would sit “side-saddle” as that’s how most usually women ride in Uganda. But that day I was fed up with it and decided to just let people look at me if they wanted to (they were always looking at me anyway because of my white skin and blond hair!) and sit “like a man”, astride. If I had been sitting like a lady when the bike went down, I would have smacked the back of my head against the pavement and that would have been it…  And we were on the open highway going at top motorbike speeds for about 7km. When the driver lost control our turn was not far up ahead so he had just stopped accelerating…  It all happened so fast I hardly knew what hit me, but suddenly felt the right side of my face scraping against the hot pavement and then… for a moment… had no idea what was happening. When I heard the driver saying to me, “Get up! Get up!” I was surprised to find that I was getting up, pushing myself to my knees, then standing to my feet.  I found myself reaching up and stroking my cheek then holding my hand back to check for the blood which must be there for touching my face, but finding none, again and again. There wasn’t a single scratch on my face… The bike was totaled, and I was in too much shock to think clearly, so on wobbly legs I simply started walking the rest of the way home, about a half a mile down dusty red roads through the village. Everyone was running to the edge of their yards shouting, “Mzungu! How are you?” and I blinked the tears of shock away as I limped along, the blood running from my shoulder and my leg, and called back, “Fine, thank you. How are you?” It was a long limping walk home where Gabi jumped up to clean every bit of dirt out of my wounds and bandage me up, but the whole way I was whispering praises under my breath. It was an act of God which kept me from cracking open my skull on that highway in the middle of Africa, let alone not breaking a single bone, or even spraining anything. Instead walking (albeit limping…) away. It was nothing but His grace… And I felt like I was treading on a miracle. I was very sore for the next few weeks, my neck and knee especially, but the nasty cuts were healed up within the month. And though I felt that I couldn’t share about this experience until after I left Uganda, so as not to worry my family as I had another month to go at this point and much more travel to do via boda-boda and other risqué African means, I cannot help but share of His protective hand on me made so real in those moments… “What is impossible with men is possible with God” – Luke 18:27

- Being rowed along in a wooden, weather-worn boat (by a new friend who owned the quiet island where we were staying) while watching the sunset over the rapids of the mighty Nile river. The sun sets SO quickly on the equator. Within minutes the massive, clearly-defined orange orb slipped behind the silhouette of the trees along the shore. This may be the most powerful “pinch me” moment of my whole 2 months in Africa. My heart was completely lost in praise, as if gazing directly at the beauty of the Lord Himself, and so overcome by gratitude. I can’t find the words to describe how it touched me… 

- Our every day with the boys of Acacia Tree. The four of them joined together to steal my heart away. Moses was especially charming when he started taking my hand in his and pulling it to his lips for a princely kiss on the knuckles one day when I was bathing him in a bucket in the sunshine :) And one of the days that Em and I had all 4 boys playing out on a blanket in the yard and a fussy little zac crawled into my lap and fell asleep, so precious and vulnerable in a world with so much stacked against them.  I could have taken them home and loved him forever…

- The ridiculous come-ons from the men EVERYWHERE we went. They would look us up and down at the markets and say, “My size, my size” when they liked our figures, or call out, “My wife!” after us as we walked by… Of course there was the common, “Hey baby”, but most often it was the overly-friendly, “How are you, beautiful?”-- always accompanied by the classic straying eye. Oh dear. The boda-drivers were the most aggressive and there were times Emily couldn’t control her temper when they were persistent and she’d have a little shriek at them to leave us alone, which always rather cracked me up :) We grew bolder and bolder as time went on and stopped trying to remain polite despite being treated like fresh meat… Especially whenever we had to pass through Kampala. We HATED Kampala. SO crowded with people and traffic all vying for every bit of conceivable space. We saw a man on a bicycle have his hands crushed on his handle-bars by 2 public taxi buses on either side of him. And we had to walk amongst that, squeezed between moving vehicles. So scary! But the scariest bit was the way the men in Kampala wouldn’t just look us up and down or greet us, but physically GRAB us and try to pull us to them!! This would really shake me up and make me angry, and it seemed to happen to me most often so Emily would constantly be yelling at people to let me go…. NOT fun. We were also pick-pocketted here (some guy stole my alarm clock out of a zipped pocket of my backpack) and Emily had a guy run by and rip her necklace from her neck… Ugh. NOT a fan of Kampala!!! But so grateful for God’s constant protection over us.

- Just setting up everything with Gabi in the first month. It was all new and different when doing it in Africa! Everything from stringing up a clothesline in the garden (which was soon overrun by ants crawling all over the rope and anything we had drying on it…), to meeting with Ugandan officials and praying silently under our breath for the paperwork process of starting the ministry, to hiring a guard for the compound with a bow and arrow because they are more feared than the guards with guns (and cheaper!). Unreal.

- The days that our little Autistic/Down’s Syndrome 4-year-old Jonathan at Acacia Tree would feel cuddly and want to be snuggled. He’s wrap those little arms around my neck and just rest his whole self right into me with such trust and abandon. A little like God wants of me. Jonathan was the first HIV-positive child that I have ever worked with and what a trooper…

- Being asked to share in my new Ugandan friend Dan’s lecture at Uganda Christian University the morning of our visit! We didn’t know what was coming and blundered our way through a few minutes of telling the 2^nd year University class about what we knew of nutrition in developed countries. We found it rather surreal and laughed long and hard about the experience later. We’re determined to add “guest lecturer” to our CV’s now ;)

- Showering in a bucket. Hehehe :) The only showers I took in Uganda were cold ones—firstly because that was the only temperature available, then in the second month, because the only alternative temperature was scalding hot :) And how the red dust would just pour off of our bodies at the end of each day!!

- Visiting Divine Orphanage for the first time and being literally swarmed by the most precious little children. We couldn’t  communicate together in words, but only in touches and in smiles. My 2 months in Uganda were completely precious but always kind of a mystery to me. Like, “God, why am I here?” But that afternoon, loving on those beautiful orphaned and abandoned children so delighted by any bit of attention, I felt instinctively that even if this afternoon was the only reason why I came all this way, it would be enough just being given the chance to show these little ones His love for them in whatever way possible for whatever bit of time allotted. I was drawn specifically to one little girl called Shianna, who seemed to keep to herself, rather quiet and sullen. But once I scooped her up, she wouldn’t be put down. And she’s still being held in my heart. These children need sponsors to help see them through the treacherous life they’ve been thrown into as orphans or abandoned children. PLEASE get in touch with me if the Lord speaks to your heart at all about loving the fatherless… The lady taking them in is kindness itself with a heart bigger than the whole of Uganda. She would love to be in touch with you. And of course, if you can visit these little ones, do!! They will greet you with arms wide open (and probably want to run their hands through your hair for hours on end like my experience :)) and neither they nor you will ever be the same…

- Deciding that Emily might have come down with Malaria one night at an hour to midnight and calling a boda-boda to the hostel gate under the starlight to be whisked away to the nearest clinic for treatment in the dark of night (we didn’t like being out after dark as a rule, and held hands as we walked along afterwards, looking for a boda and ignoring the come-ons of the men walking down the same road….eek!). Oh the adventure! She was a great sport about it and we giggled our way through it, got the meds, and within days she was feeling 100% again. Possibly the most unreal part of the night was the way the hostel’s guard, Joseph, asked Malaria-ridden and feverish Em if she would cheat on her boyfriend with an African man (meaning: with HIM, specifically. Ha!) Her response was a quick, high-pitched squeal of, “That is WRONG, Joseph!” And she put him right in his place :) 

- The kindness and huge-hearted generosity of the people I met. My overriding opinion of Ugandan people is that they are the most generous people on earth; so welcoming. I was so blessed by how quickly I made friends, and how precious the friendships were. I would go back in an instant :)

- Making friends with the children wherever we would go. We walk everywhere in Uganda and whether during the first month in Jinja or the second one in Entebbe, the children living along the route we walked each day were very quick to run out from their homes and introduce themselves. Soon it was an everyday occurrence to be escorted down the red dirt road by our young friends who would drop everything to walk along and hold our hands and have a little conversation with us on our way to and from work :) Precious precious precious!

- On our last weekend Em and I went away to a place we heard of called Hairy Lemon Island about 5 hours away (when we stayed on the Nile). We stayed two days and on the second day when we opened the door to our dorm there was a gigantic toad sitting right inside the door. Em shrieked and I tried to nudge him out with my toe, but he hopped away under a bed and we forgot about him. Then we made the LONG journey home, over 6 hours due to traffic jams around Kampala, bumping along awful roads, shoving ourselves into crowded public taxis one after the other for hours at a time, with our weekend luggage packed in on our laps. When we finally got back to Entebbe and unpacked our weekend bags to pack our suitcases to fly out, I heard ANOTHER shriek from Em, and the hostel guard came running to our room. As she unzipped her bag to unpack, there, sitting right at the top of her things, was the giant toad! She brought him all the way home with us from that island on the Nile!! It was hilarious :) :)

- Gabs and I making makeshift meals without a kitchen. At first we didn’t even have a fridge! We were hungry a lot. Ha. But when we finally got a gas burner we’d go to the market and pick out delicious fresh organic veg, which is just so plentiful in beautiful, tropical Uganda, and make gorgeous simple veggie dishes :) And I became addicted to Guava juice and Hibiscus juice! Ooh, yum. Also, I have never tasted pineapple like Ugandan pineapple! The markets are crazy with people and everyone trying to sell you their wares, but it is totally worth braving just for the experience of all the colourful fruits and veg!  I had fun experimenting with making fresh juice from scratch—a lot of fresh lemonade and fresh passionfruit juice! Mmm.

- I missed chocolate. The only chocolate to be found in Uganda was very very expensive and looked as old as the hills in its packaging (My wonderful boyfriend had a bar of Galaxy waiting when I got back to England, cuz he’s sweet :)).  Your best bet for anything sweet in Uganda, in fact, was juice and fruit, or chewing on, then spitting out, bits of sugar cane!

- The stillness of the long African evenings at home when the day was done. Especially the first month there were endless hours to read (Charles Dickens' "David Copperfiled") and write (So many thousands of words!) and spend time with God. I ate up  my Bible Study and wished that time would just stand still like that in Europe more often to get lost in The Word. In the evenings, the temperature would cool to just about perfect-- maybe in the 70's?-- and the light would slowly fade and I would sit on the porch and dwell in His beauty and lay out the contents of the day to Him to whisper to me through.... Precious moments Africa gave me!

I actually loved it. I was surprised by how quickly it grew on me; by how even the difficulties of the culture and the weather and the dirt and the distance and the bugs and the inconveniences and the stares and the aggression and the misunderstandings and the overt poverty and the begging and the heat and the brutality and the sheer “lack”, became just part of the whole experience. It is an experience I may never fully understand, but will never ever forget. And it changes me-- it changes the way I see-- to step so far outside of my own comfort zone and deep into facets of His heart I've not had to know before. I may be back in Uganda at times.

People always think of Africa as the most needy, the main area for mission. I suppose the needs are so obvious and so vast. It's undeniable. And I suppose that's why He brought me there, to teach me to hold my hands against the wounds on the dusty red equator. But only so long as I see with His eyes that needs go beyond the obvious, that neediness goes beyond the traditional missionfield of Africa, that it's never been about a place, but about His heart. It's about the fact of His love and the fact of a world bustling with people of every colour, tongue, and tribe who need to come to realize that they are loved by the King...

And so, He brings me back to a stoic and unbelieving Sweden, and He brings me next to an unlikely place in the midlands of England, the job description and the demographic always different, but always with the same overriding message being whispered through this needy-and-touched heart to touch the neediness the world over, "You are loved" and "Jesus"...

May you know this faithful Lover, may you know this ceasless Love.
Love,
Leah

When it Rains, It Pours...

I can do nothing but apologize for my long silence here!

Em and I left Uganda on the 1st of March-- Em for home, me for England. I had a lovely few days with my handsome London man, meeting up with my upcoming ministry team in Birmingham (and letting them meet him!), and seeing some friends. When I arrived back in Sweden a week and a day ago, I instantly came down ill with an awful cold but pressed on and went back to work Monday morning. On Wednesday, due to some kind of malfunction in an accessory of my insulin pump, my blood sugars sky-rocketed to the point of my body starting to go into shock. I was at work and desperately rang everyone I knew with a car to help me get home to my insulin syringes which are an emergency backup if something's up with the pump. The Lord sent along friends just in time, and one of them who's never given an injection before was able to give me a jab while the other supported me to keep from falling over while I threw up repeatedly... Nice. They stayed with me til I was feeling more myself again. And I am so very thankful for how He provides!

I went back to work the next day but could only manage to stay half a day for feeling so very weak and ill, not an uncommon after-effect of having an extreme high blood sugar like I had suffered the day before. I worked at getting my blood sugars stabilized and tried not to be worried as instead of feeling better, I only grew worse throughout the day. Too nauseous to eat since about Tuesday, I drank as much water as possible and tried to keep little bits of food down. I was reading up about what to do after the Diabetic shock I had had, and found I had all the symptoms of Diabetic Ketoacidosis, which can become very fatal very quickly. I tried not to panic and worked on regulating my blood sugar numbers. By 6pm thursday night, I started having very good, regular blood sugar readings, and they remained that way as I checked every hour the rest of the evening, yet I grew sicker. And more and more frightened... Afraid of the costs of visiting a foreign Emergency Room, I wanted to be absolutely sure that my body wasn't getting better with the regulated blood sugar numbers before I went in, so decided that if I still felt so awful by tomorrow (friday), I would go in and see a doctor, but I hoped for a turn in my health in the night.

It only got worse.

By 1:30am I was unable to sleep for the most horrific pain in my lower back, a racing heart, and difficulty breathing, on top of the nausea, headache, weakness, and dizziness that had been with me for a few days now. I prayed from 1:30 to 3:30 about what to do, extremely disoriented and just plain frightened. Finally, at 3:30, I knocked on my friend Teri-Anne's door and woke her to say I thought I needed to go to the hospital. This woman is amazing. She popped out of bed, totally calm, speaking in soothing tones. It had begun to snow in the night and she felt scared to drive in it, but didn't let her worry betray her.


By 4am, we were at the emergency room of Sahlgrenska, the main hospital here in Gothenburg. They got me on a stretcher and hooked me up to a heart monitor by about 6 huge tubes. Weird. They drew blood, they took down as much information of my condition as I could tell them through short, rapid breaths (with T-A interpreting in Swedish where needed), they inserted an IV, then they wheeled me into an observation room. And we waited. And we waited. I was totally impatient, in extreme pain, having trouble breathing, and gagging with nothing to vomit. Finally, about 6:00, a doctor came and drew some blood from an artery in my inner wrist (Ouch! I'm still bruised and tender there!) to check for Acidosis in my blood. They hooked me up to an IV drip (so strange to be on!) of electrolytes and gave me some pain killers. And we waited some more (so strange to lie there watching the drip and listening to everyone around you carrying on in a foreign language...). Teri-Anne never left my side, and I cannot tell you how much it meant to have her there. She even canceled her day of work and her lovely husband Anders took the kids to school by public bus since we had the car!

We were in the ER til noon. After being on the drip for awhile, I began to breathe more easily. My mouth was no longer dry for the first time in days. The pain killers took the back pain away. They took a urine test and the very kind doctor came to tell us that it is not Ketoacidosis, that every test came back negative (praise the Lord!) and that I seem to have a viral infection which has just been aggravated by the high blood sugar shock I had on Wednesday which dehydrated me. As I have felt so ill and haven't been able to eat properly, I haven't been able to get re-hydrated after the shock. And most of the pain and the ill-as-death feeling comes from being so dehydrated! So, a liter of electrolyte drip later, I was able to go home and crawl into bed for as many days as it takes to be well again...

And so, here I am. My biggest challenge is trying to eat. Blah... Not being able to eat can be a bit of a problem when you're Diabetic and have to keep your blood sugar numbers in just the right range-- which involves an intricate dance of insulin and diet! I appreciate any prayers you have to offer...

It has been terrifying to be so very ill, and with the complications of the Diabetes, and so far from home. I think it's perhaps safe to say that I haven't been so scared for my health as I have these last few treacherous days. But God is so good to me in my friends. Teri-Anne was a total hero that night, and even now watches over me carefully as I try to recover but remain very very ill. He even had a couple of friends who adamantly don't believe in Him praying for me when I went into hospital :) And the way Mike and Brona dropped everything to come and literally rescue me on Wednesday when I was going into Diabetic shock. I know it is all from Him. And He touches my heart with how He surrounds me with His goodness. And just imagine if this would have happened while in Africa (which it easily could have done, as I was using the same insulin pump accessories there!)??

I do hope to write a final post on my months in Africa soon... Just after I'm well...
For now, I thank each of you who have been praying for me!! And I sign off to sleep...
Loving you. Loving Him. And healing,
Leah

Divine Orphanage & Divine Love

Have you ever had a day that just feels life-changing? Maybe you can’t quite put your finger on how, but you’re left with an impression that after the events of an afternoon, things can never be quite the same.

I had that kind of an afternoon yesterday. I felt, strangely, as I held these particular little hands in mine, sitting in a dusty room with children strewn all over me and one little girl in particular clinging to me, as if this afternoon was the foremost reason why He brought me to Uganda in the first place…

Em and I arrived at Acacia Tree in a season when the home is only caring for 4 baby boys, so we spoke to Robin, the director, early on about helping out anywhere else she knew of during our time here too. She mentioned to us a Ugandan-run ministry she knew of which was caring for over 20 orphaned and abandoned kids and decided she would take us there one day. Naturally, things took their turn and we ended up keeping busy enough at Acacia Tree and Robin didn’t find the time to take us out to visit her friend Molly who runs the ministry she mentioned, Divine Orphanage.

And then yesterday, in our last week with our boys, a young lady named Agnes from Divine Orphanage showed up at Acacia Tree to take Blessed, one of the Ugandan staff at Acacia Tree, and us 3 volunteers-- Amber, Emily, and I-- out to meet Molly and the kids—of which there were not “just over 20”, but 53!

We had no idea what to expect, and even felt like visiting was a bit pointless now that we have only a few days left at Acacia Tree before leaving Uganda, but we took the ‘coaster’ (public taxi) out to the nearby village and followed our young guide down the dusty village roads. Em and I drew her out as we walked along. She told us that she had been an orphan too and that ‘Auntie Molly’ (anyone who is older than the one speaking is called ‘Auntie’ here, for respect) had helped her, and that she was serving God by helping her with the younger ones. I found her inspiring…

We walked past a beautiful garden-like area in the midst of the disheveled look of the village and were told it was a shrine in the local witchcraft practices. Em and I spoke some prayers under our breath and I was reminded of my thankfulness at Christ’s sovereignty and the way He’s taken me as His own!

The lovely, gentle-spirited Agnes showed us up a dusty path to an unfinished building, and took us through each unfinished room, describing what their uses would be when finished, and we followed and listened attentively, but with no frame of reference for what she was showing us and wondering why we were there. Then we walked a few more hot and dusty paths until we came to an inconspicuous grey gate, leading into a very ordinary-looking compound. Molly came out to meet us, a beautiful 40-something Ugandan woman with a generous smile and a warm, welcoming nature. She showed us into one of the houses on the compound, to 4 very small rooms filled to capacity with bunk beds where we were told the children sleep 2 to 3 to a single bed, each room with one older child for about 9 little ones. We were then showed out to a big backyard with a massive clothesline hung across, loaded down with little pieces of apparel. 

At one end of the yard was a 2-roomed building fitted with a very basic, primary-level classroom and a colourfully-painted but otherwise empty and concrete-floored play room (…a playroom all but devoid of toys). The moment we entered in the door, we were literally swarmed with primary school aged children so that we couldn’t get through the room. Every smiling face was attached to two welcoming hands anxious to reach out and shake our ones and say a smiling “hello!”, until our arms were entirely covered with these precious hands of greeting. “Oli Otya! Oli Otya!” we sang out again and again, repeating virtually one of the only things we know how to say in Lugandan (their greeting, which means literally, “How are you?”)—which not all of the children could even speak as they come from many different tribes and regions of Uganda.

Molly called all of the children into the play room and asked them to sit down—I think in Luchiga, the local language of this area of the country, and we filed in at the front of the room beside her. One little girl who looked to be about 4 years old didn’t take a seat amongst all the other children of primary age and younger (the secondary school children were mostly at school in the village) but sidled up to me and took my hand. Molly began to tell us a few stories of a few of the children. She introduced the little girl holding my hand and her twin sister, who stepped up and took my other hand, and told us of the condition they were found it. When she told us matter-of-factly that the precious little girl whom had first took my hand and had not let go had been raped by a grown man by the time they found these twins, quick tears sprang to my eyes and I fought with myself not to show my emotions. So many stories, so many dire conditions. As she spoke and as I fought to keep the tears from showing on my face, I looked out at the sea of beautiful little faces and 2 of the tiniest ones stood out to me immediately. The smallest child was a little girl in a tiny little red checkered uniform, and the child whom most pulled on my heartstrings was nearly as tiny, with the thinnest of cornrow braids in her baby bit of hair and a standoffish look on her somewhat haunted-looking face. Each time Molly would tell of a child whom had come to them, that child would stand up, and eventually both of these two little ones stood up. When the first little one did, she came up close to where I stood with a twin on each hand, so I kneeled down and she sat in my lap (I felt a bit unsure of whether it was alright for these little girls to leave the rest and sit with me, but I didn’t seem to have much choice :)). Her name was Kavina and she was 3 years old and she clung to a water bottle, which seemed highly-coveted, as all the others kept trying to take it off her. She held her own, though :) 

As Molly spoke, the children sitting on the floor inched closer and closer to us until by the time she finished, they were all over all of us :) Molly said that many of them had never seen a “mzungu” (white) before, and it showed. The children were fascinated with Em’s and my blond hair, and began tentatively reaching up to sweep tendrils from my face, savouring the texture, and soon I was sitting on the grass with a dozen of them running their hands completely through it, and over my earlobes, and along my jaw and brow and across my fingernails. Their curiosity and wonder was delightful and unreal to me!

Only one precious little princess didn’t show the openness and happy curiosity and delight at life in general like the others did, no matter the harrowing lives they’d come from and the limited ones they now had (by western standards). In fact, she didn’t seem to take much delight in anything… And she pulled at my heart from the moment I saw her. So, after we’d made our way outside to play in the one toy they had—a blow-up pool someone had given them and which they all stripped off completely for and took turns in, monitored by the older boys (who couldn’t be more than 11-12), I went to her and scooped her up in my arms. All of the children had been taking turns being scooped up, but this one I didn’t put down. She said to me, unsmiling, and in perfect English, “My name is (something African I couldn’t understand, as they state their surnames first here) Shianna.” And I thought my heart would melt. Then she wouldn’t let me put her down. So Shianna and I sat down in the grass with the swarms of lovable children of every shape and size and age all about us, playing with my mzungu hair and stroking my mzungu skin, but if any got too close to my lap, Shianna guarded her territory, but she didn’t say much. I stroked her cheeks and whispered to her of His love, and played with the other children all around us (snapping photos and showing them their images can provide endless hours of amusement :)) 

My precious Shianna...

Suddenly, Agnes said something and the children all immediately began to scamper off—obedient like it’s hard to believe!—for naptime. Sweet Shianna held my hand as we walked to her room, and I helped her to take off her little dress so it could be washed during naptime, and into her single bed with two other little girls already in it. My tears were close to the surface again as I blew kisses to all of those precious babies, told them how much Jesus loves them, and that I love them, and said goodbye. I did the same in the other rooms, and then went out to join Amber and Em talking to Molly in the shade.

She exuded His nature. His peace and His beauty and His inviting love. Em and I were so moved by these children, we plied her with questions and soul-feelingly promised our prayers and asked her how we could be in touch. She told us of how God started it—how she just simply knew she couldn’t walk by all the needs she was seeing when she worked for TASO (The Aids Support Organisation). A woman who has raised her own children and worked as a teacher and a counselor, she only recently retired. Within months, they are already providing a home for 53 abandoned, orphaned, malnourished, and mistreated little ones from 3 years old to 18. The older ones look after the younger ones. They have no staff; only faith. She didn’t lose her joyful, peaceful smile when she admitted that she doesn’t always know where the next meal will come from to feed everyone, but that God is faithful. She spoke of each individual child with love and value of them which spoke to my little heart of His love and value of each individual one of us.

I think the Lord has brought me here to meet this woman, these children, this home. I think He has laid a desire in me to be a voice for this quiet ministry, giving its all because of His love, with no need for applause or accolade. This is what His heart looks like. And I am undone.

Molly invited us to come back any time. She also looks after her grown but paralyzed son, but offers a spare room in their own family house for anyone who would come to volunteer with them. These little ones are insatiably hungry for affection. They’d also like them to be familiarized with English. If He has ever given you any niggling thought in your heart about spending some time serving Him in Uganda, please let me connect you.

This afternoon after we left our boys napping at Acacia Tree, Em and I haggled our way through the market, trying to make our last few pennies stretch to bring Molly and the kids some practical gifts of shoes & underwear (because with 53 children, how could there ever be enough!?) and trying to find impractical gifts too because it devastates us to see their colourful playroom empty of toys, their crowded beds untouched by stuffed animals/soft toys/dolls. There is little of this to be found in Uganda, and nothing of quality. We don’t know yet how we’ll be able to work out a program for aiding this orphanage, but Emily and I feel led to try to do so. But we’d need you. My eyes fill with tears when I imagine how many toys and books we have lying around our American/British houses, while the concrete floor of the playroom of these 53 orphans lies empty. And when I imagine how their eyes would light up…

If you could spare ANYTHING for these little jewels, please do not hesitate to send a package to:
Molly Tabaro S.P.
Divine Orphanage
P.O. Box 55
Baita, Entebbe
Uganda

These beautiful babies of His are also desperately in need of sponsors. Out of the 53 children at Divine Orphanage, 6 have sponsors. To go to school in Uganda there are fees of about $300 a year—that’s $25 a month to give a child a future. A few extra dollars a month would feed one of these bright spots of heaven. My heart is so passionate about them I can hardly breathe, and I only met them yesterday… If this is speaking to you at all, let me know and I will find a way to connect you with a secure way to send your donations. I will be seeking the Lord about how best to champion their cause, so you will be hearing about it!

And please will you pray. I wish I could adequately express everything to you. I know that if you could look into their little faces, peer into their overcrowded bedrooms, witness their empty playroom, see the lives they have been rescued from, nothing could stop you from leaping to their cause. Instead, all you have is my feeble voice recounting to you how He brought me to meet them. But I know He does nothing by accident—and even your reading this is purposeful…

Cry out with me for the orphans; fight beside me in the injustices of this fallen world, living out His fiercely loving heart for all to see and look to Him.

If you can do anything-- pray, give, volunteer, donate, support, offer services-- do not hesitate to get in touch.

We will be the hands and feet of love to these priceless little ones so far removed from what we know…

The truth of His love just slays me.
And with that fierce Father-love, He loves you. So that you might love others.
Oh thank You, Lord…

(P.S. Visit Emily's blogpost on the same subject at:  
http://emmiesreflections.blogspot.com/2011/02/divine-orphanage-secondary-school.html)

Our Boys

 

It’s been 3 weeks at Acacia Tree and it’s taken far less time than that to fall hopelessly in love with our boys. They are simply gorgeous with their smooth coffee-coloured skin and deep chocolate eyes, and each one with his own little distinct personality. Em and I truly long to adopt them—2 in particular—and can only pray over them as we rock them and cuddle them and bathe them and feed them and play with them and love them. We still have only 4 little ones at the moment, and wonder every day if today might be the day we meet another sweet baby coming to us in need, like John Mark did on our first day…

Speaking of which, John Mark, our littlest man at approx. 6 weeks, is growing so perfectly healthy and strong with Acacia Tree’s TLC! Now when I burp him on my shoulder he’s lifting his little head with his strong neck. His smile is to die for. And his newborn baby cuddles even more so! I kiss his perfectly smooth mocha-coloured skin, caress his downy soft black curls, and pray for the man he grows up to be, knowing that I would give him a home and be his mommy in a heartbeat if I could…

Jonathan, our oldest little man, has just reached a high enough weight to start his ARVs, but at 4 years old, he’s still only about the size of a 2 year old. His Autism sometimes means he’s not in a mood for any physical contact, but then other moments he just cannot be cuddled enough. It warms my heart EVERY TIME he’s in the mood for cuddles and just wraps his arms around my neck and lays his head on my shoulder!

 

Isaac (Zac) is the strongest and farthest developed of our boys and at nearly 15 months, he’s so close to walking! He is uncommonly handsome with his great big expressive eyes and ready dimpled smile. He has very long limbs, like a proper African man. And, my favourite discovery, Zac LOVES kisses :) And attention… We have just discovered that the family from Ohio working on adopting him have named him Henry, so we’re trying to get him used to his new name by calling him Henry-Zac!

Moses, whom has been affectionately nicknamed MoMo because it just suits him, has charmed his little way right into my and Emily’s hearts without effort. He is more darling than I can attempt to describe! Because he was extremely malnourished, his muscles are still very weak at nearly 19 months so he has the mobility of a much younger baby and cuddles like one too. He also has a massive round belly which he loves to pat. His favourite mode of communication is to wave across the room to one person, then the next, then the next—he’s an equal-opportunity waver. He also likes to imitate anything anyone else is doing, so he now attempts to snap his fingers, and blow kisses with the “mwah!” sound (nearly as cute as the little wave!), and shake his pointer finger at someone when they’re being naughty—though he hilariously always points it at himself :). His favourite thing is leaning back his head (which is a bit too heavy for his little neck) and having his throat tickled :) Just today he popped out a new trick when he began taking my hand and kissing it at the knuckles, just like a little royal prince to a princess! The cuteness of this child’s winsome personality cannot possibly be summed up in a paragraph. I just adore him!!

We are trying not to think yet about what it means when we leave here in 10 days time...