Recounting September blessings & highlights

We had a GSF soccer game versus some street kids from Jinja. Those kids were BIG. They weren’t even kids. They were like…men. We had a little league and a big league. Those “little” boys were not little. They looked older than our teens! WE lost….haha we even had to call out some of our village kids tom play because their “kids” were too big!

Me and Megan, one of our missionary kids, made Chapati PLUS PLUS! Basically, we attempted a dessert made with chapatis (think of oily pita bread or a THICK tortilla or  Chinese pancakes—but without the green onions). We made it for one of our missionary game nights in Nyenga (where Corinne & Daniel and Katie & Cody live). We made caramelized bananas, packaged whipped crème, marshmallow fluff, nutella, bananas, G-nuts (think peanuts) and wrapped it in a chapatti. It was crazy.  

making chapattis!

corinne washed all our shoes because they were muddy

We had a couple other toddlers break out in measles. More isolation. I would ask them, “Do you have measles?!” and they would happily yell back “YES! We have measles”. Then they proceeded to sing songs about them being together forever. Unlike our previous case of measles a couple weeks before, I don’t really think these boys had measles…hahah but at least they had fun pretending they had measles. We will never know.

WE had some very sick children. Thankfully they are all better!

We had an Africa Inland Missions (AIM) Kampala Unit Retreat. I enjoyed the fellowship with these other missionaries. I also enjoyed my talks with Christa and Missy (both STMers) and Julie (a long termer). I have a lot to think about. More on that laterrrr.

Sunday School—I’m teaching my first Sunday School class ever. I teach the 11-13 year olds. They are a really cool bunch and I really enjoy them…although, seriously, I am not a teacher. Thankfully we are all surviving!

Rainy days are like HORRIBLE snow days.  Everything just stops. Everyone stops. I like ‘em.

I removed my first JIGGER! It was pretty….fun?! It was interesting seeing the eggs come out of the foot and then the Jigger itself! Wish I could’ve recorded it. The GSF girls teased me and predicted who I would go run to tell about removing my first Jigger.

When Katie and I picked up the team we saw Shaggy. I guess he came to Uganda. Surprise! He was wearing sunglasses at night…fyi.. He was on their flight but they didn’t see him.

We had games with tweens and teens after church. We bribed them with cookies and ourselves (of course). Usually Sunday is their movie day…but they came! The cookies worked. And having it at my house worked!  And I guess the team being there worked as well! Alton was able to share his testimony and then we played games with them! Amoeba tag and some Ugandan games! …and of course Soccer. Boys VS girls!

Ice cream social! The kids LOVED it! Some of them had ice cream for the first time! I took some ice cream to the babies and they were so shocked and scared! Our Chubs Chubs-Wayne LOVED it though! We had to convince some of the babies to try it by sticking it in their mouth! One baby kept opening his mouth then closing it when I tried to give him a spoonful of ice cream. What a tease.

his face after he tried ice cream

this one couldn't stop eating ice cream

he preferred a cup

satisfied

We did a prayer walk with our local pastor at the village church. I invited my Sunday School class—so they came with us. Prayer walk ended up being an evangelism walk. The two groups were able to share the gospel with 2 Muslim ladies. Pray that their hearts will be softened.

Mercy Ministry: We were able to deliver mattresses, basins, bibles, blankets to two families that were on GSF’s mercy ministry list. It was such a blessing being able to deliver those items to them and show Christ’s love to them! I think they came out to church on Sunday too (per Amy).

Charissa and Amy were able to follow me on rounds. It was fun bringing them around and kind of showing them what I did. The team was also just able to spend time with the kids. It was really cool being able to introduce them to the GSF kids and it was cool seeing the GSF kids and the team play and hang out with each other. That was SUCH a blessing.

My goal was to have the team try riding a boda! AND it happened! Amy even rode on one.

James helped us take a fake boda picture since we weren't able to take one

I was also able to show the team a brief tour of Jinja and Nalufenya –the Children’s ward. It was nice just being able to show people from the team 2 months of my life.

Murchison Falls! Enjoyed my time away with them! It was sweet! Still didn’t see a lion but we did get eaten by TseTse flies.

Also on a side note apart from the flies, Alton got attacked by a baboon. THOSE THINGS ARE CRAZY.

with george and william

Most people here in Uganda associate any Asian person here with people from China who are building roads and bridges. I was a little bit nervous thinking about how our team was composed of all Asian people.  I was nervous for all the comments like “Hey China!” or “do you know Karate?”"ching chong". Honestly, it’s been a struggle for me being one of the few Asians and always being asked if I was related to the only other Asian they knew or being referred to as a whole country (aka HEY CHINA). Self consciously  I feared what I would hear and what people would say when they saw for the first time (at least for GSF) a team that had all Asian Americans.  

I think my view changed after I told our driver that we were picking up a primarily Asian team. He told me that a lot of people don’t associate the Asians who come here as missionaries but saw them as road/bridge workers. I think God was showing me to be thankful for being the minority (even amongst the missionary community). He was showing me something better and greater. Being a missions group that was all Asian was a wonderful opportunity to show Christ’s love, especially since they think that the only Asians who come are ones to help build roads and such.  Our team was able to help me see what a great way to show that there are other ethnicities who love Uganda and it’s people and who also love Christ and want to do his work too! I think just realizing this has been super freeing and such an encouragement for us to show that we are not here to build bridges or roads but to build up God’s kingdom. That Ugandans or whoever will see us and hopefully not think “Road” or“Karate” but be encouraged in seeing the variety of people who are called to bring the Good News of Christ to those who don’t believe as well! 

Sorry, this was a really long post. I also failed to post it in September….does it count if I say it’s for the month of September?!  Until the next post!