God Among Us

Friday afternoon the girls and I went to Kampala. We met Jillian, a volunteer from the Jesus Village (an orphanage a couple towns over from where I am staying) at one of the cafes there. My friend Kate actually met her at church the week before and struck up a friendship with her, so we were all pretty much meeting for the first time. As soon as she got there she started asking us our stories and what brought us to Africa. We went around the table and said our piece and the funny thing was that I was learning things I had never heard from the very girls I spend every second of every day with. We learned from Jillian that she came here to help some friends from America start an orphanage. Because she is a volunteer she doesn’t get paid, so she had to save up for a year and just lives off her savings. She really caught my attention when she started talking about trying to stick it out at office jobs and just realizing that they weren’t for her. That’s what mom and dad have always said about me! The funny thing about all this is that I have always felt that even if God did call me to Africa it would be way too hard to get a job because I would have no idea where to start. It is really scary to think that God keeps opening me up to more and more contacts and ideas for what to do with my life. If he does call me to Africa, I have plenty of means to get a job here. After we asked Jillian a million questions about the orphanage she asked if there was anything she could pray about for each of us. We went around the table again and just up about things that have been bothering us or things we were dealing with. After that we all took turns praying…we prayed for about fifteen minutes in the middle of a crowded café in the middle of Kampala. It was so amazing…I honestly felt the presence of God among us. I felt so tight with all those girls at that moment because I didn’t feel alone anymore in the middle of Africa. I had four other people that truly cared about me and were praying for me and would continue to pray for me. We all hugged, parted ways, and promised to see each other again. We are planning a visit to the Jesus Village soon.

We had about an hour before we had to be home, so we went to the craft village and went shopping. We had a banquet to be at that night at school, so we gave ourselves an hour and a half to get home. We went to the bus stop and suddenly remembered that it was a Friday night and the mutatus were full. We stood for about ten minutes at one stop and then decided that it would be better to just keep walking and try and catch one on the go. We walked for a little bit and then we got tired, so we stopped at another bus stop and waited. We all kept praying that we would find a mutatu because it was getting late and starting to become dark. We met an Africa man there named Steve. He just started talking to us and asking us questions about where we were from and where we were headed. We found out that he was a Christian and that he went to a university close by. We were all headed in the same direction, so he told us that he would help us get home. We waited for over an hour and were really getting frustrated, when finally caught a mutatu for all of us to ride together. It wouldn’t take us all the way home, but he promised to help us catch the next bus that would get us to Mukono. When we got to our stop we all got off and he waited with us until we caught a coaster bus to take us home. When we were all alone on the way back Bethany told us all that she felt that maybe Steve was an angel sent from God. We had all been praying for a mutatu, but maybe God answered us differently than we expected.

We left for Ssese Islands early on Saturday morning. We drove about an hour to a ferry and then took a three hour ferry ride to the islands. The girls and I stayed in a cabin right on the beach and it was amazingly beautiful. We ate on the beach, played on the beach, and even had Sunday morning service on the beach. The first night we just sat on the beach and marveled at the sunset. I mean not only were we watching a sunset on the beach, but we were watching a sunset on the beach in AFRICA.

Today was the Ugandan Independence Day, so there were no classes. One of my American professors, Professor Adams (the one I went to church with last week), conned us all into coming to his class, though, in return for an American style barbecue…it was well worth it! After that we had dessert with the Vice Chancellor of the university. He showed “The Invisible Children” because we are having a discussion about it tomorrow in class. The movie touches me each time I watch it, but it is amazing how real it is watching it from Africa. I saw the faces of the children I work with in the orphanage on the children who were walking to safety. I saw the shower shoes that everyone here owns on the feet of the children. The people here, especially the children, are so beautiful and I cannot believe that we let these things go on here.

This reminds me of a tea time discussion that the girls and I had this week. I asked why miracles seem to happen so much more often here. One of the girls said that it is probably because they are more open to the possibilities of miracles. We Americans look to explain away miracles too often, instead of just accepting that God is still working in our lives to do amazing, unexplainable things. This led to discussing how we also (meaning Americans) forget that the devil really is there. We have just decided that it is our own free will that makes us do things and “the devil made me do it” is just a childish way to explain away what we have done. But by doing this we almost give him for power. A book I was reading gave the quote, “The smartest thing the devil ever did was convince the world that he doesn’t exist.” What if we started living our lives like the devil is waiting to trip us up at every corner? What if we really believed that we are in a spiritual war? Would it make us live differently? I really have to believe that the devil is working in the world today…that is why nothing is being done for the children of Africa. But I also still believe that God is doing miracles…the small everyday ones in my life and the big ones that can save a nation.