One Heart. Two Homes.

            

The flight has been booked. It has been booked for some time now, but I think that it is finally sinking into my mind that in 117 days I will be headed west to see my home country again. I will have been in Uganda for one full year and I am not sure that I can begin to communicate how this year has changed me. I’m not saying that I am a different person; fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I am still the same Jordan. I still jump a little when a bird flies too closely to my head. I still can’t stand the smell of celery or the taste of cilantro. I will still choose to watch Rocky over any chick-flick produced to date. And as soon as I touch down on American soil I am ordering a Venti Iced Dirty Chai and there is no stopping me. 

            But spending a year in another country, especially one that I have felt so at home in does change a person to some degree. There are going to be foods that I crave that the American grocery store won’t have. Hot days will rarely be cooled off by a monster rain storm. My mornings won’t be filled with the sounds of monkeys playing in my back yard or kids making their way to school. I won’t have the opportunity to walk to my friends’ houses and sit with them over a charcoal stove while we prepare dinner together. I can’t even take time to go see those friends who might as well be considered family. 

            It’s a difficult thing when your heart has two places to call home. There are people back in the States that I miss on a daily basis and things about America that I wish I could bring to Uganda (Target, dark chocolate, almonds, Kraft macaroni and cheese….just to name a few). I am beyond excited to come home and see everyone and catch up and enjoy the comforts of America. To not have to wonder if I will have hot water when I step into the shower, or if I will have any water at all. To have unlimited wireless internet practically everywhere I go. To be a citizen again and not have to constantly go to the immigration office to update my visa. To understand what people are saying around me without having to use excessive hand motions to fill in the gaps.

 It will be so sweet to be home. 

            But then there’s the dilemma of what I will miss. I will miss the cold showers after a long, hot walk home. I will miss mangoes, matoke, avocadoes as big as my face, ground nuts and chicken. I will miss the simplicity of pre-paid phones that take away the shock of an outrageous phone bill at the end of the month (I've gotten in trouble for that one too many times). I will miss the challenge of navigating the city when I have to go in for my visa or any other errand. And although it is so hard to communicate when you can’t really speak the language, I will miss trying something new and learning and laughing so hard after you say something completely wrong, but they still know what you mean.

            It will be so heartbreaking to leave home.          

 There are some legitimate fears that come along with leaving Uganda. What is next? Will I ever be back? How many things have changed back in the States? Will I be an outsider when I return? All of these thoughts go through my head on a weekly basis at this point. I have fallen in love with this country and the people that live here. Despite all the frustrations that come with living in a developing country, I am still drawn to this place. My prayer in this next stage of life is that God would make things clear for the future and what it is that I will be doing next. Please pray for clarity in my heart and mind and a willingness to go and do whatever it is that God has for me to do. 

 

“How lucky I am that I have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” --Winnie the Pooh 

 "You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place." 

--Anonymous

More Precious Than Gold: Imperishable. Undefiled. Unfading.

I write this sitting outside with no shower for the 3^rd night in a row. No water. I am to the point that I am wishing for a cold shower right now. With how hot it has been for the past week the thought of the freezing water splashing all around me and running through my hair sounds like a spa treatment.

The honeymoon is over.

It has almost been 6 months since I landed here at Plot 157 Kubamitwe, Uganda; 6 wonderfully trying months. I have been encouraged, strengthened, pushed, and confronted in ways that I never expected. But no, really, most of this I didn’t expect. I expected the cold showers, no showers, bugs, lack of Target runs, and the severe absence of edible sushi. I expected to be challenged in my walk with the Lord, to grow in my faith, and to make friendships that would prove to be invaluable.

What I didn’t expect was the burdens that would be transferred from those that I have come to love to my heart. I didn’t expect to spend days and nights feeling as if my head is couldn’t hold one more thought. I didn’t expect the guilt that I would feel at the fact that I have never suffered as these people, that I have a seriously difficult time identifying.  

I have lost people close to me before, either to death or the fracturing of a relationship for one reason or another. I have felt the pressure to make ends meet when it comes to bills, tuition, rent, and groceries. I have been sick before, or known people close to me who have struggled with illness; but everything that I search my brain for and identify as some sort of trial pales in comparison to what those around me are dealing with.

Death, illness, broken families, hunger, anxiety, and depression are rearing their ugly head in the lives of those that I have come to love and been given the opportunity to minister to. Everyone has a story and not many of them have a happy ending.

A couple of weeks ago an elderly lady in one of my Bible studies lost her daughter to a botched surgery to remove the baby that she had just miscarried. Esther, the lady in my Bible study, has a heart condition which causes her to have a heart attack about once a month. Her daughter was the one who rushed her to the hospital, which is about 45 minutes away, each time that she would have an attack, and would provide the money for the treatment. Now that her daughter has passed away Esther is grieved because she has lost her daughter and anxious because there is no one who can care for her now. There is only so much that I can do in this situation. I can’t go and live with Esther, I can’t have her move in with us, I could pay for her hospital fees, but her village is about 30 minutes away from mine, so if she was to somehow reach me when she has an attack, it would take almost twice as long for me to get her to the hospital. This is when helplessness sets in pretty hard.

It is somehow difficult to go spend the day with someone in the village and help them wash their clothes by hand, pump their water from a bore hole, cook their meal over a charcoal fire, dig their food from their garden, and then sweep the dirt floor of their mud home and then go back to my cushy house that has running water, a stove, and even a new washing machine that I didn’t know how I was going to live without.

I have spent many nights praying and asking God to heal those around me. Heal them physically, spiritually, and relationally; but what I have come to see is that God can truly use suffering in someone’s life to bring glory to himself and to grow that person in their faith. I can’t count the number of times that I have heard this whether in church or a counseling class, but for the first time in my life I think that I actually believe it. I have actually come to believe 1 Peter 1:6-7 when it says, “in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in PRAISE & GLORY & HONOR at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

I really believe that our suffering, no matter how severe, is only for a little while. I see how it perfects our faith which is more precious than gold. And I have witnessed those who suffer choose, through their tears, to praise and worship our God who is worthy of glory and honor. God has been teaching me so much about trusting in his future grace. He is using the suffering of those around me to grow my faith and he is allowing me to witness the heart change of these loved ones who are struggling with things that I can’t begin to imagine dealing with.

As soon as I begin to feel guilty for the life that God has given me to live compared to the one that he has given to those around me I remember that we are all recipients of a future grace that proves this life to be temporary. The focus is not on the things that we have in this life, but how we glorify God in this life and hope for the one that is to come. I have learned to go without many things, but I have also learned to be thankful for the resources that God has given me and use them as selflessly as possible.

A quote from John Piper in his book Future Grace has served as a great encouragement to me these past few months. It says, “Only if we trust God to turn past calamities into future comfort can we look back with gratitude for all things…Be strong, and do not doubt that God will be as gracious in the future as he has been in the past.” I shared this with Esther as we sat and recounted all the ways that God has shown her grace in the past, and I was able to witness her tears turn from sorrow to rejoicing, she was not the only one who was praising God through their tears that afternoon. He is so good. He is so very good beyond anything that I can imagine or understand. The fact that we serve a God who can take terrible suffering and turn it into a glorious thing brings me comfort that surpasses all understanding.

Believer, contemplate your suffering today, whatever it might be, and rejoice. Rejoice because God is a loving, powerful, sovereign God who is for you, and secured for you a hope that is in heaven.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9

One of the nicer houses in the village. Bricks made by hand, built with love by the people who call this place home.

Cassava root. It looks gross, and sometimes it is, but it is a staple food around here. When in Rome...

Some kids from the nearby town. Who doesn't love a photo-op?

Bless Her Heart (and other reactions)

The countdown keeps getting shorter and shorter. I am definitely in the single digits now (6 days) and the closer that it gets the more I can't believe that I am actually going to be gone for a year, living in Uganda, and working with SOS Ministries. I have come to realize that whether or not I can wrap my mind around it, that doesn't slow down the time before I get on an airplane and fly 8,000 miles away from home.

The reactions that I have gotten from people as I have prepared to leave have been all across the board. It's really funny to think about. My friends are usually not very surprised that this is happening. Most of them just respond with "It's about time" or "I was wondering when you would do something like this". The nurse that stabbed needles into my body to make sure that I didn't contract some life threatening disease while I am away called me "brave". That's right, apparently I'm brave. Oh, and a courageous independent woman. That made me laugh a little.

The lady off Craigslist that I bought some luggage from said that she would never do something so dangerous. While, the woman at the bank told me that God would be over my shoulder the whole time telling people not to touch me. Yea, you read that right. It was awkward. Definitely one of those instances where you just smile a little and agree with whatever the person is saying.

Really the only positive reaction that I have received from a stranger is the one that I got from my oral surgeon before he ripped all four of my wisdom teeth out of my head a couple weeks ago. He said that it was really awesome and I should go on a gorilla trek while I was there. But really I think he was just trying to talk about something other than the fact that I had just passed out from the IV that he put in my arm and he was going to have to stick me again for the 3rd time. It was awful, really awful.

-- In case you haven't picked up on it yet, I have this intense fear of needles. As soon as I think I have gotten over it God humbles me again and the doctor pulls out the smelling salts to bring me back to reality. It usually makes for an embarrassing story that basically just ends with people laughing at me and shaking their head because I will admit, it's sad. --

Basically, over the past few months as I have prepared to leave I have had people generously give me money and supplies to support me in my move, I have had people warn me that bad things are going to happen if I go, and I have had people just kind of proverbially, pat me on the head and think to themselves "bless her heart". The point is, I don't really feel like a brave, courageous, independent woman. I am not really scared of whatever is going to happen. And I am not moving to Uganda to have some sort of adventure that I can blog or Instagram about; although I'm sure plenty of things will happen that will make for a good story!

Really, what I feel is complete thankfulness and excitement for the opportunity to go and learn about missions and ministry in another culture, and I am ready to do whatever God is going to have me do whether or not it is glamorous or anything to write home about. I have wanted to do something like this since I became a believer, but quite honestly I never really believed I would get the chance.

I know that this next year is going to change me as a person one way or another; I really don't see how it couldn't. But what I don't know is how. Another thing that people usually ask, with good intention, when talking about my move to Uganda, is "what are you going to do when you get back?" Well, the beauty of it all is that I really don't have any idea. And while that would usually really stress me out and send me into some sort of controlling conniption, it has become the source of so much freedom and comfort. I can find peace in Deuteronomy 31:8 which says, "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Do not fear or be dismayed. Not only is is a command to have faith, it is a comfort to know that we will never be forsaken by God and that should cause us to never worry or doubt.

God is already in Uganda, he always has been. God is in America, he always has been. The Holy Spirit is in me, since the day he redeemed me and made me his. I can rest in that knowing that my future is secure in Christ and that includes this next year in Uganda and the years that the Lord gives me beyond that.

I am deeply thankful for everyone's prayers and support. This time of preparation has been such a blessing and I hope you will continue to remember me in your prayers as I am away. I hope to update this blog every couple weeks or so. You can subscribe by entering your email on the sidebar and the updates will just be sent to you. Easy enough! Please keep in contact with the email address attached to the blog under the "Contact Me" tab, and I can't wait to hear from you and see everything that is going on in your life over this next year!