So Little Time

It's been over a year since we last left Uganda, five months since we decided to move back there, and less than two months are left before we leave. So little time. So little time that we've spent here in Boulder. So little time left. I remember thinking when we first moved back to the states that the idea of spending a whole year in Boulder seemed like an eternity. I didn't realize, however, how quickly one year could pass by here and still feel shorter than one month in Karamoja. I attribute this phenomenon to the fact that Karamoja and the West exist in two entirely different dimensions. Skeptical, are you? Well, I'm no Stephen Hawking but I do think there might be a wormhole located somewhere between Europe and Entebbe. But unless you want to come visit, you'll just have to take my word for it. You literally step from one world into another when you travel between the two. This explains why time doesn't move the same in Karamoja as it does here.

Here time flees. It flees our grasp, always evading and eluding us. We invent silly contraptions to help us save time, as if we can store it away for a rainy day. But time is antsy and refuses to keep still for us here. It flits about from one activity to the next, never idle, never at rest, never able to quite sit still. We can never catch enough of it. Somehow it always gets away from us.

But in Karamoja time crawls. It creeps slowly onward, pausing often in the shade of a tree to rest, never hurrying for anyone or anything. It doesn't know deadlines or emergencies or vocabulary words like "urgent" or "now". Forget your plans, your schedules, and your expectations. Karamoja Time will foil the lot of them. In Karamoja, it does not matter if you are white or black, male or female, young or old. Times moves for no one. No, like an old grey-bearded elder, time moves as it wills, slowly but determinedly, wisely pausing for meaningful occasions. The exchange of greetings with each person you meet on the way to the market, the interruption of a friend stopping in for a visit, the invitation to join a neighbor for tea. In Karamoja, time may not move for you, but it will always stop for you.

Here in Boulder time is fleeing before us, not caring to stop, pause, or slow even a little. We now have only three weeks until we leave on our tour of neighboring states to say goodbye to loved ones. This past year has been short but sweet, full of growth and rest, peace and friends. We have dearly loved being neighbors to our good friends the Wades, and we have found a true family among our house church and couples group - a first for us in Boulder. I am thankful, very thankful for this short year and I look forward to the long years ahead of us in Karamoja.

Leaving the Land of Thorns

In our last blog, we wrote about an opportunity we were exploring to move locations within Uganda and work with a coffeehouse in Lira (about 5 hours from Kotido) for the remainder of our time here. Since that post, we visited the coffeehouse (more appropriately termed the cafe) and spent a day and a half with the American couple who runs it. Quickly following that trip, it became apparent to both of us that we were not supposed to move. God was simply not leading us to Lira. We both felt somewhat relieved, as we were not excited about the idea of leaving our team - our family - so much sooner than expected. Little did we know God had another thing in mind.

Soon after we made the decision not to move to Lira, we felt God leading us to pray about when we should conclude our time here in Kotido. Originally, we felt like God was leading us to be here for six months to a year, without a strong sense of the exact time-frame. Over time, however, we began to assume that we would be here for one year. As we prayed about the timing God has for us, we realized that our assumption was incorrect. God showed both of us that our time was going to be up in March, not in May as we had expected.

So we purchased our tickets (barely a month and a half before our flight date) and we will be arriving in the Denver airport on March 13th. This fact is still difficult for both of us to believe. It's hard to imagine the cold March weather that we will be jumping into while it's still around 85 or 90 degrees inside our house at night when we go to bed. We will be the only Coloradans with a tan! Our team has been very supportive of us leaving, having prayed through this decision with us. However, this does not make it any easier to think of leaving them here to continue on in the dry heat and oftentimes exhausting culture while we get to return to electricity, running water, and refrigeration. We get to return to ice cream (Andrew's excited about the Blue Bell) and whole grains and salads (that'd be me Kerri) and so so much stuff. Perfectly paved roads, perfectly manicured lawns, perfectly controlled climates (with heaters and AC), perfectly cold drinks, perfectly clean water, perfectly safe surroundings. I know that we've only been gone 8 months, but it doesn't take long to forget what it's like to have so many resources at your disposal, so many luxuries at your fingertips. I can still picture the streets of Boulder in my head, with their fancy cars and huge, expensive houses and it's hard to remember that people really live that way. It's so easy to forget here. And it will be just as easy to forget there. It always is.

So we are coming back. For how long, we don't know. Where we will live, we don't know. All we know is God has said that we are done here, so we are leaving this land of thorns and sun and begging and friends and family and beauty and we are moving on, trusting that God has a plan we will discover in time.

Unity

Hey people, or Jonathan and Lynnette since you may be the only ones that read this now.

It's only been one week since we last posted, which is very exciting for us. We'd like to catch everyone up on what we've been doing on the practical, everyday life side of things, while trying not to bore you to death.

Firstly, we're still doing many chores everyday, but it's not as bad as back in the day.

Kerri is really focusing on helping Shalom Uganda get NGO (Non Governmental Organization) status. This is a long process with quite a bit of paperwork but she's plugging away at it and Lord willing we'll file in late January to early February. At the same time Kerri has started to help develop all the different documents and forms that will help Shalom run smoother and better in the future. She is also helping with the Mercy Ministry run by Shalom Uganda, which involves delivering food and supplies to vulnerable people in Kotido District.

Andrew is helping support the Child Sponsorship Program, which right now means preparing for the new school year (the Ugandan school year starts in late January).

It seems to be obvious that Kerri works much harder than Andrew, but that's not a surprise to anyone.

I (Andrew) am going to give up this third person thing now to share a little of what God's been teaching us this past week. As a little background I'll tell you that this year has been much harder than we expected. While we've felt God calling us to work among the poor for a long time, we've learned that doesn't mean we're automatically Mother Theresa and St. Francis' spiritual offspring. This week Jesus' prayer in John 17 really jumped out at me. It wasn't anything in particular, just the overall spirit and focus of Jesus' words: unity. That his people be united. That his current and future disciples would live in unity with each other and with God. I feel like we've learned just how important that is, particularly unity with God. This ties in with something Kerri was sharing with me from Deuteronomy 8:3, the famous "Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." Just before that part of the verse it talks about how God humbled the Israelites in the desert, making them hungry and then feeding them with manna. Increasingly leading up to this week, we've felt like the Israelites. Like we've been humbled and made to hunger for words from God. I feel like we've learned at least a part of just how important unity with our God is, a part of why Jesus thought it important enough to focus on in his prayer in John.

So now we're praying that God would sustain us with words from his very mouth. Everything else has slowly and sometimes painfully been shaken away to the point that we just really want his voice to be present in our lives.

I hope I expressed all of this in an easy to understand fashion. We're still praying and working through these lessons, so like our lives this blog is a picture of a work in progress.

Alright, well time for me to eat.

-Andrew (and soon to be edited by Kerri)

Back in Kotido

It feels as if we've been traveling forever. We've taken three trips to Kampala since the beginning of November and our total number of hours on a bus since we moved to Uganda is up to 134 1/2 hours.

Kind of short on words today, so here are some photos:

The view from a nearby rock outside of town,

pretty much what the landscape around us looks like

Local elder at a healing ceremony

(his hat is made of human hair)

Our large mzungu (white person) house

Kerri and our neice Nevaeh enjoying one of our last big rains in September

Andrew and our nephew Izzy doing dishes outside

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

For those of you keeping track, we've passed the half way mark for our time here. Maybe we'll average more than a blog every two months for the remainder of our time...maybe.

Sorry for the lack of blogging, we'll try to do better.

So last week we traveled to Kampala, the capital, so we could pick up some supplies and meet up with some friends. While I did a lot of running around and getting stuff done I've gotta say the best part of the trip was the few short conversations i was able to have with the street children.

Since the Karimojong are a very poor people and Kampala is the biggest city in Uganda, many Karimojong end up on the streets of Kampala. They end up there in a number of ways and the worst of those ways is by human trafficking. People buy the kids from their parents or kidnap them off the streets in Karimoja then take them to Kampala and have them beg on the streets just so that the person controlling the child can make the money. Also many women and children just come of their own accord to try and make a living in Kampala and end up begging on the streets. I didn't write this blog to dive into these issues but if someone has questions they can let me know and we can talk.

So once the Karimojong end up on the streets they're highly despised. The rest of Ugandans are pretty cruel and can be oppressive of the Karimojong. All this to say these kids and women end up begging on the crowded streets of Kampala where nobody speaks their language or cares anything about them.

We've been studying the language of the Karimojong now for about 4 and a half months. It's an oral language and quite difficult for me. So I feel like I barely know anything. Me and Kerri were however able to carry on small conversations with the people living on the street in their own language. And it was spectacular. Their faces would turn from that of a downcast begger to this bright, excited woman or child.

So this is a long story to get to a small point. I don't have any huge spiritual or philosophical truths to lay on you. I just want to share my excitement. This is just a confirmation that to reach a people, while you may not be able to become completely like them, you must meet them where they are. Those kids were so stinkin excited to talk to us in their language that it just makes me want to become fluent in their language and then just go hang out on the streets with them letting them know that somebody loves them.

-andrew

a month of wandering

So for roughly the past month we've been moving around Uganda for one reason or another. It started as a short trip as a retreat, but then we were afraid that I (andrew) had some disorder, possibly diabetes or hyperthyroidism, that was causing me to lose weight and other things. So we then had to travel to Kampala (the capital) to see a doctor. It turns out they think it was just a parasite, which is good. Then we had to stay a few extra days in Kampala because the roads in Karamoja were too muddy and we were afraid that the bus would get stuck and we'd have to sleep on the way. Once we finally returned to Kotido our team mates were leaving to go south and visit some friends who we really wanted to meet. Therefore we spent two nights in Kotido and then left again.

It's been an interesting few weeks to say the least. We've had some great prayer times though, and I can honestly say we've grown through the time. We are feeling much more at home back here in Kotido than before we left. It was great to come back and already have so many local people here say that they missed us and are happy we are back.

So now we have to learn to be. Our team focus right now is mainly just being and waiting. Yes, we're going to continue to support Rainbow Mike and the orphanage, but he is really great at what he does and just needs us as family to support him which definitely doesn't take all our time. Other than that we really feel like God wants us to focus on language learning, just live here in the culture naturally building relationships, and wait on Him for what's after that. So here we are. We cook. We clean. We go to the market. We visit friends. We walk around town. We Pray. We study the Word. We try to wait on God and we try to figure out what that actually means "wait on God". I as I type this I'm deciding that waiting on God isn't the best way to express what we're doing. It's probably better to say we are doing right now what God has told us to do until he tells us to do something else. I feel like "waiting" makes it sound as if this is just some interim period in which we're fully prepared and just waiting for God to get his stuff together. This period is a gift of preparation from the Father, in which is preparing us and giving us amazing relationships with people around us. This period is just as important as the next. As followers I believe we are just to be faithful to whatever God has for us at that moment and that's that.

This blog has been a bit of an exercise in thinking out loud, but I hope it makes sense. If you remember us in your prayers we'd really appreciate it. You can pray for Visas and Passport stuff to come through for our team, team unity, and that we could be here fully.

As always, hit us with some comments, and we love you ,

Andrew

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick and in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Matthew 25: 31-40

When we were living in Boulder, Colorado, I (Kerri) constantly dreamed of the day when I could really put Jesus’ teachings into practice. I knew that I was supposed to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and care for the widow and the orphan in their distress. I knew that God’s heart was about justice for the poor and the marginalized – and to follow him, I knew I had to seek justice for them as well. But Boulder is probably one of the most affluent cities in the U.S. and marginalized people are hard to find. Even people who are homeless in Boulder are rarely hungry – in the summertime, they get to eat sushi and tourists’ Cheesecake Factory leftovers on a regular basis.

One of the reasons I was excited to move to Karamoja was the fact that the poor are everywhere here. I thought things would be simpler, more black and white (no pun intended). That, rather than being an abstract notion, following Jesus would be a tangible act when there are real people around you in need. What I didn’t expect was waking up every morning to the sound of kids banging on our gate, yelling at us to let them in. I didn’t expect for them to stand on the other side of our fence all day long and demand that we give them food, water, money, and school books. I didn’t expect the kids to throw rocks at us over the fence and try to climb into our yard to steal our soccer ball. I know that some of the kids go to school and have a home and a family, and some of the kids have beautiful smiles and just want some attention. But there are also those kids who live their lives on the street, wearing rags for clothes and going barefoot. Those kids that steal handfuls of your leftover food off your plate after you walk out of a restaurant. Those kids who are the most difficult to love and the ones who need it most.

Every day I get the chance to feed the hungry. Why? Because everyone here is hungry. Every day I get the chance to give someone a cup of water. Why? Because no one here has clean water to drink. Every day I get the chance to clothe the naked. Why? Because none of these kids have shoes. Every day I get the chance to follow Jesus. Yet the one thing I’ve learned is that however simple it may be, it’s not easy. No matter how much you romanticize the idea of living among the poor (if you’re anything like me), the reality is always more difficult. Street kids will still be at my gate tomorrow morning, trying my patience once again. The good news is that, with each new day, I’ll get another chance to love them and another chance to become a better follower.