Thursday afternoon I finalized the packing of my bins and picked at all the food Bonnie was busy making all day. Around 5:30 Risa asked me to come and help her "fix a computer" in the office. So into the new office I went and everyone was surrounding the cake and ice cream. I stood there for about 5 seconds before I just lost it. The whole staff surrounding me and hugged me for a while. These Ugandans have become a part of my family. I have learned so much about their culture from them and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them more so. What a privilege it has been to physically see with my own eyes the care that they exhibit for all of the children who are sponsored. After they all went home we had my "Last Supper". Mike had asked me if I wanted to go out to eat and of course said no, nothing in Jinja compares to the food that Bonnie makes. Seriously, I'm not exaggerating! So we had fresh tilapia from Lake Victoria, guacamole, mango salsa, rice pilaf with sweet potatoes and pumpkin, and pumpkin bread. Wow after having cake at 5:30 I wasn't that hungry for dinner at 8pm but I ate regardless, who can resist that yummy food?
Friday morning came all too quickly and I worked on finishing some last minute packing. Godfrey, the driver, came around 10 am and Risa and I went into town to do some last minute errands. After those we swung by my new favorite place…Welcome Home. As if my week of goodbyes wasn't hard enough it was time for me to do one more difficult goodbye-George and Esther. I really hope and pray it wasn't my final goodbye. They were both looking better than they were the week before when I had seen them. I held Esther's hands and she walked across the room with me! WOW! She has gained enough strength in her scrawny legs to do that?! She'll totally be walking in the next few months! And George, my goodness. His little belly is just solid, so filled with food! I can now hold him without feeling like I'm going to break him. (Pastor Godfrey, the one who brought the kids to us really enjoyed seeing them again. He hadn't seen them since we first received them. He couldn't believe the difference.) The highlight of seeing them was the fact that George and Esther totally recognized us. George was crying when we walked in and he heard us and looked at us and stopped. I picked him up to give him lots of kisses on his cheeks and he just grinned ear to ear. That boy has the cutest smile ever! I think I'm really starting to believe that he is actually 2 years old. I look forward to having Teo go see them in a month or two and send me updated pictures of their progress! I pray God puts those two into my life again. They are forever engrained in my heart and mind.
We drove by the office one last time and Teo and Sam had arranged all the kids involved in the Holiday Bible Program (40 total) to come out on the porch and sing a song called, Goodbye Kerri, Kerri Goodbye, May God Bless You. (They recited this over and over for a few minutes). Then the staff all came and gave me our last hug goodbyes and I just lost it again (as I'm doing now as I write this).
How does one who has experienced what I've experienced and lived in the Majority World re enter into the craziness of the Minority World. What lessons learned can I transfer over into the world that I've reentered into? How do I stop talking in the Ugandan English that I've grown accustomed to? Someone in the airport just asked me for the time and I told him it was 8:30am and he asked did you say 8:30am and I just responded by lifting my eyebrows (that's how Ugandans say yes haha). So please bear with me if I respond to you in that way instead of verbally saying yes.
The Minority World and the Majority world are so different. As I sit here I can't help but think of the differences. I'm leaving a family that I got to be a part of in the house (Ugandans are very relationship focused and we mzungus really embraced that living there). I absolutely love being around people so living with 3 mzungus and a Ugandan (plus more Ugandans at different times) has been incredibly rewarding. We have experienced many joys and sorrows together. We've learned something new almost every day about Uganda. We didn't have a television in the house (some Ugandans were shocked when they found that out). It's been quite nice to not have a television. Every night was a dinner where we would all be seated around the table and would talk about our day (imagine that happening in America nowadays). Dinner usually took about 2 hours with cleaning the dishes as well. When I first got to Uganda in September I really missed the freedom I had in Virginia to go out at night and be social. But I quickly grew to love our family dinners every night. Another difference…I can't tell you how many pieces of clothing I have but a Ugandan could probably tell you off the top of their head because they wash their clothes so often since they only have a handful of clothes. I'm not looking forward to stepping back into the consumerism in America. The amount of stuff we have at our disposal is something that has affected me every since my first visit to Uganda. The choices we have at the grocery store can be overwhelming after living somewhere where there are two kinds of bread, white and brown. I'm going back to big malls filled with tons of stores and people buying things that they really don't need (I'm definitely guilty of this). What are we as American Christians doing to share our resources with the rest of the world? Do our pocket books reflect the Lord who we love? Are we really caring for the widows and orphans as we are told over and over again in the Scriptures to do? If you are not already sponsoring an orphan to go to school I implore you to think and pray about starting that relationship that will forever change your life.
How will God use this experience in my life to change me and shape me? How has He used it in the lives of those who have read my blog? As I start to reflect on all God has done over this past year I just wanted to thank all of you who have prayed for me and financially support me on this journey that God had me on. I wouldn't have gotten to experience what I did without you all. I hope you have been able to sort of experience it all along with me. I don't have any idea what God has next for me. What will my future involvement look like in Uganda? I don't know but I do know my heart is buried deep in the soil there so it will be a place that I know God will continue to bring me back to.
(Two books I highly recommend are The Hole in our Gospel and When Helping Hurts, they have both been very eye opening and convicting for me to read this year.)
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