Heading Home

In light of the holiday season I think it's appropriate to say that I am thankful. 

I am thankful for the past three months that I got to spend here in Jinja, Uganda. 

I am thankful for this place called Ekisa that gives a home to so many beautiful children. 

I am thankful that I got to know these children and experience the joy that each of them have to give to the world. 

I am thankful that I've been safe on bodas.

I am thankful for my safe travels to and from Kenya, and the wonderful visits I had there. 

I am thankful for Acacia Community Church, and Pastor Terry, for the sense of home they both have provided the past three months. 

I am thankful for the friends I have met here who have continued to support me if I wanted to cry, encourage me in my time here, laugh with me, and build me up in the love of Christ. 

I am thankful for cups of coffee since sleeping in here is utterly impossible.

I am thankful for the small steps of progress that we have seen in school. 

I am thankful for our Thanksgiving dinner we had here last week. 

I am thankful I got to watch the UVA-Tech game on Saturday with Pastor Terry, despite the tragic ending.

Above all right now I am thankful that the Lord fearfully and wonderfully made each one of them, and all He has given them - the silly, quirky things Isaac does daily to make me laugh, Amy's beautiful smile she gets when you kiss her cheek, Sam's perseverance and strength during his crises, Debra's uncontrollable laughter, Baby Misach's adorable smile where he sucks in his bottom lip and scrunches his nose, Zuena's fight for life, Zeke's enthusiasm everyday for school when we tell them all to come inside, Arafat's love for singing and songs (sometimes our only one joining along in school), Rachel's sparkling personality that makes it so hard to actually get frustrated at her, Mweru's energy that never ceases, Fiona's way of irritating Zak but is just so funny to watch, Paul's love-hate relationship with our dog Pippin, and so many others. 

But I'm also thankful to be heading home. As hard as it is to say goodbye to this place right now, I know that God has a plan in bringing me home, and I am thankful for that. I am thankful I have a wonderful family to go home to, and parents that have supported me in absolutely everything. I am thankful for friends in my life, who most of the time I don't know what I would do without them. And I am thankful for Christ's death on a cross that makes it possible for me to be in relationship with Him, seek to glorify His name, trust in His will for my life, and lift up praises to Him for all He has given me. Despite all that happens in my life, whether good or bad, I pray that this is the truth that remains in my heart. For I want to "rejoice always, pray continually, [and] give THANKS in all circumstances; for this is God's will for [me] in Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

I'll be home in less than 36 hours. Thank you so much for all of you who have prayed with me and for me as I have been on this trip. I am thankful for each and every one of you!

1 Week. Again.

Bittersweet? Yes.

Ready to leave? No.

Excited to go home and see family and friends? Yes.

Hard to say good bye? Don't even want to think about it.

Had an amazing time? Beyond so.

Life changing? Yes.

Favorite part? Being a part of the lives of such beautiful children and seeing the beauty of His creation in each of them.

Want to go back? Yes.

When? Praying about that now. You are welcome to join.

Just some of the thoughts running through my head right now as I look towards the next week and how one week from today will be my last full day here at Ekisa and one week from tomorrow I will be home. Before coming I shared some of my answers to questions that had been asked of me all summer as I was preparing for my trip, and here are some of the answers to questions as I prepare to leave. It is beyond crazy that it has been three months, and I am so overwhelmed with how God has used my time here to shape more of how I see the world and His people in it. 

Last week, I got home from Kenya on Thursday morning (smoother travels home for the most part) and that evening Mary Grace headed home. It was a pretty hard day just because seeing her say goodbye really hit me that in less than two weeks I'd be doing the same. However, even with my short time left after getting back from Kenya, I think that visit was really something I needed and God knew that, as He is preparing my heart for leaving here. Being in Kenya, at real homes, being able to snuggle on couches and watch movies, eat home cooked dinners, be in a family setting, have hot showers, and many more things like this reminded me of home and definitely made me excited to get back to some of these things in the States. It also I think put a good separation in my time here, and allowed me to come back to Uganda with the mindset of wrapping things up, and trying to figure out all the things I want to do and people I want to see before leaving. My list isn't long, but I pray that this week I am able to really enjoy the time I have here, but be able to look forward to getting home, for this is the path He has for me right now.

"Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways." 

Proverbs 4:25-26

Part Two

So picking up where I left off - from the little coffee shop where we got lunch and internet, we went to see giraffes! It was a pretty fun setup where you could take pictures of them on the ground then walk up to a balcony where you were eye level with them. The people that worked there gave us food so we were able to feed them. I knew giraffes were big animals, but they are actually really big! It was crazy to get to be so close to such a large animal and  try to picture something that big out in the wild - I think I forget that giraffes, and even elephants, are more than just cartoon characters haha! They have crazy long tongues and would stick them out and take each piece of food from your fingers, versus eating out of your palm like a horse. Some of them also gave kisses, so you could put a piece of food between your lips and they woud stick out their tongue to get it. So day two in Kenya and I pet a baby elephant and got kissed by a giraffe named Ed :)

There were also warthogs with the giraffes that would eat all the food that dropped. these are ugly animals - except the little baby that had to scurry all around so not to get stepped on by the giraffes' big feet. And I forgot to mention at the elephant place we saw a blind rhino named Maxwell. We also saw a couple of monkeys on our way out and a baboon later on the side of the road. 

Saturday evening Mrs. Black had to run out for a little while, so I hung out at the house, washed dishes for the first time in about two months (our Mammas usually do it), and cleaned the kitchen while listening to country music. Talk about feeling at home! Also, never would have thought that doing the dishes would be so therapeutic. I think this means that I'm growing up and I'm not so sure how I feel about it.

Sunday we got up and went to church, and afterwards went out to an Ethiopian restaurant. It was really different but I think I really like it :) It was just really interesting and not really like anything I've had before. First, there is this crepe-like bread (for lack of better comparison) that is laid out on essentially a big pizza pan and then there are piles of different veggies and sauces ladled on top of it. Then we were given a basket full of these "crepes" that were rolled up, that you hold on your left hand, tear a bit off with your right, and use it to pick up something from te center plate. Like I said, very interesting!

From there we went to this Maasai Market that was out on a balcony in this big shopping mall. This mall had glass elevators, escalators, and even was completely decked out in Christmas decorations. Culture shock after being in Uganda for almost three months! (side note - it's very clear how much more money is in Kenya than Uganda. Even landscaping wise, there is just so much more color and flowers everywhere, that I just haven't seen in Uganda). When we were leaving the mall, we ran into a friend of mine from UVA, Betsy! It was wild, and I just didn't really think that I knew enough people in the world to just happen to run into someone I know in Africa! So we all went and got coffee, and it was just really fun to catch up with someone so unexpectedly!

Monday morning I went to class with Mrs. Black; she is a professor at a theological school in Nairobi. She had an advisee meeting with some of her students and invited me along, and it was kind of fun to be back in an academic setting, even though I was just sitting and listening. Then we went to this place called Amani Ya Juu, meaning Peace from Above, and it's a business that hires women from different sides of conflict all over Africa. It not only seeks to give them jobs, but spiritually invests and builds them up, and helps them to get their feet under themselves. They make all sorts of things from bags to jewelry to quilts to clothing to Christmas decorations, and it's all absolutely beautiful. They also had a little cafe where we got lunch, and then we went to catch a matatu for me to head to Kijabe. 

I had taken a matatu to Kampala before, but this was my first one by myself and it was quite the adventure. I'll spare the details, but after about 45 minutes I made it to the Kijabe stop, then had to get another one down the mountain that was about 10 minutes, and I was dropped off at the hospital. I had to wait a little bit, but then Mrs. Kraus walked down to get me. Kijabe is absolutely beautiful and sits right on the side of a mountain that looks out to other mountain ranges as well as a couple of volcanoes - one of them being Mt. Longonot. That night we walked down to an oen field and watched the sunset and it was beyond beautiful! Dr. Kraus, Mrs Kraus, and Sam (a senior in high school), and I all ate dinner that evening and made plans for the next day. 

Yesterday was incredible! We hiked Mt. Longonot in the morning, which I mentioned was a volcano, so you get to the top of the brim and you can see down into the crater, which is full of trees and other plant growth. Apparently there is also leopards that live down there too, but nobody has ever seen them haha. But we did see, while walking down, giraffes and zebras in the distance! Afterwards we went out to lunch at Lake Naivasha and caught a boat over to Crescent Island, which isn't really an island but a peninsula where there are wild animals (all herbivores), and people can just walk around on it! It was so great and we saw even more giraffes and zebras, antelope, water bucks, wildebeests, and buffaloes in the distance. Then on the way back we saw a couple of hippos in the water! If you haven't caught on so far, a huge part of this trip I feel like is just getting to soak in God's creation:) It has been more than reenergizing!

Then today I went to the OR with Mrs. Kraus and watched Dr. Kraus do an abdominal aortic aneurysm - which I didn't know how I'd handle myself, but surprisingly didn't do too bad haha. Then we walked the surgical floor - you know, something you could totally do in the U.S. haha - and poked our heads in the windows to see different surgeries. There was one lady having a c-section and the nurses and doctors invited us in, so I saw a baby be born. Again, all so very wild! 

And now I am sitting here and we are getting ready to head back to Nairobi so I can catch my bus to head back to Jinja! As incredible this trip has been, I am a bit ready to get back to Jinja. It has been making me sad seeing the statuses and other facebook pictures from some of the people back at Ekisa, and I'm a bit ready to get back! Til next time:)

My First Taste of Kenya

In starting this journey I was thinking to myself how I've done quite a bit of traveling, and even more so, a lot of traveling by myself - so you'd think I'd be used to it. I realized two nights ago in getting on the bus to head to Kenya, that I'm really not, and I really don't do very well by myself, and allow myself to get wayyy to caught up in my nerves. I guess this really isn't that unusual and nobody is going to find it that surprising, but let me give you a sequence of event that led to me getting to Kenya - and you can compare it to the pretty perfect, easy description of my trip that I gave you earlier in the week. 

Side note, Thursday was Emily's birthday, as well as the last full day that I would get to spend with Mary Grace, one of the other volunteers (she leaves the thursday I get back to Jinja). For lunch, Mary Grace and I went out to lunch at this little place we just discovered that has an incredible view of the Nile! The whole wall was open and it was almost like in the Hunger Games where the wall changes to whatever view you'd want. It was beautiful. Then for Em's birthday that night we invited people over, moved our couches to the front lawn, and had a movie projector playing A White Christmas. It was pretty fun, even though I had to leave early to get to the bus station.

My bus was supposed to leave at 10, like I had mentioned, and check in time was at 9:30. So me, being my pretty time conscious self, gets there right at 9:30, expecting other people to be checking in too, but I am waiting by myself in this little office. Around 9:50, the guy who was working there, ran inside grabbed my bag and told me to hurry and follow him. So I throw my book in my purse and run outside after him through a pitch black parking lot to the side of the road to the bus, only to be told the bus was full. Uhh, I was almost panicked, and probably would have been  more so if our house wasn't 5 minutes away and I could have easily called someone to come get me. But in walking back to the office, the guy assures me that "another one is coming". Ok, good. He also told me that its about two hours to the border and I will get there in the morning around 10 - meaning its more of a 12 hour drive instead of the 10 1/2 that I was originally told. Then around 10:30, a bus actually pulls up to the office, I get on, and take the only empty seat on the bus - and I happen to be the only muzungu (white person for those of you who forget). 

We make it to the border and as soon as the bus stops everyone immediately stands up and files out the door to the immigration office. I just followed suit since I didn't know what else to do, had to fill out a form to leave the country - terrified I wouldn't do it right and not get a stamp, but made friends with the people behind me and they were so sweet and made sure I was where I needed to be and walked back to the bus with me after I got my passport stamped. Then we get back on the bus, to then be rushed off to another bus that we took across the border. I was so confused and nervous that I might not see my bag again.. We get to the Kenyan immigration office and I had to fill out a Visa form and told I needed to pay a $50 bill. Well this was great because the lady at the bus office told me it would be $35 and I could pay in Ugandan shillings. So I have Ugandan and Kenyan shillings, and no dollars, and then get a bit ripped off in paying with Kenyan shillings. At this point I didn't even care because I was the last person on the bus to get on and they were already waiting on me and I didn't want to get left. This whole border stuff took about an hour and a half, so at this point we are pushing two in the morning.

The rest of the trip was pretty smooth sailing, I took an Advil PM and slept most of the rest of the way. Then we arrive in Nairobi around 11, and because I spent most of my Kenyan shillings at the border I have to first exchange more money in order to buy my bus ticket home. I then get my ticket and have to ask directions to the city bus station where I am getting a bus to go meet Caroline's mom. I walked around Nairobi for at least half an hour to get to the bus stop, found the right bus and was praying I'm headed the right direction. I was, found my right stop, pointed in the direction of the coffee shop, ordered coffee, and then Caroline's mom walked up maybe 10 minutes after I got there. I haven't felt such relief in  a long time. (Funny observation - it wasn't until I got to the coffee shop that I saw a single white person in all my travels that morning haha)

We drove back to their house, which is adorable and has such a pretty garden with flowers blooming everywhere - a funny contrast to imagining home right now with leaves turning colors and all - and I showered, in a hot water, high pressure shower. Wonderful. We then went to this organization called Heshima (a lady who goes to Mrs. Black's church works there), which is a school for children with disabilities. It was incredible and the closest thing I've seen to anything back in the States since I've been here. Their equipment, facilities, resources, really everything, was absolutely beautiful! Along with their outreach to children with disabilities, they also reach out the their parents and have a side area where the moms (or sometimes aunts) work making jewelry, scarves, and other fun things. It was really great to see and I feel a good resource for Ekisa to be in contact with to act a model to where we are a hopefully going. We then went to this other bead shop, where we got a tour of how these ceramic beads are made and how this organization provides jobs for so many people there. From there we went and got tea at Karen Blixen's old estate, which was beautiful. It was a very full day and we then went home, rested then made dinner. We made homemade focaccia bread, cannelloni bean stew, and salad, and enjoyed it with a glass of wine. We then watched Sweet Home Alabama and went to bed. It was so fun being back in a real home setting, something I've definitely missed the past couple of months. 

This morning we got up and got breakfast and went and saw baby elephants! It was adorable and I even got to touch one!! There were 25 total and they all were orphaned and are now being taken care of and will be set into the wild later in life. They gave us a lot more information about them, but I says wayyyy to caught up in watching the and taking pictures! Absolutely adorable and so much fun! We just finished lunch and in a little bit are headed to see giraffes! I feel like I'm doing such "African" things that I haven't had the opportunity to do yet! Really blessed to have this opportunity!

My Next Adventure

Thursday night I am headed to Kenya and am pretty excited to say the least! I bought my bus ticket yesterday and it finally seems that plans are actually laid out. So here it goes: 

- The bus ride is about 10 1/2 hours long (eww) but I was able to get a ticket there and back for less than $50! I am leaving at 10pm Thursday night and will get there around 8:30 the next morning. The bus company is called Kampala Coach, and it's almost like a Greyhound bus - notice I said almost, keep in mind I'm comparing this to Africa transport haha. There is no bathroom and I have been told they don't make stops, but I have also been told that they will pull over to let you go on the side of the road if necessary - so this should be interesting. When we cross the border I have to purchase a Kenyan visa, so another fun stamp in the passport :) 

- When I get to Nairobi, I have to purchase my ticket for the way home (which will be next Wednesday evening) because you can't get a round trip ticket in Jinja haha. Then I will get on a city bus and head to the part of the city where my friend Caroline's parents live. This is essentially my reason for visiting Kenya. I have two friends from school whose parents are missionaries in different parts if Kenya and both invited me to visit, and just see a little different part of Africa. Since I'm really not that far away, I decided to take advantage of this opportunity. Caroline's parents live in Nairobi and I will spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights with them. I don't think we really have much of an agenda yet, but it will be fun to just get to see a little bit of the city. 

- Then on Monday at some point I will get on a matatu and head to Kijabe to stay with Evan's parents. Kijabe is about an hour north of Nairobi and a much smaller town, and apparently absolutely beautiful! Two of the volunteers who are here at Ekisa now went to Kijabe this summer for three weeks and loved it, and are really excited for me to get to visit as well. Again, once getting there I don't have much of an itinerary, but I'm sure some fun things will fall into place. Then Wednesday I will head back to Nairobi and the get on my bus home that evening to get back to Jinja early Thursday morning. 

I am really excited about this trip and opportunity to travel a bit, but know that Mom and Dad especially will be worried about my safety. I ask for prayers for safe travels and that this trip would be such an adventure - and that Mom and Dad will rest easy knowing God's got me:)