My First Visitor!

Holly and I met my first year of college at UVA. We lived on the same hall in Humphreys (yay for old dorms!) and were a part of the same small group in Agape. I honestly can’t remember the first conversation we had or what first clicked with us, but I am so blessed for her friendship the past five years! This girl has challenged me and encouraged me in my walk with the Lord, and I have learned so much from her – for which I am grateful! 

And now she is coming to visit me in Uganda! Please pray for her travels, she leaves tomorrow afternoon, and I will go get her at the Entebbe Airport on Monday night! She’s here for a week, so my blog probably won’t get updated until she leaves – sorry I’ve been a little slow on here!

I can't wait for my week ahead!

 

99 Balloons

Although I had every intention of doing my mini-series on adoptions for my next couple of posts, I really want to share what’s been going on here for the past week. Then I’ll come back to adoptions later-on when I have time!

First, I want to share a video that is really powerful and I promise is worth the six minutes it takes to watch. (I’ll also give you the heads-up to have tissues ready as well!)

So now, you know the history of 99 Balloons. And I shared that because they brought a team over here to Ekisa this past week. It was truly incredible and such a blessing, as they created their team based around the needs of Ekisa, bringing physical therapists, speech and language pathologists, nurses and other medical professionals, and a child counselor who specializes in sexual abuse counseling.

Over the course of their time here, they gave presentations/seminars to our mammas about aspiration, CPR, other medical needs of our kiddos, and sexual abuse. It was all very informative, giving time for our mammas to ask questions, as well as giving us new ideas about how to best serve the kids at Ekisa.

The team also sponsored a dinner for our 35(ish) community care families, to encourage them, love them, and let them know what an amazing job they are doing at caring for their children. It was quite the evening, complete with party crashers, a double-booking of the space with a high school dance party, a mamma going into labor, and a goat being given away as a door prize! To put things into perspective, we have iPads as door prizes in the States, but Mamma Shivan, when her number was called to win the goat, hit the ground on her knees and immediately started crying. It was a beautiful moment, and I really don’t think there was a dry eye in the entire crowd.

They came to serve Ekisa, and they did just that. But 99 Balloons is not just doing cool stuff internationally, but locally (stateside) as well. Their primary ministry is partnering with local churches to train volunteers to provide Recess Nights for families with children with disabilities. From their experience with Eliot, Matt and his wife realize the importance of reaching out to families, as well as the role that the church body can have in doing so.

This is something that I think is incredible work, and when I get back to the States, is definitely something that I plan on getting involved with – in case I can be of any inspiration to you:) I was really convicted of this in the past several months in thinking about actually how many families you see in the church that have children with special needs. Couldn’t we as a church body be loving them better? Anyway, food for thought, and more information on www.99balloons.org in case you too want to get involved!

They are based out of Arkansas and if you look at a map online of churches doing Recess Nights, only Arkansas and surrounding states are represented. Wouldn’t it be cool to get Virginia on the map too? Or maybe Uganda?!

Adoption.

It’s been incredible to see the Lord open my eyes and my heart to this topic so much in the past year, or really the past nine months. Something that I thought of so black and white has developed not just shades of gray, but really every color in between.

I have learned that as beautiful as adoption was created to be, it has, like other things in this world, been thwarted, damaged, and abused as a result of the fall and our sinful nature.

But let me share with you the beauty of it first.

“God demonstrates his love for us: While we were sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 1:5

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ.” Romans 8:17

Let that sink in. That’s awesome and beautiful, and can totally rock the way you see adoption, as it has with me. We were all lost and orphaned at some point, but God sought after us to adopt us into His eternal family. And He did so out of love. Go back and look, those verses point straight to that. So shouldn’t we, as Christians, be the first to reach out and care for and love orphans, especially after realizing how we would still be orphans had God not adopted us? Let’s look at scripture again.

Didn’t He call his church to be the hands and feet of Christ here on earth?

“And God placed all things under [Jesus’s] feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 1:22-23

Didn’t He tell us that in seeking Him we would care for the least of these?

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40

Didn’t He command the body of believers to care for orphans and widows?

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27

Didn’t He intend for every child to be loved for by a family?

            “God sets the lonely in families.” Psalm 68:6

In case you’ve missed it, the answer to all of these questions is undoubtedly “Yes”. And for me, realizing these truths has continued to challenge me in learning more about the Christian orphan movement, why this is important, and what I can do. It starts with being open to learning, and allowing God to open your heart to truths that may be uncomfortable in bringing you out of your comfort zone in learning how you can best care for the least of these, including the orphans and widows.

In thinking how I was going to process all of this, I decided to stop here and continue in a little series of posts about all I’m learning and working through. So here’s for the first of a couple, at least.. Enjoy!

Moving Forward

Well these past two weeks have been a bit all over the place. Definitely getting things done, but still not quite in a routine that I can clearly express in words as to what I’m doing. But I think that’s ok:) I have continued to be challenged in growing accustomed to how stuff gets done here, as well as just flat out learning. I finished a book called Orphan Justice earlier this week and am working on getting something together about that book, what I am learning about the Christian orphan movement in general, and then my heart behind what I am doing and why. It’s been a little bit more difficult than I thought it would be in just getting all my ideas on paper, so to speak, so until I get that finished, here is a bit of what’s been going on these past couple of weeks.

Last week Em H. (who runs school) was out of town, so I got to take the reigns on school and was really excited about being “back in the classroom”! Monday and Tuesday were both really wonderful and I loved getting to spend time with all of the kids, like I was used to from the fall. I was so impressed at the progress so many of them have made and it was just great being back in that setting. Unfortunately, Tuesday afternoon I started feeling pretty crummy, and by Wednesday morning felt pretty miserable – fever, headaches, body aches, and all over the board in feeling hot then cold then hot again. Spent pretty much all day of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday on the couch. Started feeling better on Friday, and by the evening felt much better. On top of missing school, Emily W. and I also had a couple meetings for Thursday and Friday that had to get postponed since I couldn’t really move from the couch.. On Thursday we were supposed to meet with a lawyer in Kampala that represents an adoption agency that we are hoping to be able to partner with in seeking international adoption. I think we are still a while away from partnership, but meeting with the lawyers and being able to ask more questions and find out more would definitely be a step in the right direction! So that meeting is postponed, but prayers for that meeting and the possibility of moving forward with this agency would be great!

Then on Friday, we were supposed to go to a church that partners with Compassion International to talk, ask questions, and brainstorm with them about ways that we, as Ekisa, could begin partnering with local churches to encourage and support them in caring for orphans. I will talk more about this in my next post about what I’m learning surrounding this, but this is something big that I feel like we have big plans for but not something that I want to limit our God to! But again, meeting postponed, which just gives me time to get a better grasp on ideas and questions I want to present. Excited in moving forward with this too!

Big blessing last week too, with one of our little girls, Alice! She is about a year old and has been at Ekisa since February, I think. She is such a precious little one, but really sick and nobody was really sure what was going on with her, or what to do to really help. She has hydrocephalus, but the doctors were really worried that if they did surgery to put a shunt in her little body just wouldn’t be able to handle it. But last Tuesday, they admitted her into the hospital and did the surgery on Wednesday. She was home on Friday, and is doing much, much better. Still a long way to go in her recovery, but we are praying her body will keep getting stronger and she will keep gaining weight. Prayers for this little one would be great too, and I will try to keep updates on her as well:) Here’s a picture of her that was posted on the Ekisa Facebook page!

 

This week has continued to be busy, as I am trying to keep up on our resettlement case, and the three domestic adoption cases that we are working through right now. As these progress I will share some awesome stories at how the Lord continues to work in bog ways in ours’ and these kiddos’ lives! Oh and celebrating the Fourth here was fun, complete with an American style cookout with hamburgers and hotdogs, lots of red, white, and blue outfits, and volleyball! So very blessed!

"Give praise to the Lord, proclaim His name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that His name in exalted. Sing to the Lord, for He has done glorious things ; let this be known to all the world. Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you."

Isaiah 12:4-6