UGANDA… and COMING HOME

Hello, friends!

If you weren’t aware already, I made it back home at the end of August. This last month has been a really nice time to spend with my family, and just take it a little easier than I did during the previous 11 months.

The month of August was spent with my team and two other teams in Lira, Uganda. We were working with a British non-profit organization called Lightforce International.

The organization is really active in building up and supporting the community. The provide jobs and sometimes things like clothing to the locals, and they run a great school. Sixteen kids were boarded at the compound where we stayed, and went to the Lightforce school every day.

A few of my squadmates helped teach in the school every day and focused on the kids, but the rest of us worked on the compound, doing a large variety of activities every day. But all of it was… wait for it… manual labor!

There were a ton of things to do to help out at the compound. Some of the things I did were: kitchen duty and dishes, emptying and cleaning a large warehouse (including killing some rats and cockroaches), moving gravel, stirring cement by hand, digging post holes (usually with a machete), landscaping (at a local church), moving farm equipment, helping the boss organize paperwork, and helping a deaf carpenter build a new goat pen (and later, herding some goats).

Then the last week or so was dedicated to a special project: CORN. SO MUCH CORN. Lightforce grew corn near the base, and so part of the job was to go out and pick and shuck the corn by hand. Then it was sent to a machine that separated the cobs from the kernels, which some of my teammates helped with. Then it was brought to the base and put into a big meeting room, which at one point was filled with about 3 feet of corn. We then had to stir the corn regularly, and take it out and spread it on large tarps so it could dry. Every day we unwrapped the tarps and spread out the corn until it was day, and wrapped it back up in the evening. When it was completely dry, we bagged it and carried it to the warehouse (which we had cleaned earlier) for storage. It was a huge project, but we’re glad we could lend a hand to the workers that would have had to do it alone without us.

On one of our last ministry days, we also held a “sports camp” for all the local kids. We played some big group games, and sang and danced to a few fun songs, and told a Bible story through a play, and almost 100 kids came! It was great!

This was one of my favorite months. Manual labor every day is not easy, but I like it because all the work we do is so evident. We can see the fruit of what we’ve been doing. It was hard to leave, but I was ready to head home.

After leaving Lira, I went to Final Debrief in Jinga, near Lake Victoria. On the way, I got to go rhino trekking – walking through a white rhino sanctuary to see rhinos in the wild, no fences or anything. It was really neat, but a little scary. They told us that if one were to charge us, we would need to climb a tree or dive into the thicket so the rhino couldn’t see us.

Final Debrief was a good time to relax and remember all the good (and not so good) things that happened over the year, and say my good-byes to my friends.

I was also able to go whitewater rafting on the Nile River with about 38 of my squadmates! It was a long and crazy day, but the perfect way to end the Race! We went over a waterfall, and ate lunch on the river, and we were caught in a thunderstorm. It was quite an adventure.

The whole Race was quite an adventure. But I’m glad to say that the adventure isn’t over yet. I’m back with my family again, but while I was gone, they moved from our former home in California to a town called Bigfork in Montana. I get to see my parents and siblings, but I still have been able to get to know a new area, meet new neighbors and adapt to a culture that’s slightly different than the one I left. And my parents have been remodeling the new house, so it’s been “fun” to help out with that – more manual labor, whoo! A continuation of a small piece of what I’ve been doing over the past year.

I want to say THANK YOU so much to all of the people that made going on the World Race possible. It was such a huge blessing to me to be able to go, and serve in all the ways I have and in so many different and unique places. Some places saw the immediate blessings that my team and I were able to bring – extra hands for projects already in place, things that got done, got built, and or got cleaned, and some people that accepted Jesus as their Savior. But in most cases, the seeds will take much longer to take root and grow. Either way, I have faith that God will use the things that were accomplished this year for His glory and for the good of those that love Him, and those who haven’t met Him yet.

I want to challenge you, and myself, to keep sowing those seeds, serving where you can, and just loving the people around you well. You may see change immediately, or it could take years or not even happen in your lifetime. But we serve a God who can work ALL THINGS for good.