Last Thursday Christine and I traveled to Kampala via Post
Bus. On our way, distress came upon Christine as she remembered she forgot to
bring the chicken for her niece in Kampala! Not a cooked chicken… a full-grown,
living, feathered, breathing chicken. We had a few stops along our 5 hour
journey. When I say ‘stops’, I mean the bus literally just stopped in the
middle of the road. People come running up to the bus holding long sticks
to reach the windows with baskets at the top and their said product inside: sodas,
lemons, cassava, peanuts, beans, roasted bananas (SO GOOD), and live chickens!
Well the chickens weren’t on a stick, but they were held upside down and way up
high. Christine reached out of the window, paid the man, brought that live
thing in and tucked it at her feet! Praise the Lord she had the window seat so
Mr. Chickedy was not on the other side next to me.
Me: “So does that thing move around?”
Christine: “Sometimes, yes. Would you like to touch it?”
I quickly shook my
head and politely said no.
I was worried if Mr. Chickedy would so much as brush up
against my foot with a feather my instant reflex would be to punt him to the
front of the bus. Thank God it didn’t… but for some reason we found it had slid
up about 7 seats ahead of us by the end of the trip. When Christine said she’d
“pick one up on along the way”, I most certainly didn’t think that’s what she
meant! haha! This country surprises and teaches me daily.
On my trips to and from Kampala I was sitting in the
middle/back of the bus. This was a different experience than when I first came
here, sitting in the passenger seat of a car. My heart would jump each time we had to pass a car and swerve from a pothole simultaneously, inching us closer and
closer to the oncoming vehicle. If you know me well, you know I am the WORST
backseat/shotgun driver EVER. I get super nervous when others are driving and
opt to sit in the back when I can [except for with a few select drivers!(; ] Sitting
in the middle/back of the bus disenabled me to see what’s next on the road until
it came up to my window. I was much calmer that way. I smell a lesson here..
The Lord doesn’t let me
see too far ahead in life at points because it’d scare the bejeebiz out of me.
For some He can covey a message all in one big cake, and others in
smaller bites… more like cupcakes. I’m a cupcake kind of girl. It makes my heart glow knowing He has a tailor made way of
conveying information, just for me.
Like my very own cupcake flavor! (=
I began my journey in Gulu learning to be raw and real with
the Lord about how I was feeling in general. I’m now learning to be real with
my feelings of all colors towards Him. After some self-reflecting, I
realized and confessed that I sometimes think that God has it out for me. I
know, I know it sounds weird… but stick with me! Here’s a previous thought bubble of mine: Now
that I’ve been more accustomed to life in Gulu and expressed that I love it
here… He would say, “YES! Gotchya. Perfect. Stay here forever!” Or that every
road I had to take needed to be the hard one. After shedding true light on that lie,
I saw how it had bled into so many different aspects. I was tricked into thinking that He had it out for me. Hmm.. I wonder where
that idea came from. [I’ll give you a hint. His name starts with an ‘s’ and ends
with an ‘atan’]. A few days
after I surfaced that thought to Him, I asked for more intimacy with Him. I
wanted to know more about Him. I desperately want lies to be dispelled and
truths to take center stage. During a quiet time and going through Beth Moore’s
James study, I was rocked by this truth: He
is incapable of abusing His divine authority over you. He is worthy and holy.
Which meant Him ‘having it out for me’ doesn’t line up with the Lord’s
character. Wahoo! S o f r e e i n g
I want every person on earth to know Jesus. I found my desire taking a different angle here because they would experience eternity in a FAR better
place than this. Not that America is even a spec of heaven, but life in America
is worlds apart from Africa [literally]. With my Americanized mind I often
think, gosh I cannot wait until you get
to heaven and can live there. Then the big Man gently reminds me that He
sent His Son to die so that WE ALL may “have life and have it to the full” (John
10:10).
I wonder, what does life to the full look like here? You by no means
need to live in a first world country to have life to the full. Besides
the issue of overpopulation, that would be impossible! But what does it look
like for the women who sell to me in the market, or for the children I see
walking with water jerrycans balanced perfectly on their heads {truly talented!},
or the boda driver who takes me into town…
what does their life to the full
look like?
I strive to end each day with s t r e t c h i n g and then being before the
Lord. I was inspired by Em Curlz (Kacsmar) to try and do the splits again! I
have a few stretches that get me closer and closer. I light one of my delicious
smelling WoodWick candles from Steph and have at it! Afterwards, I am physically
and mentally calmed down and stretched out. I then get on my knees with my face
to the ground in child’s pose. The cool tile is the best feeling, as it’s the
coolest thing I’ve felt all day. Being on my knees before the Lord is one of
the most instant acts of submission, I believe. In order to receive His greater
grace (James 4:6) I need to submit to Him. I present things heavy on my heart
to Him, or break with tears before Him… but my favorite thing is just be with Him. He’s a simple God. And He
loves me. What else is better than that?
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| "and I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst" Zechariah 2:5 |
**Update on the cockroaches: Still here. Working on getting
a self-fumigation package. In the meantime… the bottoms of my sandals have
become roach-morgues. woof.
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