Jambo to all my
dear friends and family!
It has been a while since my last
update cause I was home for 6 months. By the way coming home was very
hard for me. I felt like leaving my kids behind. I struggled a lot
with fitting in the western culture again and I felt like as if I
lost most of my Austrian friends just cause I've been away for so
long. A lot had changed back home and all I wanted was to go back to
Africa. On top of all my boyfriend and I broke up. Back than I
thought I could never be happy again in Austria. But I just laid all
my fears and struggles at the feet of Jesus. I prayed that he would
take over from now. I knew he would be the only one who is able to
give me that peace deep down in my heart that I needed so badly. To
make this chapter short, God really turned things around. I knew that
he wanted me to be home for this season. All I needed was to trust
him and believe him that he would make work all things together for my good! When I look back I believe this time was such a time of growth.
Coming back to Africa this time was very different. Even though I just came for a month I was able to do so much stuff and It feels like I have been here for 3 months or so. I'm so glad my friend Susanna from Switzerland joined me. We traveled first to Jinja, than to Soroti. Later we went to Kiruhura and now we are in Entebbe, ready to fly out. Travelling in Uganda is not fun at all but having good company makes it a lot easier.
The first week I was able to reunite with the pre-school on Hope Land base. When I left them last May I was so afraid that some of the kids would not make it to primary school but by Gods grace all of them are promoted to go! Thank u Jesus! Hanging out with those kids was so much fun! I brought them stamps and cars and just to see how much they loved these toys made me so happy.
During the evenings I was helping the headteacher to finish up the CD's they have been recording. It was a dream the school had for a long time, to record gospel songs and bring them into the local radio. I always thought that is a great idea. The kids are amazing in singing and the community would be so blessed by local gospel songs. So I supported them during my time in Austria so that they could record one song after another. I was so happy that we could finish the first CD by the end of the term, so that parents could start buying them. By the end of this week I was helping them to get ready for graduation . But it turned out that the teachers needed much more help then the kids did. The last night before the graduation was crazy! There was so much work left. I was asked to put all the music from different CD's and DVD's on my computer to make a playlist. Sounds easy right?! But there is a problem with African CDs.. My computer was not able to read most of them. I don't even remeber what I did but it took me very long to finish up that work. The next day I figured out it was for nothing. When I brought my laptop to the guy who was resposible for the sound he figured out that my laptop would not connect with the sound system. So he brought another laptop. This one was just working with some of the CDs. So we ended up using 4 different laptops during the celebration. One laptop literally broke into two pieces and another one had a virus.. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry. It was basicaly on me cause the sound guy had no clue about the program and which music was supposed to go with which dance and so on. So I guess you can imagine how stressful this graduation was for me! So now its getting funny. By the time we had just started the celebration the headteacher came over to me saying:' Can u please take pictures today cause the photographer is not coming cause of the rain.' I was totaly overchallenged. Jumping from the sound system to the stage back and forth.. that was just too much! But it turned out suprisingly well. Compared to last years graduation my pictures are a lot better! And luckily all the songs we needed worked out in time. Thank u Jesus! The parents enjoyed this day a lot. Many even came to me to thank me for the work I did during 1st term from January to May. I felt so honored and grateful for this conversations.
During this week in Jinja I was able to hang out with some of my dear friends. I missed them all a lot. We even celebrated Thanksgiving together. That was my first Thanksgiving ever - I loved it!
Our next destination was Soroti. There I was invited to help again with the Amun week. I'm so glad I was able to go back and see the kids and teens again. Most of them remebered me from last year. I felt that they trusted me more this time. That made the work so much more effective. For those of you who were reading my blog entry December 2013 may remeber this camp. It's basically a week for kids who used to be in the Amecet orphanage. All of them are HIV+ and live now with relatives. They come back every year in December for one week to get support. The main focus is to strengthen them in their relationship with Jesus and to encourage them in taking their HIV medications. Most of those kids have little self esteem cause the people around are underrating them cause of their sickness. So another topic was identitiy. We tried to show them that their identiy is not in their sickness. Their identity is in Christ. We encouraged them to listen only to what God is saying about them and to write that down. Most of them are not able to write or read cause their relatives are not able to pay school fees for them. So they came to me to help them writing down what God thinks about them. I was overwhelmed by the beautiful things they heard from their heavenly father. I felt so blessed that God was using me to meet with is young people. Like last year my main responsibility was to organise games every afternoon. To see these kids have fun was truly amazing. Those kids went through so much already during there short life. They all lost their parents and other relatives. They are all sick and most of them are not educated. They have nothing they could be happy about. But still, they can laugh. I belive that can just be Jesus inside of them! I have never wept and laughed so much in one week. There is so much pain in their storys but as well joy in there faces when they worship Jesus. I could see once again where real joy comes from. It does not come from health, money our a good family. It comes from knowing Jesus.
The day we left Soroti was the day we started a long journey to Kiruhura (western Uganda). Judith, one of my best friends was getting married there. I was sharing a room with her during my last stay in Uganda. Judith is such a Jesus lover and a good example to me! I just loved worshiping and praying with her. She was always talking about getting married to this guy from Canada. But back then it seemed like to take ages until they are finaly getting married. But time went by so fast and now they are married. I have never been emotional during a wedding but this time I could not hold back my tears. This wedding was so beautiful. I was so happy for Judith that her big das was finaly there. I am so glad I was able to be part of it!
By the way, Kiruhura is gorgeous! I never thought western Uganda would be so different. It seemed like we're in a rainforst. It was so humid and hot. At one point it started to rain very hard. The ground was not soaking up the water so after like 10 minutes we wer all standing in a big puddle. Thank God we had a hot shower this evening!
After the wedding Susanna and I went back to Jinja. First we needed a day to catch up some sleep and do laundry. Then we used our last days to visit friends. The evening before we left we had a big Christmas party on the base. To my surprise one of my closest friends from DTS came to surprise me. I was so happy to see him and to catch up! We even gathered all the other people who where on the base and did DTS with us to have a little reunion party!
After we left Jinja we went to Lugazi. It's about an hour from Jinja towards the airport. Kate, one of my former DTS staff is living there with her brother Nixon, his wife Chasity and their son. I actually attended their wedding in 2012, I probably wrote about it in my blog. Its crazy how time flys. Back then they had just started their life together and now they have been married for 2 years and they are parents. So we stayed with them for one night. Was great to hear about their ministry and what else is going on in their lifes. They are such a great family!
Yesterday we traveled from Lugazi to Kampala. There we had lunch with a friend of Susanna. After that he drove us to Entebbe to show us the beach! It is so beautiful here! We decided to stay for 1,5 nights here so that we could rest a bit before we'll start our final journey back home.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for me! I could feel Gods protection the whole time! Most of u know that I was sick for about 2 months before I came to Africa. I was so afraid that that my immune system would not cope with this stressful month but PRAISE GOD I had no major sicknes during this whole month! And thanks to everyone who supported my trip with money and goods. I can assure u, many people, and especially the pre school got blessed! I left Austria with 3 suitcases and I'm returning with one. I felt like Santa Claus! But seriously, I discovered a new level of how much more I get blessed by giving then by receiving! I have never spent more money in one month but I've never experienced more joy either.
Marry Christmas to all of u!
Love from Uganda,
Rafiki
