Today at church I listened to one of our missionaries from Arua (Northern Uganda) preach on Ecclesiastes 2. He was a guest speaker at the church I attended this morning. He and his wife are leaving the field to have a baby and pursue other things for the time being. So this was the last time he was going to preach. It really got me thinking about my time here and how I’m spending it. The sermon was about living with no regrets… as in serving the Lord with all you have and not wasting time on things that are meaningless. At first I had a very dismal feeling from the sermon… as though I haven’t done enough in my life and I’m not bold enough in my day-to-day life. I was feeling like I have a ton of regrets in my life because I either didn’t say enough, or I said too much at certain points. Does this make sense? BUT John did a really good job of bringing it back around and putting it in the perspective of the Lord. So the point wasn’t to make you realize that you haven’t done all the things you could have done or said, but instead it was to encourage you to live everyday in a way that you won’t regret not serving the Lord to the best of your ability. As he and his wife are leaving the field I can’t help but wonder if they’re regretting some things about their time here.
I don’t want to regret my time here. I don’t want to say, “I coulda done more while I was there,” or “I should have taken that ministry opportunity.” Today it was easy to think about what brought me here and some of the reasons I might be here. Do I have some regrets? Actually I do. I don’t for one second regret coming here, but I do regret the things I left unsaid before I left the States. I regret not taking the time to raise the funds and really prepare to come here. I regret not spending more time with my family in my last weeks… I miss everyone so much right now. I regret not planning in my mind what this would be like… as in how long I would be staying. I’m still not mentally prepared to be here for the amount of time that I will be here, but I’m trusting God to keep me afloat.
Moving on… the week after we got back from Rwanda flew by. The grading period ended on the 15th which means that last week was spent getting my grades done and filling out report cards. Oh my, it’s quite the tedious process. It took so long figuring everything out because one of my students came 4 weeks into the quarter and one didn’t speak a word of English at the beginning, so I couldn’t grade her the same as the others. In the midst of all that I had prayer meetings, my discipleship group, and then of course other stuff came up. It seems like I have been going nonstop for weeks. We share a car with Nick, so it’s not always easy getting stuff done in a timely fashion. There was a football (soccer) match this past Thursday, so I helped with some stuff with that while Nick refereed. After that I was supposed to go home, but then we ended up giving someone a ride home because their car broke down, then we hung out for a while, then I went and got my roommate from school. We came home, ate dinner, then I went out again for a while, then Nick and I came back here and we all hung out for a while… instead of doing school work of course.
Friday was parent-teacher conferences. At HIS the parents only get the report cards when they come in for their conference. So I was pretty nervous about having to explain to some of the parents why their kids we failing some subjects in my class. It actually went way better than I thought it would. The parents are really very supportive of me and the way I do things in the classroom.
Conferences ended at 3pm. So we left school and went shopping real quick because Nick and I were hosting youth group for all of the secondary that night. We planned some games and worship and then I went home to think about my lesson. Nick and I decided to teach a lesson together… we taught on kissing (is a kiss just a kiss?) and relationships (when is it ok to start dating?). We picked the topic based on what the kids asked us to speak on last time we all met. The kids started showing up at about 7. Lisa is sick right now, so it was just Nick and I in charge of things, but it was awesome. We played games for about an hour, ate some yummy food, and then went into our talk. Now neither of us like to sit down and write out what we’re going to talk about, so we didn’t. We talked about what we would each bring to the lesson, with our own personal examples and such. We prayed that God would speak through us and that the kids would really participate… and boy did God ever work! It turned out so much better than I thought it would and we ended talking for a little more than an hour. The kids were really responsive. I chose to focus more on the roles of guys and girls in a relationship. I talked about the needs of girls and what we expect and what I personally expect and then Nick talked about the needs of guys and what he knows and expects. We talked about a biblical view of relationships. I told them the question isn’t “when can I start dating and kissing?” It’s about God’s timing. It’s about being in a relationship that challenges you to love the Lord deeper than you can imagine. It’s about drawing nearer to the heart of God as you draw nearer to one another and if you’re in a place where you can do that, then by all means at 14 years old, date someone. We talked about so much more than what I can write here, just because of time, but it was awesome and the kids responded. They were so funny when it came to a kiss just being a kiss and having no meaning. Oh man were they heated when Nick was talking about his stupidity in college. So funny!
After the lesson we prayed and hung out for a while until the parents came at 10. We have a senior named Mischa who is extremely sick right now. So I took his sisters, Manouk and Mirthe to the hospital to see him and then I got to come back and Nick let me straighten his hair… and then style it. There will be pics on facebook, no worries!
Anyway, back to Mischa. He was at school on Wednesday and seemed fine. His eye was bothering him. Well by Thursday morning his eye was swollen shut and he was having convulsions. They took him to the hospital and stabilized him, but he was no longer conscious because there was so much swelling on his brain. Friday morning I spoke with his father when he was dropping the girls off at school and he said that Mischa was conscious and asking for him that morning. So the girls got to see him and spend time with him. It seemed like the infection was improving and they were even going to move him out of ICU, but at some point during the day his brain began to swell again and by the time youth group was over they had to do surgery to release pressure on his brain. They are calling it a severe brain infection. I haven’t heard much since then, other than he seems to be improving a little bit. He is still in ICU, but I’m guessing the surgery has help up and there’s no more swelling. Please, please be praying for the Van Den Boom family. This is a terrifying situation, especially in Africa because health care is not quite what we know it as in the States. They are from Holland and I just love them… I’ve had so much fun getting to know each of their kids. They have 5 at the school. Pray for a healing for Mischa. Pray that the doctors are able to treat him and that he continues to improve.
We have started the Beth Moore study with the discipleship girls and they really like it so far. I’m really excited that they’ve responded well. We saw some of our girls at church this morning… what a blessing they are. They are just so sweet and appreciative of our ministry. I’m very blessed by them.
Well, there are very busy weeks ahead. Time is flying right now. I can’t believe it’s almost November already! Wow. I’m busy every night this week with some kind of meeting or dinner meeting. Friday is the Rain Festival (kind of like Halloween, they just don’t call it Halloween). There are more missionaries coming down from the north as we say goodbye to John and Erica. It’s just going to be craziness.
I’ve been thinking about the holidays and what my options are. I’ve been invited to celebrate with two different families that I have come to love very dearly. It’s going to be a tough decision. I think my roommate is going to Europe to spend time with her brother who is living in Germany for a year. Nick is either going up north or to Kenya. So it’s just going to be me here (as far as singles go). I would love to be able to go home, but tickets are just too expensive these days, sadly. If you happen to have like $2,000 laying around feel free to send it my way. ☺
That’s it from Kampala for tonight. I hope you are well. I love you all and miss seeing your faces and hearing your voices. Be blessed this week.
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