Well, we’ve officially entered into week eight of lecture phase. I honestly can’t believe it, today in small groups when Msaki told me that we were leaving for outreach in four weeks, my jaw dropped. I remember all too clearly the first few weeks of being here, when I was literally ticking off the days, counting and re-counting how much longer it would be until I got to go home. I guess that’s just another example of the incredible transformation that God has been working in me during this amazing time in Africa, and I praise Him greatly for it. The more I think about it, the more excited I become for what I know He is going to bring for me after this period of training – He’s already given me a small taste of what it feels like to live a life dedicated to serving Him, and it left me absolutely craving more and more. There’s still so much to work out, but I’m fully relying on God for all of that, He’s already brought more together for my life than I could have ever imagined was possible, and I know, because I know Him, that the best is yet to come. All I have to do is wait on Him, trust in Him, and be open to whatever path He has in store for me, and He will work everything else out according to His perfect plan.

I’m not really sure where to start in explaining the things that God has been doing in my life in the past few weeks, but since I’ve been so terrible about responding to e-mails and all else lately, I feel like I should include everything in this post, so I apologize in advance if it’s terribly incoherent or not at all cohesive.

One of the biggest blessings in my life right now is the amazing ministry team, for lack of a better word, that God has raised up. I’m not sure if I’ve made mention of it in previous posts, but the past two Sundays I have had the great pleasure of traveling around to different churches in Uganda and getting to watch as my brother Will preaches and my brother Stephen translates. It’s been such an amazing experience for me, and it’s also brought the three of us together in a way that only God could have imagined – we now take every opportunity possible to lift each other up in prayer and encourage one another with the word of God, and it is absolutely causing a huge transformation in my life. For the moment, I’m simply along for the ride, I do what I can here and there but have yet to find any real significance in my involvement in this group, but I remain so positive that God will reveal something to me. For the meantime, though, I’ve found it a wonderful way to develop the servant’s heart that I so long for. This past Sunday, as Stephen and Will were sitting and talking to the pastor, I took the opportunity to help the pastor’s wife with the dishes from the lunch they had made. I think this is slightly culturally inappropriate, since they take such great pleasure in absolutely accommodating their guests here, and I practically had to force her to allow me to help, but it was an amazing experience, kneeling down on the dirt floor hand washing dishes with two women who have remarkable faith. I’ve realized through these few experiences just how far a little bit of love, a little bit of compassion, and a little bit of support can go. As the pastor and his family, as well as probably half of the children in the village, were walking us back to Lake Victoria, one of the women said something that struck me so very much – she said it was so rare to find an American woman who was so willing to converse with people like them. It absolutely floored me, the amount of respect that they place on us, even before we’ve done anything to deserve it. That’s something I had actually been struggling with ever since coming here, because so many people have the idea of the rich “muzungu” or white person, who will come in and bring financial support and save the day – but when she said that, it made me realize that respect is not entirely bad. There’s a way to use that to really, really get God’s word across, and then turn around and use our lives, our love, our passion for Christ to show these people that there’s so much more to seek than money, although, thus far, it is I who is being taught by them, and not the other way around. Experiences like these, though, they’re just so amazing and humbling and it’s incredible because this, this is really what life is about, and for the first time in my life, I’m really understanding what it means to live. I spent years and years pursuing everything I could think of that would make me happy, and as I was doing that, I was drawing further and further away from the only thing that could ever truly make me happy – the perfect love of my Creator. Now that I’ve realized that, nothing else really matters. I want to live to serve Him, in whichever way He has in store for me. At the moment, I feel like it’s simply doing more of what I am doing, and I have no doubt that, as I continue, God will continue to reveal to me the way that He has planned for me to share His love and His light, but for now, I still have some healing and discovering to do. Standing up in front of the church yesterday, I don’t know exactly what it was, but something about the drums and the Luganda praise songs, it just hit me, how far I’ve come, where God brought me to and what He took me from. Exactly a year ago, I was an absolute mess with seemingly no hope of ever getting out of any of it. I was on a constant stream of drugs and alcohol and so many other terrible things that I never knew which way was up, and all I wanted was to get out, of all of it. Now, here I am, in the most amazing place in the world, in constant fellowship with the One who created me,  and I get to spend as much time as I want praising His name and walking with Him, and it brings me pure and constant joy. To me, it’s seemed like such a gradual change that I never really paused to think about how remarkable it all was, but yesterday morning, in front of that church, I was so overcome by the absolute greatness of God that I fell to my knees, and could do nothing but weep and worship. I do not, in any way, deserve even a portion of what He’s already given to me, and yet, here it all is, and He only has more in store for me, as long as I continue to seek Him with all of my heart. It’s more amazing than I can even use words to describe; all I can say is that God is so, so good.

I have found in this place, in these people, in my God, the joy that I have longed for all of my life. I have found an absolute appreciation for life that I never had before. I have found a purpose, a way to truly be effective, something about which to be passionate. I’ve found everything I’ve ever wanted out of life, and I know that I haven’t even cracked the surface of the potential that my relationship with God holds.