Uganda Orientation

It’s a long one, but Please read it all J

So the first week of being in Uganda is coming to a close as I hang out at the office this morning before attending my first church service which I am very excited about.  Apparently Uganda church services can go on for hours with tons of singing and dancing and all sorts of craziness so I look forward to that cultural experience most definitely.
Heres a few pictures from our trip:

On our drive out to Jinja


The Nile River


Proof that I was actually there.  One of the church retreat centers that EMI is working on is right on the Nile


Yep thats me



Sadly this is a little shack where probably at least 10 people live



Kids playing, but having a great time

The last week has been pretty amazing though incredibly exhausting as we have filled days with all sorts of orientation things such as learning specifics about different cultural things from the local Ugandan staff that work here at EMI.  One thing I have already learned about culture from our on staff chef is that Public Displays of Affection (PDA) i.e. holding hands, hugging, kissing anything… is laughable.  Janet, our chef, laughed at the mere thought of holding her husband’s hand or hugging him even in front of her children.  I thought that was so interesting, and to be completely honest kind of thankful that Maddy isn’t here (sorry Maddy if you are reading this, I still would gladly have you here! J).  I love holding her hand in public or just hugging and being close to her so just so interesting and funny that that is so different here.   And not just different like laughable funny to think of the thought of doing anything with your husband or wife not even boyfriend or girlfriend.  It’s not wrong though, just different J

Also, we have had an hour lesson on how to speak the local Lugandan language which sadly, I don’t really remember much of anything, but if you are wondering there is lots of clicking, popping, and making all sorts of weird noises which makes it hard to learn… jk… it’s a normal language just different with more consonants than normal and lots of “K”s.   So I should fit in just fine…

Lets see what else, well I guess I feel like we have been treated like royalty here with all our lunches and dinners made for us thus far which will change, but my goodness the food here is AMAZING!  I love everything we have had that I think I have had seconds at every meal because it is just that good!  I am not even sure how to explain a lot of it, but all super flavorful with all sorts of different spices.  Lots of vegetables, potatoes, and rice plus meat though meat is comparatively expensive.  Not expensive by American standards by any means, but in comparison to how cheap everything else is, meat is a little pricier which is fine.

So with that, at first you can see that it is cool that 1 american dollar is worth 2300 Ugandan Schillings so that is awesome, but then you start to think about what that means and how poor it means it is here.  Sad, to give you a reference of how poor it is.  Last night, David this local Ugandan came over to cook dinner for us.  He buys all the groceries brings it, cooks everything, serves it, and cleans up and the food was SO SO GOOD! It cost 5000 schillings a person or about $2.25….. sad huh?

Poverty is very evident, but you don’t know what to do or how to help.  This is another thing where I have just learned so much in the last few weeks about how complicated poverty is.  It is not as easy as anyone thinks.  I don’t even know where to begin, so many problems.  Here is a quick little summary of a few problems:

Tons of ministries and other non-profits do so many amazing things, which is just awesome, but we are so anxious to help and want to get our hands dirty with the people and want them to do things the “right way” when it is actually the American way which may not work for them or it leads to us coming in doing all this work for them giving ourselves a pat on the back and leaving.  Well, did we help and do something good? Yes.  Did we improve their lives? Kind of, but really only temporarily because within a short amount of time whatever we helped them install breaks down and we didn’t teach them how to fix it or why it is important to fix it.  This is just the beginning of a problem. 

A lot of times, we have messed up and we know the old adage of “teach a man to fish, don’t just feed him.”  So we have done this as well in the past just giving out a lot of hand outs to these countries which is not what the majority of them want.  Most of them want to learn skills to get themselves out of poverty.  One of the EMI staff shared with us that when he was in Africa, a lot of the villagers told him to come get them whenever he was going to be working on any of the project so they could learn.  They are eager to learn.  I am making some generalizations here, but bear with me.  Different than a lot of the poverty in America who are okay with handouts, these people don’t want handouts.   They want to learn.

Last problem, to address real quick has to do with many people coming to help and we get in there with a desire to help and get our hands dirty so the ministries bring a team to build houses which isn’t always bad, but at least here there are lots of skilled good local workers that good be working on these orphanages, hospitals, etc.  so we come in trying to help and end up stealing jobs that can help these people feed their families or send their kids to school.  This is another sad thing that many parents have to take their kids out of school because they can’t afford it anymore.  Because the school rates have gone up here to…. $50.  That’s not per day, per week, per month, per semester even.  That is for the whole year.  Isn’t that sad?  So now these workers who we took their job trying to help have their kids act orphaned so they can go to school for free.  Heartbreaking!

This is where EMI is trying to come between.  We aren’t trying to build anything.  We engineer and design it and hire locals to build it.  They benefit from the facility built as well as the process of the facility being built while we also teach them different things throughout the building process.  Obviously, share the love of Christ with them!  How to be a better man, a Godly man.  What that means and looks like.  Teaching these men to take pride in their work and challenge them to improve their skills. 

Anyways, I will get off my poverty soap box… he he, but if you want to learn more, contact me or there is a good book about it called When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett.

So what partially got me onto to that was yesterday, we took a trip to Jinja then to the outskirts of that to see more a village sort of poverty that is really going on.  It was so sad, but the amazing thing is and the beauty of God is these people who live in a mud hut with a straw roof are happier than majority of Americans I would guess.  We have so many depressed, anxious, people with all our billion dollar pharmaceuticals and these people who literally have NOTHING are happy.  Just because they are physically poor does not mean they are spiritually or emotionally poor because for the most part a lot are rich in those areas.  They love God with all their soul, might and strength and trust Him greater because they have to!  WOW, we can definitely learn something here!  I most definitely am because I want to learn from these people, and I want to help them.

So many things we can learn

What else what else…. Oh ya the EMI staff people here are just incredible.  AMAZING stories!  So during this week we have had dinner at each staff members house which is within walking distance from where I live so that is cool, but each night at their house they have shared their testimonies.

I will maybe just give a snip it of a couple, but they are all incredible

Well Phil and Emily Greene, have been here almost 2 years in their late twenties.  Phil is a Cal Poly Alumni!  Ya cal poly!  Anyways, both of them are missionary children, born and raised in Africa, then went to college in the States.  Is that incredible or what?  Phil’s parents are still in Kenya and have been for 35 years and Emily’s parents are in Chad.  I don’t remember how long they have been there probably around the same time.  They met and started dating in high school at a boarding school ran by missionaries in Kenya.  Incredible story.  Both have some amazing things, one just real quick about Emily when she was a little girl in Chad, some Muslim Radicals came and attacked their house, destroyed everything, but their family huddled together in the kitchen and could not be touched because the Hand of God protected them!  You can say what you want think I am crazy or Emily is crazy or remembered it wrong, but that is God.  Choose to believe I guess or not thought I truly hope you do because that is the God of the Bible that protects His Children.  Look all over the Bible, I am thinking of I believe in Acts when Paul is bitten by a poisonous snake and he is just fine because it wasn’t his time to die yet.  God had bigger plans just like He did for Emily’s family.  Jesus conquered the grave so we don’t have to fear death and if its not our time God will protect us.  No this doesn’t mean be stupid and challenge God, look at the way Jesus was tempted to do this and said No Satan, I am not going to tempt God by being dumb thought he could have thrown himself off the mountain and been fine.

Well actually this is long enough so I think I am going to save Steve and Melinda Hoyt’s testimonies for another time, but be ready because they are Completely different and now still an amazing work of what God does with all of us broken people relying on the strength and power of Christ through us.

Lastly, a little scripture exploitation that God has really put on my heart as I read through 1 John.  An incredible book that is really challenging me.  I challenge anyone to read it and really think about what it is saying.  It is insane.

So I have really been pondering kind of this dichotomy that John proposes here of 1 John 1:8 and 1 John 2:4

“Whoever says ‘I know Him[Jesus Chirst] ’ but does not keep His commandments is a liar and the Truth is not in him.” ~1 John 2:4

Wow, man this is crazy.  So is this proposing some kind of legalism that if we ever break a law then we don’t know Jesus?  Don’t worry it’s not, but it is saying some heavy truth.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” ~ 1 John 1:8

Wait, what I thought we just heard that if I break the law or sin then I am not a good Christian or I don’t know Jesus, but now that has been flipped upside down (a common thing done by Jesus just read the Gospels).  John is now saying that if I claim like the other verse that I have not sinned so I must know Jesus, but this is flipped around saying if we claim we have no sin then we are kidding ourselves to even think we can possibly not sin.  Is it just me or does this seem a little contradicting?  Lets try to dig into this a little bit. 

Lord willing I can explain this in line with Scripture and please call me out if I am off base here.  Here is what I would claim with my knowledge and understanding the point John is trying to make here.  First, let’s be honest.  We are sinners.  I love Matt Chandler (a pastor from the Village Church in Texas, amazing preacher look him up, great bible teacher!) says at the beginning of a service if you show me a person who claims to not have sinned on their way to church this morning, then I will show you a liar.  Basically, we sin all the time.  We are sinful, lets be honest and just admit it.  Jesus came to save sinners like you and me so lets be humble and admit it. 

So now that we have admitted we are sinners in desperate need of Jesus, this doesn’t mean well you know I am just going to sin again anyways why even bother trying not to because I still fail.  That is the beauty of Christ.  We can’t earn our own righteousness anyways but God gives us His Son’s which lets be honest in comparison do you want your own righteousness or that of the Son of God.  I don’t know about you, but I am going to take the righteousness of Christ because that is like saying do you want to be happy for 1 minute or joyful for all of eternity…. Hmmm tough decision.  I am going to go with Jesus.

In addition lets get into that other verse so we know now that we are sinners so how could we have the truth in us and not break the commandments.  Here is my understanding of this.  I believe what John means is if we aren’t even trying our best with the help, strength, and Grace of Christ to fight our sinful desires.  For example, lets say I struggle telling the truth so if I just accept that and pick out the sins that I don’t do and keep my lying going then we may think we are doing pretty good.  Because we are not.  We have to fight our struggles.  I think this is what John is meaning here.  We need to be striving for perfection all the while knowing that we aren’t and won’t be perfect so we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  Hopefully that makes sense.  This is complete opposite of most things anybody is used too and counterintuitive, but that is Jesus… Wait so I am going to work my butt off trying to be the best I can knowing full well that I am not going to make it and I will fall short…. That’s right! J 

We gotta pick up our Cross and fight the good fight of faith daily!  And it is hard.  Jesus doesn’t say it will be easy whoever is telling you that it will be easy and Jesus is here to make life easy is a liar and a false prophet.  Jesus changes everything.  And I say this hopefully with the utmost humility and don’t think myself highly at all just an unworthy servant God chose to use, but I met Jesus just over a year ago and now I am living in Africa trying to figure out whether God wants me to live here permanently.  That could not have been farther from my plan, but Jesus turns things upside down.  Let’s die to this world and this with one hand in Heaven with Jesus and the other down here on earth as His hands, feet, and voice to serve and help others.  That is the greatest joy.

Much love!  Please write me!

In His Humble Service

K2

I'm HERE :-)

Unfortunately, in the 8 hours I have been in Uganda, I haven’t learned how to say hello in Luganda, but hopefully I will get it and some things from the language down soon.  Oh ya I guess that does imply that I have made it to Kampala, Uganda  safely so Praise God for that and for all you praying for me and our team.  I think everyone from all EMI’s different teams have made it safely as far as I know.  I think last I heard we had heard from everyone except the India team and Canada.  So Costa Rica, Middle East, and East Africa have all made it safely.

So where do I begin, well this past week of missionary training in Colorado Springs has just been so awesome!  Sad to say I think myself and a few others kind of went into the week thinking, “Alright lets just get this week over with in order to get to the ‘real’ trip.”  Little did we know that God had other plans (who knew because that hardly ever happens huh? Where God has other plans than we intended… ha ha). 

This was just the most amazing week with the most amazing people.  All of us had come together with a few major things in common that allowed an uncanny week of great fellowship of God’s Children.  First, as just stated we are all children of the most High God (1 John 3:1).  Secondly, we all have hearts for missions and serve God and others with those hearts.  All willing hearts drawn to action for the Kingdom.  Lastly, we are all somewhat technically minded.  I say somewhat because I don’t know sometimes how technically minded I am and maybe a few others there who shall remain nameless…. Ha jk.

Anyways, we formed some amazing bonds that I truly hope all of us pursue in the future.  Ya’ll are always welcome in California!  That’s right I said ya’ll.  Too many dang southerners there with their Ya’lls so I figure I cant beat them so I am just going to join them.  And I don’t mean to brag, but my spiritual gift is hospitality. 

Lets see so the week was awesome consisting of lots of teaching and learning about culture, our spiritual gifts and strengths, hiking, rock climbing, snow ball fights and absurd amounts of laughter and jokes many usually at the cause of the funny words everyone would say from all over the world.  We had Midwest to deep south to Minnesota to Canada to England to Irealand.  Who knew there were so many different words for shopping cart, buggy, trolley, etc.

So after this wonderful week of training, we had a lovely 8 hour flight to London where we got the opportunity to get a nice jog in the airport to stretch our legs before our next 8 hour flight to Uganda.  Oh ya and the reason we got this opportunity to jog is because we were literally sprinting through the London airport to make it to our connecting flight, but made it just in time J

Ya so now you are up to speed pretty much, we landed in Uganda. Flights were awesome with British Airways (they are paying me for this product placement don’t worry), went super fast or should I say it flew by? J wow that was cheesy I know.  Humor me I am going on 5 hours of sleep in 2 days. Plus probably an average of 6 hours or less a night in Colorado with so much fun to be packed into one day.

 Phil (a Cal Poly Alumni) picked us up at the airport where 9 people and luggage for 6 people staying in Uganda for 5 months as well as a couple trunks full of stuff from EMI in the US crammed into what I would call a VW bus with an added row of seats.  This was a blast at midnight (and I am not even being sarcastic, which is strange for me).  So we got into our apartment about 1 AM local time and went straight to bed.  I proceeded to wake up @ 4:30 AM to the lovely sound of dogs barking and a rooster crowing.  That was a first.  Once I was awake it hit me that I am in Uganda and I was just too excited to fall back asleep.  I just wanted to go see stuff and play.  I am so excited to be here!  It truly is a strange thing thought that I absolutely loved it.  I love all the strange noises, my apartment, my bed with bug net, everything about it here I love it already and I haven’t even seen it light out except for a little this morning which I happen to have a few pictures of the views just outside our apartment for you ENJOY! J

This is the view out of our balcony this morning.  That’s the neighbors house.  They had chickens and roosters running around J

My view the other way

The deck of the apartment next door.  We are just in a two story quadplex but its awesome.

Our little courtyard area.  The neightbor has toys so I am guessing kids as well J

Of course they still have hummers, I am guessing this is a hotel nearby.

More to come later, but I am headin into the office at 8 AM to have a time of morning devotions and worship the LORD! I cannot wait.

Colorado Springs is Awesome & Jesus is alive here sending people out!

Hello all,

Well for those of you wondering, I have safely made it too Colorado Springs.

It is absolutely gorgeous here.  I love it and would actually consider moving here Lord willing.  I hope to get some pictures taken here at some point to post to show you all what I am up to, living conditions and what not.

With that said, living conditions here are awesome.  Basically, all 26 interns are living in a huge mansion with all sorts of meeting and conference rooms, ping pong, fooseball, etc.  It is pretty awesome, but we are also extremely busy all day everyday with things to do that this is actually one of few free times I have had since arriving hence why I am writing J

It is finally starting to hit me with all the things we are doing and training we are doing that I am a missionary and that I am going through missionary training.  I think I always knew that and maybe even said that for those of you who talked to me, but now I actually few that.  So that is kind of overwhelming, but also so awesome that God has hand selected all of us for our different project trips.  I just truly feel so blessed that God has chosen me to be here where I am. 

It is also a strange thing to really feel that and get that vibe from all of the interns that none of us feel like we are God’s gift to the world and we are something special, but that we are just so blessed by this opportunity that God has given us.  I don’t say that to toot our own horn of how humble and great we are because we definitely are not and just so cool to feel that humility here.  I think one of the team building guys said it well today that all of us are sacrificing things to do what we are and you could just see and feel that all of us were a little puzzled… Then he just said but none of us feel like we are sacrificing anything.  We just feel so honored to be used, truly.  Such an awesome feeling…

Sorry this is so short, but literally all the time I had I used to write this, but in short I love it here, I love all my interns though we are all so different ( I am the only Californian… ha ha J ), I love the staff, I love EVERYTHING!

GOD IS GOOD and is so evident here and just feel so near and loved by Him right now so PRAISE God for the amazing people here and Praise God for all of you praying for me because that is a huge part why so please keep it up! I love it, feel it and so appreciate it!

Love to hear from you all always

In Love & Service of the Lord & Savior Jesus Christ!

K2

My Projects with EMI

Hey all,

I just wanted to say real quick.  I just added some links down to the side,  Hopefully you can see them....

One being the Uganda Orphanage that I will be working on when I first get there.  I encourage you to check out their site, see the amazing things the Peckham family is doing there. Also, there are children you can sponsor through their orphanage.  From what I could see there are only 2 children left to sponsor there.  It is only 40 dollars/month to make sure these children get enough food, clothes, shelter, so I think it would be awesome if some of us jumped on that.  If we just skip going to dinner once this month, this child can eat for the month.  Pray about it and if God lays these children on your heart to help them out awesome!

Mohamed & Frank

Secondly, the other link I posted about the Uganda Rehab center is the other project I will be heading to in a little bit more previously dangerous area of Uganda (safe now).  If you have some time to check that out to, it is an amazing project with some people with hearts to help rehabilitate to people who have had run in's with the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army).  The LRA is the group that kidnaps children and essentially brainwashes them to be soldiers, mindlessly, kidnapping and killing.  Very very sad,  So this organization helps them psychologically then teaches them a vocation to help them out.  AMAZING!  Check it out there is a little video on the main page that would be good to watch give a little overview.

Just wanted to say that real quick, another note to come soon!

Please again, I encourage people to contact me if you want.  Love hearing from everyone!

LOVE to all!

God Bless!
K2

Balance

Well, I hope that everyone had a good New Year’s and resolutions are going well, maybe haven’t failed little pieces like I have… oops. Oh well anyways…

So I continue to prepare myself for Uganda and what that entails which to be honest is getting a lot harder as the days go on.  I start to feel more and more that I am going to be far away from family, friends and my fiancé.

I definitely was broken hearted attending my church down in SLO this past Sunday, really feeling how much I truly love everything about it and what a blessing a good church where I feel at home is.  I love the worship and need that so bad in my life to sing out to God as well as being spiritually revived by powerful preaching!  An absolute bitter sweet moment with the Lord there and probably similarly this Sunday as I am going in front of the church to share what I will be doing and possibly a piece of my testimony.

Now to what hopefully is something encouraging, thought-provoking, inspiring, who knows, hopefully God can use this and open hearts and minds like He did for me this morning in this text.

I was reading through 2 Peter chapter 3 this morning and God just really put this on my heart…

So I feel like this verse 4 really pops out as the church to whom Peter was originally writing with is having trouble with false teachers, false prophets, or in today’s context all these other religions or lack of religious beliefs with atheism becoming more and more popular.  These are the “they” referred to in this verse.

They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”    ~ 2 Peter 4

This just set a series of thoughts off for me of different people’s beliefs throughout the world, one of those being just like this verse is asking.  Many choose to believe that there is some sort of being or creator or something that set the world in motion, but since then it has been just sitting back and watching.  Or maybe that God set the world and motion and just sits back to see what happens like God created everything and now is sitting back with His popcorn watching us and enjoying.

Of course, this is heresy.  This is not God.  However, Christians will be mocked until the end for believing in the promise as stated at the beginning of verse 4 of His (Jesus) coming or return revealed in the book of Revelation.

I got to thinking of other tough questions that Christians may get asked.  First of those, being often times a piece of Atheism, “If there is a God, who loves and cares about His creation, then why are there so many just atrocities and awful things all over the world.”  This is true and a very hard question to answer and the only thing I can really pull from is from Shane Claiborne in The Irresistible Revolution (an Amazing book that everyone should read).  He basically says well we are Jesus’ hands and feet so as Christians it is our job to help these different things and injustices.  God will give us the means, strength, or whatever is needed to help these different atrocities in the world.  We just have to identify our call and God will help with the means.  We can’t just sit back and expect God to do everything.  We have to be willing and obedient servants that is our call.  Sherwood Carthen said, “There is only one position open and it is always open on Jesus’ staff and that position is servant.”   We are called to serve others.  Humble ourselves just as the One we follow.  We follow the Homeless Rabbi, the Servant to all, Jesus.

Sorry went off on a little tangent there, but back to Scripture that still relates

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, [1] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repent.

God is beyond time.  God is also so patient with me.  I spent so long doing what I wanted pursuing my own selfish desires.  And this for me maybe wasn’t selfish as many would consider selfish because I really do feel like I was a good person, morally for the most part and by worldly standards.  This is not in line with the Gospel though.  This I feel is a huge and possibly one of the huge marks of why I feel Christianity has many problems because of people like I was that claimed to be a Christian, but lived as if I didn’t truly believe.  I didn’t understand though.  God in His Mercy and Grace opened my eyes to the weight of truth.  HALLELUJAH!

God, as Peter says at the end of verse 9, wants all of us to repent and turn to Jesus.  He is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes through the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6).  God is so patient to wait for us to just figure this simple truth out.  He doesn’t want anyone to not come to accept this and perish.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies [2] will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

This is where reality comes though.  There will be a day that Jesus will return.  Justice will be served.  Jesus is going to return like a thief.  One day I am sitting here enjoying all my things and toys (not that there is anything wrong or sinful with that at all, don’t get me wrong), then with the blink of an eye just like a thief who comes and steals all your stuff and there isn’t much we can do, Jesus comes and it is all gone and all over.  Jesus sets everything straight in the world.

Sadly, those who have chosen not to follow or their “secrets” or things they have been doing: cheating on their wife, stealing money, lying to whoever about whatever, using others for our own personal advancement and glory, all the corruption in politics and big corporations, we could go on forever…  All these are going to be exposed and out in the open. 

On the positive note, all the good people have done whether some noticed or not will be exposed, the times we picked up trash without others asking, the times we helped out the homeless, you name it.  We don’t need to brag about it or share all the amazing things we have done how great we are that we may become prideful, but also we don’t need to hide it to “seem humble.” 

There is a Balance, which is my new year’s resolution, finding balance in things.  Not being too strict disciplined, legalistic, or moralistic about things, but also not becoming too relaxed and having no discipline.

I struggle with this at times being too strict that I am like read my Bible every day, journal every day, pray every day,  all good things, but I see how quickly Satan will turn this on into pride.  I get to think I am better than someone, but I am not because now I am committing the terrible sin of Pride, the same one that caused Satan to be cast from heaven to earth. 

It’s all about balance.  I love all those things and love to do them every day.  It works for me and God has put those on my heart.  It helps me set my heart on Him for the day.  Does that mean I still fail and sin everyday… Yep!  I am human, but it helps me to work hard and by God’s Grace to strengthen me to fight my own flesh and live for Him.  Do everything we do, do it for the Glory of God the Father.

Please comment, respond, email me, call me, text me, anything, love to hear thoughts, opinions, anything, just love talking to people!

To Him be the Glory For Ever and Ever. Amen!

K2

Ps… I am amazed how off topic and all over the place my brain goes as I write, ha ha sorry if it is hard to follow.