Christopher

I've fallen in love.

My husband knows all about it.  And what's more, he's fine with it.

So I thought it was time I get it out in the open.

He's an amazing, handsome, younger man with a beautiful smile and beautiful brown eyes.  And he's stolen my heart.

Meet Christopher.

I met Christopher last year on my first trip to Uganda.  He lives at one of the orphanges we visited - in fact, the one we lived at for four days - Canaan Children's Home.

At Canaan, when a mission team drives through the gate, the children SWARM the bus, screaming and jumping up and down - it totally makes you feel like a rock star!  :)  And all the while as the bus is creeping along, trying to avoid running over any small bodies, the kids are scanning the windows, staking out who will be "their" friend from this team.  Before you even make it off the bus, they're grabbing your hand, pulling you away from the other kids.  And let me tell you - no other kid better make a move on you, lest they face the wrath of the first one who picked you!

Well, last year Christopher picked me. :)

[See the pic below on the left?  Look at the girl who's just stepping off the bus, then look just above her left forearm - that's Christopher looking for me!]

Every time I would come out of our dorm, Christopher would be there waiting for me.  When we came back from working at other ministries every afternoon, it wouldn't take him long to find me.  When we came out of the dining hall after dinner - there he would be.  Somehow he could always find me in the dark, unlit courtyard.  He held my hand and played with my camera and went with me everywhere.  We talked and talked and talked.

And on our second day there he gave me a letter he had written to me - addressed "Dear Mama" and signed "From Your Son."

And my heart was gone.

It is an amazing thing how God almost instantaneously melds your heart together with this little person that you just met - who "randomly" picked you out of a lineup through a bus window.  It happened almost without fail to nearly every person on my team - both last year and this year.

Throughout the year my family and I wrote letters to Christopher and sent him pictures (gifts aren't allowed).  He wrote to me only once, and oh how I cherished that letter!  I thought of him so, so often - wondering how he was, how school was going, if he was lonely or hungry or sick. 

One day a couple of months after I came home last year I got a TEXT from him!!  He had asked me for my phone number, and I thought, "What harm can it do?  He doesn't have any way to call me."  But a boy at school had a phone, and he let Chris use it to text me!  I was in shock!  In the text Christopher said that he was very sick, but he didn't want me to tell anyone because he was afraid if they found out they would keep him out of school.  Wow, how unlike kids in America.  It's very likely he had malaria.  I can't imagine how he managed to go to school every day and keep up appearances enough so that no one would know.  :(

I never told Chris I was coming back to Canaan.  I refused to be another source of disappointment to him if something were to happen and I wasn't able to go.  And so he didn't know I was coming.  This time as the bus pulled through the gates, I was the one scanning the crowd of kids looking for Chris.  And I saw him through the window.  I was about half-way back on the bus, and Chris was near the door, scanning the faces of those getting off the bus.  I wonder now if he had already picked out someone else on the team to be "his". :)

When I called to him through the window, he turned and started looking around to see who had called his name.  I called him again, and this time he saw me.

I have never. ever. in my life. ever before received a greeting like the one I got from Christopher that day.  Imagine an athlete who has just won the national championship.  He started JUMPING and SCREAMING and FIST PUMPING and climbing over the throng of kids to get to me!  Oh my gosh, it was the most wonderful thing EVER!  I have no pictures, because I was just trying to get off the bus and get to him! :)

Christopher hugged me and hugged me and smiled from ear to ear.  He kept saying, "I didn't think you were coming back!"  Oh, what a happy, happy day. 

He has grown so much over the past year!  Here's a picture of us together last year:

And here we are this year:

This is a ridiculously horrid picture of me, but I'm willing to brave putting it on my blog so you all can see what a handsome young man Christopher is becoming.  This is my absolute favorite of him!

Chris is an amazing young man.  His just turned 15 this past Monday (July 16th).  He is SO smart, polite, kind, and articulate.  He is a role model and big brother to the younger kids at Canaan, and is so patient and helpful with them.  Not all of the older kids are like that - a lot of them see the younger kids as a nuisance.  The first year I was there, Chris acted as the interpreteer for us during Sunday School.  God has clearly gifted him as a leader, and he is well-liked and respected by his peers as well as the adults.  He also sings in the church choir!

Last year I was too scared to ask Chris anything about his past - or even his plans for the future - not knowing how sensitive that subject might be.  This year I found out from the director of Canaan, an incredible man named George (who I hope to blog more about soon), that Christopher's father died when Chris was very young. His mom is alive, but she was very young herself when her husband died, and she had no way to provide for her two - TWO - young children.  Christopher went to live at Canaan when he was only five years old. Oh my heart.

One night Chris and I were talking about my family, and I told him that my daughter will be turning twelve (!) in August.  He said, "She's the same age as my sister."

WHAT?

I never knew he had a sister!  And guess what her name is?  Not Valerie. :)  It's Christine - which is my middle name.  Such a sweet surprise.  Christine still lives with Christopher's mom and his grandmother.  I'm not sure why it was that she got to stay while Chris had to leave.  It breaks my heart and makes me so sad.  But our God causes all things to work together for our good, and who knows what Chris's life would've been like if he had stayed with his mom.  As it is, he is well cared for, loved, provided meals and medical care (even though both are pretty limited), and gets to go to school.  And he still gets to see his mom, grandmother, and sister on a pretty regular basis.

When I asked Chris about his plans for the future, he told me he wants to go to "university" in America!  He wants to become a pastor and return to Uganda to start his own church.  What amazing dreams God has planted in this young man's heart!  I pray with all my heart that God will bring them to pass.

Our time at Canaan was way too short this year.  We got there pretty late on a Saturday afternoon, then on Sunday we had church - which in Uganda is reeeeeeally long. :)  That afternoon all of the children performed songs and dances for us, and then it was time to leave for our boat tour of the Nile River.  Honestly, I would have rather just stayed with Chris, but I didn't think it would've been appropriate for me to ask. :)

On Monday, of course, the kids had school, and the older kids like Chris don't get home until about 6:00 so we just had a few hours to spend with them....and then on Tuesday morning we left. :(  We stopped by the school before we left town, and I got to hug Christopher one (or ten) more time(s) and remind him how much I love him.  As I left his classroom I broke down in uncontrollable tears.  My heart was broken as I truly felt like I was leaving one of my own children behind, not knowing when I will see him again.

I've been home a month today.  And every day since I've been back, my thoughts have never been far from Uganda, and especially from Christopher.  For the first couple of weeks, he was the first thought on my mind every morning, and the last thought at night.  I would look at the clock a dozen times during the day, mentally calculating what time it was in Uganda and what Chris would be doing right about then. 

Thoughts of him don't consume my every waking moment anymore, but almost. :)  My heart still feels like I left my son on the other side of the world, and I can't see him, talk to him, email him - or even text him! ;)  My only means of communicating with him is through the very slow mail system.  I am constantly praying for him, asking God to protect him, keep him in good health, and grow him into a wise, godly man of faith and integrity.

I'm asking God to fulfill the dreams he's planted in Christopher's heart.  And to allow my family to be a part of that, if He's willing.

And I'm asking Him to please let me go back to see Chris again.  Very soon.

I just know there's more.

I'm sitting here staring at the blinking curser on my screen, knowing that there is so much more to write about my time in Africa, and not even knowing where to begin.  I went back and read my posts from last year, and now I know why I never finished writing about that trip.  I just. don't. know. what to say.

It's next to impossible (for a non-writer like me) to put into words the things you do and see and experience and feel when you visit a third-world country like Ethiopia or Uganda (or any other).  I sit and I ponder, and I pray, and I wonder what in the world I'm supposed to do now.  And putting it all into words?  I just don't know how.


Chuko Weyama, Ethiopia



(through the bus window :))

I've read several blog posts over the past few days, written by my fellow teammates about their experiences during our trip, and they are all so eloquent!  Perfectly describing not just the facts, but their thoughts, feelings, and impressions about all that we saw.  Me?  Eloquent isn't on my resume.

This beautiful little girl was asking for money as we were loading the bus. :(

And this precious little boy's grandmother asked me
to take him back to America with me. :(

I can do the facts pretty well - after all, I'm a detail girl - but I think last year I over-explained every little FACT because I just couldn't express the emotions that went along with them.  I can't even explain what I'm feeling to my own self.  How can I possibly write it out here?

But here's the thing I do know.  Uganda is huge....HUGE....gigantic....in my heart.  I've known that for a year now, but it kinda tends to fade with the passing of time, you know?  You get busy with life - work, school, PTA, soccer, ballet, church, boy scouts, bills, laundry, grocery shopping, blah blah blah - and somehow the passions of your heart, when you're distracted with the cares of day-to-day life, get pushed to the back burner and start to fade a little.

We were so honored to get to help serve lunch to the beautiful children at Return Ministries!

So after spending the first week of our trip in Ethiopia, I was not in ANY way expecting the tidal wave of emotion that swept over me when our plane landed in Uganda.  Before we even touched down the tears started flowing, and I cried until I had to pull myself together to get off the plane.  What in the world?  What was that all about? 

It was overwhelming, unexpected love.  A love that could only come straight from the heart and plan of God.  A love for this amazing country and its beautiful people.  A love I can't begin to explain, didn't expect or seek out, and don't know what to do with now that I'm home.

Children living near Kampala, Uganda.

Actually, my heart is swimming in a battery of different emotions, and really, I don't know what to do with ANY of them.  I'm....
sad - because I'm not there and I don't know when I'll get to go back. 
homesick - for a place that's not my home. 
longing - to know what's going on in the lives of the people I came to love there. 
confused - about where I go from here and what I'm supposed to do now. 
anxious - for my family to share this love and passion.
frustrated - over all of the above.

My sweet friend Ashley (thank you, friend) told me, "As hard as it is, I know Jesus is speaking to you through your passion, pain and ache for Uganda.  Listen to the ache and you will hear Him."  Oh, how I love that!  It's so hard - and so counterintuitive - and so RIGHT.  Because to "listen to the ache" you have to sit in it for a while.  And be still.  And wait.  And listen.  And who wants to do that?  Not this girl!

I want ANSWERS!

I want DIRECTION!

I want a PURPOSE!

But....listening to the ache?  On one hand, it sounds so depressing.  But on this other hand over here, I just know that it's right. 

"Be still and know that I am God."  Ps. 46:10

"The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."  Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a still small voice." 1 Kings 19:11-12

And oddly enough, it feels right, too.  Because what else am I gonna do with this ache in my heart?  Wallow in it?  Pretend it's not there?  Ignore it until it fades away like last year's passion?  No.  I want to be still, and wait, and listen to the ache until I hear Him tell me what it means.
 
Because I just know there's more.
 

And then it was over. Or not.

Apparently it's harder to blog from Africa than I thought it would be. :)

Not just because of the time constraints - we were on the go every day from breakfast through late dinners - but also because of the sheer overwhelmingness of what we saw and did every day.  Where do you even start?  It's like coming home and having someone ask "How was your trip?"  There's just no easy response.

Good?  Amazing?  Incredible.  Overwhelming.

Life changing.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean.

How many things in life can we say truly are Life Changing?  Meaning, they truly, literally CHANGE your very life?

Remember my New Year's Quest to Be Different?  I pray with all my heart that the last two summers I spent in Africa will absolutely CHANGE the way I live my life.  Because it needs to be changed.  I don't for one single second believe God allowed me to go on these two incredible journeys so that I could come home and say, "Wow, that was amazing," and go back to life as usual.  What would be the point in that?

I don't know what that means, or what it looks like, or what it will entail going forward, but I'm going to be praying for it with all my heart.  Because I want to be different.  And I want my family to be different.  And I want us to MAKE a difference.

And so.  With that, let's talk about Africa. ;)

Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Day two of our adventure (see day one in the previous post) was supposed to be THE BIG DAY, when we would visit a leper village near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, called Korah, as well as a community that was literally built on top of the trash dump.

Look at this picture below.  Do you see the people there?  Those people don't VISIT the dump every day to dig through the trash.....they LIVE there.  Are you getting this?  They LIVE in little shacks and shanties that they have built from pieces of tin and cardboard - right. on. top. of. the. trash. dump. (oh, and all those flecks you see in the sky?  vultures.)

They live there every single minute of every single day.  Their children are born there.  They scrounge through the GARBAGE to find food to feed their families.  Truly....truly....stop and think about that existence for a minute.  Your family.  Your children.  THIS is why we can't go on living our lives blind to the rest of the world.

The government of Addis has recently closed the trash dump to groups (gee, I wonder why), and so we weren't allowed to visit the villagers who live there.  We were, however, able to visit Korah, which began as a leper colony right next to the trash dump.  About 75 years ago, the government established Korah as a "throw-away" village, where lepers were cast out of the city to live in seclusion....exactly like in Bible times. 

Today there are thousands of people who live in Korah (the last estimate I read was 130,000), and they are considered the lowest of the low.  They are so "forgotten", in fact, that many people in the capital city of Addis Ababa - of which Korah is a part, a burrough, if you will - don't even know it EXISTS.

The children coming to greet us! :)

Let me tell you a story about one of the children of Korah.  His name is Sammy.  Both of Sammy's parents were lepers.  His father eventually died of leprosy, leaving Sammy alone in Korah with his mother and sister.  When Sammy was about 12 (14?) years old, a Young Life team visited Korah, and Sammy met a man who took an interest in him, and through a series of events, eventually helped Sammy find Jesus, get out of Korah, and get an education.  [You can read more of Sammy's store here.]

Sammy has now returned to Korah, and he's making it his life's work to change the lives of the people who live there.  He has started a ministry called Great Hope, which has several arms under its canopy: a feeding program; a daycare where moms can leave their children while they work; a ministry called Mission Ethiopia, where the women of Korah make bead necklaces to sell and earn money; another ministry called Project 61 that secures sponsors for the children of Korah, whereby they can get out of the village and attend boarding school; and he's just now starting to build a coffee shop RIGHT IN THE VILLAGE, where visiting teams can buy coffee (brewed or unbrewed) to help support his other ministries.

And he's 26 years old.

THIS is someone whose life was changed, and who is doing the most he can to make a difference in the world.  A huge difference.  I am totally amazed at all he's doing with the opportunities God has given him.

Meet Sammy.  What an incredible (and handsome!) young man of God.

So...what did we do in Korah?

Walked.
Saw.
Played.
Loved.
Learned.
Changed.

We walked through a large portion of the village, playing with and loving on kids along the way, greeting the villagers with "Selam", which means, "Peace".  We touched and hugged and held hands with lepers - those who may not have felt the love of human touch in many, many years.  We had the humbling honor of being the hands of Jesus.

We watched women hand-spinning cotton into thread and then watched the men hand-loom the thread into fabric, creating with their hands the very sustenance of their lives.  I loved this.  Loved witnessing the way God has brought provision to this forgotten community and given them a means of supporting themselves and their families, when before there was no hope but what they could find on the dump.

We also had the opportunity to serve with our hands by painting three rooms of the building where the women of Mission Ethiopia make beads out of clay and paper, and then use those beads to make necklaces which, again, they can sell to provide income for their families.  A wholesome, alternative means of income.  Alternative to....the things they were forced to resort to before.

Spinning cotton into thread.

Weaving the thread into fabric.

One of the rooms we painted. :)

Making clay beads in their lovely new blue room!

And, maybe most importantly, we were changed.  Hopefully forever.  We learned that life is about so much more than anything we normally think about on a typical day in America.  We learned that following Jesus is about so much more than just dressing up for church and attending Bible study and picnics.  We saw with our own eyes what it means to BE the body of Christ.

Please, please take a few minutes to watch this video about Korah.  This isn't our team - but it will give you a very good idea about what Korah is like (and you'll see Sammy several times in the video as well! :)

And then take a minute and ask God what He wants you to do with what you've seen.  Share it?  Tell others?  Facebook?  Blog?  Sponsor a child?  Find other ministries to support and get involved with? 

Because I promise you, whether you get involved with Korah and Great Hope Ministry or not....I know God wants you - wants all of us - to do something.

Once our eyes are opened we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows we know and holds us responsible to act. Proverbs 24:12

Hello from Africa!!

You will have to excuse my incoherence - I've only slept a total of about 6 hours since the time I woke up on Tuesday morning!

My adventure began eaaarly Wednesday morning at 4 a.m.  My sweet friend B had offered to drive me to the airport in Dallas to catch my flight to Washington DC. God was so obviously working on my behalf throughout the day! The details are tedious, but the highlights include Him leading us in the right way when we got lost (!), getting me to the airport on time despite being lost, faithfully walking me through getting my bags checked without paying the baggage fee (they're not supposed to charge you when you're connecting to an international flight, but the ticket agent was not convinced of that!), getting me to TWO flights on time despite running late, and allowing me a 3rd bag for free when security made me check it! Thank you so much for all of your prayers - they have been so obvious in my life the past two days!

I flew from Dallas to Charlotte, NC, then from there to Washington DC where we spent the night. Thursday morning our awesome team of 23 left DC for a 12 1/2 hour flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where we arrived at about 7:15 Friday morning (we are 7 hours ahead of Washington DC). We had a few minutes to drop our stuff at the guest house, and then we were off to visit the beautiful ladies at Fistula Women's Hospital (photos are not allowed). This is the amazing hospital from the documentary "A Walk to Beautiful". Have you seen it? If not, you should definitely try to track it down (I know it's on Netflix, and maybe Hulu(?)).  This place and the care they give to these women is AMAZING. You may have even heard of it when Oprah visited there about 7 years ago and made a rather hefty donation. :)

After the hospital we had a DELICIOUS home-cooked lunch at our guesthouse and then everybody crashed for naps! :) About half the team just left to visit an orphanage, about 1/3 of the team never woke up from their naps, and the rest of us (3) are blogging/emailing/facebook messaging. :)

Tonight we have dinner at a local restaurant, and tomorrow is THE BIG DAY when we will be visiting and loving on the people of the village of Korah, which is literally built on top of a trash dump. For real. So did you even know that there truly are people whose whole existence consists every day of digging through the trash that the trucks bring in, in order to find their sustenance? Meaning their food. And maybe a few salvagable trinkets they might be able to sell. Other people's trash and leftovers.

We in America have no. i. dea.

I would love to have your prayers for myself and my team over the next two weeks. We have already heard so many stories of God's faithfulness just in the 2 days we've been traveling so far. He's been so amazing and gracious! I'm hoping I'll be able to update here a little better this year than I did last year, with the help of the awesome treat I posted about last week. :) Most likely, though, my posts will be short and sweet due to not having much time in the evenings, and also because there are 23 of us trying to use the very limited wifi all at once.

{uggggh. I can NOT figure out how to upload pictures into a blog post on the ipad. When I click on the little insert photo icon, the "select pictures" button is grayed out. Anyone know how to do this? If not, none of my posts will have pictures until I get back home! If you're my friend on FB, I'm posting a very FEW pics there....very slow internet :) }

More to come!!