Be flexible!

So we're beginning our second week here in Arua. It feels like we've been here a month already because of how packed each day has been and how many people we're meeting and getting to know. Kevin has made a really great movie about our first couple days at servinginuganda2010.blogspot.com.

I'm debating what to talk about because there's just so much to say. We spent the last 2 days teaching at a church and secondary school. On Saturday we were at a church in Arua town that is being oppressed by the Muslim population. We were supposed to start at 9, sat around till 10, and started playing with kids until we finally got started at 11:30. Welcome to Uganda. The day didn't go as expected at all, but it was a great learning experience. We ended up having some pretty intense conversation with some church leaders which was very fruitful.

At the church while playing with a kids, I had my first experience with playing and holding little kids with rags for clothes and bloated bellies. Some babies didn't even have underwear, or just roamed around naked. Mothers and fathers have to spend all day working and the 3 and 4 year olds take care of their baby brothers and sisters for the day. While playing with them I just acted natural, smiled and held them. But on looking back at the experience, I began weeping because it broke my heart to actually touch these poor babies. In my head I kept screaming, "LORD, what can I DO?!" I don't know how to really show them Christ's love when I only have 1 hour with them. What is the Gospel for these children who may not even make it to the age of 5? God, help us. I'm overwhelmed and need to trust that he can work through me in the way that he sees fit. That's all I can do.

Yesterday we spent all day working with youth. We had sessions about developing Christian maturity and boy-girl relationships. We also led their service in the morning and Sean preached. The challenges of teaching in this culture are pretty intense: they give very little feedback, and won't tell you if they don't understand what you've said because they don't want to offend you. But the response they gave us after the service was positive and we feel that we were able to glorify God with our actions. Please continue to pray for us as we move forward and continue teaching and interacting with students and church leaders. It gets pretty tiring, but we know that God gives us the strength to keep working.

This week will be very busy. We're going on an overnight trip tomorrow (Tues-Wed) and teaching at another parish. Then we will be making a day trip on Friday and Saturday, one school and one parish. Then we will be leading a service on Sunday. I'm excited to teach more and see new areas of the country, but need God's strength to keep it up. We're really growing in our dependency on the Lord, and these people here keep us in prayer constantly. We know that what we're doing is not by our strength, and that is so freeing and refreshing to be constantly reminded of.

We've been hearing this so much from the kids: God is Good! (All the time!) All the time? (The Lord is good and that is his nature, Woo!) Amen, Amen.