We will be that city on the hill burning brightly.

Learning to be the light in Africa looks different to me each day. Learning that you are called for missions is a hard thing to except. Being back home you get caught up in the American way and just the comforts of home. I absolutely love mission’s work and right now I feel like that’s my calling. My heart is torn between Haiti and Africa and one day I hope many more places. I am coming to realize I would love to start an organization that works in many places bring the love of Jesus Christ and bring hope. Right now we are working on a few different projects in the village that will improve their living and help make the village self-sustainable. And I’m excited to be a part of the planning and hopefully the out come. Because this is the part of missions I’m most excited about, being able to plan something and raise the money for it and be there when it is built and put in place.

Each day in the village usually looks a little different. We are getting into a routine but each day does not always go as we planned. The other day we had to go into town and buy malaria medication because the clinic at the village ran out and we had a few kids with malaria, who needed the medicine that day. Or giving money, to get the bathhouse fixed, or leaving the village at 11pm because you need to take a mom and son to the hospital. Africa is turning out to be way different then I thought. You always go into something thinking you will get one thing out of it but usually you get many things you never thought possible. Africa is challenging me in more ways then I thought possible but I am learning to love those moments because they seem to happen a lot and all I can do is except then and learn from them. Learning to be the light to me also means loving on the kids and poring into them as much as possible. Some kids in the village are orphans and some are boarding students and some live in the village with their mothers. Its hard to see life through their eyes, but the more I spend time with some of them my heart breaks for what they have to go through. But I'm loving every minute of being here. :)

Loving this verse right now. "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." -1 Corinthians 13:13

me and molly :)

There is more to come about some of the projects we want to accomplish be for we leave. We need lots of prayers and also we are going to need sponsors for some of the stuff.

TIA (This is Africa)

After over 24 hours of traveling we made it to the village safely. The trip getting to Uganda was a little bumpy for timbo and I but we made it will all our bags which was amazing and I thank God for that. We arrived in the village at 1:00am on Friday morning (our time in Uganda.) We were 8 hours in front of Florida but now that the time has changed we are 7 hours before ya’ll. The first day in the village Friday was hard for me because I arrived sick and the first night got only about 2 and ½ hours of sleep all I felt like doing was staying in bed and resting but all the kids and ladies were asking about me and worried for me. Talk about feeling loved, people you don’t know worried about you because you don’t feel good. So Friday I met some of the people but I mostly rested hoping I could get better in the shortest time possible. So I did little by little on Friday. Arielle and I rearranged our room; we put our beds together and organized all our things. We also had to re-hang our mosquito net and that was a site to see.

So Friday was an organizing and resting day for me. Until Arielle comes in our room freaking out, she had just gotten off the phone with a director of an organization that has volunteers in the village too. He wanted us to pay or move out of where we were staying, but Arielle had an agreement with the man who started the village Jonathon that is her contact. But Jonathan is out of the country right now so she could not call him. So she talked to Jonathan’s brother and he told her what to say to this man. But we all were a little nervous because this guy was on this way to the village to get an answer from us were we going to pay or move out. Two ladies in the village were really comforting they just have a peace about them that made us calm before this guy got to the village. They are like our Ugandan mothers because the really care about us and love us. They have our back no matter what happens. This guy came to the village and talked to Arielle and told her that we would solve the problem when Jonathon comes back from his trip. So for now this is to be continued.

On Friday night after this guy left Immy cooked dinner for us in her house and we got to eat dinner with her and her family. It was really comforting to know that she cares about us and has a big heart to let us into her home after only knowing me and timbo for one day.

Saturday was as eventful as Friday. We got up in the morning to go into the town next to us to exchange our money and get some grocery’s at the market. But the bank in Wikso would not exchange our smaller bills so we decided to go all the way into Kampala. We thought we were only going to be gone 2 hours but it turned into an all day trip. We had to take a bota- bota from our village into Wikso then take 2 Mutatoo’s (taxi) to get into Kampala to the shopping center we were going to. It took us about 2 hours of traveling to get there. In Kampala we exchanged our money and we to the grocery store. We also ate lunch at a place called the New York Pizza Kitchen. On the way home from Kampala was a little shorter but one of our taxi’s said they were going were we needed to go but they lied to us and drop us of the 15 mins away from were we need to be to catch our other taxi back to Wikso. So we asked this girl on the street how to get there and she walked us all the way there. And she was not even going where we were going, she was just nice enough to take us there. And we made it back to the village safely. On Saturday night we had a birthday party for Immy. We went over to her house and decorated and brought cupcakes we bought in town. We had a blast celebrating with her and her family and Favor. They usually don’t celebrate birthdays here but she was really thankful that we came over to celebrate with her. 

First Bota Bota Ride