Our Last Week at Smile Africa..

A team of 4 college students and a lady by the name of Lynn arrived on Monday from the United Kingdom. They will  be here until August 24 when they will go on a safari and then return home. It has been good to get to know them this past week but stinks we can’t build too deep of relationships with them. This week at Smile was a little frustrating at times. Monday-Thursday there was a team from New York who put on a bible school for the kids. On Monday one of the girls (who was only a freshman in high school) said to me “how can you stand having all these dirty kids crawl on you?” I tried to explain to her that every time a kid full of poop comes up to me I just remember that every day we come to God full of sin which stinks worse than poop. She was happy that I had that outlook but still said she could not stand the kids right then. The entire team got frustrated really easily on Monday and Tuesday when things did not go as planned. There also was a large group of people from Hope for Kids at Smile for Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. They really loved on the kids and were not afraid to hold the kids which I was really happy to see. However, when they got into the clinic they poured hand sanitizer on their hands and rubbed it all the way up their arms in front of the staff and kids. These two interactions along with another conversation that I had with two Americans who were staying at the same hotel as us made me so thankful for the training Northwestern and AIM provided for us, but also made me disgusted to be called an American. These kids need SO much love and the Americans were more concerned about getting dirty or catching a fungus from the kids. What impression does this leave with children about Christianity? It just really bothered me all week.  On a funny note, it was the most mzugus (white people) I have seen in the last two months which was almost overwhelming. Kind of afraid to think about what Amsterdam will be like.

Baby Sam! He will be 4 months old tomorrow :)

Eric had malaria this week and we think he has a UTI because his urine was orange-brown and smelled horrible.  He also got shots for the UTI in the butt Wednesday-Saturday in which I held him while he received them. Surprisingly he did not hate me for this.  He took a nap on me on Wednesday morning. It was a great bonding experience and made me feel like he can trust me. The lady who works in the baby room also asked him if I was his mama and he shook his little head yes. It made my day that I could have influenced his life in a positive way. His birth mother left him when he was 4 months old and his step mother beat him.  Pastor Ruth also told me that when his dad was leaving Smile to drop off Eric his dad told her a burden was just lifted off his shoulders. Eric has probably never been shown love until about a month ago. You can still see it on his face lots of times but every time he smiles it lightens up my day. Definitely going to miss his little smile and laugh.

the little guy full of smiles for me despite being ill...this is before he got his shot for the day ;)

Last week and this week I did not spend a whole lot of time in the clinic because I wanted to spend my last few weeks playing with the kids. It really has been enjoyable to play “Double double this this, double double that that” with the girls and to just hold some of the smaller ones. I am going to miss the kids so much!

We ended up not going to the prison that has 400 inmates in it due to scheduling problems and we ran out of time. However we did go to another prison which had 31 inmates. We talked about the armor of God again and shared our testimonies with the inmates. We also got to see where the men sleep. It was just a large room with about 10 straw mats laying out. The warden was asking if this how the prisons in America were. We said shared with them if the rooms were like this in America that more people would be dead because of the fighting and raping that goes on in the prisons. They were shocked and said we need more discipline in our prisons.

Ugandan sky on the way back from prison ministry

One of the men at Smile has a brother who paints machetes so we ordered a few with drawings on them. We were retuning back to the hotel with them and one of the workers asked what we were going to do with them and to see them. We shared with him that we would display them for decoration. He questioned us as to whether it would be used in a fight. We assured him they would not be in used in a harmful way. Then he questioned us “well what if your mother and father get into a fight and begin to beat each other then stab the other one?” Dani and I shared with them that in America people do not beat their wives and if they do they go to prison. It led to a fairly long discussion about marriages in America and our parents’ marriages as Christians. In Uganda, the men have many wives. If a wife cannot reproduce after a few years he will take a different wife who can give him children. I shared with him how a few couples in my church have not been able to have kids and choose to adopt. Then God blessed them with a child of their own. We talked about Abraham and Sarah and how long they waited for Isaac’s birth. It was great to see how God can use us in even the small ways.

Tonight we are going to have a water fight with the kids, eat some cake, and probably watch Tangled.  It will be interesting to see if they kids like the cake because the only cake we have had here has tasted similar to dry carrot cake with raisins. Many  of the things we have shared with the Ugandan people have been too sweet for them.

Dry chicken chilli...so good! Even though it made me sick later it definately will be missed!

Pray requests:

The next week…it is going to be a difficult week with saying good bye to everyone at Smile, Thursday our plane does not leave until 11:30pm and Dani and I have about 8 hours to just chill in Entebee, Friday I will have a 3 hour lay over in Minneapolis which will be difficult since I am so close to home!

Return home…pray for easy transition back into the busy American lifestyle, I can have a positive attitude on the campus ministry retreat, and my stomach can handle American food

Pray that we can continue to use the things God has taught us in the last 2 months in our daily lives.

Pray that we may not forget the last two months in Uganda and the people we have met.

Pray for Smile…there are so many needs at smile…staff who want to be there every day, financial needs for the clinic and baby room, and many other needs!

10 hardest things to adjust to back in America:

10. Driving on the right side of the road instead of the left
9. Using water out of faucet instead of water bottles to brush our teeth
8. Eating something other than toast for breakfast
7. The power and water always being on...ok that wont be hard
6. The peace and quiet outside instead of music blaring from 9:30pm-1ish every night...I cant fall asleep without noise now
5. Using a cell phone everyday...amazingly this will be hard
4. Going to bed after 10pm and staying asleep past 7am
3. The food in general
2. Being on time
1. Flushing the toilet after every use

In one week I will be home!! Thanks for all your prayers and support. I am going to miss Uganda very much but I am definately looking forward to seeing everyone.