Just Do It

Happy Birthday to my incredible sister Becky and the savage hunter Uncle Boyd!!!

I don’t know how many of you read that last posting about the rain (there was a wicked rainstorm yesterday), but I hung out at the internet café until I thought it was over and headed for home, only to find that I must have left right in the eye of the storm because the rain came back with a vengeance and I ended up sprinting home and getting drenched. I did stop for shelter at a market and had a pretty fun moment with a couple of other guys who were waiting out the storm…Ok, you know how when it pours the rainwater forms all these awesome little rivers? Well, I love those things. I like to toss a stick in to the water and watch it float away, or two sticks and race them. Well evidently these two men at the market were just as passionate about rainwater rivers because as we were standing there the flow of a particular river was great enough to dislodge a pretty sizeable board from the mud and start washing it away. They laughed and pointed at it and even though we couldn’t understand each others language, we shared a look of complete understanding and enthusiasm. It’s pretty sweet how God spoils us sometimes.

Along with the rain came a day of being stuck inside. Which, really was ok because I wasn’t feeling well anyways, last night I had a fever of 100.4.That may or may not have been an accurate reading because I’d just eaten some hot, delicious porridge. At any rate, I feel fine today. But NOT being able to do anything sort of made me stress about doing nothing. That’s kind of something I’ve been struggling with is dealing with what I think is too much down time, and putting a lot of pressure on myself to be doing huge monumental things to serve the people here every second of every day. I’m only here for 2 more months, so I want to make sure I’m doing all that I can. I just gotta be careful not to overthink things. Sure, it would be amazing if I could snap my fingers and provide everything that these families need in an instant. But that’s God’s job. And it’s not like these women are expecting that of me. Yes, these families are poor financially. But they are more generous and supportive of one another with what they have than a lot of people back in America (I’m not pointing any fingers, because historically, I’d probably fit the characteristics of a greedy American more than a generous Suubi woman. And I was blown away by the financial and moral support I got [and continue to get] from you phenomenal people, so don’t think I’m scolding you either. I’m just pointing out that it seems like Americans are raised with the mindset that what’s ours is OURS, we earned it. Why should we share it? Well, because it all comes from God and we should love out neighbors as ourselves, that’s why.)

Back to what I was saying before. I need to stop putting tremendous pressure on myself to do great things, and just start doing what I can with great amounts of love. Because what I think is average and unimportant might mean a great deal to someone else. (Like I said before, just playing with kids all day. But kids are easy, they love anything you do with them. I’m REALLY praying for things I can do to serve the adults around here. You can too if you get the chance)……..

I’ll wrap this up with a little update of whats been going on around here. Last Friday me, Julie, and 2 other non-Suubi (but equally as cool) volunteers, Josh and Ian, went to a nearby village to feed some hungry kids. The meal consisted of beans, chipote (like a thick flour tortilla), and some fruit. We ended up feeding around 400 kids, which was SO AWESOME. The whole process got a little crazy because there were so many kids all trying to get to the front of the line. My “job” was to maintain order and watch for bigger kids shoving the little ones out of line, or cutting ahead, or eating their food and jumping back in line for seconds, or just straight up stealing other kids’ food. Thankfully I had some help with a few of the village women, and Josh, Ian, and Julie had done this before so they were pretty good at catching the sneaky ones. I was super nervous that the food was going to run out and someone would go hungry so I was praying pretty much nonstop. When all was said and done, everyone got their meal! There was even a bit left over that was given to the women who had prepared the food. Josh is the one who organized the thing, which consists of us pooling our money, buying the food, paying some people to prepare it, and us handing it out. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a weekly thing, and I’m blessed that I get to be a part of it. I mean, feeding hungry kids in Africa! How sweet is that? God rocks so hard.

On Saturday I took an awesome walk with Betty down to Lake Victoria to buy a bag of charcoal for her cookstove. For those of you who don’t know who Betty is, she’s an employee at the house here who does chores, laundry etc. She’s an amazing woman, an outstanding mother to an adorable son, Kimby, a spectacular Christian, and a hilarious, energetic friend. A complete joy to be around. The walk was absolutely beautiful with an abundance of lush green trees and bright flowers, and the weather was perfect, like 75 degrees. Basically it made me a little bummed that I’ve been taking so many piki rides, and not walking more(which I will be doing now. Even though that means getting rained on sometimes). The lakeside market/village was awesome too. Very scenic and had that seaside feel to it, with tons of fishing boats, and people repairing fishing nets. It was just very different that the other villages that I’d been to, which was really interesting to experience. Plus, I love being near lakes and rivers.

Even if they’re just little rainwater rivers.

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