Now That I Have SEEN, I am responsible !

Hey Friends! Please take one moment to listen to this beautiful yet eye-opening song ! 

Brooke Fraser - Albertine 

 

Now that I have seen, I am responsible

Faith without deeds is dead

Now that I have held you in my own arms, I cannot let go till you are...

I am on a plane across a distant sea

But I carry you in me

and the dust on, the dust on, the dust on my feet.

For 9 months I was across a distant sea on a plane in Uganda, Africa. I held children and people with the very hands that I am typing with today. I showed my faith through my deeds. Yet now that I am home, I am responsible to tell the world, to tell my family and friends, to even tell strangers, about what I have seen. 

Here are just a few pictures of the children that I have held in my own arms. The children that I am responsible for. The children that I want to tell of their stories :

Each one of these children above hold a special place in my heart. Some of them live in a village called Zirobwe, some live in the city of Kampala, and some live in orphanages. The children who live in the Uganda, have a harder life than anyone I have ever met. 

Village children have to walk miles multiple times each day to fetch HEAVY containers of water. They are expected to work on the farms with their parents. And most of them NEVER get a chance to go to school. They live in small houses or huts that are smaller than the average American bathroom - with their WHOLE family. They are exposed to many different disease yet are not able to receive proper medical attention.

City children are often left unattended, hungry, and unloved by families. Some children have great families who love them, yet they are still hungry, sick, and living in poverty. 

The children that are so dear to my heart simply needed love. They are happy children. They are loving and compassionate. 

Therefore, now that I have seen these children. Now that I am held them in my own arms. I am responsible to love them, to pray for them, and to tell the world about them. 

Yet... as most of you already know -I saw more than just children while I was in Uganda ! I also taught English.


Teaching English was such an amazing experience! I loved every second of it. My students were so ready to learn. They were so eager to understand the language of English. With each day that I went into the classroom to teach the Reading & Writing class, I was filled with joy. I was so happy that I was able to come in, teach these students, and leave knowing that I was not only teaching.... but I was also sharing my faith to them through my actions. 
For the 3 months that I taught my students, I was able to build relationships, get to know about the culture of where each student came from, and to spread simply the LOVE of Christ Jesus to them. The students openly knew that I was a Christ follower. Yet, I did not have to preach to them for them to see the joy, happiness, and completeness that I have in my life from simply following God. 
By the end of my 3 months with my students. I was able to see smiles as students did assignments correctly. I was able to have FUN teaching students from all over the world. I was able to teach them how to understand what they were reading and not just read what was on the page. But most of all... I was able to work alongside a group of wonderful Christian leaders and show the love of God through our actions as well as leadership.

"Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department."

Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove."

James 2:14-18 (The Message)

I will tell the WORLD. I will tell them where I've been

MAKE A DIFFERENCE !

BUY COFFEE :-) 

https://www.justlovecoffee.com/bringlolahome

 If you by coffee from this website, you can help SAVE a child's life.

Lola & I 

I have talked about Lola in my past blog post. She is a little girl that my friend Melissa is in the process of adopting. With each day that Lola is still here in the orphanage, she gets worse. There are not enough people who love her here. There is not enough medical help that she needs. I visit her as often as I can. But that is not enough. She needs to be home with Melissa and she needs love every second of the day. 

She has cerebral palsy as well as epilepsy. She needs to be somewhere that she will get the attention that she needs. That is NOT here in Uganda. As of now, she is left alone with no physical therapy. One day Lola will walk, talk, learn, play and HAVE A LIFE. But until she is home in America, those things will not happen.

Me, Lola, Hilary 

Christmas is just around the corner - Buy a gift that will make a difference ! 

Teaching Brings Joy To My Heat

I never know how much teaching could bring me joy,But it sure does. I wish I had a picture of my class to show you but… instead maybe I can give you a visual.

 I have a class of 20 students on a good day and about 13 on a slow day. My class is a garage that was once turned into a classroom. I have 2 long rows of desks.

My first row is always filled with all of my Somalian girls. They are all beautiful young teenaged ladies and they are always so colorful with their scarves and long dresses.

My second row always has my 2 Somalian teenaged boys in the back right corner who always get their work done fast in hopes that I will give them a break so that they can go play football (soccer) for five minutes. Which, I have found out that if I talk about football at any point of my class, they pay attention 100%.  

Then the rest of the back row is filled with the one Somalian girls who just sits in class with a smile because her English is very bad. I just mastered the Alphabet with her. Yet, on the good days, the back row is also filled with my Eritrean, Congolese, Rwandan, and Sudanese students.

Recently I have had two older Eritrean male students sit in the back of my class. They are my best students. When I ask the class to write a few sentences on a topic, most students will give me 2 or 3 sentences, but those two always give me at least a page.

My favorite part of my class is when I correct their work. Every single student is excited to hand me his or her work to check. As I check their work, they all sit there eagerly. Often times I have to ask them what they meant to write since it is so off base. But recently, they have had very little mistakes. Sure, there is a misspelled word here and there, but for the most part it all makes sense.

But my favorite parts are the smiles that I get when I tell them good job, or the hands that go up when I ask if someone wants to read something aloud, or simply the fact that I have to dismiss them two or three times before them leave because they want to stay and learn more.

Teaching has definitely been a blessing. I love It ! 

Change In Plans

So I may have thought that Charlotte's Wed was and easy read for my students, yet I was wrong. My students level of reading is just a bit lower than I had expected. They also can not grasp the fact that animals can talk, and if they can understand that, they don’t understand that there is a little girl who can hear then as well as understand the animals.

So I have gone onto different plan. I found a Magic Tree House book here in Uganda. I remember reading Magic Tree House books when I was learning how to read as a young kid. Magic Tree House is a series about a brother and a sister who go all around the world through their Magic Tree House to solve puzzles or riddles.

The book that I have chosen for my class is about Africa and the lions that they run into. So far, my students are enjoying it. The book has 10 chapters. Each class we read one chapter together as a class. We are now on chapter five. My goal from reading this book with them was to work on their reading comprehension. I told my class that there is no point to knowing how to read if you do not understand and remember what you read. Therefore, in my class, the students read the chapter once together as a class. Then I read it aloud for them. After that, I answer any questions they have. Most of their questions are about what different words mean. After I answer their questions, they answer questions that I make up about the chapter. So far we are successful. :-)

I have also picked up teaching a computer class. I teach basic computer skills to a small class of about 6 students twice a week. I teach them things such as how to save and open a Word Document, make a list with bullets, chancing fonts and sizes of their text, and copying and pasting texts. Before I too over teaching this class, they had just got past learning how to turn the computer on and basic typing skills. So it has been fun and quite an easy class to teach.

 I am not only a Reading and Writing English teacher, now I am also a computer teacher. :-) 

Want to know more????

Refuge and Hope

^ The organization I am working with.

The Center of Hope

^ Where I am teaching.

 

My NEW Everyday, Ordinay Life

I am a college graduate.

I am unemployed - but I like to see it as employed by Jesus.

I am a teacher.

I am HAPPY :-)

Most of you are probably wondering how teaching for me is going. Well ..... it is going AMAZINGLY! I am in love with it. I have been teaching the Reading & Writing class for the past few weeks. I have about 20 students. 9 of my students are related. They are all either siblings or cousins. That half of my of my class is Somalian. The other half is Sudanese, Congolese,  Ethiopian, or Eritrean. I love my students and I love teaching. They are all eager to learn because they so desperately want to learn.

I will admit though - it has been MUCH harder than I thought. When I started my first thought was " I have been speaking English my whole life - sure I can teach it to some foreigners". But no.... it has been much harder than I expected. Especially since I now realize that I just speak English - and most of the time I don't speak it well. I had no idea how to teach these students how to READ.  When they don't know a word ... I just tell them it. But that is not helping them. So It has been MUCH harder than I had ever thought it would be.

Looking back on my schooling, I remember the sense of achievement that I received when I finished a book. It feels so great to know that you have finished a task such as reading a book. So ..... I have purchased Charlotte's Web. I am in the process of making them all a copy of the book so that they can have it in front of them as they read. My hope is to read the book together as a class by Christmas. Then hopefully they will feel the happiness that I once got as a child when I finished my first book.

Life as a teacher has been fun. I love serving in this way. I am much happier with GOD's plan than I was with my plan :-)

Therefore, my NEW everyday ordinary life is still placed before God as an offering. I am still taking my life and taking what God has done for me to glorify him in every aspect of my days. I am simply doing something different with my time spent here in Uganda. Instead of empowering children though bible stories, songs, and games.... I am now empowering young students through teaching and through love.

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it." 

                                                   Romans 12:1-2 (The Message) 

Prayer Requests:  

* For me to be filled with knowledge of how best to teach my students. 

* For walls to be broken down and doors to be open for me to get to know each one of my students better.

* For stress of financial issues to leave me. Because of lack of funds, I often find myself stressed more than necessary. Please pray that God will do something huge in this area so that I may focus solely onto the work He has brought me here to do.

* For my Dad,Mom, and sister (Brandi) back home. The lack of contact with me due to internet access worries them. Please pray that God will give them peace and comfort as I finish out my time here in Uganda.

Proverbs 19:21

"Many are the plans in a person’s heart,but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails"

                                PROVERBS 19:21

How stupid could I have been? I planned my tirp here to Uganda. Sure, I prayed about it….but ultimately it was my plan. But God is good. He has bigger and brighter plans for my time here. I had “many plans in my heart” but it is totally “the LORD’s purpose that will prevail. "


I am in Uganda for God, not for myself. I am in Uganda to be a light to people here. I am NOT in Uganda to be comfortable at all. 

Unfortunately things have come up to where I can no longer stay with Empower A Child. I do not have enough money or support to stay there.  I am not going to be able to finish out my time with them because of expenses. 

But ....  I am leaving in GOD'S TIMING and  for GOD'S PLAN.

 I took about 2 months to pray and seek God's council as well as the council from different spiritual leaders in my life. In that time, I reached out to a sister in Christ who is a missionary here in Uganda. I had met her a few years ago when she was a youth paster and had brought her youth to a TEAMeffort camp that I had be running in New Orleans. She encouraged me to come to a center where she teaches English. 

I had no idea what I would be getting myself into. But I took a leap of faith and went for it. I visited the Center of Hope last week. The second I was there, I began to feel a sense of peace. This center provides English Education to refugees. They teach students from Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Erirtea, Congo, Rwanda, and more. These students are here in Uganda because of war or something else going on in their home country. They struggle here because they do not know Luganda or English. So this center is helping them learn the basics of English. This is also a Christian organization. Their goal is to help the students with English as well as other skills such as cooking, sewing, and other trades of that sort. The organization also reaches out to them in a relational way. The teachers build relationships with the students so that they build a  level of trust with them and in turn can tell them about the TRUTH of Jesus. They also have bible studies on Wednesday nights that they invite the students to.

I was able to sit in on two of the classes while I visited the center last week. I absolutely fell in LOVE with the classes and the students. The organization is in need of a new teacher as well........ SO I will begin teaching on Tuesday !!! I will have 20-25 students from all over the world and I will be teaching them in a Reading and Writing class. 

To work with this center, it is totally free and I have an opportunity to have free housing. So God was able to take an unfortunate situation and completely turn it around to be wonderful. He took my plans and showed me what HIS plans where for me while I was doing  HIS work here in Uganda. 

So as of Tuesday, I will no longer be reaching out to Children with Empower A Child, I will be a teacher...teaching English to refugees from all over the nation. 


I will be sure to keep you all updated on the way that God will work through me as a teacher for these next few months :-) 

Ethiopia

Sudan

Eritrea

Rwanda

Congo

Somalia

 

"Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
 "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven."
Matthew 5:13-16 (The Message)