last day in kampala!

Oh last night was simply one of my favorites! We ate dinner at Darla’s house and then cleaned the kitchen. Jarron came over and asked us if we wanted to play a game. Mandy was journaling or something but Hannah and I went right over. We decided to play Nertz with Jamie’s brother Jarrod and his wife Brandy. I was SO pumped because Nertz is probably my favorite game ever. I convinced Jake to be my partner because I wasn’t too excited about playing by myself against the other teams. He wasn’t too excited about it because he has never really played before but by the end of the night he was definitely the secret weapon on the 13 stack of cards. We came from a negative score to losing by 2 to Jarrod and Brandy on our last game. I’ll take that any day. It was really really heated and fast and everyone was standing up and throwing cards down and running around the room and shouting. It was just crazy and fun. Jarrod and Brandy are hilarious and I loved hanging out with them. Tommy was sewing his pants, but when he finished, he decided to play too, and Mandy came in and was his partner. It was a really fun night. We just kept playing and didn’t want to stop, but we knew we had to wake up early so we had to get to sleep. I had way too much adrenaline after Nertz so there was so chance I was getting to sleep any time soon. I talked to my mom on the phone. I am pretty sure I worked up a pretty big bill but talking to her and my dad and Landon gave me such much joy and encouragement. I miss them so much. I was really excited to be able to post my 14 page Word document of a blog and get SO much feedback. I am amazed that so many of you read all of it! It just touches me so much. I promise, I have the most supportive wonderful people in my life. I think that has been one of the most valuable lessons God has taught me so far. I can’t believe how blessed I am to have such precious people covering me in prayer daily and actually caring what I have been up to here in Uganda. It is staggering.

Just a random little tidbit that I realized yesterday; I haven’t done anything to my hair in 3 weeks. I know that probably doesn’t sound like a big deal but I have just not experienced straight hair in 3 weeks. That is CRAZY! I just wake up and go. I kinda like it like this though. It is just wavy and I guess since I haven’t straightened/curled/blow dried it in so long, it is just getting even more wavy. I just have never been that long without doing anything to it. It is kind of weird but really cool. Definitely a random and not deep at all observation, but I want to remember EVERYTHING!

Another random story from yesterday that I forgot to write about. We were sitting out at the BLRC and our friend Andrew was talking to us. He started rubbing Mandy’s arm and asked her why she didn’t have any hair on them. Mandy went to explain that she shaved her arms. Andrew asked her why. She told him that she liked her arms to be smooth like her legs. Andrew looked over at me and started rubbing my significantly more hairy arms, and gave me this incredibly heartfelt compliment. “Heidi, you are a perfect mammal.” hahahahahahahahaha wow. Such a highlight to my day.

This morning we woke up and got dressed. We helped the car situation with the two visiting missionaries and then said goodbye to them. We met up at the BLRC and found out that Mark Berryman had arrived! I have never been so happy to see that man in my entire life. I hugged him. He showed us our van that we will be taking all over Uganda and Rwanda and it is AWESOME. In America, this van would be completely on the shabby side, but here, I feel like we have just received the best gift in the world. It has a row of three seats, then two captain chairs, then another row of three seats. No one even has to sit by each other if we don’t want to. We have so much space to stretch out. I was literally overjoyed. I couldn’t stop talking about how excited I was about this van. I started calling it the Love Van, and it just gives me such joy. I really can’t wait to drive all over the country in it with my friends. It is so funny how different things can be with a little change in environment. If someone had presented the same van to me at home, I would be highly disappointed. Here, it is like gold. Mark asked if he could please take the 6 of us out to lunch, and this was his second point in my book. Everyone was pretty excited to not have to eat the typical Ugandan, and Mark Berryman was becoming more and more of a saint every second he was here. He took us to the nicest restaurant we have been to yet. It was a beautiful Chinese restaurant called Fang Fang, which is really kind of funny. We acted like a bunch of little kids who were experiencing a nice restaurant for the first time. I was thrilled to place the linen napkin on my lap. There was air conditioning. I was literally giddy. We ate GREAT and our meal, though it was at one of the fanciest places in Kampala, was still only about $7 a person. Cheaper than it would cost to eat at Chili’s. Hannah and I had a new idea of how to keep the group entertained in the Love Van basically every 10 minutes. No one else shared quite as much enthusiasm but it was definitely a better situation than any of us had expected. It was nice to catch up with Mark and let him know what we have been up to the last three weeks.

After lunch, we headed back to meet up with Darla, Timothy, Fred and Rebecca for a school visit we had set up last week. We loaded up into our awesome van and headed out to Yefe High School. Mandy and I had to go to the bathroom when we got there and were literally scarred by the experience. Don’t wanna be too graphic, but it was just a hole in the ground. And people had missed ALLLLL around it. That’s all I am going to say about that. We planned to show a movie for the Scripture Union at the High School. Peter thought it would be a good way to connect with the students, by showing them a fun movie to start things out. We got there and started to set up all of the projector equipment when one of us asked Fred what the movie was going to be. He told us that it was called Role Models. We were all a little bit confused considering that Role Models is by far one of the dirtiest movies out lately. Generally speaking, I would say that the church tries to stay away from associating itself with that sort of thing. We thought it must be same lame movie about actual role models that encouraged it and etc. None of us were too excited about watching it. Jake went to check it on his laptop just to make sure, and he found that it was, in fact, the Role Models we are familiar with and should not be shown within the church/Scripture Union context. Considering its R-rating we decided to nix the movie this week. When we asked Fred how this happened, he told us that he went to the movie rental place and asked them for something good to show to a Scripture Union that was clean and appropriate, and that is what they gave him. We were all laughing hysterically about the whole situation. Can you imagine if we had actually showed that movie?! Talk about ruining credibility.

Anyway, we all sat outside and prepared to talk to the students. Fred had asked if any of us would be speaking at the meeting, and Hannah was adamantly against it. Mandy is never a big fan, and the boys usually get called on whether they like it or not. I told Fred that of he REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY needed me to talk, than I would. He took this for an enthusiastic yes. I had sort of prepared a little something in the van, so I was slightly prepared. I was nervous, as usual, but just prayed a whole lot and asked God to use His voice and thoughts and not my own. Fred called on me first and I walked to the front. I told the students about how we have been here in the Kampala area for 3 weeks now, and that we have been learning so much and that God has been teaching us things we couldn’t have even imagined. I told them that God often uses children to teach me and that I think that is really awesome because becoming more like them brings us closer to the heart of God. I told them about the visits to the nursery school and how the kids had taught me a song that has a little list in it. Even though it is a simple children’s song, it has 3 very important truths about God that are crucial for me to remember. ONE! He LOVES me! TWO! He knows me! THREE! He CARES for me! I talked about God’s love and delight in his children and how it pleases him to have a personal relationship with us, and what an incredible gift that is. I told them that He knows them deeply and intimately. He knows every dream and desire, and how many hairs they have on their head, and what their favorite food is. He knows exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are, and when they cry. I talked to them about how God cares for us and knows what’s best and wants to give us the best. He knows exactly what we need. Once again, I can’t take a single bit of credit. My words flowed too smoothly and my thoughts too clearly. I spoke much too confidently and with so little anxiety that it simply could not be me. Tommy spoke and then Jarron. Jarron is ALWAYS a great speaker and he amazes me by his confidence in front of a crowd. He walks back and forth like he owns the place. It awesome. Jake got called on next and he talked about how the Creator of the stars can seem so big and so far away, but how He is personal and close and cares about our problems no matter how insignificant they seem. I hadn’t heard Jake speak yet, and it was really awesome. He is usually a little bit more soft-spoken so it was really cool to see him talk to the kids so boldly and confidently. After we were done, one boy stood up and asked a question. He was obviously nervous and was looking at the ground but he said, “I am called Charles. I would like to know if you can still do this Bible study even if you are a Muslim.” For some reason, I felt a huge lump in my throat but I was so incredibly thrilled to tell him that yes, Bible study was for everyone and that he was welcome to explore with us. He held my hands and I thanked him so much for asking his question. It was so powerful to me. So many kids signed up for World Bible School and it was so exciting. On the way to the car, Darla grabbed me and gave me a hug. She told me that I did an awesome job and that it is always a good sign when the next 3 speakers all reference your point. She said she couldn’t tell I hate speaking in front of people. I got a smug little grin on my face for about 4 seconds and then I just laughed at myself because I got real arrogant and thought I had done it on my own. I told her that it was all God, and that I really really do hate public speaking, but for some reason, He keeps putting me in situations where I have to do it. Probably so I will trust him to provide the words and the courage. It builds my faith a little bit every single time. We headed back home and now I am cooking rice and garlic chicken for dinner for everyone. I assume we will be playing some more Nertz later and I am ecstatic for that. We had a little bit of a run down with the missionaries and we looked at pictures, which was a blast. Plus lots of packing to do! We head out of Kampala tomorrow! I CANNOT believe it! Oh and Peter is out of the hospital tonight! Thanks for the prayers. Keep praying for safe travels! I love you and miss you!

for His glory,
heidi