today, oh wow what an adventure!

Today Peter, Arora, and Fred came and picked us up and took us to the African Market. I got SOME of my shopping done, but we will definitely have to make another trip. I got some cool stuff though! i am pretty excited about giving the surprises when i get home.

After that we took public transportation to Entebbe to go to the zoo. This sounds like it would be a fun, laid back relaxing tourist day, but that was not the case. First, we got there and didn't have enough money to get in. They raised the price by a lot, and we just didn't have enough money. As the treasurer, i felt pretty bad about it, but Fred took care of us and somehow got the price from about 170,000 shillings to 30,000 shillings which was awesome. So we went into the zoo and they took us over to where they feed the employees. The cook said that she didn't have enough food for us, and that we should come back later. We went to look at about half of the zoo, which included zebras, lions, monkeys, and the very weird bird that looked like it was part dinosaur. We looked at the animals and then went back over to eat. We had some more Ugandan food including Pocho (solid cornmeal mush), Matoke (similar to mashed potatoes, but made out of mashed bananas), rice, beef soup, and yams with G nut sauce. They only had sodas to drink so i just didnt have any, which made me VERY thirsty! After lunch, Fred asked us if we would like to go on a jungle walk. everyone was pretty excited about it, so off we went, into the Ugandan jungle. We start our walk and Fred and Jake were leading the way. Hannah and Jarron were behind them, then me by myself, then Mandy, Arora, and Tasha behind me. This jungle walk became treacherous, and we were ducking under things and walking through the dense forest. I see Hannah start to get majorly freaked out ahead of me and I start to wonder whats going on. Then, behind me, i hear Mandy literally start to hyperventilate. I was still confused until i heard Tasha tell Mandy to not look at the spiders, just try to focus on where she was walking. I look over my head to see dozens of spider webs over my head, each was a home to a spider the size of my palm or bigger. They the biggest spiders i have ever seen. Once i notice the spiders, i start to laugh. uncontrollably. i am a terrible teammate. Here, my roommates Hannah and Mandy are totally flipping out and all i can do is laugh about it. Mandy started sobbing which is completely out of character for her, and Tasha tried to console her. She was afraid they would come down out of their webs on top of her. i thought about this and tried to be scared, but i just wasn't. i just continued on in the jungle trek, laughing. The girls were both a little shaken up from the spiders and so when we came to a place in our walk where we had to proceed though thick grass that was over our heads, they were not too excited. There wasn't really a path, and there was poison ivy and burrs all throughout. Fred started down the path, with me following closely behind. I was feeling adventurous today i suppose. Jarron yelled out "Fred! I don't think there is a path there!" to which Fred responded with a smile and a wave beckoning he and Hannah to follow us onward. Jarron, being the protective boyfriend he is stood there with Hannah, and then finally came along once the rest of the group arrived to the entrance of the non-trail. We walked through and i laughed more, as i watched everyone freak out as we walked though a blanket of "lake bugs" (kinda like big gnats). You literally inhaled them in your mouth and nose with every breath. Hannah wore an absolutely beautiful white lace skirt today that was basically like velcro for hundreds and hundreds or little burrs sticking all over her. i got out first and waited and captured all of these facial expressions on camera, as i laughed very hard. this was probably not a good reaction as Hannah had a mental breakdown upon exit, and my laughter and photography didn't exactly help the situation. After we regained our composure, we finished up the zoo. I climbed a HUGE tree that looks like the one at Animal Kingdom and had a blast with Arora and Tasha. 

We caught public transportation back, and ate Thai food that Jamie cooked for us tonight. it was really good, and we all sat around and laughed so hard we cried about all of our experiences today on our "fun and relaxing day off" which turned out to be one of the most traumatic. And they are all happy now that i have pictures of them coming out of the brush. and even as i type this, i am laughing so hard about everyone freaking out. 

sula bulungi! (sleep good in Lugandan! one of the like 10 phrases i know!)

For His Glory,

heidi alise

the day of the boda bodas

so today we went to our very first African church service. It was AMAZING! The worship was incredibly moving. I loved singing the words YES LORD, YES LORD, YES YES LORD! with so much singing and dancing and clapping! the passion was incredible. i was so uplifted and i could barely keep still! it was awesome. These people are seriously so precious to me. Peter came a got me and said they needed help in the nursery. i was SO excited since i haven't gotten to work with the kids much yet. i went into the little baby room and we sang a song that went "things are better already when jesus is on my side!" it was so cute. i loved hugging on them and playing with them today. they are so much fun and so sweet.

Tommy got really sick today and he has some bad virus. He has been throwing up all day and resting and he didn't get to go with us this afternoon, so keep him in your prayers. Jake started feeling bad too, so we are hoping he doesn't have it too. Pray that it doesn't spread to all of us and that Tommy and Jake start feeling better soon.

After church we came home and a a little lunch and took a quick nap. Then we decided to head back to the BLRC to meet up with Peter. It was the first time the interns took public transportation and made it to the BLRC without a Ugandan or a past intern named Dusty. I was DEFINITELY nervous about that, because the entire process takes about 50 minutes. We walk down the hill from our house, get on a van packed with strangers, and basically hope it takes you to the taxi park. You get out at the taxi park and walk for another 20 minutes through crowds of people and major traffic before finally getting to the BLRC. i am still not used to them driving of the right side of the road! I was really proud of us for making it there on our own though. 

Once we got to the BLRC, we dropped Mandy off and met up with Peter and Jemir. Jake and Jarron wanted to play soccer with some Ugandans and Hannah and i decided to tag along. we walked a lot of the way, but then it became necessary to take the boda bodas again. I was pretty excited because they are SO much fun! plus, Hannah and i shared one so it was really great to experience it together. The boys played soccer and Hannah and i watched which was fun, and then we jumped on another boda boda and headed back to the BLRC for bible study.

Once we got there, we had group bible study. We sang songs together and Seth was our leader. He is the most contagiously joyful person i have ever seen. he laughs out loud before every sentence and he smiles nonstop. He is one of my favorite people i have met. He's wonderful. We sang and had an awesome discussion about some passages in Mark and in Joshua, and i was so challenged by what they had to say. This one guy, Steve, says some really awesome stuff and i have been so blessed in hearing what he has to say. I wasn't as shy today, and i was able to make a few comments which was better than yesterday for sure. We had some great chai tea and break and then we prayed together and held hands as we sang "Bind Us Together, Lord." (its one of their favorites!). It was so amazing to me to see both of my white hands holding onto the dark brown hands of my wonderful new friends on either side of me. God's  love already binds us together in an extremely deep way. i already can't imagine leaving them. They have been such a light to me.

After bible study we hopped back on public transportation and then took bodas back to the house. we watched a movie with darla, and had some sugar G nuts, one of my favorites here :) now i am off to sleep, and getting ready for a great day tomorrow! i LOVE kampala!

For His Glory,

heidi alise

BLRC saturdays

saturdays are known for being very busy around here. We woke up this morning and went to the BLRC for some Lugandan language lessons with Peter. We learned a TON of new words, i definitely wont be able to memorize them all, but i am starting to get the spelling down, and the greetings are coming to me easier. Its just funny that i can speak an African tribal language. 

After that, the boys went into town with Peter, and us girls went to the women's Life Care small group. Singing "Amazing Grace" with 6 African women is something everyone should experience. It rocked me to my core. I can't even describe it, but i had chills all over. We studied 2 John and that was interesting. It was very cool to see what the women contributed to the study. Many of them are challenging and thought provoking in their ideas. After this we took prayer requests. It was REALLY eye opening and it touched me very deeply. These women didn't pray for themselves. Not at all. They prayed for their country, for the children in the boarding schools who are at risk for sexual violence,  and things like that. I think about how often i pray for me. Dear God, help me with this, Dear God, please give me safe travels, Dear God, please take care of me. Its always all about me. Hearing these women pray is completely different. I was very convicted by their prayers that see a much bigger picture than i do. There was a woman sitting next to me holding a baby probably about a year old. She couldn't have been much older than i am. I shared my Bible and song book with her since she came in late. Her sweet baby looked at me, and i was just dying to hold onto him when he fell asleep. When it came time for prayer requests, this woman spoke up. She told us that she is a refugee from Rwanda and her little boy is all she has. She lives behind a refugee project and her and her son sleep outside every night. She prayed for their safety as they are very in danger of sexual abuse living out on the street like they were. When the women asked her name again, she told them and they all smiled. Turns out that her name means God is Here and God is Real in this Place. This is when i started tearing up. I looked across the room to see Hannah's expression matching mine exactly. I wept through the prayer as Darla was saying that this woman and her baby are children of God who are precious and valuable in His sight. It was very hard to not want to promise her the world and offer her a home, but i am starting to learn that praying for these people can be the very best i can do sometimes.

After women's group we had lunch and when the boys got back, we got to see Arora, and Peter again, and we got to meet this precious little fireball of a Ugandan girl named Tasha. She is 20, and her and Peter are dating. I hung out with her most of the day and she taught me so much. She is the sweetest thing in the world and i  absolutely loved spending the day with her. We all hung out until it was time for the Life Care Group for youths. It was really cool to get to have a small group time with our awesome new friends, as  well as meeting others. We had some really good discussion time and Hannah, Jarron, Jake, and Tommy had a lot of great things to contribute to the conversation. It was very difficult for me, however. I just felt like a deer in the headlights when we were talking about money and whether or not it was a snare for us spiritually. I just really couldn't think of what i wanted to say,  so i didn't say anything. The rest of my group did so well though. I was very proud of them, and our Ugandan friends were listening very intently. We took prayer requests again and Jameel, the leader of the group, asked me to pray for Tasha in my spare time. It was a really cool way to do things, and I am so thrilled to get to be thinking of and praying for my great new friend. 

After group, we went walking around Kampala again with Peter, Arora, Tasha, Fred, and another new friend Tazo. It was a blast and we went and had juice. I am LOVING passion fruit juice and watermelon juice! I walked all over the city with Tasha and learned so much about her life, and what it is like to be a girl my age living here. I felt so comfortable asking her questions and i just feel really blessed to have met her today. She was such a blessing, and i am looking forward to becoming facebook friends :) 

We came back and had an awesome dinner, all 9 of us together. Then we sat around talking about our rafting experience coming up in a week or so. We laughed so hard we cried, and i looked around the table and felt so blessed to have these people in my life. It has been amazing so far, and i can't wait to wake up to another amazing day tomorrow! my first african church experience! YAY!

For His Glory,

heidi alise

touristy

today we had a bit of a tourist day. we went to the Kasabi Tombs and saw where 4 of the past kings were buried. Fred, Peter, Isaac, and the missionaries took  us there and we went on a tour. it was interesting. After that we went and had lunch at the BLRC which was much better today because i knew what foods to ask for, plus i have gotten a little better at my math skills! all the practice has helped.

after that we went to the Uganda museum and learned about all the different tribes and history of Uganda. This probably would have been very interesting if we would have been able to understand our tour guide. Basically everything i learned came from reading the displays. However, it was REALLY fun to get to hang out with the KCC (kampala  church of christ) guys. They are really wonderful people, and they have been taking such good care if us. 

When we finished there, Darla and Jamie dropped us off at the BLRC and went home. We stayed out there and watched Slumdog Millionaire. It was a fundraiser movie night and it was really cool to meet and hang out with more people. We got popcorn and i had the best chai tea i have ever had! it was great. Watching that movie in this place was really very different than the first time i saw it. I now know what a slum actually looks like. it was so hard to see that movie and attach names and faces to that kind of life story. It was definitely an eye opener.

When the movie was over, it was dark outside. Unlike many African cities, Kampala stays up late. Peter and Fred took us walking through the city to the taxi park so we could catch a taxi to our house. It was just like yesterday, scary, except now we were in the dark too. People all around and traffic flying by. Hannah almost got hit by a taxi van. it was literally blowing by her. No one has any respect for traffic laws here. There are no such thing as lanes and the pedestrian never has the right of way. Hannah and I concluded that it is not the driver's responsibility not to hit you, it is your responsibility not to be hit. Once we got on our taxi, we started heading to our house. The taxi only takes you so far, and it is a very far walk up the hill to our house. About a mile uphill. There are these motorcycles that drive through the city and weave in and out of traffic, and they work like taxis. They are called boda bodas and for 1000 shillings you can ride one. We are not allowed to ride them in the city because they can be VERY dangerous, because of their assertiveness. We are however, allowed to ride them up the hill to our house, so each of us boarded our very own boda boda and rode up to the house. Since the women wear skirts, you have to ride these things side saddle. it was SO much fun! a little bit scary but we all loved it. today was a great day! I love it here!

For His Glory, 

heidi alise

ok so our internet situation is slightly unpredictable but i will keep trying to post as much as i can. thank you so much for all of the encouragement! you are all such blessings to me and i really appreciate you taking the time to read up on me.

i forgot to tell this story from the plane on my last post. it was CRAZY! ok, so Chris Tomlin used an African children's choir called Watoto on his CD for the song "Love" and when hannah and i went to his concert a little while back, he talked a lot about it, and we obviously got excited as we ALWAYS do when something comes up about africa. we then found out that Watoto is actually not only in Uganda, but specifically Kampala! we were so excited. We talked to Chris about getting involved there, and he directed us to the website, where i was disappointed to find that they only accepted short term workers for longer than 3 months. i was disappointed but knew God had plenty in store here in Kampala. so, on our flight from amsterdam, a lady sitting next to me started asking what i would be doing in Kampala as far as ministries go. i told her what i knew and then told me that she worked at a children's home called Watoto. i practically hugged her and started freaking out about how badly i wanted to work there but couldn't. she said that she would love to help get involved and take me all around, so she gave me her phone number and we are going to get to go visit Watoto next Monday most likely! God is so faithful!

yesterday we woke up and went to one of our church leader's houses. His name is Isaac and he is very kind. We had some DELICIOUS new york pizza (go figure!) and pineapple that is truly fresh on another level. we went around the city and got a better look in the day time and that was great. after that we went back to the house and relaxed , and had an awesome spaghetti dinner made by darla. we then had some great conversation and finished it up talking all about our Myers-Briggs personality types. It was really interesting! Darla is very interested in all of that too so i was so thrilled to talk about it.

Today we woke up and the missionaries decided it was time for us to learn how to navigate public transportation. this is a very interesting process, and kind of scary! we still don't quite have the hang of it but we're trying! we took a taxi bus to the taxi park and then walked from there to the BLRC (Better Living Resource Center) where we met up with Mark, Jamie, and Darla, who drove. We got our first language lesson in Lugandan which is the language of most people here. Peter, who is a 23 year old guy who works with the missionaries gave us some basic phrases and words to work on. Little did i know how much i would be using them later on! we then had lunch at the BLRC which was VERY traditional african food, which i am still getting used to. somehow i have become the group treasurer, and with my math skills, converting to shillings has been a little difficult. From there, Jake and Mandy went to go on a high school visit with Darla, and Jarron, Tommy, Hannah, and I went with Peter and his friend Aurora to go to Owino Market. I could use every single word i know to describe this place and you still couldn't possibly understand. culture shock hit me like a ton of bricks. i was in no way prepared to see what i saw. it is exactly what you would imagine a slum to be, except worse. the smell alone is enough to knock someone over. you see lame men crawling on the ground and begging and you wonder if they have ever walked higher than someone's knee. there are animal parts and raw meat with flies everywhere. small ditches run through the middle of the path and waste flows down them by your feet. foods i have never seen and used shoes and clothing are on sale everywhere. people shout out "Muzungu! Muzungu!" which is the word for white person. They will grab your arm and won't let go and you don't know whether you should be rude and forceful or kind a warm. i was scared. our group was the only group of white people i saw, and it was evident from the attention we drew. At one point, Peter stopped to look at some jeans and Hannah and i were completely surrounded by men shaking our hands and asking our names and rubbing up against up saying "hello how are you?!" One man asked Jarron if he could have one of "jarron's women." Jarron said no. and the man said, "Well there are two! are they both yours?" Jarron said yes thankfully, but he considered it funny to say that he would have sacrificed me first. haha thanks man. I was proposed to twice and men would grab me and say, "my wife?!" one even smacked me on the butt.  i almost had a breakdown at some points but it was definitely a good experience and i know how to handle myself better now. plus i got a lot of Lugandan language use in! We had a great dinner tonight with Darla, and now I am headed to sleep to see what tomorrow holds. Every day is an adventure! keep praying! i love you all!

For His Glory,

heidi alise 

at home in kampala!

hello hello!

i am so happy to say that i am now posting from my NEW HOME for 3 weeks here in kampala! all i have seen so far was dark but it was beautiful and i love it already! the driving is INSANE and i have to try and keep my backseat driving to a minimum, but its really scary! even though it was 9:30 PM, people were EVERYWHERE walking all in the streets and in huge crowds. it was totally crazy. i don't know what i was expecting but it definitely wasn't this. 

Everything with traveling went by without a single problem and i couldn't have asked for anything better. The luggage situation worked out really perfectly and i was so happy to have aunt ruthie there yesterday morning pointing out all the "God moments." She really has a keen eye for them :) 

While we were on our last twenty minutes of our flight to entebbe, i got super emotional because it was just all hitting me at once. I had some daraja going on my ipod plus i was just really praying about all the people i was about to meet and i was just really overwhelmed by it all. it was like it was finally hitting me. i really can't believe i am here. it just became so real and it really became a seriously important thing to me too. it has important to me all along, but it was like i suddenly realized that i am here to be completely selfless, to serve everyone in every way i can, and to make this trip all about the glory of God, not the glory of myself. those are all really REALLY important, and i just took a much more serious and less giggly silly approach to it. anyway if you know me you know i LOVE lyrics, and these lyrics have become my prayers tonight...

Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days,
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice and let me sing
always, only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold
not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use
every power as You choose.

Here am I, all of me.
Take my life, it's all for Thee.

Take my will and make it Thine
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is Thine own
it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord I pour
at Your feet its treasure store
Take myself and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.
Take myself and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.

i love you and and miss you so much! keep praying!

For His Glory, 

heidi alise

amsterdam

hey y'all!

i am writing from the amsterdam airport! the flight here was GREAT! it was probably my best international flight ever. I have been trying to sleep according to uganda time, but i haven't gotten much. Jake, Mandy, and I sat together and I think i tried to sleep in every single possible position. When we first left, the pilot said that we were passing through Evansville, Indiana and it definitely made me sad! i am for sure missing the boyfriend. the food was actually really good and jake and i watched benjamin button which made the time go fast. The flight ended up being almost 9 hours! I just got to talk to my mom via skype and that was AWESOME! i felt pretty bad for waking her up at 3:20 AM but hearing her voice was so great. I miss my family already! 

i am SO excited to get to uganda! i still feel like this is totally surreal. even though i am currently sitting in a foreign airport, i can't believe it is really here. we are expected to arrive tonight around 8:30-9 which is around 1:30-2 in the afternoon your time. i can't wait to FINALLY be posting from africa, telling you what it's like. i love you all! thanks for wanting to know what is going on. you're support and prayers continues to amaze and encourage me. 

For His Glory,

heidi alise