Every second of every day since I’ve been back, my heart and mind have been filled with Uganda. The overflowing love, the kids, the faith, the beauty, the joy, the sadness, the music. The feeling of small hands in mine is still fresh on my palms. The sweet weight of a sleeping child lingers on my chest. I can still feel my curly hair flying wildly as I’d hold hands and skip and jump in circles with the children of my heart.
The music of their laughter and mine mixes sweetly and faintly, after two weeks, still dancing in my ears. The joy raging like the Nile rushes through my body, soul, mind, and heart. Prayers flutter out of my lips like swarms of butterflies, floating up to God on behalf of the children and ministries now tattooed on my heart. Africa is in my veins. But even as I say that, I know somehow that it is not really just Africa. It is from the Lord. I became so much closer with him there. He is whispering something to me. It is the softest, gentlest, yet most powerful, soul rocking thing. I feel like I’m on the verge of something, but God has not yet shown me the path. I don’t really know what He is planning for my life. But I do know that He knows and cares for the deepest desires of my heart, which are to be a mamma in Uganda, and to be able to love and care for as many children as he allows, and to do it all in a way that glorifies God, so that one day, I may see my children walking in His ways, and then another day, further down the road, we will all be able to spend eternity together with our Abba Father.
(I want to tell you a story that I’m hoping you’ll find pretty funny, that kind of sums up my emotions since I’ve been back):
All people obviously process things differently from each other. I’ve never been a huge crier, especially not in front of others, but God really crushed my heart on this trip, and I cried close to every day. A lot of times, I needed to cry a lot more, but once I stop it, I can’t just go back to it later, like a lot of other people I know. Some people from our team said they just needed to go somewhere and ugly cry for a long time, and that works for them. Wellll, my emotions tend to manifest themselves in a slightly crazier way! I feel so much inside of me from this trip: sadness at the circumstances of lots of the kids, despair over leaving them, a really deep longing to see and love certain kids again, like my pink baby, and knowing that on earth, I may never have that chance. Since I’ve been back, though, the most I’d ever done, (till yesterday!), was just to tear up at my memories. It was building inside of me, no doubt, just waiting till the most opportune time to come out and make me seem completely mentally ill. One of my dearest friends gave me my first Simply Love Africa shirt the morning I left. I had been wanting it a long time, and when I came back home, I would wear it, and it was like it symbolized everything that the trip had been. Well, night before last, I fell asleep journaling, and slept on top of my pen. In the morning, I noticed there was a GIANT ink splotch on my sheets. I went and showed my sister, and laughed about it, then turned to put them in the laundry and she’s like, “Um… you got it all over your shirt, too.” Insert emotional breakdown. I begin BAWLING. “NOOOO. NOT MY AFRICA SHIRT!”, and I whip my shirt off, and blubber to my sister, “PLEASE TRY TO GET IT OUT!” , and proceed to make my way up the stairs in hysterics to get a different outfit on. She keeps quiet, and gives me this scared, “oh. my. gosh. You are unstable look”, but doesn’t say anything, for her own safety, because, clearly, I am a little unstable at the moment. haha!
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| (this isn't really what I went and did. I just think it's a great illustration of me being unstable. hahaha) |
While she is at the sink Oxy Cleaning my shirt and avoiding eye contact, I come lay on the counter, watching her, and ugly crying and rambling on. Ending of the story: she gets my shirt clean, and I get my time to grieve a bit. Ahem…well, um.. heh, now that that’s over….hahaha
Here are a few prayer needs that have really been on my heart lately. If you want to join in praying about these with me, I would really love that!
This is my beautiful, sweet, God loving friend named Sarah.
She lives at Canaan, and upon her 18th birthday this July, she will have to move out into the village, on her own. Please pray for her life, her safety, wisdom for her, and a job opportunity to come along. Also, please pray for her aunt who lives in the village, that God would keep her safe, so that Sarah may have someone to care about her when she is on her own.
Please pray for the fledgling ministry called Living Hope. http://www.livinghopeuganda.org/ They are situated in a predominantly Muslim community, and the people who run it have the most beautiful, caring hearts. They are in desperate need of finances, and a bigger facility, though, and they have just received two new children from really tough situations. Their names are Purity and Shareif, so if you could lift them up in prayer, that would be so wonderful. You can expect a post sometime in the near future to explain about this ministry a bit more!
Also, if you need prayers for anything in your life, feel free to put it in our comments, (anonymously, if you want!), and Lindsay and I will most definitely lift that up in prayer for you!
Sorry for my lack of posting about our trip. I’m going to try to get on that!
Love in Jesus,
Allison
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