Thursday, September 15, 2011

a had a weird realization when I was frantically writing my Global century 1 paper this morning (I think deep thoughts when i write papers, don't ask me why, it's half the reason why it takes me so long and my GPA is what it is)
I never dream about Uganda
Ive had dreams about Scotland, and Colorado, about Georgia, about New York, but not about Uganda.
I actually sat there for a second and realized
I've never had a (memorable) dream about Uganda
except maybe the week after I got home, but I cant even remember if that's true
Why is this I wonder?
Is it another sign that it is not where God has called me?
Or is it because I never gave my heart truly away to Uganda as I have so many places?
Or is it because of the unfamiliarity, that was Uganda, and how the whole thing seemed like a dream, so it's hard to dream of such things?
Why do we dream what we dream? Does God speak through our dreams on a consistent basis?

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

presence
it was a pivotal theme in Uganda
the idea of being all there with the people you are with
it was my hardest lesson in Uganda
I'm constantly thinking about the future without embracing the present
but as Jim Elliott says
I must not let my longing slay the appetite of the living
I must embrace this senior year
because it is this year, that will prepare me to go out
to go out into the world
It's what I have been working towards all these years
i don't want a unprepared heart, one that isn't close to God
the savior of the universe
to stop me from going
to stop me from being all he has created me to be
God create in me a new heart
and prepare a right spirit within me
Help me to put you only you first
and help me to worship you the creator
and not your creation
I must remember what I learned in Uganda
I must live simply
and in the present

Uganda taught me many things, but the biggest lesson I learned from Uganda is how to love a country where I frankly found it hard to be myself. It many ways it taught me how to dream, how to free myself. I will forever be thankful for what it did.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

I feel like when I returned from Uganda I wasn't quite ready to live simply
I was to busy being ready to be back in America.
Sure some things were different like how I gave away half my wardrobe
but the other changes, well I reverted back to old me.
I don't want to do that. I'm ready to simplify my life again, to enjoy presence, to continue to emerge from my shell

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

reverse culture shock part: 1000

I'm back at school for my fall semester and it is starting to turn cool.
This is something I did not experience last year, No the temperature stayed the same the whole semester. Maybe if anything it got warmer.
I like this cool weather thing, it encourages me to be studious.
But with the warm weather fading my memories are also slowly start to fade.
The smells the feelings that were so vividly etched in my mind when I returned home are not quite as vivid anymore, but they are still there.
They come up in the oddest of times.
And then there how Uganda changed me.
How basic thoughts and actions will never be the same
I'm walking to school right now, and just realized today, that while it takes the rest of west campus 10 minutes to cross the road, it only takes me 5, because when your in Uganda, you go when you can go, you don't wait for the perfect opportunity, you go and if you have to stand in the middle of the road while a car goes by, oh well.
Probably not the smartest move, but a change that is etched in my mind.
That's what happens when you live cross culturally though, you leave part of your mind part of your heart there forever. Never again will you be 100% American. You realize, that God has not given us just America, but the whole world. The American way in no longer the right way, but the American way.
You will look at your life differently when you return from the global south/ third world/ lesser developed countries.
I'm so thankful