The hardships of ministry

For those of you who don't know - pretty much from when I first got here, I've had a Bible study on Sunday afternoons for the high school aged girls. Being that I used to have my life immersed in ministry to the high school girls in the States, I thought this would be the perfect fit and that it would honestly be just like it was in the States...boy was I wrong. The ministry to these girls has been one battle after another. I've prayed for them, written them letters of encouragement/tough love, washed their feet, taken them to the hospital, etc... yet they still choose to buck against me - but that's not the hardest part... more than that, their reputation and lifestyle is tainting the name of our church and more importantly, the name of Christ. Yesterday, I had some of my girls who are not of that persuasion at the Bible study, and they were talking in a round about way about the other girls and their reputations and what they do with their time. It used to make me angry, but honestly...God has definitely made it where now I just hurt for them. They are flat out rejecting His love, mercy, and grace. They have been involved in the church scene for years, they have heard countless teachings on the ways they should live, and yet they make the decision to go against it. They're all under 20, but they're doing things that will ruin the rest of their lives, and more importantly if they don't repent...follow them into eternity.

This being said, this morning in my quiet time, as I am now going through 2 Corinthians, I was in chapter 6 and Paul talks of all he and his comrades have gone through and how they have poured out their hearts to and for the Corinthians, yet the Corinthians were not reciprocating. As I read from vs. 1-11, I couldn't help but have the girls in my mind. I won't lie, I love reading what guys like Paul and Peter have to say because if they had to suffer the hardships of ministry, why should I be surprised that I have to as well. Paul was...well, Paul, and yet he had people turn up their nose at him, make up rumors about him, say that he lacked grace, and that he was in it for money, and so on and so forth. The thing is though, Paul never stopped loving them, never stopped trying, never stopped desiring to see them live the life God had called them to, and that's what I need to persevere in. Sometimes the fruit is overflowing in ministry, but sometimes it seems like a famine, but that never means we should stop striving and praying and persevering as we show that un-conditional love that we are called to display. Oh, if only I can remember this vital lesson in the life of ministry!

I knew it!!!!!

So, I'm going to preface this blog with a warning that this may sound somewhat cynical and rather un-P.C., but please don't judge...

So about two weeks ago a certain man came onto our compound and asked to speak to me. This was in the midst of me not wanting to do a whole lot as I was still acclimating to crutch life, and therefore I tried to get him to either: a) go away or b) tell one of my guys what he wanted - neither of which worked. So I went out there and little did I know what sort of door I was opening and what I was getting myself into. Now, being a missionary, one of the things that comes with the territory is the menagerie of people coming seeking your "assistance" with their "problems", and so you get to have a rather nice time trying to figure out not only which "problems" you can help with, but you also have to make a snap judgement on whether or not these people are legit or just really good con-men. That being said...I come out prepared to hear what this guy has to say. He begins to tell me that his name is Musana John and he goes on with a rather lengthy story about the sort of "problem" he is having and about how we have assisted him before and so on and so forth. Then he makes the pitch of how much money he would like for me to "assist" him with. Now, being that I'm a rookie at making these kinds of decisions, I told him we could help him with half of what he was asking for and that I would ask Jess and Bev and if they said yes, I'd help him with the other half the next day. Now, you know those times when you have those little bells going off in your head, but you just try to ignore them thinking that you're just too calloused and cynical and "what if this guy really does need help?", well...that was me at this point. After he left, I wrote Bev who responded to the e-mail urgently saying "DON'T GIVE HIM ANYTHING!" I then learned in a whirlwind that he's been conning missionaries for years and he was just now coming back onto the scene. Looking back, I really should have seen the signs: 1) the legitimacy of a story is directly proportionate to its length of delivery (the longer the story, the leass likely it's true), 2) How many times he repeated himself, 3) how unsettled he got when I said I couldn't give him all the money, but would have to check. Needless to say...I KNEW IT!

Now, if I hadn't learned that lesson enough. Today while I was teaching the kids, this guy came up and said he had something he wanted to discuss with me and made sure to emphasize how urgent it was. After I finished that Bible study, I talked to him and again, he gave me this big long story about his "problem" and how Uganda has not been good to him. He was also asking for transport back to his village. I again had that same little bell going off, but decided to check with JB about it. JB said we had experience with him in the past and that he wasn't necessarily honest but had apparently changed, so we gave him just enough to get some food. The signs for this guy were: 1) the length of the story, 2) the stress of urgency, and 3) the fact that he never removed his sunglasses. Tonight as I was talking to some friends, I heard about how he had been to their house too and is a well-known con-man in Jinja. I just couldn't believe that I kind of got played again! Again...I KNEW IT!!!!

Anyways, the purpose of this blog (at least in my mind) is to let you know about the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of life here, and well... this is something we have to deal with on a fairly regular basis. I just ask that you pray for me specifically to have wisdom during the remaining two months that I'm getting to make these decisions and that I would have mercy, grace, and compassion with the right people but also be able to discern which people are "bad ju ju".

Casts a la Uganda

I forget about how different things are here, and so I thought I'd document the events of todays re-casting, you know..."just for fun". So Sam, or "the cast man" as I like to call him is pretty much it in the town of Jinja for putting casts on people, he works at about four different places and runs around town basically all day doing so. Here, doctor appointments don't really happen, you just kind of drop in and hope for the best. Yesterday I called the clinic and asked for them to let me know when the cast man arrived, but of course they forgot so I was able to talk to him on the phone to see what time today he'd be around, to which he said 9:30 am. I reach the clinic at 9:30 this morning, kind of check in with the receptionist and she just tells me to go and wait in Sam's room, where I continue to wait for about twenty minutes. Sam comes in, asks how things are going, tells me it's going to be another two weeks but that I could get another cast that was more suitable to begin to kind of walk on, and then procedes to cut the cast off. Now my friends, the tools he used to remove my cast...well let's just say they were not what they'd use in the States. He had this little hand saw looking thing and then this plain open razor blade, I was really just waiting to hear those dreaded words of "oops!" and see my somehow white cast turn a shade of red, but it's all good and I still have all of my toes. After removing the cast I was able to see how gnarly my foot still looked and realized I really did need to have it in a cast two more weeks. And then sends me to go and get an x-ray.

Now, along with appointments, medical charts are also not really something we believe in here. Instead your orders are written on little sheets of paper that you get to keep with you along with things like your x-rays even when you go home. They also like to write the orders in these little notebooks that kids use for school. Anyways...Sam writes on a little piece of paper what x-rays he wants, and I gather my stuff, including my old x rays, and head to another time of waiting. As I was heading there, Sam informed me that the x-ray man "was not around" so I knew some really good solid waiting time was ahead. He also told me just to "flash" him (call him, let it ring a couple times and then hang up) when the x-rays are finished and he'd come back from another hospital he was going to do some work at. There are already people waiting around in the one little corner by the x-ray room that has shade, so I sat on a curb (no waiting room here) in the sun...a little vitamin D is good for you. Finally, x-ray man comes, re-organizes us so I get to sit on a wooden bench in the shade and then he begins to see us. After waiting about 45 more minutes, it was my turn. You go in there, give him your slip of paper, he closes the big metal door, you hop on the table with the x ray plate under the area to be checked, he makes sure to handle the area that's injured as roughly as physically possible, and then is in the room while the x-ray is being taken. You then head out and do some more what?...waiting. After some time, you see him coming out with an x-ray dripping with x-ray solution and he hangs it on a special x-ray film clothes line to dry for "some few minutes".

After he brought me my x ray, I called Sam only to get no answer, I waited in his room, and about 45 minutes after that, he comes, bringing some rolls of gauze and plaster in his back pack. As I assist him in opening the packages of plaster (which is not the light weight, fancy colored stuff, but just the white kind), he brings in a bucket (yes a bucket) or warm water. He then procedes to put on my new cast smoothing everything out rather nicely. Then he takes this funny block sort of thing and procedes to plaster it to the bottom of my foot. Come to find out, that's the closest to a "walking cast" I'm going to get. So needless to say, three and a half hours after I got there, I was able to walk out of there with a new white, skinnier cast, with a kind of growth on the bottom...Gotta love it!

Weight bearing

In the world of orthopedics (bones) you hear the terms "Non-weight-bearing", "partial-weight-bearing", and "full weight-bearing". Now for those of you who have been ever so blessed not to be receiving those special instructions, this may not mean as much to you as it does to those of us who have seen those very important words written on some sort of medical order. Not that it's a real pickle to know what these terms mean, but just in case you don't know - it's referring to how much weight you can put on the certain area in question. So basically non-weight-bearing equates to "it's bad ju ju if you even fall on that bad boy", partial weight is -" it's not so bad ju ju to put weight on it and even try to walk on it a little bit with the help of crutches", and then the glorious full weight bearing means "you've waited six weeks, now it's time to put this bad boy to the test". Today I was able to have my orders change from the "non" to the "partial" and honestly that's such a beautiful thing! I got a new smaller cast with a ghetto little block on the bottom so that I can put weight on my foot without putting weight necessarily directly on the break. I'm now able to not have to be so ginger in my maneuvering or have heart palpitations at the idea of wet surfaces knowing that they all but mean inevitable doom for my walking security. I've now had my very "special" cast for a month, and this new one is to last me the final two, and then hopefully I can have FREEDOM!!!


Now, as one who frequently get opportunities to teach, that therefore necessitates that I find good illustrations, introductions, etc...on a fairly frequent basis Needless to say, as a teacher you begin to think of the events of life in illustration format: "ooh! this could be used to teach this, and that, etc.." With this idea of weight bearing in mind, I can't help but think that in our spiritual lives, there are times when God breaks us as he is giving us lessons, helping the bone grow so to speak, and sometimes we need to give it time to set. After some time, when you've finally started to get a grasp on what He's trying to teach you or change in you, there comes the next time where you kind of begin to slowly test it out - as they say "a faith that's not tested can't be trusted". The time of "partial weight bearing" is a time where you actually encourage the bone to grow even stronger, it's that little bit of resistance and pressure that makes it what it needs to be. Spiritually speaking, the times when God is trying to let us test what we've learned, he gives us new opportunities to do so, encouraging us to grow in the areas He's working in. Finally, there is the time when you're kind of set out on your own - you really show what you're made of, if it's really what it needs to be. The cool thing is that if you look at an x-ray after a break has healed, many times it's stronger than the other areas around it because of that new growth. During this time of "breaking" in my life, I would love to be able to look back later - after all the different levels of restoration, testing, and healing and see that I'm stronger than I was before this time. Now, you can also talk to people and hear about when bones didn't heal properly and they had to be re-broken, talk about a party?...NOT! The real trick is to make sure that you listen to the lessons or else you're going to be hurting later and this time of pain will have to happen all over again.

Families

Families are a funny thing if you think about it... most of the time when we think of a family we think of the one consisting of parents and their offspring. When you think of families in that sense, you find people who come from awesome families and others who come from not so awesome families. As I have mentioned before, I come from seriously the most amazing family I know - I realize I'm a little biased, but some people really may not be able to say such things about their family (A side note is that this may be fresh in my mind because I just finished skyping with my family after about a month of not really talking to them). But really, as amazing as my biological family is, I've come to realize that family is so much more than just some people who share a similar genetic makeup, they're the people you love and care about, the people you would do almost anything for, the people who you turn to when you're in trouble. When I look at that definition of family, it makes me think of not only my ABQ family, but my family here in Uganda. Last night we had a birthday party for Peace and Moses (two of our staff members children) and it was just so awesome gathering together with some of our staff members and their kids, all of the laughter, the jokes, getting to have the kids hang on me and joke around with me... it was definitely one of those times I wish that I could have captured, but I know will just have to be stored away as a memory I hope I won't forget. The dynamic we have here on this compound truly is that of a family. I've known that, but I was reminded of that after my fun experience on Monday with the tire (see previous posts). Having JB so concerned and so quick to come to help me, the concern of the others who knew what had happened, and then even with my cast - I have their true sympathy for me during this time, where it really is something they feel for me about and truly pray for me for. I guess what I want to just say is that God has blessed me with not just one amazing family but several. And whenever I think that I'm all alone in the world, I just need to remember these awesome people he has placed in my life in such an awesome way!

The Jinja missionary COMMUNITY

Every first Sunday of the month, we have what we call Missionary Fellowship. This is a time every month where missionaries from all sorts of walks of life, denominations, and ministries can come together for some worship, a short teaching, and then a pot luck. Last month, they asked for any volunteers for the next month's fellowship, and people were just joking to say that I should volunteer, but I decided that was an ok idea...I mean one more thing on my plate isn't that hard right? Then the next day I broke my foot, and that idea didn't seem too great anymore. Well...last night was the first Sunday and with Judy and Rochelle really doing the work, we were able to pull it off. And oh my sweet goodness...was it an event! We had over thirty people in our little living room. It was awesome! We had a one of our missionaries' daughters play worship (she's ten and did an awesome job!), we had another missionary do a teaching that convicted a lot of us, and then a lot of really good food. There was a constant sound of people talking and I'm just so excited it was a success!!!! I love it when the body comes together for the purpose of what we're really supposed to do - build one another up and encourage each other in the ministries God has called us to. If only this little microcosm of a healthy body would be something believers all over the world can emulate, just think of what the Church could do!

I hate Mondays (well at least this one)

Today I drove with Ryan to a town called Mbale which is the half way point between Jinja and where he lives in Karamoja. He had been in town for the weekend for a friend's wedding and it was awesome having him back so soon, of course that kind of re-opened some of the wounds that had barely scabbed over from when he left but it was still great. Over the weekend, I didn't try to think about that today would bring me saying goodbye to him for probably six weeks this time. Even today when we said goodbye it was less emotional because I really didn't allow myself to think about the true reality.

After I said goodbye and drove out of town (just FYI, we have an automatic car that I can drive with my broken foot), I was just listening to music and as the reality began to dawn on me, I began to break down. Then, as I was trying to recover from that, it all of a sudden sounded like the windows were opened, and I look in the mirror to see my back left tire flapping. Yeah, my tire didn't just go flat, it seriously exploded. God was so good though and I didn't roll over, and God just kept me really calm. I pulled over and considering I was on crutches and couldn't really do anything anyway, I immediately called in my go-to man, JB. I was told that as soon as he got the call, he grabbed Davis (one of my other awesome go-to guys) and they drove the 45 minutes to come and rescue me. After I waited in the car for them to arrive, I was able to see the damage, and JB told the truth when he said that I was very lucky that I didn't get hurt. God definitely protected me on that one and answered some serious prayers.





Now, as I was driving on the way there, I realized that it has been one month ago (four weeks) since I broke my foot, it's also been two months to the day that I had my birthday and I knew that I was embarking on one crazy year. I just can't believe what all has happened over these past two months. It's just been way too crazy for words to just wrap my mind around just how much has happened, the pain, the struggles, the lessons, and it's only been two months... It's just seeming like it's one thing is coming right after the other. I'm exhausted in every sense of the word but also encouraged that in the midst of days like today that seem to go as bad as possible, God is still faithful to have His hand on every situation. But I'll admit my flesh definitely says "I hate Mondays".