Journey to Africa

I have so much to say and have waited too long to say it...so here is my condensed version. As you can read by my last posts I my heart has been drawn to Uganda ever since I saw Invisible Children's Rough Cut a few years ago. The phrase, “Someday I’m going to go to Uganda”, has been heard coming out of my mouth many times over the past few years. In early January I felt the Lord tell me that I can go now, that someday is here. I was so excited I couldn't’t wait to tell Shane, and to my wonderful surprise he said ok let’s look into it. There were two things that I wanted to do, either meet the young boy we support through World Vision or visit Katie Davis of Amazima Ministries. On the morning of January 12th I spoke to World Vision about the process of going to meet Akileo and then as you know the night of January 12th we were glued to the tv and Internet watching the destruction in Haiti. It seemed maybe I was mistaken in going to Uganda. Haiti needed us - our prayers, our attention and our money. I put Uganda on the back burner and we focused on raising money for Haiti, which God in His goodness moved His people to give more than $3,000 at Worship for Haiti!!!

Then my friend, Jennifer, sent me an email saying, Malia I think you need to go on this trip. I clicked on the link and who do you think we are going to serve with in Uganda? Yep, Katie and Amazima Ministries!! I told Shane and he said I had to go, and I agreed. And now I am leaving tomorrow!!

My friend Cherrie is traveling with me from Portland and we are meeting up with our friend Toni in Amsterdam...along with 8 other people from across America that we have never met:) Sounds a little like our trip to Haiti.

My children are set with my wonderful friends taking turns picking them up from school and watching them until Shane is off work. I just spent the last hour writing them little notes for every night I'm gone...and I bought them each a disposable camera to take pictures while I'm gone so I don't miss a thing. $20 bucks says Hope's is done in a day:) I will miss them so very much but I know Shane will do a great job and they will have so much fun with their many play dates.

So last Friday Shane, Rick, Cherrie, and my parents and I filled up the "totes" we are bringing to the orphanages, dump, Amazima, and other ministries that we will be visiting. Thanks to Cherrie, aka the shoe lady, and my wonderful friends and family we loaded up 250 lbs of shoes, medicine, underwear, food, and more shoes. It is a good thing Shane was there, as he is "spacial", he loaded the tubs to perfect weight to be let aboard the airplane.








Thank you my wonderful friends for taking care of my kids while I'm gone, I love you.




and to the two that created this monster:) I love you,



I love you Shane,

and Maris,



and Kruse,


and Hope.


Here is out itinerary:


Day 1 Arrive in Entebbe, and check into the Entebbe Airport Guest Home
for one night.

Day 2 Breakfast at the guest home and pick up by Canaan’s Children
Home bus by 9 AM and proceed to My Father’s House orphanage to
drop off donations. Head to Jinja. Check into the King Fisher and
eat lunch. Work at a small orphanage of 25 kids run by Alice. until 4
PM. Enjoy a boat ride to the source of the Nile. In the evening, a
few team members should help Katie Davis with setting up the food
and anything else she needs for the feeding program on Saturday.
Day 3 Join Katie by 9:30 AM for the feeding program all day. Pick up at 4
PM. Dinner at King Fisher Lodge.
Day 4 Check out of the King Fisher Lodge. Church with Pastor Isaac and
day with the children. Stay at Canaan’s Children Home.
Day 5 Spend the day with the Canaan Children’s Home children.
Day 6 Breakfast and good-byes at Canaan’s. Head to Kampala. Lunch at
the mall (exchange money at the bank) and shopping at the market.
Arrive at the airport by 3:30 PM or 4 and head to Ethiopia.
Day 7 Arrive around noon in Addis. Check into the Ethiopia Guest Home
and eat a late lunch. Proceed to the impoverished Bole Bulbula area
of Addis to work with the children. Dinner out at a restaurant of
choice.
Day 8 Mother Theresa HIV orphanage and AHope HIV Orphanage. Dinner
at the EGH.
Day 9 The new AWA Transitional Home to paint mural and Kids Kare
orphanage. Dinner out at the Traditional Ethiopian Resturant
Day 10 Korah city dump to work with kids. Dinner at the EGH.
Day 11 Shop in the morning. Work with the Dahley Community Project
ministry. Head back to EGH for clean up, packing and dinner. Leave
for airport for check in by 7:00 PM. Flight at 10:50 PM

Will post pictures when we have internet...

Isn't this pendant beautiful?! You can buy it and others like it at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/junkposse

With this pendant specifically $25 is donated to Habitat for Haiti....well go get one!

Speechless

It's not often that I am speechless, but today I was. Jacob was all that I wanted him to be and more. I still can't believe that I met him today. When he was done speaking Cherrie and I went to meet him and when we were about ten feet away I stopped walking and told Cherrie that I couldn't talk, how do you even begin to try to explain to someone, whom you have never met, that they have completely changed your life. That because of them you will never be the same. How do you say that without sounding like a crazy stalker? She said "Malia, you have to talk to him!!" and literally pulled me a few steps toward him. He was so sweet and talked to us for quite a while and we hugged, twice:). We then got to have lunch with him and the roadies and had a question and answer session. So pretty much it was, as my niece says, "the greatest day ever!" I'm pretty sure my smile says it all...

SHUT UP!!!

I'm freaking out right now...freaking out!! So my love for Uganda all started the night I watched Invisible Children a few years ago. Specifically with a young boy named Jacob on the film. At any moment on any day I can hear Jacob crying, literally I can close my eyes and hear the sound of a sorrow I have ever heard in my life. He was told not to cry by the LRA and in this moment while being filmed he breaks down and I promise you if you watch it you will never be the same. Jacob is Uganda to me. And now here I am, less than a month to travel, and I'm thinking about Jacob so naturally I go to Invisible Children's website to see what is new and they have a new Legacy Tour. It says, "10 Stories transformed by war. 10 Advocates for peace. 10 Tours across America" So I click on NW and who do you think is on our tour!?!?!? Are you freaking kidding me, Jacob. Jacob is on our tour, Jacob is going to be at George Fox University on Wednesday, this Wednesday, I am going to see Jacob on Wednesday, 3 weeks before I go to Uganda I am meeting Jacob. Shut up!

This is a brief history of Invisible Children and you can meet Jacob here:



This has a little more of Jacob...



I am so very excited to meet Jacob, but the reality is Joseph Kony is still out there. Jacob has been rescued but there are tens of thousands of children still in Uganda being kidnapped, forced to kill, raped, maimed, and murdered by the LRA and we cannot sit here and pretend that it is not happening...

God gave me an analogy that has helped me so much. I was thinking about the parable of the talents:

"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a trip. He called together his servants and gave them money to invest for him while he was gone. He gave five bags of gold to one, two bags of gold to another, and one bag of gold to the last--dividing it in proportion to their abilities--and then left on his trip. The servant who received the five bags of gold began immediately to invest the money and soon doubled it. The servant with two bags of gold also went right to work and doubled the money. But the servant who received the one bag of gold dug a hole in the ground and hid the master's money for safekeeping."After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of gold said, `Sir, you gave me five bags of gold to invest, and I have doubled the amount.' The master was full of praise. `Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together!'...."Then the servant with the one bag of gold came and said, `Sir, I know you are a hard man, harvesting crops you didn't plant and gathering crops you didn't cultivate. I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth and here it is.' "But the master replied, `You wicked and lazy servant! You think I'm a hard man, do you, harvesting crops I didn't plant and gathering crops I didn't cultivate? Well, you should at least have put my money into the bank so I could have some interest. Take the money from this servant and give it to the one with the ten bags of gold. To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who are unfaithful, even what little they have will be taken away.

So I was thinking about being an American and why I have been born into a country of such wealth. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Just because of where I was born I have countless opportunities and basic necessities, clean water, food, safety, etc. And then I started thinking about this parable and how living in America is like a talent. What am I going to do with this talent? Am I going to bury it? Live in suburbia ignoring the pain and suffering and disease that is rampant throughout the world? Ignoring the fact that over 26,000 children die a day due to preventable causes? Or am I going to invest this talent? Am I going to choose to invest in organizations helping the poor, to not live by the world's standards of accumulation of stuff but to give as I have been given? I do not have this figured out but I am ready to say ok Lord this is Your money and I am no longer going to spend unwisely on me and my family, we want to invest in Your Kingdom on earth, right now.

"We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies- but will we be that generation? Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears? Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from Aids, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses, mechanics, children. This is Africa's crisis. That it's not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency- that's our crisis.
Future generations flipping through these pages will know whether we answered the key question. The evidence will be the world around them. History will be our judge, but what's written will be up to us. We can't say our generation didn't know how to do it. We can't say our generation couldn't afford it. And we can't say our generation didn't have reason to do it. It's up to us."-Bono


Found this Pastor from Katie at Amazima and then my friend Jen just put this on her blog, had to share. I have listened to the first 3 sermons, they are amazing, convicting, inspiring, life changing. What I love about this man is that he is not claiming to have every answer. He speaks from a place of personal conviction, he is vulnerable and real. He brings the conviction of our hearts and what God has been moving us towards into this series that leaves us in a place of choice. And the series is overloaded with scripture, I love it!!

Dance Party!!!

So Shane went out for dinner tonight with his friend, so it was just me and the kids for dinner...we had great harvest bread. Yeah, that's it. There was no fruit, no vegetable, no protein, we decided to go straight carbs and fat. Fresh apple crunch bread toasted and dripping in butter, nice! Hope and I were done after two pieces while the other two just kept eating. So Hope says, "Mom can we listen to Whitney Houston?" Ummm heck yes we can. Normally we have to wait until after dinner to have music because everyone sings along even while their mouths are full and this leads to food spewing across the table and such. So Hope and I decided to serenade the other two. As you can see below we are just getting to the good part!






And then Nani had to join in the dancing...




No dance party is complete without a little Jackson 5 and Blame it on the Boogie!! Jennyth, Kruse wanted to make sure you saw his moon walk:)



I like to take things to the next level, as you can see. Look at Kruse looking at me, the embarrassment will continue my son. Seriously, there is a reason I can't sing. I would be the crazy old lady trying out for American Idol for 7 straight seasons! HA!! My eyes are closed!! Like in that Hugh Grant movie...About a Boy.



break dancing



Incidentally the night ended in tears as Hope said, Mom take a picture of me jumping off the chair! To which I promptly replied, OK!!!! Yeah, then Kruse walked by right as she jumped and she landed on him, it was then the "worst night ever" and our party was over...

Mother Teresa HIV Orphanage

It is less than a month now until I go to Africa. So many emotions, so much anticipation. Tonight as i was praying about going to Mother Teresa's Orphanage I was overwhelmed at the thought.

"Such a beautiful day . . . to meet Christ face to face in the poor. He was there -- the hungry, the sick, the naked Christ -- and the thought of Him in this distressing disguise gave me great joy, peace and strength. The greatest disease is not TB or leprosy, but the feeling of being uncared for, unwanted, deserted by everyone. The greatest disease is the lack of love. The unwanted are hungry -- not for food -- but for love. They are thirsty, not just for water, but for peace. They are homeless, not just for shelter, but for understanding. Be the living expression of kindness -- kindness in your face, your eyes, your kind greeting. Let no one go away from you without being better and happier." -Mother Teresa.

We will spend only one day at this orphanage, one day...is it long enough to change anything? to love a child for a day, it seems impossible to imagine. I don't want to be a tourist to despair, to walk through and pity, I want to...what? I don't know, change it all, bring them home, heal them, but none of this is in my power...Christ in His most distressing disguise...in the emaciated child, the innocent born with a death sentence, the children living with HIV.

Sometimes I don't know why I am going to Africa, really what is the point of an 11 day trip, am I changing anything? I have moments that I am so excited to go and then I think why am I excited to see poverty like i have never known, to walk into orphanages where children will never leave to a forever family, to witness the innocent living in dumps, is this really something to be excited about? Its an odd place to be, but I am excited. I don't really have a lot of gifts...I make the best chocolate chip cookies ever and I can talk for hours, that's pretty much all I got...except love. I can love, especially a child. I know that I will fall in love with every child I see, with every pair of dark eyes staring at me. I guess right now that is my plan for this orphanage, to love the way God created me to. To see the child behind the sickness, to find the joy beyond the circumstance, to see God's sovereignty in their reality. To make a child smile, if only for a day, to let them know a mother's touch, kiss, hug and pray that it will be enough.