Open the eyes of my Heart

After a long night of arriving in Uganda, getting settled in and FINALLY getting to sleep, (only to fall off of an 8ft bunk onto tile...yes, it hurt very badly), I was ready to get going the next day. Our first day in Uganda. I didn't know that I could be as excited as I was to finally be there; to smell the smells and breath in the African air. We started out from house 1 and walked our way to Kitende (chi-ten-day) Primary School. It was probably a 15 minute walk to the small village of Kitende. This was my first real sight of Africa. I walked up the dirt hills and let as much dirt as possible find its way into my shoes and toes. We passed chickens randomly clucking on the side of the road, houses with signs in front that said "NOT for sale" with a phone number beside it, I saw toddlers running out of their simple shack homes yelling "Mzungu!!!" (Ugandan word for white person), and all I could do was smile. Smile and pray, "Lord use me in these next weeks....

Sometimes I forget. I live my life as though I am not loved and accepted and chosen by THE God. At camp this past summer, on the top of Laurel Ridge, while sitting in a circle with my very closest friends, I laid down and looked up at the stars. And then I couldn't stop looking at the stars because it was so incredibly breathtaking. Gazing at the thousands of stars made me really wonder why  God wants an intimate relationship with me. In Jeremiah 31:3, the Bible reads, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with a loving kindness." I think what I find so fascinating about this love is that it is unconditional. "Unconditional: without conditions or limitations; absolute." WITHOUT conditions. If you put it into human love, think about it this way. "I will love you but you can't cheat on me with someone else." "I'll love you as long as you love me." "I'll love you if you do this for me, its ...

I didn't know that just land could be so beautiful until I found myself in Murchinson Falls National Park, Uganda. This place was beautiful. Everywhere you turned, there was something new to gaze upon. Something incredibly beautiful that I couldn't take my eyes off of. Or a new animal that just fascinated me. Or a new species of animal that I've never known about (new to me that is..). There was something about this park that was different though, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. As we drove through the long, winding, dirt roads, the wind pulled the hair out of your face, and you couldn't help but spread your arms as wide as you could like you were flying. Because the difference about this park than american parks, was that all it was was africa. No man-made fences, or houses, no wanna-be natural habitat animals, it was pure african soil, african worn dirt roads, african animals, it was Africa. It was free of pollution from the world. Sometimes...

Flint and steel.  An  odd picture you might think. But not an odd thought. In my many conversations I have with my many brothers, this topic came up. Eli and I were talking about how "missional living" doesn't mean going on 20 mission trips to 20 different places. How relationships being made are SO important. It is much better to go on 20 mission trips to 3 or 4 places. This gives you relationships. You might be still wondering, why flint and steel? Think about it. If you strike the flint once, nothing is going to happen. You have to continue strike the flint and put effort into it to make a fire start. Same goes with relationships. You can't go visit them once, tell them you love them, then never see them! You have to rekindle the relationship. Form it and shape it, build it. When I walked into MLKU on this past Tuesday in downtown Winston, my student that I tutored from last year ran up to me after almost 6 months of being apart, and said, "I've m...

It's the rainy days. As I sit in my bedroom watching the rain hit the puddles and burst into a million water particles, I feel my heart burst into a million different pieces. And it's the rainy days that take me back to BOTH countries I visited this year. While in Uganda, we had a field day with the rays of hope children. The day was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shining brightly with a slight breeze in the 80 degree weather. When the kids got there we started playing games with them in the perfect weather, and we had an amazing time running around the field made of complete dirt. This is what I wrote in my journal that day: "Our plans were good, but God's plans were better. We had amazing plans of awesome games for the kids and were ready when they arrived in SHEETS. It looked like it was getting a little cloudy, but I didn't think twice about it. We split them up and started playing games-which was complete chaos! In the middle of the 2nd rotation of my...