Our last day in Uganda. We drove to Kampala with the Shaarda family and were blessed to spend the last 2 days with them. Here is a picture of Grace and Chloe where we ate our dinner before boarding the plane. The girls were all excited to get hot chocolate with words written on top. The food was fantastic and so was the company.
Mandy, Chloe, and I at the market in Kampala. It was overwhelming to shop after experiencing so much poverty...but we had alot of fun. Mandy helped a lot with picking things out. We wished we could have brought something home for everybody we knew!
I think Africans were born with an extra balancing gene! The things we saw them balance on motor bikes, bicycles, and thier heads was amazing.
Here we are with Josh
and Mandy Shaarda
by the Nile River.
Many people have asked how our trip was now that we are home.I wish I could give a 2 sentence answer. Even after blogging and sharing pictures of our trip, I can't share the smells, sounds, the great beauty, or the great poverty of Uganda. I will say, it is a place you can go and you will not come back the same. Today I was reading from Proverbs 28; He who gives to the poor will not lack, But he who hides his eyes will have many curses...and from Poverbs 21; Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard. I can honestly say, before going to Ethiopia to bring our daughter Kidist home I had not seen or heard the cry of the poor. Now I have heard, seen, touched, held, laughed, and cried with them. I can't come home and go back to my 'comfortable' living pretending I don't know about the millions of people around the world that will die of hunger or preventable disease before hearing the Good News of Christ. I definately struggled less before my eyes were opened. It used to be easy to buy that cute outfit to add to my already full closet until I seen children wearing thier only set of clothes and it was full of holes. I didn't stop to complain about the long lines at the grocery store to buy my cart full of groceries until I saw the women who sit ALL DAY at the market selling thier goods so they can feed their children that nite and then they do it again the next day. And I had to really stop and think about how I try to 'fit in' my time with God amidst my busy schedule when I recently attended a Bible Study where some walk 3 miles to get to and stay for 3 hours praising and soaking in scripture. Many of them, including pastors don't have a Bible and I have several sitting on the shelf collecting dust. We have been blessed so we can bless others.
Here is a little quote from Mother Teresa that was in our debriefing packet. 'When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened becasue neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed. We have refused to be instruments of love in the hands of God to give the poor a piece of bread, to offer them a dress with which to ward off the cold. " Mother Teresa
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