Hakuna Matata

Ok, so here are the pictures from our game drives at Murchison Falls. Enjoy!

Safari!!!

Weaver birds make ball-shaped nests in the trees

Water buck- another kind of gazelle. This is the only animal besides cats and crocs that have no natural predators in the park. Lions won't eat them because the meat smells.

(Love it when BO becomes a defense mechanism!)

Watch out behind you love birds!

A family of warthogs. They look like black pigs with mullets are warthogs. They very well may be the ugliest animal God has created! They really are called pumbaa in Swahili, and if you've ever seen The Lion King, you know exactly what they look like when they move.

two-headed giraffe

view of the pool and the Nile from our hotel balcony

Monitor lizard on the bank of the Nile

This is as close to the waterfall as you can get from the water side-

You approach from down-river and get about half a mile away from it.

Jackson Hartebeast (a REALLY ugly, really skinny kind of gazelle)

Fish Eagle

male Uganda cob (a gazelle that is all over Murchison--

we definitely saw more cob than anything else!)

female Uganda cob in the savannah

Doesn't this look like The Lion King?

yikes...it is as it appears

A flock of crested cranes, the national bird and symbol. It's really unusual to see this many at one time- you normally just get one or two. That's a Uganda cob in the background.

Cape Buffalo

Look at that Baboon...

...hanging out on the SUV...

... taking it easy on the bench

For since the creation of the world

God's invisible qualities- His eternal power and divine nature-

have been clearly seen, being understood from

what has been made. We are without excuse!

Romans 1:20

Elephant Hunting

This morning as we were sitting in language, (joy of joys!) our language helper, Pamela, told us about when her grandfather used to go hunting… for elephants.
The thought that people would actually consider elephants as a food source sort of stunned me, but after that concept got through my thick skull, the way they actually hunted them was even more amazing.

Pamela said all the men in the village would go out together (I guess an elephant is too much for just one man!) to track the elephants. When they found one, someone would throw their spear to wound the elephant in the trunk. While this wouldn’t be considered a fatal wound by any means, an elephant’s trunk is where he is most sensitive. Once he realized he was injured in the trunk, he would become completely consumed with taking care of his trunk and would be oblivious to everything else around him. The hunting party would then take the opportunity to attack the rest of his body with their spears and knives. The elephant wouldn’t really care about the more dangerous attacks, because he was so concerned with his injured trunk.

As she was telling us all this, I thought, how like the enemy! He distracts us with the things that identify us, the places where we’re most tender and sensitive. He attacks us there, in the issues that won’t really hurt us in the long run, but that occupy our hearts and minds. And once we’re focused on the trivial issues in life, we don’t realize that he’s attacking us in the really vital areas, that places that will destroy us. We get so caught up in our pet projects, our longing for affection, our hobbies, our friends, our need for gossip or for entertainment, we don’t realize that we haven’t had quality time with the LORD in weeks. That our relationships with the people who mean the most are falling apart. That our hearts, our very lives, are under attack.

I don’t know what the answer or solution is. I’m not completely sure there is one. I think I need to be more aware of where I’m vulnerable, where I tend to get sidetracked. And realize that when I do get sidetracked, it’s probably because the enemy is trying to keep me from paying attention to where the real battle truly is.

More Pictures!

More pictures!! Just when I thought I added all the fun pictures from the Baseball Clinic,

I found more!

Happy to be playing baseball!!

a precious boy from the village


The sunrise from my front porch! Incredible!

Grace, one of the students at Mandela Secondary School

These last two are from a village a couple of km from my house

At the end of February, we had a two-man volunteer team from Memphis, TN. Steve and David had planned to work in story groups and share their testimonies in schools, but the Father opened up some doors that we never expected. Both men have backgrounds in sports, especially baseball. (Steve is the “voice” of the Memphis Redbirds, a minor league branch of the St. Louis Cardinals.) In our conversations with school administrators, we found out that the students at Mandela are VERY interested in baseball, but don’t really have many resources or “coaches” available. The LORD rearranged the plans we had made and allowed us to spend 2 days in baseball clinics with over 100 students at Mandela. On Thursday afternoon, Steve, David, and Evan worked with students on catching and throwing, with time at the end to share their testimonies. Saturday morning we went back to Mandela and walked with about 50 students to the baseball field about a mile from campus. (It was really just a “field”… I had a run-in with a grazing bull as I was trying to get to the players from the road!) Once at the field, we had batting practice and Steve and David shared some extra tips and techniques before we played our “game”… everyone got a chance to bat and run the bases, but we had 20 or more fielders at a time! But everyone had a wonderful time, we were able to begin building some great relationships with students, and we drew a crowd of 100 bystanders or more! (And I’m pretty sure I’m the only person I know who’s watched baseball with sheep, goats, and a stray pig in the outfield!)

African Driving

Driving in Africa is completely different from driving in the States. It’s not just that you are more than likely driving a car with an automatic transmission, which is new for me, driving on the left-hand side of the road, and sitting on the wrong side of the car, with all the gears and controls, down to even the turn signals, backwards from where the should be. The hardest part of driving in Africa is making sure you don’t hit some kind of livestock, or, heaven forbid, a person.

In the US, it’s pretty well understood that if you’re walking or on a non-motorized vehicle, you need to stay out of the way of objects on the road that are bigger than you. Roads are territory that primarily belong to cars, trucks, and other vehicles that average speeds over 25 miles an hour. Most drivers are careful when they do see pedestrians, but the walkers pretty much try to stay out of the flow of traffic, if at all possible.

Not so in Africa. Here, a paved surface is an easier path to town or to the village, so that’s the best place to walk or bike. The roads belong to everyone, and the cars and trucks, and even motorcycles, are usually vastly outnumbered by walkers and bikers. Non-motorized vehicles generally stay on the outside of the road in whatever direction they are traveling, but they are also usually 2 or 3 deep, which leaves about a lane and a half in the middle of the road for larger vehicles… like me.

And this is usually not a problem. Until you meet another vehicle coming the opposite direction. The African unwritten road rules then say that the walkers and bikers must move over to give the two cars (or, in some cases, my small pickup truck and the enormous transfer truck coming on the other side) room to pass. Those on foot are supposed to yield to the larger vehicles. Supposed to.

I have learned in the short time in Africa that defensive driving reaches to a new level here. It’s not enough to watch the few cars or bicyclers in front of you. You must always be aware of what’s going on up ahead, as far as you can see. You have to have a plan, some kind of idea of what you’ll do should the oblivious biker in front of you swerve into your path. You have to know what’s coming. And honestly, I sort of like this kind of driving. Even more, I like this kind of life.

I want to know what’s coming up. I want to see what lies ahead. The thought of having to change direction on short notice scares the fool out of me. (Even though my life at this point has consisted of more changes of direction than a ride through the Blue Ridge Mountains!) And even though knowing what is coming is comfortable and safe, God keeps reminding me that I can’t live like that. I can’t live my life expecting to know what things will look like years, or sometimes even months, in the future. I have to focus on the right now, on the “where I am.” Right now where I am is Uganda. I am here until next October. After that, who knows? I don’t have the foggiest idea what the Lord has in store for me after next October… but I don’t have to. All I have to focus on is being here, and doing what He has for me here.

And trying not to run over random pedestrians.

So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

Scovia

Our first True Love Waits presentation was at Mandela Secondary School in mid-February. During the presentation, we make our case for saving sex for marriage, explaining that:
• God’s plan for sex is one man and one woman for life
• when you have sex with someone, you are also connecting yourself to everyone they have been exposed to, including their partners’ partners (people you may have never even met!)
• condoms do not provide effective protection from diseases, especially when they aren’t used the right way every time, as is usually the case with teenagers.
At the end of each presentation, we tell students when we will be back on campus to talk to them about making a decision to remain pure, and to talk to them about any questions they have.

After the presentation at Mandela, a young girl named Scovia came up to me to ask for advice. As she explained her situation in Ugandan English, which is nothing like American English, I pieced together that she was in a sexual relationship with a boy from home. She said she knew she needed to stop, but she was afraid that he would pressure and force her if she tried to end the relationship. Completely at a loss, I told her to be up front with the boy and tell him she wanted to end that part of their relationship. If he refused, she should talk to someone at home to try to help her. Of course, she was worried that her mother would be angry with her, but I tried to encourage her that if her mother knew she wanted to end the relationship, she would try to help her. (And all the time, I’m praying that I’m telling her the right thing… talk about on-the-job training!)

We went back to Mandela a couple of weeks ago for our small group, and Scovia came. (It was the first time I had seen her since that first day.) Before the group started, she came over to me and told me that when she went home, she talked to the boy and told him she didn’t want to be involved any longer. She was also honest with her mother, and her mother was encouraging and helping her! Praise the Lord! In the times that we’ve been at Mandela since then, Scovia has been in the forefront, and is being open about her decision to follow God’s plan for purity and to try to live as a Godly young woman. She is one of the leaders in her class, and she and her friends are part of the core group of young women we work with on campus.

Please pray for Scovia, that she will continue to pursue purity and become a young woman who chases after God.