"Blessed" vs. Privileged

I want to start out this post by giving you all an update and then I will let you know about what I've been learning here in Uganda.

First of all, I meant to post sooner than this but I found myself with internet and in need of more so I had to wait until the store was open and until I had the courage to go by myself and buy some more. Everything here seems to be a fight for courage for me. No matter what I do, I have to muster up some scap of courage to go out and do it. I suppose that this is true everywhere, but it is especially true here where I don't know the culture and I stick out immensely. Aside from gaining courage, it's also just hard to proccess things when there is constantly so many new experiences going on around you.

This past two weeks were interesting. I got to work with some special needs children which made me incredibly happy! At the beginning of last week I went to a special needs nursery school called Small Steps in Buwenda, a village outside of Jinja. I had met Cat, the woman who runs it, before and she agreed to meet me there. She sent a boda-boda driver to come and pick me up from the apartment in the morning because I didn't know where the school was. When I got out of the gate to the apartment, a boda driver came up on his motorcycle and said "Alison, get on!". I suspiciously asked him if he knew where I was going and he gave me the Ugandan nod and complimentary eyebrow lift to signify that he did. I climbed on his motorcycle and he drove off. We got two blocks away and he stopped at a corner and said "which way?". I was furious. I said " YOU LIED TO ME! TAKE ME BACK TO THE BANK!". He took me back and before I got off, I sternly said " You do not pick up people like that!". Waiting at the bank was my actual boda driver, Charles. Cat's boyfriend was waiting there with him. I hopped on and we rode towards the village where the school is located.

As soon as I got there, I was met by many "you are welcome"s and a small child grabbing to hold my hand. Cat gave me a tour of the facility before leaving me to teach the children in the class. There were four children in the special needs class that day. Cat told me that there are seven all together but some of them can't get transportation and some of them come only a couple of times a term.

Two of the kids in the special needs class were deaf. Their names were Eshraf and Shifrat. They both have very similar features and were wearing the same yellow uniform, so I had some trouble telling them apart. Cat told me that Shifrat is more social than Eshraf. Most of the time, these two were off with another teacher, but I did get a chance to interact with them for a little while. Neither of them vocalize much and they don't know Ugandan Sign-language either, so I tried to get them to speak up more. I took Eshraf's hand and placed in on my throat so that he could feel it vibrate when I talk. I hummed different pitches with his hand on my throat and then moved it onto his throat so that he could try. It got him making lots of new noises which was encouraging to me and made the other instructors in the room giggle.

The other two children were Destiny and Peace (or Mirembe). Peace was very sweet. She was always asking me to sit next to her and attempting to be carried and get hugs. She had an easygoing quality about her as long as she was getting all the attention.

Destiny is an amazing little boy who is on the autism spectrum. As soon as he met me he was grabbing my arm and welcoming me to the school. Cat and I went into the office to discuss some of the childrens' files and Destiny came along. As we talked, he continuously pushed the office chair so that it would spin around in circles. At this point, I still wasn't sure whether Destiny was a boy or a girl because of the red skirt he was sporting. Cat told me that he recently got a circumcision so he had to wear a skirt. She said that it is fairly common in Uganda to do it at that age. Cat told me that her boyfriend remembers the procedure and crying for days. He says that his family decided to either get it done at a younger age or not at all with the rest of their children because of his reaction. Destiny was very rambunctious the whole day andd Cat said that he has been kind of unruly since the procedure... I suppose I can understand why. I tried to teach Destiny to match pictures. I attempted to get him to put the laminated bus picture on the other laminated bus, and to put the laminated boda picture on the other laminated boda. Just when I thought he was understanding he would flop down onto the floor and lie there. I grabbed his arm and he sat up until I let go of him. As soon as my hand would leave his arm, he would flop down again. I told him "you sit up now" and he got up for a couple seconds. At this point I realised that maybe sitting was a better lesson to be learned. In America when children have special needs, many of the parents have access to therapy, books, articles and other information about how to help their children succeed in social settings. Here, I would assume, that if the child lies down, they don't take the second to get him to do things on his own. Instead, what I observed from the other teachers, is that they stand him up by their own strength. I was affirmed, while working with Destiny, in the fact that learning can be a slow proccess that requires a lot of patience. 

Sadly, the boda driver I took to get to Small Steps did not pick up his phone later so I wasn't able to go back, even though I enjoyed it so thuroughly. No one else knew where the nurery school was and I didn't know directions to get there and didn't want to risk it by telling them to go in the correct direction and getting lost.

Later in the week, I went to Ekisa special needs orphanage. It was very different from my other experiences in Jinja because of the efficiency in the way the orphanage conducts itself. They have a well developed program and a lot of volunteers that come in and work there. 

Very quickly after I arrived at the orphanage, I was handed a sweet boy by the name of Josh. He has hydrocephalus and has trouble supporting his head. At first I cradled him because I didn't know his limits and I tried to get him to play with blocks with me, but he kept looking very uncomfortable and unhappy. A timer went off which signaled that everyone was switching to a new activity. Josh and I went to sensory where we sat down in a small homemade ball pit. I decided to try and see if Josh could stand up if I supported him under his arms. As soon as he stood, a huge smile formed on his face and he was lit up with laughter. It was amazing the difference that it made. I think he was feeling babied by me when I was holding him as such, but when I stood him up, it's like he aged two years right in front of me. I met many adorable children at Ekisa and got to encourage them, teach them, and feed them. When I left Ekisa, I got my boda driver to drop me off at Akola Project where I made necklaces with a beautiful woman names Sensa who told me about her four children.

This last week I committed myself to Jinja Connection, the organization for street kids. As I walked into the class room there were new faces that I had never seen. Little Esa, an eight year old that I have seen every time I have visited, looked up from his picture book and said my name with a big smile on his face. I sat down and read books with the boys. That day, I taught a boy who is about nine years old named Ashraf. We worked on learning capital and lower case (small) letters. Compared to the other two boys that I had taught there, he was very quick. He listened and tried very hard to do his best. I made sure to soak it all in because I knew that once one of the more frustrating kids came back, Rachel was going to give them to me to work with. 

At one point the kids went outside to have an active time. Normally we play a game called "in the pool out of the pool", but Rachel brought out the jump rope, gave an end to Wesswa, and started turning. They started out just jumping, then trying to make it through the alphabet in the middle on one foot, then playing another game that really confused me. After, we all went back inside for more class. At lunch time I talked with one of the teachers named Myko. I asked him what Wesswa's name meant (most of the ugandan names have been chosen for their meaning). He told me that it meant "first twin" and that normally the younger twin is given the name Kato. I asked Myko where his twin was and he said that he was probably dead. "Oh" I thought out loud, "Do you think it would be hard having your name's definition be a reminder that your twin has died?" Myko said, "It's not the same here. People do not take weeks off of work after a loved one has died. It is not a big deal. They wake up the next morning, get dressed, and go to work because they must. People die all the time." I guess I always knew that this was true, but it hit me a lot harder coming out from someone's mouth. I live a very priviledged life.

On Friday, I went to Jinja Connection again. In the morning, after breakfast, all of the boys went out to the nearby field to play soccer. I decided to join in on the fun and play defense. I watched as every single child ran toward the ball. They are all very good despite their age, but there isn't too much formula to go along with what they do. I later asked Myko if he had ever tried to teach them positions and zones. He rolled his eyes as he said "Soooooo many times. It never works". As I was playing, I looked up for a moment and set my eye upon something like 50 birds, most of them marabou storks, floating in majestic circles in the air. The birds here seem to enjoy floating in the distant sky in whirpool fashion. It is one of the most amazing and overlooked parts of nature in Jinja.

After playing soccer for half an hour, I decied that I would stand behind the goal and watch the boys and the birds move around in circles. As I stepped to the side, the birds started settling down from the sky into the tops of the trees surrounding the field. It made me feel like I was one of them.

After soccer, we all went inside and I was allowed to lead the rest of the mornings activities. I decided on two of my favorite games and we all sat in a circle with some desks pushed together between us. The idea of the first game is that one person in the circle starts with a rhythm and then the next person adds onto it until everyone has joined in. I think the boys really enjoyed the fact that they were allowed to be loud and crazy. We played a couple of times until it started to get out of hand. Then we went outside for the next activity. As the boys filed outside, many of them were continuing to make noises; most of them with a loon call as their noise of choice. Outside, I tought them a nonsense game called Togi-Togi that we play at Camp Blessing in the summer. Normally, the game is conflict free. People mess up and they back out of the game, but with the boys it turned into a game of call-outs and tattling. We played three times and then decided to stop because they were getting frustrated. They then asked Rachel if I could give them a dance lesson. One of the boys, Louis, was doing the wave with his arms in the morning and I joined in. I think he thought that meant I was a very experienced  break dancer. Anyway, they kept asking me to teach them dance moves and after I exhauted myself of all my hiphop knowledge, I taught them some ballet. They were really awful at ballet.

My cousin, Erica, came back this weekend which makes me happy because she is good company. I stayed up on Friday night until the early hours of the morning waiting up for her because she didn't have her key. Now I am overcoming jet lag with her (I woke up later than I wanted to this morning). 

I have recently found a boda driver who knows where the special needs nursery is, so I am excited to say that I plan on going back there this week. I think I will start rotating between there and Jinja Connection. I feel like those are the two places in which my help is going the furthest.

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Finally, I want to share something that has become more obvious to me while I have been studying the culture here and learning more about myself. I've started to realize that many of the things that I thought were helping my quality of life in Texas were actually hindering it. 

There is that story in the bible about the rich man asking Jesus how to get into heaven. Jesus tells him that he must give away everything and give it to the poor. I'm starting to realize how hard that is. I have been raised from birth with a certain cultural subconscious. I am white, therefore very rarely have I had to think about my race. I was raised in a family that taught me to manage money, therefore I have rarely had to learn or worry about financial things. I have always had a grocery store, therefore I have never had to worry about finding ingredients from various vendors in order to make things from scratch. Plumbing has always been there, therefore I have never had to walk miles in order to pump water from a well. 

I have heard so many people say "I am so blessed that I live life with such convenience". I am learning that my God is not a God of convenience. Yes, sometimes His way is easy, but most of the time the harder path teaches you so much more and builds character in an unbelievable fashion.

Now, I'm not trying to say that going to the grocery store is wrong, and I'm definitely not trying to glorify anything that I am doing here as if it is so incredibly fantastic, because honestly it's HARD! What I am trying to say is that convenience shuts our souls down. I think that part of the reason I am always so anxious in Houston is the fact that my soul becomes bored. I have this adventurous heart that doesn't ever get stimulated. I don't get to walk down the street in fear and come home feeling like I accomplished something by going to the bank or by getting groceries. It is normally just another exhausting task that I must mindlessly do by the end of the day. But what if we started opening our eyes to the adventure around us no matter where we are. What if we started looking into people's eyes and seeing THEM and not just their shell. 

I'm starting to wonder if Jesus was telling the rich man to give up his money, or if he was telling him to give up everything: his ideas about what life is, his comfort, his friendships, his family, his understanding of the world around him. The rich man was not blessed with wealth. The rich man was priviledged.

As I'm preparing for my last few weeks here in Uganda, this is what I'm preparing to focus on. I have trouble living life here with the Ugandans because I have been educated in a completely different way. I know that if I eat their meals every day I will become incredibly sick. I know that if I walk with them, my feet will blister and I won't be able to walk tomorrow. I am learning that I am in a place where my education holds me back from life. My understanding keeps me from understanding. I have not allowed myself to be blessed by God in many facets of my life. I have only been priviledged, and the world has convinced me that "priveledged" is synonymous to "blessed"... But it isn't. It holds you back immensely.

That being said, don't think that you must give away everything and move away to be blessed. But know that being thrown out of your comfort zone helps you realize what is truly helping you and what is truly hindering you. Let yourself become uncomfortable. Look for adventure and newness. Give yourself away. Be blessed.

All Things Work Together

So the last time I wrote, I was feeling discouraged and fearing my adventure more than embracing it here in Uganda. This weekend I decided to dip my toes into other options and test the waters of Jinja.

     One of my cousin's friends runs a program called Jinja Connection. A large problem here in Jinja is the fact that there are many kids who are living on the street. A great number of the children end up there because of unstable conditions at home, inability to pay school fees, falling in with a bad crowd, or a desire for money and freedom. There are many extenuating circumstances that contribute to the issue, but even more problems arise once the children are out of school and on the street. A fair number of the children begin drinking and sniffing paraffin. They become addicted and this effects them further. Most of the children have also learned to collect scrap and sell it for small change. Allison, the director of Jinja Connection, says that she once watched one of the children sell back plastic bottles. She watched as he put them all onto the scale to be weighed, and once they were all weighed, the boy pulled a rubber boot out of the pile without the buyer noticing and slipped it back onto his foot. The boot added extra weight to the pile so that the boy would get payed more. That being said, these boys have been on the streets long enough to learn the tricks. They know how to get by... but no child at the age of 8 should be "getting by".

     To attend the program at Jinja Connection, the children must arrive in the morning. They are provided with the means to take a shower, wash their clothes, and are given a cup or porridge. Later in the day they will have class, lunch is provided to them, and then they do activities in the afternoon. If they do not come on time in the morning, they are locked out and are unable to attend any of the days activities or receive food. This keeps the children accountable for their actions and encourages them to stay sober and attend class.

     On Monday I had the opprotunity of going to Jinja Connection to experience the program. When I arrived, the boys were washing their clothes. One of the teachers, Myko, gave me a tour of the facility and told me more about the program. Allison, the director, took me to Masese where many of the children in the program come from. Masese, which is considered the slums of Jinja, is where many of the resettled children from the program go to school. We went to pay their school fees. Allison told me that many of their children are top of their class despite their circumstance. 

     When we got back to Jinja Connection, I worked with a boy named Ivan to help him learn the alphabet in English. He is about twelve or thirteen and has been living as a street child since he was six or seven. Allison explained to me that Ivan's mother was a prostitute and there would be many men circulating through their home when he was young. She believes that he endured a large amount of abuse at home which drove him to leave and live on the street. Ivan was one of the first children that they had in the program who had a sniffing problem. He will go on binges where he goes from regularly   attending the program to coming to the facility high at lunch and crying at the gate because he can't come in. When I was working with him, it was really eye opening. There were so many things that I had to explain to him that I initially assumed were second nature. For example, I wrote the numbers from 1 to 30 on a piece of paper. When I wrote the number nine, ten dropped down to the next line where the sequence continued. When I asked him what number came after 9, he couldn't give me an answer because he didn't understand that in order to continue the sequence, he had to look at the begining of the next line. Children in America are taught, through reading stories with their family, that the next line continues what the previous line is stating. He was never read to as a child and has never attended school. There was never any means for him to learn that.

     Yesterday, Tuesday, I went back to Jinja Connection and worked with Ivan again. I was attempting to teach him the english words for numbers but he could not pay attention. It was like he was in a fog and couldn't see or hear anything that I was doing or saying. He had most likely been awake all night. It didn't help that I was speaking English instead of Luganda (his native language).

     There are so many sweet children here that are in poor circumstance. It can be overwhelming to think about, but if you look at the fact that they are striving daily to be successful and to make a life for themselves it is actually amazing. I am not surprised that they are the smartest kids in their classes. These children are more resourceful and motivated than any children I have ever encountered. Of course they make poor decisions- they are children! However, the reasons for their decisions are issues that many adults in America haven't even had to deal with.

     Pray for these children that hold so much potential and brightness. Pray that they would continue to strive for a better and more stable life.

     If you want to learn more, here is the website for Jinja Connection:  http://ugandastreetkids.org/jinja-connection/

     Today, I was going to go to Home of Hope. It is a home for special needs children that was started by a Ugandan woman. She gave birth to a son who developed menengitis and suffered severe brain damage from the sickness. After meeting many others who had their own children with disabilities, she decided to start a home to help support these children. The plans were set for me to go with some other people, but last night we heard news that the woman's son has passed away. The burial service was today, so we decided to postpone that trip. 

     Today my cousin, Erica, is leaving for two weeks to visit her friends and family in Canada. This means that I have lost my housemate and my tourguide. I feel a lot more comfortable in my environment now and my neighbors all work with Erica at Akola, so that makes me feel more at peace. We went on a grocery run this morning so the fridge is full of food and I won't need to take another trip to the shops for a couple of days.

     I will keep you all updated on other happenings to come. Thanks for all of your prayers and support. Knowing that there are people back home caring for me and my passions makes being at peace here so much easier.

As the rising sun smears itself upon the water's surface,

And the shops crouch on the road like colored clothing on a line to dry,

I think, "O how could I have been so wrong about the world-

All along."

  If you have any questions or comments and are having trouble leaving them on this site, please email me at alisoncpatrick@gmail.com

Thank You Thank You!

- Alison

What Fear Keeps You From

     If you read my last post, I talked at the end about how my ideas for my trip here didn't work out a planned. I thought I had everything set in stone upon my departure from Houston, but God likes to shift and break the earth sometimes and we can do very little to stop it; however, most times, He makes beautiful landscapes out of what he changes.

     I've spent the last week and a half trying to come up with new plans. It's a difficult proccess to get in touch with organizations with no prior notion about how they conduct themselves, but it's an exercise of trusting that my passions line up with God's passions and that He will work all things out. Speaking of God working things out, I have already heard back from a special needs home and a street kids organization- both welcoming me in and providing me with the opprotunity to volunteer. I will be visiting the street kids project on monday to see how they work. It will be something very new and exciting for me (as most things here in Jinja are). It will also be very scary to jump into things so uncomfortably and blindly.

     Fear is something I have had to fight constantly here in Uganda. The culture moves in such a different way than I am used to. Because I am white, people assume that I can throw around money like it is nothing. They will also take most things that I say as fact regardless of who I am or what credentials I have. There is also a large amount of corruption here. It has been sewn into the society to a point where lying is not bad, it is just a way of testing your luck. I have been raised with a mindset that assumes everyone is telling the truth to me when I ask basic questions. Here, people are skeptical that everyone is trying to trick eachother so they practice this same trickery to get by. To me, it is terrifying- to them, it is normal and no one sees the fault in it. There are lines that society draws when it comes to corruption, but the problem is that I do not know these lines. I have not been trained to understand what is good and what is bad in this society so I am always on my guard. I am constantly aware that my skin color might as well be glow in the dark. There is no mental rest outside of my room.

     I went to the supermarket on my own the other day to pick up some groceries and, sadly, It was probably one of the scariest experiences of my life. No, I was not in any danger whatsoever, but I was on my guard the whole time and well-aware that I stood out. Sometimes we create fear in our minds to keep ourselves out of unknown danger. Sometimes fear is useful, and sometimes it goes too far. 

     In all honesty, I am very tempted to stay home all day so that I don't have to go through that again. I know that I came here to get out of my comfort zone and learn more about what God does, so that is what I need to do. My good friend named Sunset told me to "always choose adventure", so that is what I am trying to do. Even when I fear the worst, even when I wouldn't normally jump onto a motorcycle with a stranger in America, even when I don't know where the child's hands have been, I must always trust the God who made this world and I must always choose to love.

I must do

What I cannot do

with what I do not have.

I must trust

Those I cannot trust

With a trust I do not have

I must love

Those I cannot love

With a love I do not have

I must serve

Those I cannot serve

With a servant's heart I do not have.

I must try

To do with God

What he could do alone.

Thank you all for reading this and supporting me! Please continue to pray for me to feel comfortable. I am going to make a point of writing posts more often (However, I can't promise that they will be well thought out). 

You are all the best.

If you have any questions or comments and are having trouble leaving them on this site, please email me at alisoncpatrick@gmail.com

-Alison

Two Birds of a Feather: A Cross-cultural Comparison.

     I remember the UNICEF commercials from when I was younger quite vividly. They would start out with a man walking through an African village. He would be talking about poverty and about how no one in the village had food to eat, or a bed to sleep on, or even shoes to cover their dirty and cracking feet. I remember being mesmerized as I watched the man proceed to approach sad looking orphan children and set them on his knee. The child would stare through the screen and into my young eyes, and I would sit dumbfounded and wondering how I got lucky enough to be blessed with my house and food and family. My parents would always try to change the channel but I would insist that the infomercial is what I wanted to watch.

     I think that these moments held my first understandings of sympathy and empathy.

     For the first week that I was here in Jinja, Uganda, my dad came to join me, help me settle in, and try his luck at catching a Nile perch. We got to do some really beautiful things together. We did end up fishing in the nile but failed to reel one in. Dad said we had an unprofessional fishing guide: I'm still not convinced that those giant fish we had heard about in tales are real.

     While my dad was here, we also got to help with taking pictures and interviewing the village women for an Akola Project marketing campaign. As I have been in Jinja, I have had the opprotunity to learn so much about missions and Akola's mission specifically. They hire women in Uganda who have endured many hardships and provide them with an opprotunity to rise above their circumstance. The women in the village are sold paper, fishing wire, and varnish, and they are asked to roll beads. When Akola comes back to collect the beads, the women are paid for their work and given more supplies. This gives the women a steady income and allows for them to consistantly pay for their children's schooling and buy items like bicycles to get water and food, mattreses (instead of grass mats) to sleep on, covers to sleep under, bricks to build sustainable housing, etc. The beads that are collected go to the city of Jinja where they are strung onto necklaces by other Ugandan women.

     All the women who are hired by Akola work hard and take pride in the fact that they are now a part of the working class. There is so much hope in their future and they are no longer trying to make ends meet. They are planning a future for their families and positively effecting their communities in the proccess.

     When my father and I went to take pictures, Akola asked us to emphesize the success stories of the women and their communities. They wanted the world to see the wonder in the women's eyes and the fact that these ladies now see what planning and hard work can do to make their lives easier. I have been thinking a lot about those old UNICEF commercials and questioning how charity effects the lives of the reciever. I can see vividly that part of the reason Akola stirs success in these women's lives is because they feel pride in their work. They see that their positive actions create positive reactions and are then inclined to continue their good works. My cousin says that Toms shoes sometimes comes to Uganda and does shoe drops. She says that people would rather not wear the shoes though, because they are seen as a "poor man's shoe". I know that many people buy Toms thinking that they are giving a gift to someone else, but receiving the shoes feels like pity to the receiver and emphesises the fact that they have less than the giver. By teaching someone to make their own shoes with local materials and sell shoes to their neighbors, you would instead be helping that person value their life and abilities. You would be showing them that they are capable.

    

     My dad and I also got the opprotunity to go on a safari. It was breathtaking to see animals roaming in their natural states and interacting with one another. We saw elephants, giraffes, water buffalo, rhinos, and hippos up close. I got to see the wrinkles in their skin and hear the sound of their tails whipping against their backs. It was all so unbelievable, yet my favorite part of the safari was the birds.

     I've had a strange facination with birds for the past year. It rattles me to think about the many times giant flocks of birds have decided to fly right over my head during the times I have needed it most. Birds have been a physical representation of peace for me: a reminder that the things I am anxious about will fade. What amazes me specifically about the birds in Uganda are their color. When i first arrived in Jinja, I noticed how many birds were around me and it gave me comfort to think that although I was in a new culture and an uncomfortable place, I would always be reminded of God's peace. However, it wasn't until I went to the roof of Akola's building that I realized the colors of the birds. Jinja is filled with birds that look brown or grey or black at first but are actually clothed in bright yellows and purples and reds. I found myself looking closer at every little pigeon, crow, and starling to seek out the colors on its back. There was a point during the safari when I had my upper torso sticking out of the sunroof. I gazed around me and realized that I had rainbows of color flashing past me in every direction. I looked to my right just as an amazing African Bee-eater was soaring alongside our car. I threw my arms out and flew with him.

     The birds in Uganda remind me of the people here. When I took pictures in the village, I met a beautiful woman named Tito Tappy. She invited me into her home with pride, eager to show me what she had accomplished through her hard work. I could have walked into her home and seen it as brown. The ground was made of dirt, the walls were made of dirt, there was no electricity or plumbing, her children had clothes on that were too big for them, and she had clothing hanging all around the small room that all 6 members of her family sleep in. Instead, I looked at how beautifully Tito's eyes lit up when she talked about her hope. She sweeps her floor daily to keep it clean, she is collecting bricks to build a permenant home, she just bought some new metal sheets to roof her home and keep the rain out, the light shines beautifully through the door of her house, her children now have more than one  outfit to wear and they have clothing to grow into. There are so many beautiful things happening here. I understand how a person can be torn about the poverty in Uganda. When someone in their families gets sick, when something traumatic happens, it is so much harder for the women here to make things come back together; but I cannot deny the fact the the people here embrace life with a stronger grip. They fall to their knees and weep when they worship. They curl over and laugh with no fear or shyness. They rejoice with dance and song. They live in a bright and colorful way.

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     There are a lot of things happening here that I would like to write about but there isn't enough time to touch on everything. I did go to the other organization that I was interested in on Wednesday. They work to educate children around the villages. I went and volunteered with them for a day, but I'm not sure that I will go back. It is not that anything specific happened while I was there; I just don't feel peace about it and I think that I may explore volunteering at other schools and orphanages and see where I feel most needed. 

     

     When I first got to the village to volunteer they gave me a tour of their educational facility. While a man namied Jims was walking me around, I heard a loud scream come from behind me. I turned around and there was a young boy about twenty yards away from us with a big mischeveous grin on his face. It was obvious to me that he had a disability by the way he composed himself. He held his arms up with his wrists close to his shoulders, and he walked slowly toward us in a semi-crouching position. However, I think that the fact that clued me in the most was that he wasn't wearing pants and he was covered in dirt. While he was shuffling towards us, Jims told me the boy's name is John and although he looks like he was 9, he is actually 18. He said that when John was born, his parents were afraid for the people of the village to see their son, so they locked him in the house for much of his life. Then one day, by the grace of God, his parents forgot to lock the door and John escaped smiling and screaming with joy. Because he spent much of his life confined to a room, he was severly crouching as he ran out of his home and he scared all of the village with his scream and his composure. Because of his escape, now the village knows who he is and he is free to roam around as the other children do. By this time, John was standing next to Jims and I. I held out my hand for him to hold and he grabbed onto it. He reached down and grabbed a handful of rocks and gave them to me. I put the rocks back on the ground after I slipped one into my backpack as a keepsake. 

     Although I fell in love with John, the volunteer work I did there did not feel like a good atmosphere for me. I will continue to pray and search for a new special needs ministry to get connected with here in Jinja. My cousin says she knows some people who work with special needs children, so hopefully I will get to talk to them soon about what they do specifically and where I can get involved.

     Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and sending positive vibes in this direction. The love of my community at home is overwhelming and your support keeps me motivated even though I'm not ever entirely sure what I am doing here. I love you all for reading this as well.

If you have any questions or comments and are having trouble leaving them on this site, please email me at alisoncpatrick@gmail.com

Photo by Bill Patrick

A Heavenly Family

            Last week I was on my way back to my dorm room from a class across campus, and I found myself avoiding eye contact with the people that were crossing my path. I started questioning why I was doing this.

Was I insecure?

Am I afraid of what they think of me?

Is it awkward to smile at people?

Am I trying to avoid rejection?

More and more questioning began rooting itself in my thought process. I lifted my head up at this point and decided that I was going to smile at someone walking towards me. I looked at the older man striding in my direction and made eye contact. I started to smile but my teeth instantly began feeling cold and naked; so instead, I awkwardly stretched my lips out horizontally over my teeth, lifted my eyebrows in an unsure fashion, and quickly looked back down at the pavement below me.

I lifted my head again hoping for another chance at success. There was a tall woman walking towards me and her eyes moved to meet mine. I smiled at her quickly without thinking, but as soon as we saw each other looking, her eyes went straight for the ground before I could lift the corners of my mouth into a grin. The eye contact made her uncomfortable from the beginning.

At this point, God used my failure at making friends to teach me something amazing.

People, over time, become vulnerable and uncomfortable in their daily lives. They lose their trust in the hearts of others because they have been let down so many times in their past.

Last night I watched a movie on Netflix called “What Maisie Knew”. The story is about a very young girl who is in the center of a custody battle between her busy and self-serving parents. As I was watching the movie, I couldn’t get over the submissiveness of the child. It was evident that she knew, to an extent, who had her best interest and safety in mind when making decisions; however, she never spoke up when poor decisions were made because she was so unbelievably trusting of the people who were older than her. There was a point in the film where someone she loved asked her to go somewhere with a stranger who knew her mother. Although she was hesitant, she went with him. The stranger ended up being a great guy, but I couldn’t shake the fact that the child had so much faith in the words of the people she cared about.

"…Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3

This verse in Matthew is about humbling yourself before God.

It’s about calling him your Father

And trusting that he loves you and is wiser than anyone can begin to understand.

Though Maisie is weary of leaving when asked to go with the strange man, she trusts that the people she loves know that it is the best option for her.

This verse in Matthew is not about foolishness.

It is not about blindly trusting strangers

Or trusting the foolish decisions of the people you love.

It’s about knowing that God knows what is best, regardless of the fear you have when following his plans.

If we can listen and follow our earthy parents even though we are hesitant, how much more can we not follow our heavenly Father who is all-knowing and cares for us with an unconditional love.

As I watched people on campus break eye contact with my smiling face, I realized that unmerited love has become a strange thing in this world. If I truly check myself, almost every time I give, or serve, or love, I have some self-serving intention behind my actions. How free will we be, once we learn not to be offended or upset when someone does not reciprocate our love for them? …But even then, the prize of freedom is self-serving and we become caught in our selfishness once more.

God has mastered this unmerited love: something that I cannot even wrap my mind around. But he has never asked me to.

By being “God the Father” he has called us into a relationship where there is gentleness, comfort, and understanding

By being “God the Father” he has also called us into a relationship of complete trust and submission – not because we have to – but because he has displayed his unconditional love for us and told us what is in our best interest (just the way a loving father would tell his child).

Lately, I have noticed a lot of Christ followers talking about what it means to call God their father. A lot of people in my generation have issues with the idea of God as a Father, because their fathers have made mistakes in the past and have forgotten to fix things before moving foreword.

I have been blessed with a dad who, instead of making my faith in a father confusing, has made it something easier to understand.

In high school I struggled with accepting the free forgiveness of God. I didn’t understand how a perfect God could forgive me, and I wasn’t quite able to grasp what Jesus’ sacrifice really meant for my life. Sometimes, I would find myself so consumed in guilt that I would ache to sit on the floor, drain my eyes of their tears, and pull my hair out. The one thing that helped me back on my feet was to think “Would my earthly father hate me for the things I have done?” Every time, I would find solace in knowing that he would cry with me in my own hurting, call me beautiful (even with my bald patches), and try to help me back on my feet.

I have understood “God the Father” because I have understood “Dad the father”.

That day, as I walked through campus, I asked God to open my eyes and wash them to see as His do. With each step I took, I began to deepen my understanding in something new. Not only do I have a heavenly Father, but I have a heavenly Family. These people who I walk past are my brothers and sisters, and until I see them as such, I truly don’t understand what God is doing on the earth.

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” 1 John 3:1

Let us begin to walk genuinely as brothers and sisters in Christ.

I would never walk past my sisters with my eyes down.

I run to them with a smiling face, ready to embrace them.

I’m not implying that we run to hug strangers, unless you feel called in that direction, but I do think that the idea of “strangers” needs to be eliminated.

We need to look at every interaction as an encounter with our closest friend, with a dear family member, with a kindred spirit, with Christ Himself.

Stop seeing the world for what it is and open your eyes to what it was made to be!

I have understood a heavenly family because I have understood an earthly one.

––––––

I know that this post has been long, but bare with me for one more moment.

My heavenly Father has asked me to go somewhere exciting and scary, and I have agreed to follow him there because I trust that he has something up his sleeve that I don’t know about. I keep asking Him “Why send me to Uganda, why not someone who has a skill set to contribute?” and all he lays on my heart is  “It’s not about you, it’s about Me”.

In all honesty, there is nothing that I will be able to do in Uganda that the next ten people wouldn’t be able to do as well. I will be going with nothing to boast about, so I can’t say to you that I am qualified to serve in any manner.

However what I can say is that is exactly why he has asked me.

My sisters, Nicole and Laura, and I have recently decided that we will be planning a charity concert to raise money for the organizations that I will be volunteering with.

I will still be volunteering with The Akola Project, but I have chosen to work alongside Soft Power Education and their special needs program instead of with the orphanage I mentioned in my last post.

The concert will be in May hopefully, and I will keep you all updated on that.

Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts! I feel so blessed to be surrounded by such a beautiful and loving Heavenly Family.

For Now... For Later

I'm not sure how I can effectively run with these ideas. I have held them compressed between the bones of my skull for much too long now. It's about time for me to let go... For Now


I'm in a strange place right now.
You wouldn't be able to tell this by looking at me because I am impossibly good at hiding how I feel. I do this so well that sometimes I can't even tell how I am feeling.  My emotions lay out around me and I sit cross-legged trying to figure out how to fit them all back in properly. I want so desperately for things to be how they are supposed to be; not only in my life, but in others' as well. I spend too much time watching videos and reading stories about things going on in the world around me, and I find myself so absurdly disconnected from real humanity.

I keep asking myself "who am I right now?"
I am a Creative Writing student.
I am a resident assistant.
I am in love with a handsome boy.
I am a friend to many.
I am a daughter and a sister.
I am a follower of and lover of Christ and what he has done.
But I am desperately seeking more.

I am in a strange place right now.
I am never content. I am doubting all the reality around me.
The problem is that every time I become empty, I get upset that I am empty instead of letting in the only thing that matters back into my life.

I forget that God is bigger than the problems that I fit into the wrinkles of my aging skin.
Like so many other people in the world, I say "I wish that I was young and carefree again".
I forget that there is abounding freedom in Christ and he has brought new life to me!

BUT I HAVE THIS AGAINST YOU, THAT YOU HAVE ABANDONED THE LOVE YOU HAD AT FIRST Rev. 2:4

I have been walking with Christ since I could walk. I remember genuinely praying and praising him from the ripeness of childhood, but it wasn't until I got older that I realized what it meant to serve out of my love for him. He asked me to share the goodness that he has poured over into my life.
I am loved in abundance, but what good is love if you are not undignified with it; whipping it around like children with long jump-ropes. What good is God's love if we do not call to strangers and friends saying "lets see how many people we can fit into this rhythm? Lets move with one another to the pace of something outside ourselves!"
When I first loved serving God, he placed suffering people of Southern Sudan on my heart. I have been praying for that area of the world since junior high and have watched anxiously as God has broken the shackles of his kingdom. All the while, I knew that I would never be able to visit South Sudan due to the severity of the issue.

My cousin lived in Tanzania for a couple years and is now working in Uganda for a company called The Akola Project. She comes back to our with stories of a place rich in culture and history. This past December she mentioned in passing, "you should come volunteer".

At first the idea seemed outrageous but as graduation has been approaching at warp speed, the idea has been manifesting itself into reality.

The plan, as of right now, is to go to Jinja, Uganda and stay with my cousin in her spare room. During my time there, I plan to help volunteer with the Akola Project in any way that I can. I have also contacted a special needs orphanage (Ekisa) and hope to spend some time volunteering with them as well.

I always thought that when I finally felt it was time to travel to Africa I would be overjoyed in anticipation; however, it seems that the more concrete the plans become, the more I want to hide under my covers in fear. I was reading Love Does by Bob Goff the other day, and one quote from the text really resonated with me. In it he states, "I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter." 

I've been praying so much lately that what I am able to do in my short Ugandan months will matter to God. 

I've been praying that my heart is set on this trip for the right reasons.

I've been praying that God prepares my spirit for anything it might need to face.

I've been praying for peace that He will tackle the small obstacles and be in the minute details.

I've been praying that others might join me in these prayers.

I know that this trip won't seem like a big deal to a lot of people reading this, but I believe that God has chosen people in my life who will feel led to be in prayer with me in this time. If you would like to be updated on my planning, would like to pray with me, are interested in hearing about my upcoming adventure, or would like to contribute/ support me in any way please let me know!

It would be great to know that I have people walking alongside of me in this confusing time.

You are the greatest for reading this!

Now go out and embrace God's blessings-

-Alison

          O, for an oar to split the sea like Moses
          And gather souls whose minds are blank horizons,

          Stagnant and sore.

          I dare my toes to tumble past the roses

          To be back grounded amongst the thorny labyrinth

          Pregnant with gore.

          But sitting in my room I hear a silence

          that speaks me still and suffocates desire

          outside the door.

          Has ponder yet conducted worldly cadence

          Or heightened humbled man from midst the mire?

          Be still no more.