His Hope Uganda

FAITH or FEAR June 22, 2011

Hello friends and family,

I guess it’s officially summer back in Canada, which doesn’t actually guarantee that you’ll be seeing sunshine anytime soon but I hope you’re enjoying whatever the season is bringing (and I hope it’s not snow). I’m not too sure if we’re in dry season or rainy season here because it’s all kinda mixed together these days but I do know that it’s mango season and that’s all that really matters. For the last month, kids have been bringing mangoes by the bagful and at one point we were probably getting close to forty a day. Everywhere you go, people are enjoying mangoes. I must say that mango season in Uganda is by far the most wonderful time of the year (Christmas isn’t even in the running).

However, it also seems to be mosquito season, cockroach season, and rat season as the house is more crowded than usual with the pesky creatures. I am covered in mosquito bites and I can’t quite figure out how they’re managing to eat me alive because every night I wear long pants, a long sleeved shirt, and socks in a failed attempt to stay bite free. But it seems it’s all for nothing these days. I can’t win.

With the increased number of mosquitoes, come an increased number of sick children and guardians and staff members. We have been spending a crazy amount of money on treatment and it seems like there isn’t a day that goes by without someone being sick. We work mostly with two clinics, where children in our program and their families can go for treatment without paying. It makes things much simpler for us and for them and we basically go and pay at each clinic once a week or whenever we get a phone call asking us to come. It’s always a shock to discover who has been sick and how much we owe, and the numbers and costs seem to keep rising every week.

I was at one of the nurse’s places paying on the weekend and she told me that she has built an entirely new room for her clinic in the past couple of months from the money that we have been paying.  She was sure to emphasize the fact that it was our money that built the room. She’s very thankful. At least God is blessing someone in all the sickness.

I write this email with malaria in my system again, for the third time since March and the fifth since last October. Our entire staff went through malaria and typhoid in February and March and have all had malaria (and some typhoid) again at least once since then. I’m going to go ahead and say that mosquitoes are kicking our butts. And I’m really tired of it.

Onto greener pastures, which there always are, because the mosquitoes don’t deserve all the attention.

The Vancouver Canucks finally made the Stanley Cup finals. I have been a Canucks fan for as long as I can remember, following in my father’s footsteps (although I can’t figure out why). And for as long as I can remember, they have never made the Stanley Cup finals.  And they have never actually won the Cup. I know this has nothing to do with Uganda but I bring it up for two reasons. First, miracles do happen. Second, I still don’t know what happened because I am desperately trying to figure out a way to get a copy of the playoffs to watch (at least my parents are trying) so that I can feel like I was a part of it all. I would prefer to watch them without knowing what the outcome is because it would really ruin it if I knew. So I’m kindly requesting your cooperation by NOT telling me what happened. Thanks muchly. And if anyone has a copy of the playoffs I would love to know.

We had three volunteers here from the States for ten days at the beginning of the month and we were so blessed by their visit (thank you for your prayers). They were three girls, two in the Marines and one who is a nurse, who all had been to Uganda before and who all have great servant hearts. We LOVED having them. They were great with the kids and very hard working and helpful and lots of fun. And they shared their chocolate covered pretzels and cocoa roasted almonds with me, which was fantastic.

My goal while they were here was to keep them busy but it actually turned out that they kept me busy. Their short visit made me realize two things. First, I really miss sarcasm. It was great to be able to joke around with people who actually understood my terrible sense of humour. And second, I’m REALLY out of shape.

While they were here, the girls helped build two toilets for two very appreciative families. We spent two half days carrying bricks and mixing cement and doing odd jobs like that and then they spent a day laying bricks and actually building one of the toilets (while I ate mangoes and “supervised”). The days and moments that we weren’t at the toilets we were busy doing other things, like having a party for over 350 people, playing with children, going to town, visiting schools, and spontaneously taking 30 children swimming. Busy and exhausting according to my books but apparently no sweat to these three fit and healthy volunteers.

To top it all off, when we would come home at the end of the day, they would either go for a run or do vigorous exercise outside in the front yard. Everyone was amazed at how hard working they were, probably because they’re so used to me and they just assumed that every white woman would be as lazy as I am.

The best part is that I would ask them every day if they were tired (praying that they would say “yes” so that I could say “me too” and then we could kind of complain together) but they would always just shrug their shoulders and say, “Nope”. So I would say, “Oh, okay” and pretend that I wasn’t dying inside.

So girls, if you’re reading this, you’ve inspired me to get in shape. Or rather, you did inspire me to get in shape but the inspiration has faded since then. I’ll get in shape when I’m finished eating all the Snickers you gave me (or at least I’ll think about it).

But in all seriousness, you were such a blessing to all of us. Since you left my kids have been complaining that they miss you and you would be more than welcome to come back and visit anytime. Thank you so much for coming and for all you did and all you do. You will continue to be in our thoughts and prayers.

It has been a year of blessing in so many ways and I am continually amazed by what God is doing. As we grow, and continue to do work that I never even dreamed we would be able to do, God has really been showing me what an impact we are having not only on the children in our program and their families, but also on the villages we are working in. We have started building toilets and houses for families outside of our program and we recently gave out mattresses and bedding and gardening and kitchen tools to families not involved in the program as well. We are building relationships with more people and our Ugandan family seems to keep growing despite the fact that we haven’t added any new children to our program since February. Most importantly, we have seen children come to Christ, which is the greatest reward because it is the reason why we are here.

God is clearly at work and His Spirit is clearly moving. And Satan doesn’t like it.

As much as it has been a year of blessing, I think that it has also been a year of attack.

We have been attacked by sickness as it has hit our staff and children worse than we’ve ever seen before. But God has showed us that He is watching over us and we are so thankful that we have all been healed and that we are able to help treat these kids.

But Satan has been using another weapon against me this year – fear.

It began in February when I got hit by the car. Then in April I found myself in another scary situation.

We went through a time recently when the country was not really at peace. The opposition leader was doing some things that the president didn’t agree with and he was arrested in a way that made a lot of people very angry. I was not aware of what had happened and the day after he was arrested, I went to Kampala with two of my teenage girls to get some things done. We finished early and went for breakfast and then on our way home we found we had just missed some riots on the outskirts of the city. There were burning piles of garbage and tires all over the streets and we could smell tear gas in the air.

I remember I was making a comment to Uncle Eman about how thankful I was that we had gone for something to eat because we might have been caught in the middle of the riots had we been driving through earlier. Not even two minutes after I said that, I saw to the left of us that a group of very angry men were coming towards us, throwing rocks. We were stuck in a place where the traffic was really bad and we couldn’t move anywhere. I told the girls to get down and began to pray.

As they pelted our vehicle with rocks, they kept coming closer. One man, with hate in his eyes, came towards my window with a huge rock in his hand. He was shouting that he was going to kill me for nothing, looking directly at me. He came up to my window and banged on the window with his fist, the one that didn’t have the stone in it. Uncle Eman was pleading with him to leave us alone and my girls were trying to hide in the backseat and I can’t remember what I was doing. I only remember the fear. I was afraid of what my kids might see, or worse what might happen to them. I was afraid because I knew that anything could happen. I remember being afraid and I remember praying.

Then the man walked away. He walked around the vehicle and walked away.

Then traffic slowly started moving and we drove the rest of the way home while I was crouched in the on the floor in the front seat praying.

A few weeks ago I picked up one of my girls from school and we were coming home on a boda boda (motorcycle) on the highway. I was talking to her about stopping somewhere and the boda boda driver thought that I wanted him to stop, so he started pulling to the side of the road. I told him it was a mistake and to keep going. About thirty seconds later, there was a van in front of us that we were about to pass. Suddenly one of the tires blew and I watched in fear as the van veered across the road in front of us and flipped into the ditch. Everyone was okay but it really shook me up. And the realization that if we had not pulled over seconds before, we would have likely been in the path of the van as it was going off the road really had me shaking.

Then the day before the volunteers came we had an incident at home that once again sent fear running through me.

Right now I’m living with two girls, Gloria and Annet. Gloria goes to school far away and takes the school bus which picks her up and drops her off in town. Annet comes home every night between five thirty and six thirty but we have to pick Gloria up in town at six thirty every night. On the nights that Annet is not home by the time we go to town, someone is usually at home. But one night we had to leave the house locked and leave the key with the neighbour for Annet to pick up when she got home from school.

We came home late to discover that our teenage neighbour had come over before Annet got home and let herself in the house (this is pretty much her second home). While she was here, two men and a woman came to the gate and told her that they had been sent by the landlord to see the house.

Four other kids of ours came over that night to find these three strangers in the house. Not only did she let them in, she gave them a tour of every room, telling them where every person slept and showing them every part of the house.

We phoned the landlord who of course had no idea who the people were and came to the conclusion that they were thieves who wanted to scope out our house. Auntie Christine said that she had seen this happen before, where strangers had lied their way into her neighbour’s home one day only to rob them the next night.

I cried that night and we slept in a hotel. The security that I had felt living here for over two years had been shattered and replaced by fear. The thought that the strangers had been in my room, even my bathroom, left me feeling completely insecure and uncomfortable. Two days later we hired a night time security guard.

Fear.

Lately I have been afraid of everything. Every time I get in the car I feel afraid. I expect to be killed in an accident at any moment and it’s all I think about. Yesterday we had a really bad thunderstorm and I was terrified of being struck by lightning. I used to love thunderstorms but yesterday I had to fight the urge to curl up in a ball in the hallway and cry. Every time I came close to a window I expected to be struck by lightning. Last night I was afraid to sleep because I am taking a malaria medication that I’ve never taken before and I was convinced that it was either going to make me really sick or give me really bad nightmares.

As a believer in Jesus Christ, I know that I have no reason to be afraid. I believe the Bible when it tells me that “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be”. My knowledge of what God says about fear is there. I should not be afraid. But I am plagued by fear.

I have a tattoo on my back that says the word “faith” in a cross. A lot of people think that my name is Faith (which drives me crazy because I don’t know why I would want a tattoo of my name on my back) because they miss the most important part of the tattoo, which is the cross. The meaning of the tattoo is my faith in the cross.

I believe the opposite of fear is not bravery. I believe the opposite of fear is faith.

So, the question that I find myself asking every day is this: Where is my faith?

When we were in the process of hiring a security guard, we were trying to decide whether to hire a guard with a gun or a guard with a bow and arrow (yes, I did say bow and arrow, you can say “sweet” if you want to). We came to the conclusion that we do not want a stranger with a gun around the house because it just doesn’t feel safe. So, our new security guard, Jonah, is equipped with a poisoned bow and arrow.

Uncle Eman, who never hides his true feelings, doesn’t think that having a security guard without a gun makes our house any safer because it’s very easy for a thief to just tie up the guard and then rob the house. So when I was voicing my concerns to him and asking his opinion, he said something so wise yet so simple. He said, “Auntie Kimi, it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you put your trust in God because He is the only one you can trust” (or something like that; he doesn’t get paid enough by the way).

Through all these scares in the past few months, I can see that God has used them for good. For example, I think that the fact that our neighbour let those people into our house was a blessing because it really opened my eyes to the reality that we were not necessarily safe. People have been telling me to hire a guard for months now but I’ve been putting it off and saying we didn’t need one. It took those strangers coming into our house for me to get over my stubbornness and hire one. If it hadn’t happened, they could have come when we were not prepared. God is also teaching me and showing me that He is looking after me. Why else would a man who seemed so determined to hurt me walk away at such an opportune time? I have no answer except that God was protecting us.

I know I have a choice to make. I can choose to focus on my faith in God, my Creator and Saviour, or I can choose to focus on my fear. And I’ve realized that I have been focusing on the wrong thing. The only way to overcome my fear is to increase my faith. And the best way to increase my faith is through prayer.

The place in the house that I always feel safe in inside of my mosquito net. I tuck the net under my mattress really well so that I can be sure that I won’t have any uninvited cockroaches or spiders or rats visiting me while I’m sleeping. Complete security. It is a feeling that I want to experience in every part of my life, every day.

So, I am asking for your prayers. God does not want me to live a life bound by fear and I do not want to live a life bound by fear. I want to live a life full of joy and full of faith in a God who holds everything, including our vehicle, the lightning, and my health, in His hands. Please pray that God would give me the strength, wisdom, and faith to overcome fear. And that He would use every situation, whether good or bad, for His glory.

Please pray for Auntie Kristy, our super volunteer who is coming back to Uganda for almost four months. She leaves today and arrives on Friday. She has been such a blessing in the past and I know that the Lord is going to use her here to do amazing things. Please pray for her as she leaves Canada. This time is different than her past trips because she is coming for a longer period of time. Pray for peace for her as she leaves and protection for her while she’s here. Also pray that she will know her purpose while she’s here, as we are not 100% sure yet what she will be doing (but we know that God has a plan for her here).

Please pray for the children at one of the schools we work with, called Peter’s Primary School. We have three children in the boarding section there and nine children in the day section. There were a few issues with safety in the boarding section in April because I’ve been told that the people in the village where the school is don’t agree with it being there. We just found out today that there were some children who were apparently attacked by demons yesterday at the school. Witchcraft in this village is very active and it is possible that someone has put some kind of curse on the school. Please pray for protection for our children, especially those in the boarding section, and for wisdom as we decide whether it is necessary to remove our kids from the school.

Please pray for healing for myself and our staff and children. Pray for strength for us and protection as well as wisdom as we move ahead.

Please pray for my Ugandan Work Permit to go through, as it has been a long and frustrating process so far. It sounds like there have been some problems with my application but last time I was at the offices they weren’t able to find what the problem was. Pray that as I go back this week or early next week that I would be able to find out the problem and sort it out and that the application will be accepted and approved before August. Thank you for praying about my Special Pass Visa, which I finally got sorted out. I am now officially allowed to be in the country until the beginning of August, praise God!

As costs in Uganda continue to rise, so many families are suffering without food, medication, and schooling. Please pray for God’s peace and provision in Uganda.

And please continue to pray for the children in their program and their families who need Christ. Pray for God’s continued presence in their lives and for His Spirit to continue to work through us.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support. As one who has been changed and blessed in this as much as anyone else, I say that from the bottom of my heart.

Much love and many blessings,

Kimi