the return.

as I sit here listening to the quiet rain in an empty house I am reminded of Uganda. Of the land I left just a week ago. My trip. It engulfed me. I was overcome by renewal, and thanksgiving, and joy, and hope, and pain, and my own stagnation.

As the plane landed and I saw the hills and the lights and felt the hot damp air again it all came rushing back. The pain of why I came before, the joy of why I was there, and the brokenness that lives in that land. Then I walked around the corner and looked for the white faces in the sea of beautiful dark ones. They were jumping and smiling and then I saw my friend turned mother overnight holding her tiny bundle of joy. Zoey is 1 but still oh so tiny. The drive to the guesthouse along the dark roads was filled with laughter and reminiscing and I was overwhelmed. My prayer before I left is that I would be completely present the entire time I was there. I was so aware of it all. The vastness and beauty and brokenness and hope and love and pain.

My week was filled with simply living life there. No big plans or crazy trips. It was just the pleasure of being in that home again. It seemed strange to me how a place that is so foreign and a place I had not been to in years could feel so much like home. Maybe because it is the place I came back to myself. It is the place I dared to dream dreams again and saw joy in. By day two I was zipping around on bodas carrying 2 pizzas like I did that every day!

One of the greatest privileges was getting to see the fruit of answered prayers. My friends have been praying for their little girl for so long and to see the way she was already being grafted into their family was simply beautiful. She has the funniest little personality and she talks/ babbles from the time she gets up to the time she goes to sleep. It almost brought me to tears to hear how the first few days she was so shy and so reserved. The child I saw was filled with life and laughter and I was watching her grow perfectly in her mother's love. Love really does change people. I wish more people could see these transformations take place. Maybe then they would see that the sacrifice that adoption requires is worth it. It is worth it to see Zoey's eyes light up when her mother walks into the room. Or to see the way she responds when her mother calls her name. It was worth it for me to be there and it will always be worth it for me to go back.

I'm going to try and paint you a picture of a lovely morning I had on my trip.

It was a hot day. I mean the kind of heat that presses in on you and makes you walk and talk slower. When the boda man lifts his eyebrows to ask "you need a ride?" I quickly comply. Getting settled I respond with the typical "we go! Tu gende!" The wind whips through my mass of gold curls that will forever signal me as a foreigner, and outsider, a muzungu. We weave in and out of traffic and dodge children and holes and baby goats. I am strangely calm and inwardly laugh at how crazy this all is. Riding on a motorcycle with a stranger in a foreign land and being completely calm. But that is Africa. The land of hysterical contradictions. I reach my destination and haggle over the price. Things are more now because of the price of fuel. I quickly spot my old friends. A girl who has a heart as big as the continent and her husband who keeps right in step. We grab waters and hug and begin to walk up the hill towards our destination. Sun growing hotter and brighter as we go we laugh about old times and try to stay in the shade. When we are sufficiently out of breath we see the building.

The small shack of a school where we are teaching music.

To orphans.

who live in the slums.

and as their culture says, who are "infected".

As soon as they see us the smiles and the laughter starts. I am the visitor and my friends know them all by name. Shouts of "teacher Court-i-ney" and "tea-char Chris" echo through the air. We wait outside the school house because they are still finishing up their lecture. Teacher Mary comes outside and lets us know it will be just a little bit longer. Mary may be the happiest woman I have ever met. She saw these kids were not in school and decided to start one. She takes no pay and her husband left her because she chose to love the least of these. Soon, it is time. We step into the dark hot class room and dozens of faces with brown eyes and white smiles stare back at us. We are introduced and the new children are asked to stand up. They tell us their names. Quietly and timidly we meet a Grace, and a Nixon, and even a Gadaffi. They begin by singing to us and their sweet voices fill the air. As I watch and listen I search their faces. Many are smiling but many are empty and void. I am struck, like a blow to the stomach, with what these children have had to endure. The fact that they are standing--let alone singing is a miracle.

It is our turn to teach them a song. Chris has chosen a simple one that splits the room into 2 sections and you take turns standing up during your part. Simple words that hold deep truth.

hallelu-hallelu-hallelu-hallelujah

Praise ye the Lord.

We laughed and sang and stood up and down until we were out of breath. Then the hour was up and it was time to go. Mary told me to not forget them. I assured her that I could not. As we began to go back down the hill I handed my bottle of fresh cool water to a little boy. It felt wrong to stand there drinking it while I knew what they had to drink everyday. The water cost 50 cents. We all have that in our cars or couch cushions. In the slums that makes you rich.

Being there reminds you that love and laughter and time and music and singing really are the important things. It is not money or fame or comfort that we should seek---but simply to love. The Word says that the He is love. If we are meant to live lives that imitate and emanate our Creator then we must love. We must be ok giving up comfort and money and time. As I sit in the comfort of my home in the States I try to hold on to the truths I learned. I don't want to live a life that is marked by comfort.

So I will try to bend lower and love harder and accept comfort less. I will sacrifice more and look continually into the One who is love and the One who gives everlasting Joy.

The hill down to our guesthouse

a new momma and her baby

The nile...no big deal!

beautiful things.

This still doesn't seem real to me. That all I have to do is hop on a few planes and then I am there. Back in Uganda again. It is hard to believe that it has been two full years since I have been on that land that captured my heart. Most of the time it seems like yesterday. I find it so interesting that the Lord is using Uganda again to usher in a new season. My last trip ushered in a season of healing and growing and learning to trust again. I had quit my job to move and looked for something totally different when I returned.

Today was my last day at my current job, and the Lord orchestrated my time so that I was leaving when I was returning to Uganda. I have applied to about 28 jobs in the last nine months. Yep. 28. So clearly my times are in His hands. My soul is quite weary from my current work situation and I am beyond thankful for the opportunity to go and be filled up and poured out at the same time.

2012 may have to be dubbed the year of new beginnings and the Lord making all things beautiful. There are so many babies being born or coming home, the Lord provided a new job, He provided the finances to go on this trip, and I have all new classes. I have started going to a new community group where the people lean in and push eachother closer to Jesus. My goodness we are only in February!! I cannot wait to see what else He makes beautiful this year.

Everything in me knows that I am supposed to be going on this trip. I have always had visions of me returning to Africa with lots of friends, or a handsome man, or someone in my family---but here I find myself getting ready to hop on a plane by myself again. This trip will be far different than the last. When I get off the plane I will be greeted by dear friends instead of strangers. I already know how to whisper, nkwagala nyo {I love you} to the babies, I know how much a boda ride costs. He has gone before me and I am eagerly expectant to see what this far too quick journey will teach me.

So, here is to embracing adventure, and mishaps (its an international trip--mishaps always happen), and love, and new life, and courage, and trust, and hope. He allowed me to walk among His high places and He changed me from Much Afraid into Grace and Glory.

My eyes cannot wait to behold the beauty that is Africa again.

on going back.

Oh. How I have waited to type these words for so long.

::I'm going back::

To the land of the red dirt, smiling faces, rolling hills, and immeasurable joy and sorrow.

However

"I was that woman, but am not that woman now"

The me that is headed to Uganda this time is not the same as 3 years ago. The strange thing is. I'm a little nervous. Not about flying, or traveling alone, or that is may be "dangerous". No, I am nervous about how wrecked I may be. You see--the last time I went to Uganda I was an afraid, broken, mess of a girl. My dreams had been shattered and I was fleeing the country. Of course my church answer was that I wanted to go serve the people of Uganda and make his name known...but deep down, I knew that I was running as far away from the States as I could with the whispered hopes that He would meet me there and begin the healing process. When I arrived in Uganda- for awhile I was so caught up in my own pain and misery that my "serving" was really just going through the motions. It took weeks for my heart to soften and open up to loving the people. Thankfully though, it was in this beautiful country that the Lord began to put my pieces back together. He planted new dreams in my heart and renewed life and purpose to my weary soul.

So you see---I am healed and whole and redeemed now. He made me new.

I am terrified I am about to be broken again. But this brokenness....this is the kind that our Father longs for. He longs and yearns for us to turn from ourselves and look to the hurting and oppressed. He wants our hearts to break for the things that break his heart. He wants us to look so closely at Him that we can see the lines on His face. We live in a fallen and sinful world and deep & unthinkable heartbreaks happen to us all. But this is not His plan. He longs for all to be restored and made new. So this time with this brokenness-- I am going to lean into it. I pray that I will not be numb to the things I see but that it would cause me to weep and turn to the Father and ask what He wants me to do.

This leads me to another fear. What if he calls me back to Uganda--but then again, what if He doesn't? This is a point that I have prayed over and wrestled with and sat quietly to discern His answer. For now, He has me here. For now I spend my days working and serving and trying to love on the people He has placed in my life as well as I can. I pray that He will give me the strength to accept whatever answer He gives me. Because I know He is not done with me yet.

The most beautiful thing about this trip is that I am going to help a dear friend with her adoption process. When I initially decided to go to Uganda Lizzy prayed about going too and even sent an email to the same organization I did. While I got responses immediately--Lizzy never heard a thing. Ultimately Lizzy felt led to stay in Raleigh and serve with our church. About a month later she met the man she ended up marrying! Now, this beautiful couple have decided to do something that most people consider "radical". They are adopting their first child from Uganda instead of trying to have children first. For those of us who know Lizzy and Josh well---it just made sense! These two have such a heart for orphans and I know the Lord will use their obedience and their story to encourage so many others. They are in the process of adopting a little girl who will be about 1 when they get home! Since the Lord's timing is always perfect I do get the chance to go to Uganda with Lizzy after all. I will arrive a few days after Josh leaves.

I am beyond excited for the opportunity to come alongside Lizzy as she goes to appointment after appointment with a baby strapped on and figures out being a mother in a third world country. There will also be 2 other families from our church, and dear friends, who are also adopting in country and staying at the same guesthouse! Essentially, this is the trip I have been praying for since my feet hit US soil again.

My thankfulness that the Lord writes our stories runs so deep these days. I am thankful that things come in seasons and that He is never finished refining us into who He desires us to be. One of my favorite books, Hinds Feet on High Places, chronicles the journey of Much Afriad and her journey with the Shepherd. So I leave you with words that describe my hope these days. At a great precipice the Shepherd turns to Much Afraid [and I mean, aren't we all "Much Afraid" at times?] and says...

"I love doing preposterous things," he replied. "Why, I don't know anything more exhilaritaing and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection..that is my special work, " he added with the light of great joy in his face. "Transforming things -- to take Much Afraid, for instance and transform her into-" he broke off and then went on laughingly. "Well, we shall see later on what she finds herself transformed into."

Lord, I cannot wait. To see what you will transform me into this time.

stories.

There are some stories in life that are so personal, so heartbreakingly beautiful, and so humbling that they are hard to share. It is hard to find the right words to describe how intimately the Father knows us.

this.

Is one of those stories.

My first week in Uganda I had the privilege of meeting and holding and tickling and kissing a little baby named Jacob. For some unknown reason I felt an instant connection with him. He was all smiles and giggles and had the most trusting eyes. The very next week. This precious child of God died. It shattered me. I blogged about it here. How dare the Father let this little one die with out a family, a mother, without anyone who would mourn for him. So I decided I would. I did not know him well, but I missed him. From that point forward any child at the orphanage I met that felt the slightest bit feverish I marched them to the nurse and demanded medicine. When I left Uganda I thought Jacob and his story would just stay there and it would be something I would think about often. But nothing more.

Fast forward to around November of 2010. One evening I was browsing Uganda adoption blogs [a favorite past time!] and I stumbled across Lovelyn's blog. I read her story of how her family brought baby Clayton home and I realized that I knew her son! He was at Sanyu when I was and I had pictures of him!!! I excitedly emailed her an

d attached the pictures. I could not believe it! I remember her son being so adorable and so full of life and laughter--just like Jacob. Her heart for orphans is inspiring and contagious and makes me want to reach for more in life. As I was reading her story of bringing Clayton home I read about how during this process she had to tell a woman that the child she was trying to bring home, Lucas, had died before she had the chance to go back and get him. Can you imagine. What is worse is that her son died in October and she did not find out until January. So I clicked on her blog.

and I froze.

All along the top of her blog were pictures. Pictures of Jacob. Jacob had a mother. Her name was Anna. I now know that the trust and life I saw in his eyes was because he had already known love. A mothers love. I was not the only one grieving for this child. His mother was and is grieving for him. I sat in my bed and sobbed.

How. Out of the thousands of blogs out there how did I come across this one?

Only the Father could have orchestrated this one.

So I emailed her.

Dear Anna Marie,

I honestly have no clue how I found you! I was looking back over my blog from last year and re-reading the post about "Jacob". I noticed that someone named Love had commented on the post that she had the privilege of knowing Lucas as well, and getting to rock him to sleep one time. So I went to look at her blog and I remembered Elijah/Clayton! I got to play with him a lot and even had some pictures of him too that I sent to her. When I was reading her post on getting Clayton home I ran across the story of how you had sent her pictures of Clayton as a little baby. Then when I read that she had to be the one to email you about Lucas's death my heart broke. But, she typed that she had gotten to rock him to sleep once my heart about stopped. I knew she meant Jacob. I immediately went to your blog and was frantically reading. As soon as I saw Lucas's pictures...I just wept. Someone else loved him, had grieved him, and missed him in this huge world besides me. He had known love and Christ had not forgotten him nor forsaken him. I couldn't sleep that night. What were the chances that almost exactly a year later I found Love's blog, and your blog and had spent time with and loved on both your son's?!

Over the past few months Anna, Lovelyn, and I have emailed and kept in touch. Their blogs are incredible and inspire me. But this story gets better. The Father was not finished yet.

Anna is getting married at the end of July, and Lovelyn's son Clayton will be the ring bearer in the wedding, and I am going. I have never met either of these incredible women, and the

wedding is in Minnesota and I live in North Carolina. But there are some things in this life that you just cannot miss--and this is one of them.

One little boy. Lucas Jacob Ssuna. Has inextricably connected our lives together. He is the author and perfecter of our lives. He gives us hope when we need it and strength and just the right time. I know

that the Father has many more great plans for this little boy's story. Today I know that Lucas runs on streets of gold and knows a place that has no pain

or sickness or heart ache. He is made whole and complete in the presence of the perfect One.

Anna. Lovelyn. I cannot wait to meet you two. To talk of love,

and life, and orphans, and Africa, and Lucas. To celebrate together how He makes all things new as Anna starts a beautiful new life with her husband. I cannot wait to see where the Lord will take this story next.

out of touch.

"All news out of Africa is bad. It made me want to go there, though not for the horror, the hot spots, the massacre-and-earthquake stories you read in the newspaper; I wanted the pleasure of being in Africa again. Feeling that the place was so large it contained many untold tales and some hope and comedy and sweetness, too- feeling that there was more to Africa than misery and terror... The word "safari" in Swahili, means "journey"; it has nothing to do with animals. Someone "on safari" is just away and unobtainable and out of touch." - Dark Star Safari : by Paul Theroux

Those words describe my mood, thoughts...everything lately. I have felt out of touch with everything. This post has been swirling around in my mind for awhile now. Until I had some down time on a recent family vacation..and the words in that book...I didn't know how to properly express or explain what has been in my head and my heart.

On days like today, when I have had many hours to think-- and I feel so lonely I ache, I long to be back in Uganda. Where my "job" was loving children and holding orphans and attempting to share His love. I long to disappear into the Africa I knew -- it was "sunlit and lovely, a soft green emptiness of low, flat topped trees and dense bush, bird squawks, giggling kids, red roads, and cracked and crusty hills..." To just have that feeling of being away and out of touch. Maybe it is because that is the pattern my life has taken. I do one job, one thing, one hobby, one house, one relationship, for about a year and a half and then it is over, done, and change enters in without asking. Maybe it is because this time I have been looking, trying for, crying out to the Lord for direction and for change. But so far life has remained the same. Same job, same car, same city, same apartment, same [lack of] relationship status.

I know I should be rejoicing in this season of rest and sameness. I long to have a heart of "acceptance-with-joy" --- and oh how I am trying. But my sinful nature fails me. My sin doesn't want to rejoice in the blessings others are receiving, or to humbly serve those who do not know the Good Shepard, or hold my tongue when I should. I have seen what my life looks like when I go my own way. It falls apart and is dark and broken. So my prayers have been for more grace, more joy, and more hope. For when I do set my feet on that beloved red dirt I will need all of those things. One doesn't know how going back to Africa will effect them. I want to be known as a woman who has lived life with joy, and has long {ever hopeful} patience, and humbly accepted any path He leads me down.

For I know that right now in this season...I am meant to be here. In Raleigh at my little job with my wonderful friends. For you see...shortly...these wonderful friends will need more hands to help, more need for babysitters, more need of grace and hope and joy. Shortly, seven {7!} precious children will have families. They are all currently in the land with the red dirt. I am so glad that the Lord has so clearly shown me my role for this season. It is to walk with these families, love these families, encourage and support these families, thrown them baby showers, decorate their nurseries with them, dream big dreams for their children with them, pray for their children with them, welcome them home at the airport, watch their children so they can have date nights, sing songs from Uganda, and watch in awe as their children grow perfectly in their love. And someday, oh someday, they will do the same for me. Someday I will have a man leading me and a house full of children and a community surrounding me.

But for now I will praise Him on this journey. For now I will pray "The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places." Habakkuk 3:19. I want to learn what I can in His high places so I can pour myself out abundantly in His valleys. Lord, let us always call out Your name on our journeys, and lean on the strength of your word. On the lonely days, when I feel like living on a dark star, I pray I would not fall into the lies of this world but that I would dive with abandon into the truth and perfection of Your will.

no good thing.

About 6 months ago I ended a post with this--

"I am living in this intake of breath. In that moment right before you turn the corner and see a beautiful sight. I have seen the glimmer of joy and hope in His eyes and He is about to lead me somewhere amazingly unexpected. The Spirit is whispering to hold on, more change is coming, but cling to me. He will lead me."

Well, let me just make a confession. In the back of my mind I was wishing and hoping and praying that where the Lord was leading me was to a man. I mean-- it has been awhile so certainly it was my turn, right Lord? I have tried to be patient. I have served. So wasn't it my time? Those are the thoughts [lies] that ran a race through my head and my heart. That whispering and urging I was getting from the Spirit...that more change was coming but hold on...hold on beloved. I heard that right. The unexpected was not found in a new relationship, but instead in a beautiful group of people who gave me an outlet for my passion for orphan care. The reclaim | orphans crew helped breath new life into my weary soul. In the midst of hardship and families going through painful situations the Lord placed them in my life at the most opportune time. That beautiful sight I was hoping for....well I will get to see it in August.

He is leading me back to Uganda with some of my most precious and dearest friends.

When I left for Uganda in September of 2009..I was shattered, and bitter, and lonely, and desperately hoping that the Lord would meet me there. Never in a million years would I have imagined that He would send me back with so many that I love.

This trip will look so much different than the last trip. For starters it is going to be 6 married couples and me! The reclaim | orphans crew will be making the trek for 10 adventure filled life changing days! On top of that--some of these families will be meeting the children they will be bringing home.

I have no words

[oh Lord, how good you are]

That is a far cry from me on a plane alone wondering if I had just made the mistake of a lifetime.

It could be interesting---traveling the globe with 6 married couples--but the Lord has been continually encouraging me with Psalm 34: 8-10

Taste and see that the LORD is good;

blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Fear the LORD, you his holy people,

for those who fear him lack nothing.

The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

A quote from a blog I recently read perfectly sums up my feelings on this verse!

"Accepting singleness, whether temporary or permanent, does not hinge on speculation about answers God has not given to our list of whys, but rather on celebration of the life he has given. I am not single because I am too spiritually unstable to possibly deserve a husband, nor because I am too spiritually mature to possibly need one. I am single because God is so abundantly good to me, because this is his best for me. It is a cosmic impossibility that anything could be better for me right now than being single, The psalmists confirm that I should not want, I shall not want, because no good thing will God withhold from me."

I am so grateful to be in the presence of so many incredible married couples. You know who you are and you all, always, make me feel so welcome, and so at home, and so accepted. I have the privilege of learning from your marriages. The good, the bad, and the ugly! And Lord bless the man He has for me---because he is going to have a lot of men to impress [live up to] and a lot of women to convince....we are quite the group to take on!

As I approach 25 the lyrics from a John Mayer song keep playing through my head "might be a quarter-life...just a stirrin' in my soul"

Honestly, some days, I feel like that. Like I want to throw in the towel, pack everything up, and live in a little house on a hill in Kampala and start an orphanage...but then I am reminded. That right now RIGHT NOW...

I lack no good thing.

just me.

Have you ever had that feeling---"Lord, what exactly are you up to?"

I am a single, 24 year old woman, and I spend a majority of my spare time working with an orphan care organization. I am the only single person at most of these meetings. I know that I am called to serve orphans and widows in their distress, and I am trying my hardest to do that.

But to be completely honest.....somedays it is really hard. Because you see---for right now, I cannot bring an orphan home. I can visit them and love them and tell those precious babies that they have a good Father who loves them and a family that is coming for them. But I can't be that family for them. I don't have that "someone" yet. That someone to debrief all of this weighty stuff with, or to call when I have had a hard day, or just someone to hold me. I know that His timing is perfect, I really do....but this is just me, letting my guard down. Most days though, I am totally content in my singleness. I love spending time with all of my married friends and having the privilege of seeing their husbands loving them well. It encourages me and gives me hope. It is just in those hard days that I must again surrender to the Lord. Surrender to His timing, His perfect plan, and the truth that His love is enough. In those moments I can hear Him whisper..keep going beloved, keep trusting, keep serving, My love for you will never fade. His love is enough.

Somedays when I am at work scanning papers all day I wonder, "what in the world am I doing?" Why don't I just go back? I know that I could live among them and show them what love is and watch them grow perfectly in love. For some reason though now does not seem like the right time. I know a lot of that has to do with the movement happening in reclaim | orphans. There is so much to be done and I feel so privileged to be a part of this amazing organization. I am still in shock that the Lord is allowing me to live out my dreams at 24.

I went to a local conference today to learn more about an orphan care program in Uganda. I was the only single person in the room. I wish more single people would feel that is ok to go to these conferences. I am slowly learning that even though I cannot bring a child home yet...there is still so much I can do. I have the greatest resource of all. Time. Right now my time is my own. I can do with it what I please, and I have no one else needing my time. To other singles out there--male or female---I encourage you and entreat you--serve the orphans and widows in their distress. Whether that means going or getting involved with a local organization, just do not feel like just because you are single you can't do anything.

I still wonder what the Lord is up to. Why He has placed it on my heart now to serve orphans. I cannot wait to see how this all unfolds. Where He will have me in 5 years...or even 10 years. I am so thankful that the Lord has a better story for me. Better than anything I could have ever hoped for or imagined. I pray that you all would let Him write a better story for you.