leaving on a jet plane(well, not yet)

i'm supposed to fly home on thursday. i'm sure many of you have the date circled on your calendar. ok maybe not, but if you do you need to change it. i'm going to be staying an extra 2 weeks. i'm nowhere near ready to come home yet. i think it's safe to say africa stole my heart.

two worlds apart

this is one of my favorite quotes from the jeremy cowart/jenna lee book hope in the dark. it pretty much sums up how i feel.


“I straddle two worlds. One foot in America. One foot in Africa. My heart is split. It’s an awkward place to be, as it stretches the legs upon which I stand. I would prefer to be in one place instead of straddled awkwardly across an ocean. Contrary to American doctrine, however, I think we’re supposed to be a little bit uncomfortable as we live within the tensions of this complicated world.

Lately, I’ve come to realize that it’s not just an ocean that separates us from Africa. Greater barriers have caused a distance between the two continents. Misunderstanding has turned goodwill into greater injustice. The media portrays Africans as victims, as children with flies on their faces, as statistics, as those we pity, and those we judge with Western standards. Even with the best of intentions to help, I don’t think we truly understand Africans because we haven’t taken the time to listen and to share their stories in an honest and humanizing way.”

-Jenna Lee

close call

last week john, one of the babies in my group, had a seizure and was in the hospital for a few days. i was talking to the dr. from the surgery(where they take the babies when they're sick) and he said john's blood sugar was 0, which he didn't think was possible. there was some talk about possible brain damage, but i'm praying that isn't the case. he's been back at the babies home for the last few days. i spent some time with him today and he seems to be doing ok, considering all that happened. praying we get that smile back soon. here's a picture of him from today.

sick mzungu

sorry for the lack of updates. i've been sick for a week and haven't had much to update on. i went back to the dr. this morning and i have an ear infection so i have an antibiotic so hopefully that clears up soon. i wish this sore throat would go away too.

i went to one of the villages yesterday with some watoto people to help with the program they do in the schools. i'm glad i finally made it out to one of their villages. i'm excited to be going there twice a week.

hopefully i'll be back at the babies home soon so i'll have an update on how those kids are doing.

marcus

marcus is another one of my kids who has been sick. they took him to the hospital the other day and he has pneumonia. i got to spend a lot of time with him yesterday. he's quickly become one of my favorites.



some of you asked about jack. i saw him yesterday and he didn't have the feeding tube in and he laughed at me so i think he's doing better.

jack

that's my friend jack. he's one of the happiest babies i've ever met and i love love love hearing him laugh. he's been sick the last couple days and yesterday i had to hold him while the dr. put a feeding tube in him. it was really sad. 5 of the babies in my group are in the clinic now. i guess yesterday was a reminder of why i came here.

indescribable

hello mzungus! sorry for the lack of updates. it's crazy to think i've been in uganda for over a week.so much has happened since i've been here.

after flying for what seemed like forever i made it to uganda on wednesday night. i met up with my new friend patrick(he was in charge of getting passion people where they need to go) and my housemate stephanie.

we spent all day and most of the evening thursday at the field at makerere getting things ready for passion. when we got there we noticed one of the 2 LED screens on the ground. the night before it had rained really hard and knocked the screen over. it sat in 2 feet of water until people got there. they had it in pieces trying to dry it out. they finally got it to work for louie's indescribable talk on saturday night.

on friday around 25,000 students came to the field. when the intro video started playing and it showed africa on the screen people got really excited. chris played and the whole night was really powerful.

matt redman and charlie hall both played during the sessions on saturday afternoon. the power went out for a little bit, but that didn't stop people from worshipping. that night chris did a new song with the watoto children's choir. passion put a clip of it on youtube, so i'll post it on here. francis chan spoke twice and gave really challenging messages. like i said earlier, louie gave his indesrcibable message. it was pretty amazing sitting on the field under all those stars while he talked about how huge our God is. it was really humbling. later he told the students about them going to paris on the next stop of the tour and he asked them to pray for that event. everyone turned north(at least we think it was north) towards paris and sang and prayed for the city.

i wish i had better words to describe everything, but i don't. make sure to check out the passion blog for more pictures and stories(www.268blog.blogspot.com)

sunday stephanie and i went to patrick's church in gaba. pastor peter is a good friend of francis chan and a big reason why passion was able to come to kampala. his church is a sister church of francis' church in california. when we got there pastor peter pretty much shoved stephanie and i in his office with francis and his wife lisa. we got to sit and talk to them for a while. they are amazing amazing people. they do some much for uganda. francis preached in the service and lisa sang(by the way she has one of the best voices i've ever heard). after church we drove to lake victoria and got on a boat with the chans, pastor peter, and a few other people and crossed the lake. then we got on boda bodas(motorcycle taxis) and road to bethany village. that was an experience. bethany village is an orphanage that was started by the church in gaba. the chans have played a big part in it too. when we got there we met up with the passion team and listened to some of the kids sing. then about 30 of us got on a large wooden boat and crossed the lake. there were a couple times i wasn't sure we were going to make it haha.

since monday i've been with watoto. i've been spending time at their babies home where there are around 90 children ranging from newborn to 2 years old. it's crazy to hear where some of those kids have come from. most of the kids in my group have been sick this week, so it's been a little hectic. sometime in the next couple of weeks i'm probably going to be spending most of my time at some of the watoto villages.

hopefully you all made it through this long entry. i heard that my one accord mothers(who i'm impressed know what a blog is by the way) have been checking for updates-so here you go! hopefully they will be more frequent. you can see what pictures i have on here so far if you click here.


okwagala-kwe(there is love)

so long, so long

taking a little break from some last minute packing.

sunday at the end of the church service dad asked me to come forward and annette prayed for my trip. i was surrounded by amazing friends and the feeling of support was overwhelming. definitely good though. i'm lucky to have so many people behind me. we also prayed for ron webster's trip. he's leaving this week to go to paris to also volunteer with passion and get involved with some other ministries. so keep him in your prayers also!

i'm still blown away that this is happening. i remember feeling really discouraged a few weeks ago and i came very close to just calling it all off. but obviously it was God's hand not mine in this and here i am just a few hours from going to uganda.

i was packing some books to take with me and one of my favorites is a book by donald miller called through painted deserts. i've read it a couple times but i get something new each time. below is a section from the beginning of the book. he talks about our life being like a book. i've read these words before, but they really hit home for me tonight. sorry it's long but i love it:

and so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in play. my hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. we get one story, you and i, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. it would be a crime not to venture out wouldn't it?

it might be time for you to go. it might be time to change, to shine out. i want to repeat one word for you: leave.

roll the world around on your tongue for a bit. it is a beautiful world, isn't it? so strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. and you will not be alone. you have never been alone. don't worry. everything will still be here when you get back. it is you who will have changed.

choose the great life

my visa came yesterday! that was a huge answer to prayer. i got my plane ticket today. i'm leaving on tuesday now instead of monday. i'm sitting here with my flight itinerary in my hand and i think all this is really hitting me now. i'm going to africa for 2 months by myself. am i crazy? i'm still so blown away by how everything has come together in such a short amount of time. it's pretty obvious that God has had his hands in this the whole time. there's still a few details left to work out. i'm waiting for an email so please be praying for that.

i got a letter today from a great friend and i wanted to share a line from it that i love:

"don't settle for the good life; choose the great life, where you live the adventure God created your soul to live."

can you feel it?

i can

Watoto

thank you!

big thanks to those of you who have sent money for my trip. i hope you know how much i appreciate it!!

hello.

this is a site i set up to keep people updated on my trip. below is the support letter i sent out.


Dear friends,
To say that God has been working in incredible ways in my life the last few months would be an understatement. He’s been teaching me a lot, especially about trusting and being obedient. I wanted to write you and let you know a little bit about what God is doing and how you can get involved.In February I went to Washington DC for a Passion Conferences event. Passion is a worship gathering for college students. This was the 3rd one that I have attended. They have all been life changing to say the least. Starting in May Passion is going on a World Tour. While we were in DC we learned about our partner city, Kampala in Uganda. Africa has been something that’s been on my heart since I learned about the current situation in Uganda at Passion 2 years ago. Last year at Passion I started praying about someday going. I started to feel like I should go, but I felt uneasy about it and had a lot of doubt. While at Passion that week Louie Giglio was speaking about missions and how we should step out and go. He made the statement “I don't need to know where. I don't need to know what. I don't need to know when, but i know who I'm going with. I’m going with Jesus Christ.” I’ve been thinking about those words since then. When we arrived at Passion this year I found out that Kampala was our partner city. I remember thinking that there was no way that this was just a coincidence. I started to feel God working in me in a powerful way during that weekend.

Christy Nockels, who helps lead worship during Passion, led us in a song called Hosanna. There is a line in the song that says “break my heart for what breaks Yours.” I remember thinking how powerful those words were when I heard the song last summer for the first time. While in DC I realized that it wasn’t enough for those to just be words and they took on a whole new meaning for me. While Christy was leading us in that song I was reminded of a blog that she wrote that I read a couple weeks before DC. She was talking about her experience at Passion in Boston a few months earlier. She wrote “sometimes I can hardly contain myself as I look out at their faces. I fall in love with their hearts to see God move - their prayers, their passion... we did a few new songs that are still ringing in my heart....partly because they are typical amazing Tomlin songs, and because they are confessions that are powerful when we sing them as we're sowing into the things of the Spirit. When you get the chance to see them worship like that - it changes you forever, mostly because I know they will put movement to those words - they are not just singing songs -some of them may eventually give their lives for this Jesus they are singing to and dancing for."

On the last night we were singing Hosanna again and I was reminded of Christy’s words again. During the song I said to God, “ok I mean it now. I want You to break my heart. I want to be uncomfortable.” It’s something that I’ll never be able to explain, but I felt it immediately. God wasn’t kidding when He said ask and you shall receive. Later that night we collected an offering to go to Passion in Kampala. I had a strong feeling that I was supposed to go.When I got home I began praying about going to Uganda to volunteer with Passion and then staying for a couple months of the summer to do some sort of volunteer work.

I emailed them to let them know I was interested. I had talked to 2 friends that were also at Passion in DC and they said they wanted to go to Uganda also. As much as I felt like I was being called to go, I still had a lot of doubts, my main one being how I was supposed to still be able to go to Haiti in April like I had been planning and also go to Uganda in May. I knew that if I was meant to do both, that God would provide. After a lot of prayer I felt like God was telling me not to go to Haiti this year. I love going to Haiti and it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. It was hard for me to be obedient and listen to what God was saying, but I knew that He had other plans for me.

I started researching places in Uganda to get involved with after Passion. A lady who had traveled to Kampala earlier this year told me about a great organization called Watoto. Watoto is a children’s ministry that works with kids who have been orphaned by AIDS and the war in Uganda. After reading about them I prayed about it and felt like this was the right place for me to get involved. After I found Watoto I was telling my friends who were going with me about it to see if that was something they were also interested in. They both told me that for different reasons they were no longer able to travel with me. I was immediately full of so much doubt. I starting doubting that I was making the right decision about going and maybe I shouldn’t have given up my trip to Haiti. I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked God to make me so uncomfortable.

So that brings us to today. I am still planning on going to Passion and volunteering with Watoto. There are still a lot of details to be finalized but right now the plan is to go to Uganda the last week of May for Passion then stay until sometime in July. I would be lying if I said I still didn’t have my doubts about this trip. It seems though as soon as I doubt God is quick to remind me that all of this is in His hands and not mine.

I ask that you would pray about contributing financially to my trip. I’m estimating the total trip will cost between $4000 and $5000. This will cover transportation costs, housing, and any other expenses I may have while in Uganda. Any amount you can give is greatly appreciated. I get a little overwhelmed when I try to think about how this trip is going to be paid for. But like I said earlier, God reminds me that this is all in His hands. What I need more than anything for this trip is prayer. I once heard a message from Andy Stanley called Pray Big and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing and ask that you do also. Even if you can’t contribute financially, I hope that you will pray for this trip. I know that this is only going to happen with a lot of prayer.

I set up a blog that you can visit to get updates about my trip (www.valsgoingtoafrica.blogspot.com). I also encourage you to visit Passion (www.268generation.com) and Watoto’s (www.watoto.com) sites to get a better idea of their ministries.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Valerie Hulme

break my heart for what breaks YOURS