Wide awake

It’s 2 am and I am wide awake. I look outside and see snow and semi trucks and combines. There is no mosquito net above me. The windows are closed and it’s so quiet. I lay down last night at the beginning of the football game and woke up enough to walk upstairs. That’s all I remember.

Experiences in life are meant to have an impact in your life. Some are to make you smile. Others are to make you grimace. Still others you marvel at and say, ” bring it on one more time”, and still there are a few you will emphatically say, ” hope I never do that again.”

I have no clue where the past 10 days went so quickly. I smiled. I grimaced, I marveled and I thought to myself, ” nope, don’t need to repeat that moment in time.” I smiled from the joy and cried inside. I hugged children with runny noses, and had a little boy gently stroke my very white leg as he tried to imagine what my leg was I am sure. And now that it’s over and my job of finishing this book I started is at hand, I have so many mixed emotions. I may never go back. That’s totally possible. I may do it ” more than a few more times. “. I will sponsor another child. I will have mixed emotions when I watch our culture children focus on so many things that are so meaningless. I will shed a tear when I think of those girls who at age 13 were struggling with things in their life, I have never had to deal with… I will go through the thousand plus photos and laugh at the smiles, the goggles, and the photo bombers. I will look at the faces and know the stories. I will write, I will pray and I will cry. Those things I know. But what about my faith? I have made life about so many more things than simply faith. That’s all they have. Rice and beans maketh not a McDonalds meal. All the children know is it is hot and fills their tummy. I worry too much about me. Actually I love to rice and beans, but am I content to eat it every day?

It’s 2 a.m. and I am wide awake. I feel cleansed from a hot bath. There is no smell of debris, coal burning or boda’s screeching on the road beside the house. I have a pile of catalogues on the table telling me what I can’t live without and I look at them and think, how aimless and empty. For stuff is simply stuff and words are simply words. Until, you pack a suitcase with stuff and listen to the words of hearts far from your normal world, your world will simply be that: your world. We let ourselves be taken to A place in Gods world where the most important thing was life, love and we will never be the same. That’s how it should be. There should be things in life that change your heart to focus more on God. There should be moments you can’t anticipate and settings you can’t stage. It should be things that shake you up and challenge your heart. And if you chose to let God book your ticket and move your heart, you won’t wake up the same person. Uganda was an amazing experience; and now to finish the book so others can read and live the streets of Kampala, open the gates of FNC and let others see God working.