I was planning on blogging about my trip to Africa while I was there, but computer time was shared and limited.
But, it's okay.
Because my heart is totally still there, so sharing my trip with you now is so good for me.
It's hard to summarize a third-world country. So much poverty and heartache. So much injustice.
(Children denied medical care. Babies who are dying, literally, because of indifferent orphanage directors. Child prisoners who are fed one meal a day. The injustice is mind-boggling).
But Uganda is also a beautiful, beautiful country, with warm, hard-working, open-hearted people. There's a simplistic beauty in their way of life, and my heart will be forever changed by spending two weeks holding babies, playing with orphans, and serving people living in poverty.
Here's a glimpse. For more, you'll have to travel yourself. Seriously - once you go, you'll never come back. {well, you might come back in person, but your heart will never be the same. I promise.}.
Really, really good coffee in the middle-of-the-night Amsterdam. The flight to Amsterdam passed surprisingly quickly, although I can never sleep on planes. I had a moment of panic in the O'Hare airport, that I am so, so, so thankful that I actually boarded the plane instead of running screaming in the other direction.
It took a bit in the Entebbe airport to gather all of our suitcases and donation conticos. How blessed we were to be able to take so much stuff with us to pass out!
Shauna, our fearless leader, and Love, my friend who led my heart to Uganda over a year ago, eating lunch on Monday, our first full day in Kampala.
Monday we went to the babies' home that will forever have me changed. I will forever hug my children tighter, feed them more with out any word of complaint that it's their 1,123 snack for the day, and always, always, always hold and love them even more than I always have.
Do you see the metal, rusted play equipment? And dirt? That's what these sweet children play with. The sweet children who wear, literally, towels for diapers. Who have food taken.away.from.them simply because the worker wants to wash the dishes right.this.second. Who learn to comfort themselves, because the comfort is not given freely.
I have always, always, always believed in attachment parenting, and I will forever be even more confident in that philosophy after seeing children who stop crying in the middle of the night because no one comes. It's heart-breaking, right? I have cried, and will forever cry, so many tears for these sweet children.
Through my tears, though, I have to trust that the Lord loves these children even more than I do. There will be sweet babies who will always be in my heart, and I will pray for them for the rest of my life. I trust - I have to trust - that even amidst poverty, hunger, and injustice, the Lord will prevail. That He will be glorified.
That He will hold them tightly in His arms, even when no one else is.
That He will love them, when no one else does.
{Pray for them with me, alright?}
