please pray for Hope Alive!’s second annual walk-a-thon.

Last year Hope Alive! held it's first annual walk-a-thon in a supporting church in the Midwest. This year, we are expanding the walk-a-thon to supporting churches and individuals across the U.S.

I am particularly excited because this year the proceeds will go to fund a health project I am coordinating for Hope Alive! - helping to provide clean water for our Hope Alive! kids in Northern Uganda.

The walk-a-thon will be taking place in the US on October 9th, but this coming Saturday our Hope Alive! kids here in Uganda will be having their own walk-a- thon to show solidarity with all those helping us in America.

This is a great opportunity to raise awareness for our brothers and sisters in Uganda, and to help bring hope in an incredibly powerful way educating and equipping others so they may have safe, clean drinking water. Visit www.thewaterschool.org to learn more about the Uganda-based organization we are partnering with to bring clean water to our students and families.

If you are interested in participating in our US walk-a-thon, please contact me and I can get you information on joining a group or hosting your own.

unaccustomed

One of my favorite pastimes is early morning grocery shopping. No, not like 6am grocery shopping...more like 1am. Safeway feels like a different store at that time of the day, although surprisingly more people actually shop in those wee hours than you would probably think. Besides the obstacle courses of boxes being sorted and stocked onto the shelves, you can practically breeze through your shopping list. (If you do decide to embark on a midnight grocery run, it's much more fun to bring a buddy along.)

Point being, even during the middle of the night I could still browse the aisles of cereals and canned goods, choose the best bag of grapes, and pick the Charmin toilet paper over the Quilted Northern.

This past week I brought a family to Kampala for medical evaluation. This family lives "up-country" - meaning, more or less, a rural village a few hours outside the city-life of Kampala where not a lot of resources are available.

The three children in the family all have Sickle Cell Disease. At 16-, 14-, and 5-years old, these kids know more about pain and feeling tired and sick than I have known in my entire life.

In Kampala, they went through a battery of tests. The middle child, Kizito, was so dehydrated he had to be poked 4 times for his blood tests. I squeezed his hand and told him that if he could be brave enough to get through it we would have ice cream later.

The kids had never been to the city before, so, even though they were here to see the doctor, they were full of smiles and wide-eyed wonder at the sights of the busy streets and big buildings.

The highlight of their trip was getting to visit Shoprite, one of Kampala's biggest grocery stores. The town they come from has nothing that even comes close to a grocery store - Shoprite is something they only see in the magical land of television.

The three kids, their mother, a friend, and I wandered the store together. I held little 5-year old Yusuf's hand and we went down every aisle, starting with beverages and ending with cleaning supplies. We stopped periodically to explain things to the kids - like how meat is packaged and kept in a refrigerated aisle - and look at the strange conveniences of such a modern store - like packaged vegetables and limitless varieties of cookies and crackers.

To look at their faces you would have thought they were in Disneyland - full of happiness and wonder.

Winnie, the oldest turned to me with bright eyes and said, "Everything here is so beautiful!"

We got our ice cream, carefully chosen cups of chocolate and vanilla flavors, but as we checked out, the kids were much more excited about each having their own yellow plastic bag with the red word "Shoprite" printed on it - so that they could show it to their friends at school and prove that they actually visited Shoprite!!

I've never felt so humble and honored to walk the aisles of a grocery store before. To me, it is part of normal life, a necessity. For these kids, it was a memory they will remember for the rest of their lives.

It was a moment that reminded me how small my world is, how enshrouded my thinking; because I have forgotten how blessed I have been my entire life...and how overwhelmed I should feel by all of those blessings, everyday. Physical, spiritual, emotional, relational blessings overflow my life.

"...you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given - it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral...

...If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you."

---A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To learn more about Sickle Cell Disease, go to http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sickle-cell-anemia/DS00324

Pictorial Prayer - 08.25.2010

please pray for Jimmy.

Maybe you remember Jimmy from a pictorial prayer back in February when I asked you to pray him after he had an appendectomy… Last weekend Jimmy had emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction that resulted from complications from his last surgery.

praise that Jimmy came through his surgery and is recovering well. Jimmy is still in the hospital; please continue to pray that he will heal without complications this time. Please pray that God would provide for his medical expenses. Please pray he would be well enough to go back to school soon.

pews

I accidentally went on a short-term missions trip to Uganda this week.

I'm sensing confusion in the crowd, murmurings of "But I thought she lives in Uganda."

I do. Let me explain, it's a great story.

Count back exactly two weeks ago and I arrived in Columbus, Ohio, USA, to spend an extremely short but fantastically wonderful 7 days with my best friend of all time, her husband, and some friends.

My exotic tropical vacation to Ohio was soon over and I found myself in seat 13A at 6:15am starting off my 30+hour journey by flying from Columbus to Washington D.C.. I was just getting in my normally anti-social traveling groove -- window seat, ipod, book, avoidance of any unnecessary eye contact. I had my eyes closed doing some early-morning-world-traveling-I'm-leaving-the-USA-going-back-to-Africa thinking when my neighbor in 13C interrupted to ask me if I was okay. Though we hadn't even left the runway yet, I sensed slight apprehension in his question that I might upchuck and not have the lightening fast reflexes needed to grab the essential barf bag. I assured him everything was A-okay.

The conversation was officially started by then. He was pleasantly friendly (albeit a bit too awake for so early in the morning) and asked if I was from Columbus.

Uh-oh. This one is always a bit tricky to explain.

"No, I'm from California, but...I don't really live there right now."

"Oh. Where do you live?"

"Uganda."

I'm used to odd looks and statements of disbelief, but his was different - "Uh, I'm going to Uganda, too!"

Story goes my plane neighbor, Dave, is a pastor from Columbus, OH, on his way to Uganda with a group from his church to work in Gulu. We chatted more, shared stories, talked about Jesus, and found more connections - like how there is doctor on his team and how they are going to do a bunch of medical clinics during the trip.

To put things on fast-forward a bit, their team decided to "adopt" me en-route to Uganda (much to my initial stubbornly self-sufficient amusement). Somewhere in the middle of the timeless space of international air travel, I got to talk "medical stuff" with their doctor. They were scheduled to do several medical clinics with only one medical professional on the team so I mentioned the possibility of helping them out in Gulu. Who knows.

Back home in Kampala, I had a boxing match with some jet-lag, but kept having the nagging feeling that yes, I actually should go and meet up with these people (uh-oh, I've heard that still small voice before...). Weird. I'm usually such an introvert.

Somehow though, a five hour bus ride to see strangers of whom I didn't have the foggiest idea how to find once I got there didn't seem like too big of a stretch...in fact, it seemed to make sense. They are my family in Christ, they had a need....isn't that how it's supposed to work?

I won't launch into all the logistics of their team and trip details (read their blog! http://www.sportsoutreach.net/?page_id=433), but I joined them and we did several medical clinics in bush villages, saw hundreds of people. Amazing. Overwhelming. Exhausting and energizing. Crowded. Sweaty. Holy.

At some point during my time with the Ohio team I actually forgot that I wasn't really part of the team. In fact, I ended up spending just about every day of their whole first week in Uganda with them, inadvertently.

The point of this story is not really the details, but the big picture. The point of this story is that, for about 2 weeks straight, I felt like I was in the best church service ever.

What, you say? I thought church was all about uncomfortable pews, and long boring sermons and old-fashioned hymns? And I thought Christians were those people who go to those churches on Sundays, and sing those songs, but are really just hypocrites who hate gays and abortions?

I think this excerpt by Shane Claiborne from "The Irresistible Revolution" helps explain what I mean (bear with me, just finished this book, so I'll prob'ly quote it a lot):

A friend and I prepared a video clip once for a worship service. Our goal was to capture people's responses to the word Christian, so we took a video camera and hit the streets, from the trendy arts district to the suburbs. We asked people to say the first word that came to mind in response to each word we said: "snow," "eagles," "teenagers," "and finally "Christian." When people heard the word Christian they stopped in their tracks. I will never forget their responses: "fake," "hypocrites," "church," "boring." One guy even said, "used-to-be-one" (sort of one word). I will also never forget what they didn't say. Not one the people we asked that day said "love." No one said "grace." No one said "community."

I grew up going to church, but the words that describe my early memories of church would be "family," "sitting on floor," "laughter," and "loving." I went to a "church" that grew out of a whole bunch of college kids who met Jesus and started meeting together to figure out what exactly it meant to be a Christian. We met in homes, sat on couches and carpet, sang songs straight out of the Bible, and never had a pastor. It didn't matter that we didn't meet in a chapel or cathedral or temple because we were the church. Church = people, united together out of their love for God.

So when I said that I had the best 2 weeks of church, I meant it...

In Ohio my old friends and I ate food together, talked, laughed, played countless card games, took walks, and listened to music.

In Gulu, my new friends and I worked together, laughed, ate food, worked some more, laughed some more.

More than that I experienced this church in the eyes and smiles and thankfulness of the countless people in the villages we met.

Another quote from Shane Clairborne, explaining the meaning of namaste, a word he encountered while working with lepers in India:

"We really don't have a word like it in English (or even a Western conception of it). They explained to me that namaste means, "I honor the Holy One who lives in you." I knew I could see God in their eyes. Was it possible that I was becoming a Christian, that in my eyes they could catch a glimpse of the image of my Lover?"

So when I said that I had the best 2 weeks of church, I meant it...all of these people - new friends, old friends, and complete strangers - refreshed my soul as we lived and loved and laughed for Jesus and about Jesus, together.

"Perhaps we are just as likely to encounter God over the dinner table or in the slums or in the streets as in a giant auditorium." -- Shane Claiborne

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quoted texts taken from "The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical" by Shane Claiborne

...and please do check out the Ohio team's blog: http://www.sportsoutreach.net/?page_id=433

...AND Sports Outreach, who led the trip (they're awesome!): http://www.sportsoutreach.net

...AND Silent Images, photographer/videographer team working with them (also amazingly awesome! You need to know about them!): http://www.silentimages.org/

pictorial prayer– 07.15.2010

(pictured above, the Ugandan flag flies at half-mast to honor those killed in the bomb attacks)

please pray for the country of Uganda and the capital city, Kampala, in particular. As you may have heard, last Sunday, July 11^th, twin bomb attacks killed 74 people in the city as they watched the World Cup final.

please pray for the people who have lost family and friends that they would find the peace and comfort only God can bring.

please pray for the people who were in those places and survived the bomb blasts that they would be able to overcome the physical and emotional trauma of seeing such an event.

please pray for Uganda’s President Museveni, that he would have wisdom and integrity as he leads his country through this difficult time.

please pray for the safety and peace of Kampala’s citizens. Since Sunday, numerous bombs have been found around the city, including elementary schools.

please pray for Uganda as it will be hosting the African Union Summit meeting in Kampala from July 19^th -27^th. Again, please pray for peace in the city as many heads of State and Government will be in Uganda during this time.

disambiguation

World Cup 2010, South Africa.

Okay, so I'm not a soccer aficionado, but it was pretty fun to be living in Africa while the World Cup was taking place on the same continent -- to feel the energy of each game, the anticipation of each elimination, and the pride of cheering for each African country as if you were one of the team. Having a TV qualified you to be a gathering place for passersby to join together in fraternity, whether you were at a car wash, a vegetable stand, or a sports bar. I don't have a TV, but when there were night games, cheers and shouts echoed through the neighborhood giving auditory clues to every save, miss, and goal.

Two nights ago, Spain trumped the Netherlands in the last game of the 2010 World Cup. Ugandans joined crowds around the world to watch and cheer for "their" team, but before the victor was named, three bombs exploded here in Kampala killing over 70 people - one in a Ethiopian restaurant and the other two in a rugby stadium about 2 miles from where I live.

"Six degrees of separation" is the idea that everyone is, at most, six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that any two people can be connected by "a friend of a friend" in six steps or fewer.

On the wall behind our kitchen table we have a large map of Africa. Almost every time I sit there to eat, I find myself studying the countries, cities, and flags. Today, as I looked at the expansive continent of Africa, three countries stood out - Uganda, South Africa, and Somalia. How radically odd that a world-uniting soccer game could be used as a convenient occasion for bloody violence marking political, religious, and military displeasure.

I'm not a great athlete, I usually lack the coordination to catch a ball thrown at me, and I rarely attend sporting events. But the language, action, and camaraderie of sports seems to be universal. Perhaps one of the reasons we, as cultures, peoples and nations love sports is that, no matter the particular event, there is resolution. A sermon I listened to recently talked about this: "[Sports] is the only section of the newspaper where the competition stops because someone actually won and the game's over. My whole life, I've been looking at the front page of the paper...and everyday I see - Israel and Palestine, still at it. The war never stops. Except on the sports page." Spain may have won the World Cup, but elsewhere, war still rages and lives are still lost.

Throughout history, war persists - between countries that don't share borders and within the borders of a single nation. This last Spring I visited Rwanda during the time that marked the anniversary of the country's genocide. I talked to survivors and read museum plaques that told how ordinary gardening tools were used as weapons for neighbors to kill neighbors and for family to betray one another. "The war never stops."

How am I supposed to think, to respond to this world and its endless tragedies and self-inflicted wounds? How am I supposed to speak comfort to my friend who lived through the bombing or to the man who lost his whole family in the genocide?

My only Hope is to make an introduction - "I know someone who, like you was beaten, tortured, and hated...His name is Jesus."

Isaiah 53:5: "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed."

My Hope is to tell them, "This Jesus, He SEES. He sees all the hurt that has ever been done to you and the people you love. And He will be the righteous judge to any wrong ever done."

Isaiah 3:13-15: The LORD stands up to plead, and stands to judge the people. The LORD will enter into judgement with the elders of His people and His princes: 'For you have eaten up the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in you houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?' Says the LORD GOD of hosts."

My Hope is to tell them, "There is coming a day when there will be no more war. In fact, a day when weapons of destruction will be made into tools of cultivation and provision...a day when we won't even have the plans or instincts to fight one another."

Isaiah 2:4: "He will judge between the nations, and will settle disputes for many people. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6 -- This is the Jesus I follow, the God I love, my Hope for today and for the future.

** Quote taken from the sermon, "Walking in the Light of the Lord With Humble Hope," by Erik Thoennes, Grace EV Free Church, La Mirada, CA. URL: http://www.graceevfree.org/tools-for-growth/sermons/#series_isaiah-glory-to-the-righteous-one

pictorial prayer– 07.05.2010

please continue to pray for Kizito (second from the left) and his family. His older sister Winnie and younger brother Yusef also have sickle cell disease. Pray for good health for the children so they can attend school and for work for their parents so that they are able to provide the medical care and nutritious meals their children need.

praise, that I was able to spend some time with this family to help them understand this disease and its care better.

big praise, that God has provided a hematologist in the US who has agreed to be a resource for me in managing these children’s needs.

If you think this is a strange and not-very-good picture, take a second look and notice the kid wearing the red shirt on the far right…that active kid is Frank (the boy with the kidney problem), who you prayed for back in April.

His health is doing well! His mother is very happy because Frank is now playing outside with other kids and feels well enough to play soccer – big praise!