Days 13 and 14

Wow we only have one week left, how crazy is that!!!!

I read the other day in that book that the Phillips gave me one of the devotionals and it was so convicting so here it is:

" 'I will meditate on Your precepts and have respect to Your ways' Psalm 119:15
The psalmist said that he thought abour or meditated on the precepts of God. In other words, he spent a lot of time pondering and thinking on the ways of God, His instructions, and His teachings. The person who does this, according to Psalm 1:3 is 'like a tree firmly planted [and tended] by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf shall not fade or wither; and everything he does shall prosper [and come to maturity].
The more time you spend meditating on God's Word, the more you will reap from it. The more Word you read and hear, the more power an dability you will have. You will get as much from the Word of God as the effort you put into it."
- Ending Your Day Right, Joyce Meyer

Love it :)

During my QT this morning, I read in John 7 and in verse 4, Jesus said "For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do thses things, show yourself to the world." I dont want to hide the fact that I am a child of God, I want to proclaim it to the world! So I've just been thinking a ton about whether my life truly reflects my relationship with God. What in my life obviously shows my relationship with God? What in my life needs to show it more? When people look at me, they should see God, so what needs to change for that to happen? How can I further decrease so He can further increase? These were great questions to have in my mind all day because it really made me think about whether each decision I made was really glorifying God or not.

Anyway, didn't get to post again yesterday cause the internet at the hotel was down (both wireless and plug in so there was no chance). And FYI so you know I'm not kidnapped or something, were going on a trip friday, saturday, and sunday to another national park and there will be no internet at all so don't freak out when I dont post (parents). hehe.

Yesterday the day started out with another breakfast at MUBS. (Side note - they have these things for breakfast called samosas. They're like a pizza roll thingy kind of and you can have veggie or meet and it's wrapped up in dough and fried in a triangle shape. I dont get why they have them for breakfast since they seem like a dinner food to me but oh well; they are the most delicious things ever. I got the recipe so I will be attempting to make them when I get home). Anyway, then we headed over to USE (Uganda Stock Market) to see how it works. There are only 12 publicly traded companies and they also sell bonds. But apparently this is good progress because they've been open 12 years and the New York Stock Exchange was open for 15 years with only 6 companies. Anyway, it was kind of interesting but everyone was still recovering from yesterday (our naps exhausted us, but really we were all very tired but I dont know why). Then we headed over for lunch and then we got to go to the Mulago Hospital.

We just listened to a talk about Aids in Africa and then they took some people on a tour of the hospital but I didn't go because they could only take a few people because of space so all the health sciences/pharmacy people went. They described it later to us and it's pretty crazy. Apparently there is just a big huge gym sized room open and a ton of beds cramed in there with no privacy at all. I'm not sure which ward they were describing but I saw a picture and there were so many people there (patients and visitors) that you couldn't even see the beds. The hospital requires that you bring a relative to take care of you while you're at the hospital. Why dont you read that sentence again and see if it makes sense cause it sure doesn't to me! I go to the hospital because I need to be taken care of not so my relatives can do it, haha. And I guess the pharmacy only has a few antibiotics in stock and thats it. Otherwise, your relative needs to go to the pharmacy down the street to get your medicine. Man am I thankful for American hospitals!

Then we headed over to a craft mallish area thing. It was 30 hut kind of craft shops set up in a circle and I went around with my new friend Michelle and she helped me bargain to get some awesome deals! She is an expert bargainer. It always helps to have a Ugandan with you when bargaining because otherwise they just give you the Muzungu price (white price) which is like twice what they normally charge, haha. Anyway, I got like all the suveniers I could even need there. Anyway, after I was done shopping, we had some extra time so I grabbed Emily and we walked around giving tracks to a few of the shop owners who we had bought from. After I gave the first one out, the lady called me back as I was walking away and goes "are you a Chrisian? Praise God!" and then she gave me a hand shake and told me she was born again and was so thankful for the encouragment of meeting another sister! How cool is that!!! Praise the Lord!!! You can be praying for her and her growth with the Lord and also for the other tracks we gave out that day.

Then the good stuff started. It was a pretty chill day ministry wise up until dinner. At dinner, i got to sit with 4 of the girls from MUBS and I started asking them questions for my research paper and we got to have a great conversation about what living out your faith looks like. Three claim Christianity and the other is the Muslim girl but she actually told me that she reads the Bible every once in a while and believes that Jesus was the Son of God and that He was crucified for our sins and rose again! (she went to a Catholic school so that's where she learned everything but her family is Muslim so she says Muslim when someone asks her what she is. She said she didn't really have a reason for doing this). Plus we got to get semi-American food (I miss steak a lot, haha). Overall, a great dinner. Praise the Lord for the great conversation we had!

Once we got back to Red Chilli, Emily and I had a great conversation about convictions and it was really nice to be able to talk about my convictions with another Christian rather then someone who looked at me like I was crazy. But I guess if I'm getting weird looks it means I'm doing something right. I will not give into my flesh and turn back on my convictions no matter how many weird looks I get. They are planning on going to a club the next night so we talked about that a little bit.

Day 14
Today after breakfast we got to go listen to a speaker about human rights from the Foundation of Human Rights Institute. It was a really cool talk to listen to! It was wonderful seeing the Biblical values that were in the Ugandan constitution.

Next we headed to MUBS for lunch and on the long bus ride gave Michelle and I a ton of time to bond more. We've been spending pretty much all of the time we can together since we found out that we're both Christians and it's been awesome. God is so good. He has brought us so close already and she is very encouraging to talk to! It's great to have the chance to be used by God to help sharpen her and what a privilege it is to be sharpened and challenged by her life! Praise the Lord!

We next went to TASO (The Aids Support Organization) where we got to meet a bunch of people who have been infected with aids. They actually preformed a bunch of aids songs for us about hope and faith in hard times and about raising aids awareness and support. It was really cool to see and Michelle actually ran into her sister there because her sister is doing an internship but Michelle hasn't seen her sister for about 6 months so that was a huge blessing for them! Praise the Lord for that!

Then we headed to yet another American restaurant for dinner (i feel like we're getting spoiled, haha.) And I sat with the same 4 MUBS girls as I did yesterday plus one more and I got to bring up Christianity again when I asked the other girl some questions for my paper. This paper is giving such great opportunities for conversations with people, praise the Lord! He is really using it a lot and I'm so thankful and I feel so privileged to be used by Him to spread the good news and help build up Christians! And in the process of this conversation, I was very much encouraged when I asked the girls something like "what percent of people would you say live out their faith everyday (not just on the holy days)?" And all of their answers were between 40 and 60%. Michelle was then telling me that there are a ton (like 45% of the people probably she said) of born-again Christians! She was telling me again about how much the gospel goes out here. Man God is just so faithful!!!!! I mean of course the country still needs the gospel to be shared but I wasn't expecting so many people to already know it and have accepted it. God is amazing :)
It made me think of psalm 96:2-3 which I posted on the 1st blog (and they actually read it in church on sunday, how cool is that!).

Anyway, then came time for us to leave and head to Red Chilli so people can get ready to go to the club. I stayed when they left so they're all there right now. People kept asking me if I was going to go all day (it's all people could talk about). It was hard because everyone kept trying to convince me to come and it's only me and three other people that stayed behind (and they all retreated to their own cabins so I can't hang out with them). So I get to catch up this blog (thanks to Emily for letting me use her computer while she's gone), spend a little more time with God, and chill in the cabin til my roomies get back. Everytime I was being tempted to change my mind, I would remind myself of my reasons for not going:
-Is this going to advance the kingdom in any way? Well not, it'll probably just ruin my witness to people
-Is this going to help my relationship with God? Nope
-Will my going show the world that I am a child of God? Nope
-Why do I want to go? Well I actually dont have any desire to go but my people pleasing flesh is being insistant. but i dont want to give that darn flesh anything.
So I didn't go (and I'm very glad that I didn't).

So yeah, that was the day :)
PS. this morning I made a list of characteristics of God and it was so good to be able to just ponder God for a while. I highly suggest it (even if you already have list, start a new one and see what God reveals about Himself)!

Prayer Requests
-that we will stick out as children of God
-faithfulness
-love for the people we are with
-godly character
-more conversations and boldness!