Homesickness Defeated!

It’s been almost four weeks since I left Eugene, and my first bout of homesickness is now over. It was kind of a lingering thought in the back of my mind as I was still settling in here. Time with my host family was sometimes good, and sometimes awkward. My time with Masaka Elders (the host organization I’m working with) was sometimes good, and sometimes boring. The food, weather, people, etc. here was sometimes good, and sometimes not so much. And all the while, I was longing for community and fellowship. I was longing for my family and friends. I was longing to be home. But the Lord had bigger things in mind.

I want to thank all of you who have been praying for me, as a number of prayers have been answered. First off, I’ve started to bond with my host family, which can be attributed to two things: soccer and dancing. It’s been fun to watch the soccer matches with the brothers in the family, and fun to banter back and forth about sports with them. I know, big surprise: sports made me feel more at home. But secondly, there was an impromptu mini dance party in the village last week that was absolutely hilarious. I’ll try to post pictures when I get the chance. The brothers here own a video library (small movie store), and they are always playing music there. So one night after work, they had been talking about seeing me dance, and teaching me to dance “Uganda style.” So I said sure (I mean come on, who doesn’t like to dance?). And what ensued was beyond my imagination. Not only were there about 20 members from the community standing outside the door watching (“Hey, there’s a mzungu dancing. Come check this out!”), but a bunch of little kids came in and started dancing, too. And it’s one thing to watch kids dance, because it’s funny and cute. But no joke, these kids could move! So I left the “dance floor,” ran back home and grabbed my camera, and got a bunch of great pictures of these kids. The whole night was just a great opportunity for me to kind of come out of my “trying to be respectful in a new culture” shell and for the family to get to see a different side of me. So long story short, time with the family has been great, and it’s been fun to start to actually have some relationships with them, not just saying, “Hi, how was your day.”

Secondly, my role with Masaka Elders has started to be more defined. I finished my work plan this week, so now I have a guide of what projects I’ll be working on for the next 14 weeks. It’s been great to go out into the field with the staff and meet the clients. I’ll probably write a separate post about all of this, but suffice it to say there are some very poor people in Uganda. And since I have a better idea of what my time will look like here, I feel more productive and useful. I feel like I’m actually here for a purpose now.

Thirdly, and maybe most important, I’ve been able to find fellowship here, albeit not in the way I would have guessed. Last week, I met three Canadians from Vancouver who are here building a secondary school. They are also Christians, and so I went to the church they attend on Sunday. It was a pretty decent service, and I was able to understand most of what was being said (which was a far cry from my first experience at a Pentecostal church here … the speaker didn’t really allow the translator time to, you know, actually translate). It was great to be able to talk to them and relate to them on a different level than most other ‘mzungus’ here that I’ve met. So I’m excited to be able to hang out with them in the next few months.

But just in the last couple days, I’ve been even more encouraged. On Sunday evening, I met two women (again from Canada) who were volunteering with the Uganda Cooperative Alliance. They were just here for about two weeks working with different SACCOs in the area (SACCO = Savings and Credit Cooperative … another name for a microfinance organization). One woman is a Christian, but her co-worker is not. Over the course of our conversation, the other woman was impressed by my sincerity and genuineness. She had some pretty negative thoughts about Christianity, but apparently those were being challenged. I found this out on Tuesday when I saw the Christian woman, named Ruth, at the internet cafe I go to. She wanted me to be encouraged that though I might not know it, Christ's light was shining through me. And encourage me, she certainly did. It was also great to talk with her for a while and again, be able to relate on a different level than with most people I’ve met so far. Now this is not a prideful proclamation that I am doing the work of God, but a humble acknowledgement that the Lord is working through me. I am blessed to be used as a vessel for His greater purposes, and I am excited to see what all He has in store for me in the coming months!