This is My Prayer

This is my prayer...

That each would have basic needs met.
Every child a chest on which to rest.
Every heart and bell full;
A chance to go to school...

This is my prayer.

To know the love of family.
To see equality.
To know the end of war.
To see peace and love more and more.

This is my prayer.

That my joy will be complete,
Knowing God has met my needs.
To persevere with courage and with hope
Through whatever life may throw.

This is my prayer.

To be given a vision
For movement and redemption.
To serve and to save.
To boldly proclaim Your name.

This is my prayer.

To be completely changed.
Until I no longer remain.
To be the difference shown.
To be a transformation known.

This is my prayer.

I Want to be About More

I want to be about more.
Not sure of the life you have planned,
Have in store.
I want to be about more.

I want my eyes opened to things anew.
I want to break over the things I see...
Shape me into who you want me to be.
I want to be about more.

I want to be your hands.
To touch, to feel, to leave your mark.
To breathe with your air, to love with your heart.
I want to be about more.

I want to be brave.
Ready and waiting to take the next step...
Fearing not the width or the depth.
I want to be about more.

I want to be blind.
To the things of my will, the things of my mind.
Walking by faith and not by sight.
I want to be about more.

I want to be about more.
Not sure of the life you have in store.
Try to stand tall, stand bold.
Anticipating as your plans unfold.
I want to be about more.

I Am One

I am one.
But they are many.
Their smiles bold, spirits bright.
They are brave.
Stand up each day to win their fight.
They are strong.
Carrying on through all,
All that is right and much that is wrong.
They are beauty.
Honest joy, simple hope.
And yet they hurt, they need.
Each moment is a battle,
A will to survive.
And I, I am just one.

I am one.
Not enough to save them all.
But You are faithful to sustain...
I am tired.
Not awake enough to take it all in.
But I have been given a snapshot of all You are....
I am small.
Not big enough to do your work.
But You asked me to follow...
I am scared.
Not brave enough to take a leap.
But one step at a time I find in you...
I am weak.
Not strong enough to carry the weight of all I have seen.
But in it I boast to show You great...
Yet, I am willing.
Not enough for the work to be done.
But I am one.

6/8/09 - QUEEN ELIZABETH, UGANDA

Slept like a baby last night and the beauty of the world around me put me in a fantastic disposition. That and realizing this is our last real day in Uganda. Tomorrow we will travel and tomorrow night we will fly out. This is VERY bittersweet. I am ready to go home. Very ready. And not at all ready to leave this world, their people, my team of people, behind.

I could comment more on the wildlife. I could talk more about the 650 different species of birds found in Uganda. How the crested crane is never found alone in the wild and mates for life. Or the disappoint of many that we would see no giraffe on our trip, safaris and game drives because of the long and terrible reign of Idi Amin. Or I can leave what may be my last Ugandan journal entry with the only answer I feel like I’ve been given...

In my quiet time with God on this trip, I’ve come across a lot. More that I wish I would have written about in my personal journal if I had the time. But I was streaming through Philippians today, it’s one of my like top 13 favorites. And chapter 1, after initial greetings, starts with these words “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” I have to believe that God started a good work in me. And I truly believe, then, that Uganda was another small good work...one he fuelled in me from the very beginning. Made me excited about. Helped me fight towards. But, perhaps, the actual Uganda experience was only a piece of the good work God has in store. I leave my CCS Uganda journal confident that he who began a good work in me will carry it through until the day of completion...

6/7/09 – MBARARA TO QUEEN ELIZABETH NATIONAL PARK, UGANDA

Drove from Mbarara to Queen Elizabeth this morning. We will spend the last day or two of our time in Uganda as tourists. For a moment or two, this bothered me. Despite the many “resort” type places we passed on the way to our own destination, the streets are still lined with half-clad children and the wandering goat. Is it okay for me to be “living the good life” for two days when children a block away may or may not go to bed hungry tonight? Is this not what I do everyday in the United States? I am excited to relax and to spend time with our group for another day but parts of me still want the assurance that is okay. I don’t know that it is an easy question to answer. (Good, another one!)

But I don’t want to miss out the opportunity I am in, regardless. So, on any account, we are at a remarkably beautiful resort in West Uganda. The view is incredible and the accommodations more than just “ok”. Our game drive and boat ride to see the hippos and other wildlife today was an added treat. The animal lovers in our group are having a hay-day. Uganda has a wonderful array of wildlife and we were privy to much. We spent the majority of our trip with people and for me, at least, it was easy to forget that for as much as Uganda’s most intense beauty has been in the faces, Uganda is that much more. There is something breathtaking and incredible about watching elephants cross in incredible majesty in front of you. Something amusing about having to close windows to keep baboons which are indeed “that” close from jumping in. Something dumbstrucking about watching a hippopotamus open his mouth and realizing it is big enough for you yourself to fit inside. Something perfect about the symbiotic relationship between the water buffalo and the bird. Something fantastic about watching as some of God’s most impressive creativity is being unveiled before your eyes. Something humbling about realizing, again, for the millionth time, that God is so much bigger than the box I try to fit in him in. Including the box which says my questions for and from Uganda must have answers...

6/6/09 – Bubbles

Exert from my personal journal

The kids here love bubbles. Simple entertainment. One of us will open a container only to have a dozen (minimum) children flock. They want to chase, catch, blow. Mostly they just laugh and run in circles shouting “Come! Come!” As the wind blows them away.

I feel like I spend my life like these kids...chasing bubbles. “Come! Come!” I shout as I run around in circles willing the smallest of the most fleeting to be mine. But, if and ever I catch up with it, with them, I find it pop under my fingers’ grasping reach. Disappointment fades to my next ambiguous pursuit.

The thing is, however, eventually I get tired. The chasing exhausting and the attainment nill. And I wish for great things to fill my time and attention. The fascination falls to tears. When I stand still for just a moment I am no long amused, but empty. Need more in my life than just bubbles.


Longing to just be.

6/6/09 – MBARARA, UGANDA

I am feeling very chewed – but not spit out. Like a piece of Andrea’s day old chewing gum. I have lost both my flavor and my elasticity but yet continue to be the object of continual crushing. Being spit-out sounds like such sweet release! Maybe then I could make sense of all things trying to take residence in my thoughts and mind and heart. I should probably spend more time talking about the things I’m learning and seeing and experiencing specific to today and Words of Hope but “I” keep getting in the way. And, admittedly, I am really struggling today. Somehow the frustration of yesterday has managed to build...and it’s not even the same frustration...but I feel like I am going to burst. The warning light is flashing and beeping and something sounds wonderful about letting it all fly out and turn into something. Actually, this sounds like a great time to cry. I feel like my experiences on this trip have cracked me, but not broken me. It hasn’t been enough to leave me in need of being put back together. And it hasn’t been enough to make me cry. I am a terrible crier but my prayer was that God would bring me to the point of tears, to allow that for me, while I was here. With just a few short days left, I have to be allowed that escape. In the meantime, I just feel so discontented. The questions without answers are gurgling barely below the surface and I fear they will never rear their ugly heads in order to show what is causing me such distress. I can see pieces, shadows, but not enough to even guess the picture.

I am definitely at the “so what?” stage of the journey. I t was an easy question to ask with weeks left to the trip and days of experiences to encounter but just days to come up with a guess, I feel panicked. For all I’ve learned and all I’ve seen and all I’ve done and all the little ways I’ve seen myself grow, I’m still trying to come up with why it matters. I was absolutely insistent for reasons I couldn’t understand that I HAD to be in Uganda. I fought so hard to be here and now I’m wondering why it was so important. I wouldn’t trade in my trip for the world, but I am stuck. I haven’t don’t anything that is going to make any sort of lasting impression on Uganda (not that it was the intention) and I’m having a hard time deciding what has been profound and meaningful enough to really leave an impression on me. To REALLY change the life I live. I’ve been in Africa three weeks...so what? My family and friends will be excited to see my excitement but they won’t actually care. I can’t make them care. What if I myself have given up on caring? I know I haven’t but I’ve reached that level where I just can’t take any more in. I don’t know how to care anymore, it no longer comes natural. If I can’t naturally care about Uganda, right now, as I watch women infected with AIDS spend four days to make a basket that will sell for $2. As I watch dirty children run around seemingly without a care chasing bubbles in wild circles. If I can’t care about that...why should anyone else?

I’ve been trying to make a plan, give myself something to endeavor towards because of Africa. The list is short. I draw a continual blank. I want to be able to walk up to people and say “I spent some time in Africa and this is how it changed me...” I have decided, however, I am coming back. Before I’m 30...so in the next 8 years. Perfect. But I don’t know why. I don’t have a plan or a mission or even a good reason. I just know I’m coming back. Great, Anika, sounds like a life changer. I don’t know that I came wanting so many answers but I wasn’t prepared to leave having so many questions. Longing for something to easy my discontent...a peace that passes understand and an ability to surrender all I do not know and cannot understand.