Hello
Everyone!
This is what I’m going to call an
‘In Between Letter’. The first letter I sent you all was one asking for prayer
and support because God called me to go to Africa. As you all know I went to
Jinja, Uganda and spent 6 weeks living with and loving beautiful little
children. God blessed me so much on that trip and I cannot thank you all enough
for supporting me along the way; whether with money or prayer, or both. In this
letter I just want to talk to you about what happened while I was in Africa. I
wish that I could post everything that happened each day, but that would make
this letter contain 100+ pages, so I guess I’ll just try to hit up on some of
the biggest moments of the trip.
I was beyond excited to leave for my
trip, but I was honestly quite scared about flying, since I have never done it
before and my first flight was over 8 hours long. Once I got on the plane with
Mariah and we started takeoff my heart skipped a few beats as the air was being
sucked out of my lungs, but when I said a few quick prayers and we started to
level out again I had a very large sigh of relief. The flights went just as
they should have, and we were even ahead of schedule in all of them. We finally
landed in our destination of Entebbe, Uganda at midnight and went through
customs and received our Visas. We were supposed to be the last 2 of 4 to land,
but Cori’s airline had a few problems along the way. It was 2 am before Cori
got to the airport and came to find us, missing all of her luggage except her
carry-on.
When we got to Jinja, our driver dropped
us and all of our luggage off at the baby’s home, when we were supposed to be
at the volunteer house. After unloading all of our luggage into the nursery, a
call to our volunteer coordinator at 5am, and reloading all of our luggage back
up, we finally arrived at the volunteer house around 5:30. When we received
about 5 hours of sleep, we were all too anxious to get to the baby home and see
the kids. So we went to Amani at 1 when all the older kids were taking naps and
we spent some time loving on the little babies. Once the older kids got up from
their naps they were excited to meet their new ‘Aunties’. We went outside and
played with them on the playground for about 2 hours before going back to the
house because of how exhausted we were.
The next day was Saturday, what is
usually project day. We got to spend the day with the kids and getting used to
being around and helping out our Mommas. That afternoon we got to go out and do
something really special, we took a child each (some 2) and got into the vans
(Moto-cars) and drove down some bumpy roads into the fisher village. We got out
of the vans and grabbed our kids, walked back in between some kiosks (miniature
stores inside a shack) and went to the water’s edge. We then got into 2 wooden
boats, and floated off into the sunset (Just kidding!!), we got to go onto Lake
Victoria and saw some of the fisher’s spots, a prison on the middle of an
island (don’t worry, we stayed a long ways away!), made our way into the Source
of the Nile and down to the walking bridge of Jinja. On our way back we went to
the other side of the Nile and were floating up next to a lot of trees, and got
to see our first monkeys!! The kids got so excited, we had to hold them by
their lifejackets and make sure they didn’t fall out of the boats into the
Nile!
Most people are excited to go to places
and just be able to check it off of their bucket lists. But for me, going to
the Nile was something so much more significant. Just the thought of being at
the Nile makes me smile still. A lot of people talk about going to the Promised
Land, which is still something I wouldn’t mind thinking of doing. But to me,
just thinking of all the amazing acts that happened at the Nile, and I felt a
huge sense of God at the moment it truly crossed my mind. It may not have been
the exact point of where it happened, but I was at the source of the Nile, the
place that started the flow of the water to where those amazing acts came
about! I thought about the moment in the Bible, Exodus 7:20, when Moses and
Aaron struck the staff to the water and allowed God to turn it into blood. I
was floating on a river that at one point, however many thousands of years ago,
had been turned to blood because of 2 men
fulfilling one of God's amazing promises, one of whom was placed in a basket
and sent down the very same river by his mother only to be pulled out by the
Pharoah's daughter!! How many of you can say you’ve done the same?
As I stated in my support letter, Amani
Baby Cottage is a home for children from infant age to five years old. The
children who live there either do not have families or their families cannot
care for them. While I was staying at Amani, my main job was to help care for
these children.
I worked in several areas while at
Amani. I worked in different cottages and preschool groups. While in the Boys C
Cottage I worked with 15 boys. Eight of the boys were between the age of 1 and
3. I would stay with these younger boys while the others went to preschool. I
also worked in Girls B Cottage, the 3-5 year old preschool, and the 2 year old
preschool.
A typical day began with a 20 minute
walk to Amani Baby Cottage. The on-site home for volunteers was currently under
construction. The “Aunties,” as all of us volunteers were called, arrived at
work by 9 am. I would then be at my job from 9 until 12 in a cottage or
preschool, and then with all the children until 5:30.
While working with the younger children
in a cottage we would play, read, and teach them songs. We would also play
outside. In the preschool the children were taught things that most children in
America know, such as what the inside of a house is like and about money. We
also taught them Jesus songs, Bible stories, and a verse per week with actions.
The children were extremely good at memorizing verses.
At 10 am it was snack time. A typical
snack consists of drinking porridge, except for Tuesday. Tuesdays are mandazi
days! A mandazi is a fried bread like a donut in a triangular shape. After snack
everyone would go out and play on the playground for a while and then preschool
would continue until 12 when lunch would start with the youngest first and
rotating through to the older ones. After lunch was nap time. During this time
all of us Aunties were allowed a 2 hour break where we ate our lunch and could
take a nap ourselves, do devotions, or spend time with the babies in the
nursery. After nap time was over the children got another snack of fruit and
then played on the playground in the compound.
The children took many potty breaks
during the day. We were always taking potty breaks and doing diaper changes. I
helped the Mommas occasionally with laundry if one of the other Aunties was
able to watch over the children without a problem. Washing the clothes and the
diapers is not an easy task. Unlike in America where you can just fill up the
washer and toss them in, you had to fill up one sink (since our orphanage was
modernized enough for good sinks), and then soak the dirty clothes and diapers
in that sink. Once those were thoroughly cleaned we had to rinse them out in
the other sink. Once those rinsed we stuck them into another bucket with clean
water to soak while we took them over to the clothing press. You then grabbed a
piece of clothing and ran it through the clothes press and tossed it into a dry
bucket. Then we had to take all of those clothes and diapers to the clothesline
and hang them up. Once those were dry you took them down. And just a little bit
of a shock for all of you; this happened not just once a day, not twice, but
THREE times daily!!
There was one particular child that made
a great impression on me. Every day I find myself thinking about him. His name
is Joseph. Honestly, it’s hard for me not to just start up a conversation about
him without saying “Joseph. That little boy. I love him.” He is honestly quite
the character. He just runs around the compound dancing, blinking like a
madman, and acts as if he is trying to eat you. He really has the craziest
personality. He would always kiss me and his favorite thing to do was swing.
There was one day where he took my hand in the cottage and simply said “Auntie
come.” So I followed. He walked me all the way out to the swing without saying
a word, pointed at the seat for me to sit down, and then crawled up into my
lap. We literally just sat there and swung for 5 minutes in silence. He then
looked at me and simply said “Auntie, I love you.” He then just leaned his head
into me and sat there clinging to me as we swung. After a little bit longer he
looked up at my again and said “Auntie, when you go back to America, will you
take me on the aero-pwane (airplane)?” This literally just tore my heart apart,
because I wanted nothing more than to be able to say “Yes, yes Joseph. I will
take you on the aero-pwane with me!”
When I think back to the day that I
left, I cannot do anything but start to cry because I remember just like it was
today – just how much it killed me/kills me to leave my children. I am again
crying right now as I am typing this. When I left the baby cottage that day I
literally had my heart torn in half and left part of it at the gate that I
walked out of. I cried the entire walk back to our house, with one of the other
volunteers holding my hand and hugging me the whole way back. The wound from
that day is still just as fresh today as it was when I physically had to walk
out of those gates. When I had to say goodbye to all of my children, and to the
ones that really understood that another Auntie was leaving them again…it
literally broke my heart. The hardest, but most uplifting part of that day was
when a few of the Mommas grabbed me into a hug and started to pray over me.
During my time in Uganda, I cannot count
how many God moments I had. We never knew what the people we would run into
were needing, or what we were personally needing. During one of the days at
work, I had a conversation with one of my amazing Mommas. I spoke to her
occasionally throughout the day because it was needed to take care of our
children, but one day I felt like I just needed to really talk to her. When our
boys were outside playing I happened to find Momma Georgina finishing up the
dishes after the morning snack.
I cannot begin to tell you how amazing
our conversation was. I was completely lifted up and had tears in my eyes as
she was telling me stories and talking about God's love for us and all that she
knows about the Bible. One of the first things she said to me was "You
girls, you Aunties come here from all over the place, especially America…and I know
that those flights are not cheap. They cost a lot of money. The fact that you
come here means that you have the love of God in you. No one would willingly
want to come to a poor country like ours when you come from having so much. You
come here and I have already seen how much you love God and how much He is in
you just from the look you have on your face and the love you have shown
through your actions with our children here."
I just wanted to cry, because I never
realized how much some people can really see God in us. We then had an amazing
talk about how our children are at the home because God has chosen them to be
there. God has chosen them to go through such bad things before they come so
they know just how much God truly loves them when they come into such an
amazing and Christ centered home like at Amani.
She kept asking me, “When you go home
after being here and doing all that you have done here, do you know how much
God is going to bless you? ABUNDANTLY! God will bless you more than you think
He could, which we always somehow underestimate even after He has done
everything for us.” She then pulled me over and sat me down on the table and
looked me in the eyes, and told me just how much God loves me, loves her, and
especially loves our children...HIS children!! After she looked me in the eyes
she turned my attention to the walls that are in the boys' room. On the wall is
the Bible verse of 1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light"
She then went on to explain just how important this verse is and how much it
applies to each and every one of us, especially those of us that have given up
everything in order to go and serve Christ at the orphanage.
We are a chosen generation. God has
chosen us to do His work because right now we need Him more than ever. We are
royalty because we have Christ's blood in us. This is a holy nation because God
is everywhere! We are His own special people because again, we have His blood
in us! By us coming so far to serve Him and loving Him with all that we have,
we are proclaiming the praises of Him who called us out of darkness and into
His marvelous light!
My wish for all of you, is that you will
know just how marvelous you are and just how mighty God is and understand His
love for us. I pray that you will accept this and take everything in. Christ
died for us who deserve nothing, all so that we can join Him in His marvelous
light! He loves us so much that He gave up His everything for us…so why should
we sit at home in our comfort zones and not go out and do His work for Him? God
has a beautiful and amazing plan for each and every one of us! Why, oh why,
would any of us want to stand in His way of what His plans are for us? I pray
you open up your everything and give it all to Jesus. Yes, EVERYTHING! I pray
that you may be broken completely so that you may gain it ALL! Please
understand just how special you are and how much God loves you. We do not
deserve it, but Jesus gave it to us anyways!
As the song I am listening to right now
says “I'm not gonna worry, I know that You've got me, Right inside the palm of
your hand, Each and every moment, What's good and what gets broken, Happens
just the way You plan, You are here, You're real, I know I can trust You, Even
when it hurts, Even when it's hard, Even when it all just falls apart, I will
run to You, 'Cause I know that You are, Lover of my soul, Healer of my scars, You
steady my heart.”
I know that some day I will return to
Uganda again, but until then I ask that you could please pray for me and that I
continue to do His will for me. I ask that you please pray for me to continue
listening to Him, that I might hear when He calls me to go back again as
clearly as I did the first time. Please pray that I may stay strong as I
continue waiting, and pray that I always know that I am exactly where God wants
me to be at this point in my life.
Thank you all so much for your continued
prayer.
I couldn't ask for greater family
and friends to stand behind me in all of this!
Jennifer Rose SladkyJohn 14:18
