holy garbage batman

This is coming to you at the end of our third week of teaching in the village! It's definitely been interesting and boy oh boy is the time flying! I really can't believe it's only four more weeks until we go home and say good-bye to this place.

Well, teaching overall went well this week, but I am sick yet again...in fact, I don't think I ever really stopped being sick. I've seen the doctor twice and she thinks I have an amoeba, which is just a bug. At home I'm usually not all that concerned about how much I wash my hands or clean the dirt off my feet, but I've since learned that African cooties are nothing to mess with. What I have is definitely not just run of the mill diarrhea and puking , sorry for the visual. With being sick, I wasn't able to go out to the village Thursday or Friday yet again, but was able to go out this morning to work with the older kids; there are about twenty or so older ones we teach on Saturdays. All of the kids love the bible stories I tell and I think their english skills are improving, but I don't know. I kind of doubt my teaching abilities since I don't really know how to do it, but that's not really the point of why I am here. The point is that I am here to love them for the short amount of time given. I really cannot wait to tell anyone who asks about these precious kids--they are absolutely some of God's most precious...if you can say such a thing.

Things this week have been a bit easier; I have spent a lot of time focusing my attitude on God instead of how I was feeling or how things were going and, surprise surprise, I've found my outlook to be a lot more positive. I also do not feel as locked up as I did; when I was first here I think I was really worried about a lot of stupid things but I'm doing a lot better now.

Jinja is quite the place...it seems to always be crawling with life, except on Sundays. Virtually everything closes on Sundays, which is pretty awesome, not going to lie. The village where we teach is one of the poorer ones in this area of Uganda; trash makes up the pavement on the streets and kids run around only wearing rags for clothes, or ones that are too big for them. We've made friends with the guy who sells chapati in the village and so we'll start getting some for lunch, then going across the street to a small shop for sodas. Most of the people are friendly and inviting, but many do not have good intentions. Don't worry, there's always someone there looking out for us. ;)

For our service project on Wednesday, we picked up trash around the office in the village. As I picked up piece after piece of all kinds of garbage, I couldn't help but notice that even when it seemed like I got an area relatively clean, there was still more trash. Not only that, but it is caked into the soil, layers upon layers of it. While picking, I wondered if this could be used as an analogy for missions or helping people anywhere; when you go to a place to help clean it up, there's a lot of garbage you have to contend with, and even when it seems like you're making a dent in things, there's still more to go. The point is to not give up and know you'll never be able to clean it all up yourself I guess--but at least you're doing something.

This coming week we are going to be doing a kind of VBS with the kids. I'm really excited because it's the closest thing to camp I'll have all summer, and the kids here don't get to experience stuff like this very often.

Well, that's all for now I guess. I'm still learning, still going day by day, and enjoying every bit I can. More soon!