A Kenyan Christmas, A Ugandan New Year!

Hey everyone,
It has been a while since I have posted anything and it seems like so much has happened since the last time I wrote. I got to go to Eldoret Kenya and spend Christmas with the Leisters, all of them baby Tekoa included. I had so much fun and it was hard leaving all the kids and family but I needed to come home. I got back into Uganda on the 27th and headed for another camp the next day after church. Within one week I celebrated the two month mark of my trip, my 19th birthday, and the new year. Camp was really exciting and I got to meet another Mazoongo which is what they call white people. Her name was Anna and she was from Sweden. I can't believe that I have been in Africa for over two months. Time is so confusing because it seems like yesterday I was walking off the plane and yet it seems so far away. This week they are holding revival meetings at Ggaba Community Church and so I will be attending those every night at five. I am expecting God to move in great ways and know that he will. I got to talk to Ben Goodman while I was at camp and it was really good to hear from him. I have been praying that I would get to do some more training under him and that I would get to spend time with him out int the world. I have been talking with my parents and am excited to hear that Breanna Holben will be coming to East Africa, she will be in Kenya, in just a couple weeks. I am planning on going back to Kenya to visit her while she is here. I hope that she will get to come to Uganda and know that she wants to. I will be helping a dance group come up with some coreography within the next week and will start the dance classes next week. I am really excited and can't wait to dance again. I have been dancing in my room for the last two months but it hasn't given me my fix. I need to go all out which is hard to do in a small room. I am excited to see what God will be doing this week and this year. I made some hopes and goals for this next year and one of them is to step foot onto two new countries. I think that God may answer my prayers if I get to go on a trip with Ben and then go to India with the team from RCC in September. God is so good and I am realizing even more how Big He is and how small the world is. I love and miss all of you and promise to write again soon.


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Dancing

I met with Pastor Peter and I have an opportunity to teach a dance class for kids in the month of January while they are on their break. I am very excited and thank God for the answered prayer. I will be teaching them hip-hop and basic dance skills. Pastor Peter wants them to preform one Sunday so I am going to choreograph a dance for them and really excited to have this opportunity. I know that this is an awesome opportunity to share something I love with these kids but also to grow myself in dance. I have never actually taught a dance class all by myself and know that there will be the whole issue of language to try and work out. I am going to have such a great time and am so excited to do this. I think I may even teach some ballet and jazz technique and maybe tap or whatever I can in the time I have. I know that the kids will be in shock when they see what the will be doing because it will be different than anything they have ever seen or done. The dancing here is a lot different then most dancing in America so I think they will have some fun. Anyways I am very excited and can't wait to get started.

Camp!

I just got back from my first of three camps. I had such a blast. The very first day I skipped the game time and did tie-dye with the kids at the worship house where I stay when I am at Bethany. I had to make the dye from chemicals and it was kind of scary but it worked and the shirts turned out awesome. We had a camp fire every night where they would do praise and worship and then someone would talk. I woke up late the second day and missed the devotion which I was kind of bummed about but I still got to be a part of a small group. The theme of the camp was "Serving the Lord" and so Thursday night each of the groups presented a song and skit based on the theme and what they had learned. We talked about everything in the camp. Wednesday night was the deliverance night and Wow! I got to pray for a bunch of kids which was good but then after I was done I looked over to the other side of the place where we were praying and there was a group of people gathered around someone I went to see if everything was ok and had an experience that I really haven't had. There was a girl there who was demon possessed and we prayed for her. If you have ever seen the movie The Ring she moved like the girl in that movie and she started foaming at them mouth, she was screaming, kicking. We prayed and prayed but nothing was changing. One of the leaders there named Sahr, he is one of the Youth Pastors at Ggaba Community Church, said that this would happen to her almost every camp that he thought she would need to go through some sort of week long thing where someone walks her through some things. So I haven't seen someone delivered from a demon... Yet. But I was so ready for this girl to be free. I had been sick that whole week but I totally forgot about my stomach and prayed like I have never prayed before. I truely have never experienced anything like that and it was so challenging. Also I learned a bunch of local dancing which if you know what dirty dancing at clubs in America is like, if you are my mom you call it gyrating, that is basically a lot of what there local dancing is. But there is a couple different types of dance one is called Calypso and it uses a lot of shoulders and arms. On the last night I got to do Hip-Hop for all the kids with another staff named Ronald and one of the kids named Jackson. I had so much fun. Right before we did it I was so nervous but then the music turned on and I just went out there and danced and had so much fun. I may get to start meeting with a dance group while I am in Ggaba that meet at the church on Saturdays. If I do I will be so excited because these kids are so good! In one week I will be headed for Kenya to spend Christmas with the Leisters in either Kisumu or in Eldoret. I am doing great and am having a really good time. This next week I will be at another camp with older kids. I miss and love all of you back home in America.



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ARMS

This is something that I have created for the communication department maybe to use in the future. I am just happy that I can upload images! so yeah.

IT WORKS!

So I have been trying to get to my blog all week long but I couldn't connect to the website for some reason. Anyways, I have been a lot better after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was really really hard. I almost was ready to buy a ticket and fly on home. But I made it through it. My suitcase got stolen and all the bedding in Abby's (my host mother) house. Also they stole our dvd player but thank God that no one was home because they would have done more and much worse if any of the girls were there and since I was gone my computer and camera was with me. So I am safe and healthy and praise God for that. I will get to go to Kenya for Christmas and get to spend time with Josh and Rachel, and Horace and Phylis. I am really excited and I feel that the season will be better or easier because I will be with family. I have been working this week at ARMS doing some things in the communication department making brochures and using my pictures and my computer. I will be traveling back to Bethany for two weeks and I will be helping out in Camps. The first camp is for Primary students which can range from the age of 5 to the age of 13. The schooling here is a lot different from schooling back home because kids don't always start when they should and they don't always pass from year to year, which happens at home but not really at this level. So you could be 13 or 14 and still be in sixth grade. All that said I will be helping out with young kids and teenagers for the first camp. The second camp is the secondary camp which is High school. Then I will take a bus to Kenya and will head to "Obama Land" where Josh and Rachel live and will spend some time with them and then may go to Eldoret where Horace and Phylis live and may spend Christmas there and will head home the next day. I will then be back in Bethany for Senior youth camp which is University Students and Young Adults that are single. There I will spend my 19th birthday and New Years. After the new year I will have a short break where I will may get to go bungee jumping which I miss out on the first time. All in all I am having a great time and have been busy in a good way. I love everyone back home and hope to talk to all of you and oh yeah CONGRATS Brittney and Justin!


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Uncle

Uncle Large. That is how I was awaken this morning. Sam one of the little boys that lives in the room I'm staying in woke me as Uncle Large! Life truly is different when poverty has a face. Orphans have names and they know yours. People back home mean more. When I hear my title of uncle come from these orphans lips I think of Jame', Kamiakin, Kyleigh, Caedmon, and Addison. Do I love them enough? Do they know how much I care for them? Because I now see that it isn't just a title it is a calling to love them and live like my Father. Then the love that I pour out to them will draw them closer to a Father and a God who loves them more than I ever could. God I pray that You would protect my nieces and nephews back home. God I thank You that just by a simple action of a child I have learned so much. Just by two words my world has collided with eternity. These cildren are showing me love, I feel more than compelled to show them love back. The love of a father. The love of my FATHER!

About Feeling Rested In Chasing Awesomness!

So this is my first post since I have been in Africa (if you didn't get the title the first letters spell AFRICA). I am sorry that it has taken me so long but the internet is hard to find, and then once you have found it it is terribly slow. Anyways I have been in Africa almost three weeks. I have been in Ggaba for the most part and am living with the school Administrator of Arms named Abby. I went with Abby to a place called Mubende the first week and helped her with different things around the two ARMS schools there. After that I came home and spent two days in Maranartha School here in Ggaba. After the first day of working with the kids a man came up to me and said "Do you know Jenny and Ellen?" Having met so many people I totally didn't get that he meant Jeannine and Ellen ASSAY! So after I figured out who he met I got to go to Pastor Peters house to eat dinner with the girls and their dad. That next week I got to be a part of the prophetic conference that was taking place. I was a part of a prophetic group with the Assay's and a man named Deo who is a pastor here in Kampala and is good friends with Peter and even attended the Leadership conference in Medicine Hat. Anyways that week was amazing. I never have heard the voice of God so clear and have never ever gotten to speak into so many peoples lives. I thank God so much because it was only turly by Him that anything happened that week. Now I am back in Ggaba and am helping Abby out with some photography things that she needs. Then I will be traveling to Bethany Village (where the conference was held) where I will be helping out in the orphanage homes and helping out with a youth camp that is taking place. I want to thank all of you out there that have been praying for me I really have felt the presence of God here and I am at peace which is good because I wasn't sure the first couple of days if I would be. I love all you and miss everyone back in the states.