Back to the grindstone

It almost seems like last week didn't happen now - today was so normal, it's odd to think that this time last week I was chatting away to some Leeds medics I met in the hostel in Kampala, excited about the prospect of actually going on safari!

The trip itself was pretty amazing - we saw everything, from birds (Uganda's national bird, the crested crane, and also some neon-bright red, blue and yellow small birds) to small mammals like baboons, warthogs and different deer and antelope species, to the big ones - we saw lots of giraffes, buffalo and hippos, a few elephants and even lions! No prizes for guessing which were my favourite....i just loved the way that wild buffalo behave EXACTLY the same as domestic cattle - whether we were in a car or on a boat when we passed them by, they stopped what they were doing to stare blankly at us until we'd gone. I wondered if it was us humans who were on safari, or the buffalo! Most of the animals were happy to look at us and allow us to take their photos when we stopped, and some of the giraffes even came up to the car and stood to pose for us - I always thought of them as aloof and serene in zoos, but somehow expected them to be a bit scattier in the wild!

What made the whole safari trip even better was getting to share it with Katy, her mum and sister, and Kerryn who's sorting out the accounts at the national office - it was great to get to know Katy's family a bit, and to spend more time with Kerryn - she's even more fun than I realised, she did my "funny run" with me!!! (if you don't know what that is yet, i challenge you to join in with me in my hyper moods - it's been a while since i found someone to do it with me!) We all stayed in Kampala an extra night after we got back, and saw Indiana Jones at the cinema - bit of a weird jump from the heart of Africa back into the western world in the space of one day!

The animal adventures continued as I caught up with the DTS team in Mbarara - Guy and Penny, 2 of my friends, decided on the spur of the moment to buy two chicks from the brood they'd seen just down the road from their house, and within 20 minutes all the girls were cooing over Cleopatra and "Men" as the babies were interestingly named (apparently one looks like an Egyptian Pharaoh but is too feminine to have that name, and the name "Men" came from what Geoffrey calls Guy instead of "Man"...i'm sure i've just made that clear as mud to you all :-p ) If only I hadn't lost my camera cable, then I could upload the photos...sadly, it's one of the most exciting things that's happened recently!!

I really didn't want to go back to Mbiko today and have to carry on as normal, but it was quite a fun day in the end - I think I'm getting used to my celebrity muzungu status, and it's almost normal now to be randomly invited into someone's house for a soda and biscuits/cake (even though the only person who gets to eat and drink is the guest, and the others sit around watching your every move as if you're some fascinating new species) I'm definitely glad it's only another 2 or 3 days of ministry here, as I'm quite tired of it all now and am ready to move on....Soroti here we come!!!

Snakes in the bed!!

Ok, so I'm being overly dramatic...but we had a bit of an exciting day on Saturday when Rachel came back from her holiday week in town - she saw a long, thin green snake disappearing under our locked door and into our bedroom! Our friend John was luckily around, and he spent a good half hour poking through everything (and I mean everything...it took much longer than that half hour to put things back again...) with a mop handle, but even after lifting off the sheets from the beds, pulling out everything from under the beds and shelves and poking through the stuff inside my suitcases, he couldn't find it...so he proceeded to light a fire on the floor to smoke it out. So now we had a snake AND a fire in our room. Great! It did work though - it came out and he caught it climbing up a bookshelf....turns out it was a green mamba. Just as well Rachel was there to see it come in - no matter how harmless they are when you leave them alone, I'm not sure it would have been so much fun to wake up with it under my pillow!

That was my exciting story for the week - I'm afraid life really isn't that interesting all the time! I spend a lot of time asking myself why I'm here when I don't seem to be doing much, and things finally came clear enough to put into words when I read an old email from one of my friends just an hour or so ago (sorry to all of you whose emails are still lying unread in my inbox...I found a load from Feb and have read most of those now, but then I found a few more from September!!! oops...)

I think so many people are really challenged by those of us who are "brave" enough to venture into Africa, Asia or some other third world place. You might think we're doing these amazing things, but in reality all we're doing is living life in the place we've been called to - yes, there are some amazing things we get to see and exciting experiences we get to have, but we're no better people than the rest who stay home! It's not only the overseas missionaries who are living their lives for God - every Christian is witnessing to those around them in the place God has positioned them, whether that's the town they were born in, or an unexplored rainforest. When I look at my life here, I see days filled with boring meetings, making necklaces and fighting with computers...and evenings of washing up, playing cards, reading or watching a movie. Sound familiar?! Life is just life wherever you are. But if that's what God has told me to do, it's enough! That's what it always comes back to - I just have to do what He tells me to do, nothing more, nothing less. Even Jesus said that He did nothing other than what the Father told Him to do. We were reminded of that as a base, when we had some teaching on intercession a couple of weeks ago. Even in intercession, we should only pray for whatever God wants us to pray for - so much of the time we waste our efforts praying for things we feel we should pray for, and we can get just as overwhelmed by all the need for prayer as we do by all the physical need there is in the world. But if we just ask God what He wants us to pray for, He'll tell us! Now, why can't I just remember that more often? I'd save myself a lot of stress and unnecessary worrying that i'm not doing enough or not praying enough if I remembered that all God wants of me is that I act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him.