Munu's First Blog Post!

Hello everyone! This is Laura, blogging in Africa for my first time. It has been an exciting and wonderful first few days. I have a few observations/stories:

So first off, my airplane landed next to a dirt road. And goats. And Ugandan families walking along with their goats, children and baskets/bananas piled on top of their head. This was definitely not America. It was amazing though. To my right was Lake Victoria, which is absolutely beautiful. Also, since it had been an overnight flight, I had previously been able to look out the window and see millions of stars. This was a great start to my journey, I was so excited to see how the God of College Station stars is the God of the stars I can see in Uganda as well, and He is just as holy and righteous over here as He is everywhere in America and worldwide.

The next thing to notice is driving. The roads are totally insane and awesomely fun. Today a car came like 6 inches from hitting me, enough for Ashley to actually pull me to the side with very wide eyes. Here, cars have the right-of-way, not pedestrians, and the vehicles certainly don’t mind reminding you of that. And boda-bodas, kind of like mini-motorcycles, are intense. It’s like a high-speed adrenaline junkie game, filled with driving on the wrong side of the road towards oncoming buses, swerving literally inches around potholes that, if hit, would probably throw you a good 25 feet onto a hard dirt/concrete road and almost hitting those small children who don’t get out of the way fast enough. It was soo cool, and I’m excited for my first time to ride side-saddle. The women here do it pretty flawlessly, it should be fun to try!

On a more serious note, many of the people here are wonderful. The poverty level in Kampala, one of the more wealthy areas of Uganda, is almost unbelievable and it’s hard to not become disheartened. God has been so gracious to teach me a few things from this. The first was from 2 Timothy, in which Paul speaks of how “the Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely to His Heavenly Kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” I love how in the midst of suffering and pain, Paul knows that the important and everlasting thing is that Christians will one day be united with Christ, and that is such an awesome promise! The second thing I learned was from the people. I had the opportunity to sit down with three Ugandan women, all of which certainly have been in much different situations than myself, who encouraged me by telling me of how they know that Jesus deserves to be glorified and praised, even when their day was very difficult, enough to “make me want to cry”. They have hope through Christ, in situations much more difficult than mine own, and I loved seeing how He carries them through each day with such love.

I would love to hear from all of you and am praying for many of you as you embark on various adventures over the summer. Please email or facebook me and let me know how you are doing and how I can by praying for you more. I love you all!