Last week I moved in with a family that I met here. I am really enjoying my time with them. They are very fun Godly people and are super open with their house (hence me living there). There are also two other girls living there as well. I went from having hardly any community to having a second family. It has been very reassuring. It has been a very low key couple of weeks due to moving in. I am still getting used to living in this area of town but I like it way better. Almost all of the friends I have made live on this side so it is way easier to do things with people and my new house has a gorgeous view of lake Victoria.

 Life is almost back to normal. Elections are over and it seems like there won't be any more trouble with the different political parties over who got elected. It was safe enough for me to go back into town for the first time this week and it was so nice to be able to get out of the house. I think everyone else felt the same way because town was the busiest I have seen it yet. It took me three hours to get home the other day on a trip that usually takes me half an hour. I really should have just walked but I kept thinking that the traffic jam was just about to end.

 I had a good day today. I was able to take a new friend that I met to volunteer at the orphanage I sometime help at. God has given my friend a great heart for kids with special needs and she is planning on starting a girls home for disabled children. She was able to do some physical therapy work with one of the girls there who has cerebral palsy. The little girl enjoyed working with her. She smiled and laughed more then I had ever seen her anytime I have been there. It was good to see her with so much light in her eyes. 

 As for me, God has been teaching me a lot about trusting in his plan for me. If you read some of my previous posts you might recall that I am no longer working with the person that I came down to work with. I realized that I care about people more than I care about getting things done. I also realized that those two are way more different then you would think. When you are focused so much on getting things done you don't have time for deep relationships the people you are working with. You meet, you talk about what needs to get done, you go over your timeline then you leave and repeat the same thing with whoever else you are using to accomplish your goal. We are all different and God has a unique plan for us. There are people who are great at getting things done and thrive on this kind of work. I am not one of those people. So now I am trying to figure out what God wants me to do.

  It's a little hard having a life that is so up in the air. I am moving for the second time this coming week. Luckily I didn't bring much stuff so the actual move won't be hard. The last time I moved I carried my suitcase on my lap while riding on a motorcycle, which actually went smoother then I thought it would. The hardest part of moving again will be transitioning to another way of life. I am sure it will be great but it will take some getting use to. I will be living with an awesome family that I have already learned a lot from and I am sure that living there grow my faith substantially.  

  Another thing God has been helping me with is to be satisfied in the knowledge that He loves me just the way I am and I don't have to worry about other people's opinions of me. Due to a couple different things on how my last couple months have been I have struggled with feelings of being incapable and that I am constantly being judged for being naturally terrible at many things. I know these things are not true and hopefully no one is actually judging me but it is a temptation to think these thoughts. In general life has been a little hard but I would not replace these challenges that I have had. God is good and I believe that he blesses those who struggles with times of extreme growth and spiritual intimacy. Nothing like having no one to get yourself worth from to make you really get your worth from God. God loves me and he is more important.

If any of you keep up to date on Ugandan news…Unlikely though possible, you would have noticed that it is election time. On Monday there was unrest in the city center. One person got shot and tons of people got tear gassed. I also heard a couple people are missing. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have been pretty peaceful. Thursday was election day and since then they have limited internet access. No social media and a couple other things. Luckily if I needed to get a hold of anyone I have a program downloaded that lets me pass through the block but I only have a certain amount of time free so I will be limiting that until it becomes unblocked. It has been an interesting time. I have been pretty bored because I have chosen to follow good advice and stick around indoors despite my desire to see the action (You’re welcome Mom and Dad). I am staying with a friend and we “stocked up” on food and supplies… but we were bad at estimating so really were weren't stocked up and we will have to buy more stuff which isn’t a big deal, we live really close to a market and a grocery store. I don't need to be to worried right now if anything intense happens it is likely to happen after they announce the winner of the elections. If the current president wins he will have to and I quote “squash the opposition” If the opposition wins he pretty much has to overthrow the current government.  It could go smooth, it could not. Please pray that things will go smoothly and that I won’t die of boredom from being cooped up in the house. 
 P.S I didn't take this picture because I was smart enough to avoid town but this is what it looked like.

My time here so far has been interesting. It has been one of the times were I have learned a lot and grown a lot spiritually. I am not going to lie, it has been hard. But from the challenges I’ve had I have figured out a lot about myself. I use to think that I was passionate about getting things done and implementing ideas. It turns out that I just care about people. In my opinion if you get things done but step on the people around you and tear them down even if you have implemented some grand idea you have accomplished nothing. If you help people but they can't see God in you it is all worthless. No matter how much you teach a person trying to improve their life they are still broken and miserable unless they have God. It is better to be starving and know Jesus then to be wealthy and deny him. So with that being said I have quit what I am doing here, moving in with a family I met and have turned to trying to invest in relationships with people and pursuing God. A lot of the people in Uganda are very religious but they haven’t read the bible and they don’t know what following God actually means. They go to church and follow what the pastor says and frequently what is preached is not the real gospel. I am looking into finding people like this and helping them learn to study the bible on their own. 

I got to go to a village to work with one of our project partners Plan for All today. The are doing a number of things in the community. One of the projects they are doing is taking care of the elderly people who are living by themselves. Uganda has a very high death rate and a lot of them don't have any family left and have no one to look after them. Plan for All goes in and makes sure that they are living in safe(ish) conditions, have food and clothing. Other projects they have include teaching the people in their community about farming and using their resources. The area is very green and has great potential for farming there is also food that is already growing wild that they don't realize.

                                      

                               

God has been faithful. I am having a hard time adjusting to my job pretty much being all my weaknesses. Everything I have to do is new and not what I would do. But God has a plan and he wants me here so I will trust in him and carry on. In James 1:2 it says count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trails of various kinds. for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Its weird to think that you should be thankful but when life sucks but really there is only two things you can do. You can get depressed and focus on how terrible things are or you can dig into God and hold tight. He can get you through any storm. I have done both options and believe me life is the worst thing ever when you try shutting God out. 

  Today was fairly productive I got to organize some of the projects that I have been working on and I also got to explore the city which was super fun. I was lost inside a market for an hour or so which was fine because there was so much to look at and I had nothing else I needed to do. Once I made it out of the swarms of people it was pretty easy to get back to the apartment.  One doesn't really need to know where they are they only need to know where they are going. All you have to do is hop in a tro or taxi (which is really just a large van crammed full of people) that is going to your neighborhood and ta-da you are back to where you want to be. I have had a lot of free time since I have gotten here and am not really sure what to do with it. I guess I should start a hobby.