Uganda Calling

I know I wrote about this in the fall but I am going to Africa soon. In less than two months I will be sleeping in a tent in a remote village, devoid of all technology (I expect to have full on withdrawal symptoms from lack of iPad!!!) with 20 senior high kids and 6 other adults. Most of whom are under 30. I am the senior citizen of the group. Why am I going? Well now that's a great question. All I can tell you so far is because God spoke and that was pretty much that! It's just like that camp song says " I will go Lord. If you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart." I think it's called "Here Am I Lord".

Though I don't know the exact reason I have been called to go, I am beginning to have some inkling. At first I thought it was so that I could keep everyone healthy. I am the only medical person going along. And that will certainly be something I will do. But there is a personal "for me only reason" God has called me to go. I am certain of that. And what I know is that He will reveal that thru the experience of it. So I have been content to wait and see....

This Sunday we began some in depth training with the group out of Nashville who are our leaders and will be with us in country. The leader - a young guy named Greg, looked more like a Hispanic gang member than a seasoned missionary with over 200 trips to Africa under his belt. He joked that when he walks past women on the streets they pull their purses to the other side! But as He spoke, and as his soul opened up, and as he expressed his love of Christ, my own soul began to stir. And what I realized is that though by age, gender, race,
etc, I seemed to have nothing in common with this young man, yet I had everything important in common with him. When you shed all the externals and become just who you are in Christ you find that all those who seem so different are really just brothers and sisters you don't yet know. That was his point about the Ugandan villagers we will be living among and worshipping with. We are all children of the King. We are more similar than dissimilar.

The other thing that I have begun to be acutely aware of is that this trip is The Final Straw for me. God has been very busy breaking me down over the past year or so. What I mean is that He has been stripping me. Of my independent streak. Of my need to fix things. Of my desire for control. Of my need to exert my own will. Of my material desires to a large extent. Of my focus on the things of this world. He has been replacing them one by one with other priorities. I can sense, I just know somehow, that this trip will be His final act in this
work He has begun in me. Not that He is ever done tweaking us as His vessels. But somehow I just sense that this is the final stage of my major remodel. What I have no idea of, is the implications of that. And frankly, it is more than just a little scary. There are already plenty of days when I feel like a stranger even to myself. What must I seem like to those closest to me? I haven't had the courage to ask.....

So I wait. Hopefully expectant. Anxious at the same time. What is waiting for me on the other side of the Atlantic? What might God be asking of me as a result of what He intends to show me and teach me? What might it cost me? What will be the outcome of Uganda calling? Stay tuned for more journal entries. I intend to write every day while I am away. Trip starts July 6 th......Shalom!