I know where Peanuts do NOT belong!

So, yesterday was great. The short term team I am with is a medical team, but they split up into 4 different villages. Only one of those is the one that does the medical part of it and that’s where I was asked if I would serve by handing out reading glasses. It was such a blessing. I was able to help many to see clearly for the first time in ages while also sharing how Christ is the ultimate Healer that allows us to truly see! It’s also so much fun getting to know the translators. Of course, trying to learn some of the language is always something else…typically includes me being laughed at a lot!! Some because of how horrible it is, but the other part is simply because they are excited that I’m even trying!

It is always so interesting finding myself in the place I was for a bit yesterday. I think it’s safe to say that I’m pretty confident in sharing the Gospel, even in settings such as yesterday, yet I found myself questioning if I was doing “enough”. Was I explaining it well “enough”? Was I using “enough” scripture? I left that day just trying to figure out what that was all about and feeling like I could so easily slip into discouragement. I’m convinced it was the enemy. He would have LOVED to have me all defeated thinking that the message I was sharing wasn’t “enough”, when it is EVERYTHING! I was SO encouraged by the devotion that morning, too, and was trying so hard to simply meditate on it and he simply couldn’t have been pleased with that. It really is amazingly powerful. Jeremiah 1: 5-10 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” “Ah, Sovereign Lord, “I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, “I am only a child.” You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you, “declares the Lord.” Isn’t that POWERFUL?!! It just spoke right to my heart. It goes on to talk about how God then reached out his hand and touch his mouth and told him that He put HIS words in Jeremiah’s mouth. What a stinkin’ good reminder and an awesome encouragement to remind me that it has NOTHING to do with me outside of being obedient to His calling! You should now go and read all of Jeremiah 1! J

So, last night was hot, y’all. That’s all there is to it. I’m not complaining, just stating a fact. J It was a bit tough to sleep because of it. I know I already mentioned this, but it’s interesting because at home I NEVER woke up to my alarms the first, second, sometimes even third time it went off, but I’ve just been waking up on my own here! Well, by on my own I mean to the sound of the water pump lever going up and down and the rooster’s crowing…It’s actually really nice and way more peaceful to wake up to that than an annoying alarm clock beeping in only a way an annoying alarm clock can. We ate breakfast, had our praise and devotional time, and off to another village we went! Today we were welcomed with dancing and singing!! It was beautiful and just plain humbling. I have video, but I’ve been having trouble so we’ll see if I can share that with you or not. I did the eyeglasses again today and spend some really awesome time with the people of this village. All of the people I saw claimed to be born again and most all of them seemed pretty legit! I was able to pray for and with them. It was wonderful. Most all of the elderly asked for me to pray for the younger generation who were all involved in drinking alcohol and as a result have family problems, etc. It’s real problem that they were all burdened by. Could you please pray for a release from that addiction for these people? It’s a bit different here than there in the states in the sense that social drinking isn’t really seen. It’s a life altering type of drinking here and it affects so many as addictions always do. My heart broke as I looked into the beautiful, wrinkled faces of the elders of this village today. I had a good amount of time to TRY and get some of the phrases down with a few of the Sudanese guys today, too! I tell you what; the ng sound that they make in SO many of their words is going to be the death of me!! It’s like a guttural throat/tongue noise. I keep trying and trying but I still have yet to master it. At least I provide entertainment for everyone in the process. They are impressed that I can roll my r’s though. Haha You’re missing out!

So, we got back from the village and had a couple of hours to hang out, shower, and eat before our evening meeting and praise time and I decided I needed to unpack. I feel so much better now. I can say that I am beginning to feel more comfortable and like this could actually be my home for the next 4 months! As I was unpacking (and undoubtedly sweating off pounds) I heard this noise and looked back at the door and didn’t see anything so I kept going and heard it again to see under my desk little miss chicken walking around like she owned the place! So, I’m like great…I can’t kick it like I’ve seen many people do already because I just don’t have the heart….so I grabbed my sandal and shooed little miss thang out the door! She turned right back around and tried running right back in, can you believe it?! Haha…I laughed out loud and amazingly enough it made me feel more at home! So, a little bit later on I decided that some goldfish sounded good (they made the flights!) and I throw a big handful in my mouth and start to chew and they tasted incredibly similar to laundry detergent!!! I thought, “Great, I won’t get sick from any of the normal Africa stuff but from my poisoned goldfish crackers!” I guess they got too close to my soap stuff!? I don’t even know how that works considering they are in their own zip lock baggie. So, I get that all situated and I’m waiting around the back of Kaya’s home for the shower and I see that his wife and the kids are “plucking” peanuts (shelling them) and I asked if I could help. I just sat there and talked with them and helped out. It’s moments like these I love. Then, after about 10 minutes little Mike Congrove (the youngest little boy who’s 3) walks up and looks like he’s picking his nose. His mom motions for him to stop and then I can tell she realizes there’s something more going on. I’m literally just shelling peanuts watching. So, I’m thinking, “Man, he must really have something going on because the little one’s noses run all the time and it’s not a big deal here.” Haha…Well, I soon realize after she grabs him and puts him in her lap and she’s digging in his nose that she’s a bit concerned. Alice comes over and has a skinny piece of stiff grass and is trying to retrieve something from his nose while they keep telling him in KuKu to “blow” his nose. After about 2 minutes out blows a peanut!! I laughed so hard, y'all. We all did. (once we all knew he was okay) I reverted back to when I was a kid and my brother Jacob stuck a bean in his ear. Kids will be kids and boys will be boys….no matter where you are! J Kaya’s response when I tell him, “It’s all a learning experience! He wouldn’t be a boy otherwise!” So true. I walked into the conference room for sharing time and was very happily surprised to see sweet Norma!! I saw her briefly the day I got here, so it was happy to see her again! I am just so genuinely happy that she’s here…simply a mile and a half away. God is just too good to me. We had a great time of sharing tonight and then afterward Stephen who works for Water Harvest (same compound Norma’s at) asked how everything was going and I was telling him…and mentioned that my toilet was kinda gross. I was told I could just pour water down it and it would empty, but I tried and it just rose!! And let me tell you..I’ll spare you the details, but what was in there when I looked for the first time was nasty and old…and smelt of it so I made sure that lid went down as fast as it came up!! He asked I I’d like him help me because there was a way to do it that made the water go down. Um, of course I said yes! He was right…he got it down! Is it bad that it made me feel validated and less girly when he was just as grossed out as I was by the NASTYYYYYYY smell that poured out into my whole room when he got it all to flush?!! Yikes. Praise God that’s taken care of! Kaya actually came later and showed me how to actually get it to flush!! A simple adding water to the tank, sticking your hand in that water and grabbing a little lever, pulling up, and I’ve got me a flushing toilet folks! J Oh, and I found out my windows DO open. Hallelujah, praise the Lord…I will have ventilation tonight! J Speaking of, I need to hit the sack. I’m in for another wonderfully long day tomorrow. I think I might actually be getting to go out to the village to evangelize!

Until then…

Jess

London Pics!

If I couldn't actually see much of London I was at least going to get a picture of my by the bus stop we spent the majority of our time at! :)

I just love these.

We flew, and flew, and flew...

Hi!!! I'm excited about writing my first official blog from Sudan!! Isn't it amazing that this is even an option? God is good! Okay, so a few days have gone by, so bear with me on this post. I'll start off from the beginning and hopefully catch you up to tonight! If I don't get all the way through tonight it's because I simply can't keep my eyes open. Ya know, it was an act of God to get me to go to bed before midnight back home and I'm coming to realize that 9 p.m. comes here and I'm pooped....like ready to hit the sack, plum tired. Of course the fact that I just flew in from Texas probably has a lot to do with that don't ya think? :) Okay, okay...one more thing before I reverse time and start from the beginning...I slept through a funeral last night!! That's right...apparently I was one of the only ones that DIDN'T wake up to the literal wailing and drums at about 1:30 a.m. as a funeral went by. Did you know that they do funerals like that? Well, you and I both learned something! (It makes me think of the story in the Bible..i don't remember where it is...when Jesus joins in the funeral as they are walking...with professional mourners...)

So, I'm here! We got to Kaya's compound about 2:3o p.m. yesterday. (5:30 a.m. your time) Let me give you some highlights! It was hard saying goodbye. Really hard. I tried holding it together but when time came for me to say goodbye to my dad, the tears simply couldn't be held back. I was able to hang out for a bit longer with Mom and Jenn and then through security I went. Of course I cried with them, too. (Also, thank you Yannig and Gabe for coming to send me off...it meant more than you know.) I knew within 5 minutes of going through security that i was gonig to be a looong journey with my carry on's. They were WAY too heavy for my own good, but by golly mom, jenn, and I sucessfully fit every last thing we could in them! So, at the gate I met up with LaNelle, a lady from Ft. Worth that is one the short term team that was flying out of DFW with me and we chatted until it was time to board. I was spoiled on the flight to London by having my own row and getting to sprawl out and lay down and actually get a good 4 or 5 hours of sleep! Praise God! So, LaNelle and I had plans to head to Heathrow Express and join up with two ladies from Birmingham that are on the short term trip too to then take a hop on hop off tour of London. LONDON IS CRAZY. Plain and simple. First, it was freezing and raining. Not a big deal right? Well, it can be if you wait more than an hour in it for a bus that we find out no longer stops wehre we were told to go and hasn't sincebefore we even bought our tickets! Yep, that's right. Long story short, after walking around a while, taking a number of local buses and got to the actual tour bus we had about 30 minutes to ride around without getting off before we had to make the journey back to the airport. It is an interesting thing to be completely cluess in a country that speaks your own language! Anyways, no complaining here in spite of it all. It's the most I've seen London, so I'm grateful even for a chaotic number of hours!

(Insert: I'm sitting on my bed under the mosquito net right now...it's pretty warm in here to say the least and I have my door open with the curtain just covering the doorway and i can hear that it has started raining. That mixed with the sounnds of KuKu being spoken softly outside is beautiful. Of course, the smell of the rain is ALWAYS something I love...)

Okay, so I get on the next flight to Nairobi and I am literally praying over and over and over that the flight attendants won't notice that my backpack WON'T FIT UNDER THE SEAT. The overhead luggage was full and I just begged God to let it slide while also somewhat laughing to myself because of how mom and I literally JAMMED everything into the backpack. It went without notice until literally take off and the flight attendant, a sweet lady, saw it was sitting in the seat and askedi f it was mine so I told her it was and said okay let's just put it under the seat ( my heart sank) and then proceeded to be extremely nice and went to do it for me and grabbled it and goes "Oh, God..what is IN there?!" kind of to herself but loud enough for me to hear. I had to keep myself from laughing out loud. I then managed to do my best to stuff it on the floor in front of the seat and she motioned that was good enough.

I met Ben on that flight. Please be praying for him. He's from Ghana and lives right outside of London. He was headed to Zambia for business and will be gone from his wife and 2 boys for 10 weeks. It was very apparant that he was going to miss them terribly as he got his camera out and showed me the 133 pictures on it ...explaining almost every one of them to me. :) It was encouraging to hear an African man brag about and dote on his family. Lord knows I wasn't about to stop him!

The flight to Nairobi was pretty uncomfy. Want to guess why? Of course, the infamous backpack again. I was in the middle seat...and that baby on the floor where my feet should go and had my pillow (stuffed with my rainjacket and sweatshirt) in between my legs. Needless to say the men on either side of me didn't seem too happy. Oh, well.

We got to the Entebbe airport and a flood of emotions came over me. It's amazing the memories I have here in Africa already, even there at the airport. Joy, gratefullness, sadness, a bit of homesickness...you name it, I felt it. Over and over I kept repeating in my head, "I AM LIVING IN AFRICA!" Wow. This is my life. This is His life through me! It is only God that could have planned this...truly. I was sitting on the lfight to Entebbe and talking to God (lots and lots of this has been happening) and asking Him why He sent me here. Not because I don't want to be because I most definately do, but a genuine why here?...why now? His response to me...."Look around." So, I look around me on the plane and I feel Him say that most on the plane don't know Him and that for this time and in this palce He wants to suse me to change that one by one...for His glory. I really feel like He said it could be anywhere, anytime, but the time is now, for right here, for me. All I could to is to say, "Here I am. I surrender again...and again...and again..." I would be lying if I told you I wasn't a little overwhelmed, but then again I think I'd have to be cerazy not to be a little bit!

So, we got to Entebbe ...dealt with some minor things with passports, visas, luggage...I ended up having to transfer a ton of stuff into the checked in stuff that was going on the van since the MAF flight had weight restrictions. That was a mad frenzy for a few minutes, but I got it figured out. It's always encouraging to be weighed on this HUGE scale and be told if your are good or not. haha Kaya wasn't able to make it last night so we got all of our luggage this morning safe and sound, thank God! That is how I am able to write now since it had my laptop in it! Please pray for J, a gal on the short term team...her luggage never made it. That's always a bummer and inconvenient.

Aaaand the MAF flight was SO NEAT. Having never flown on such a tiny plane, it was a fun experience for me! It's definately not for those that get motion sickness easily though. If you're good with that, then it's enjoyable! Hopefully I'll be able to upload some pics and video soon!

Okay, so I think I'm going to call it a night. I'll update about today sometime tomorrow!

Additonal things to pray for:

I am going out with the team as I did today for the next few days to different villages providing medical care and of course, the Gospel. Please pray for softened hearts, for a clear message, and for many to come to know the Lord!!

Please pray that I will continue to adjust and that as time goes on I will grow more confident (dependant on God) with all that He is calling me to do.

Please pray that as I am asking over and over and over again how you say certain things that it will stick and that I will gain a pretty good grasp on most of the main main words and phrases. It's really fun...especially to see the reactions of the KuKu when I bust out with a word, two, or three when they least expect it! :)

Love. Love. Love.

Jess

Faith becoming sight..

Well, I'm literally about to head out the door to the airport. I still can't believe this day has come!! It has been quite the journey since God decided to whisper Sudan gently to me...and then SCREAM it loud and clear!! I've managed to create an art out of packing...we'll see if my back things so once I'm carrying the ridiculously heavy backpack of mine. Anyways, no time for too much right now but please know that I intend to keep up with this blog often while in S. Sudan, so please keep a look out!! :) I am overjoyed and extremely humbled to be the one to go and have every certainty that I could not do it without the love and support of all of you!!! Words don't do justice, but tinate, tinate, tinate. (Thank you, thank you, thank you!) That's my one and only word I remember in KuKu!! It's a start! :) Until I'm in different soil....

Blessings,

Jess