Missing Uganda

I am missing Uganda.  That is cazy, I know, because I just got home.  I can't explain it but I really miss it, so much!  I find myself looking at pictures of the orphans as I pray for them and eagerly reading the blog of a friend who is still there to gather any news and information about the people I met there.  I am thrilled to receive email from my Ugandan friends and hear about them! I am living differently because I have been there... making different choices.  Praying is more urgent for me and takes much more time because there are so many more things to pray about.  I read something today that made me say, "A Ha!"

"The hardest places to leave are the places God leads us to.
Because those are the places where you are shaped and molded into a new person. Those are the places where your heart expands, your mind is open to new perspectives, and your eyes begin to really see.
The places God leads us to are holy, set apart from the places we travel to on our own will.
But here’s the wonderfully divine thing about God: he meets us in the places we go on our own. When our sin or stubbornness or selfish desire takes us to places he doesn’t intend, he will not abandon us. He will come to us, enter into our ways, our brokenness – like when he became flesh on this earth. He is good. And present in all things, in all places.
But the places where God is present and the places where he wills you are very different.
When you’ve experienced both, you feel and know the difference. They are both special. They are both spiritual. But the life that pursues God will find herself following God, rather than God finding her. And these places where she follows God requires great faith. Because sometimes these places are new or mysterious. Challenging or confusing. Like going to a land you have never been. Or traveling to a city to deliver a message of judgment from God. Or carrying a child that is from the Lord, not a man. Or fellowshipping with a Gentile. Or dying a humble death on a cross…
…Or leaving a job with great pay, in order to take one that is more right for your family. Or leaving behind a life you love in order to learn how to really live. Or adopting children after your nest has been empty for years. Or stepping away from church activities and programs in order to be more available to those who need to taste and see that the Lord is good.
It’s often difficult to anticipate a holy God. Because his ways are so different than our ways. We want higher, he wants humble. We want fast, he wants eternal. We want an easy journey, he wants a holy journey. We want to fix, he wants to redeem. We want what we think is right, he wants what he knows is good. We want perfection, he wants a genuine heart.
His ways truly are higher than ours. The places he is going are better than the places we are going. So why do we struggle with saying yes? With being available? With joining him? Do we not trust him?
Do we not trust our life to the very one who breathed it in us?
The places where God leads us, takes us, pulls us aren’t always fun filled, but they are spirit filled. And it’s this presence of the Spirit that keeps us longing for those places, drawing us back to serve more, love better.
Africa is not more spiritual than America. It’s a holy place on the journey of people seeking the will of God. And that is what sets it apart. In the hustle and bustle of American culture, those holy places are harder to find. We get lost in our schedules and religious practices, and we find ourselves following culture and traditions more than Jesus. But our faithful God comes looking for his people, enters into their buildings of worship, hears their cries, forgives their sin, and draws them closer to his heart. But it’s when God’s people begin pursuing him with genuine worship, available hearts and willing hands that radical living, going and helping take us to those holy places where God intends us to walk and live."  Lori Manry

Preparing now for my second trip to Uganda... anyone want to go with me?  :)