Listen to my friend Cass:

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I don’t really think that there is one single thing and one exact defined path that God has planned for us. I do think that he created us uniquely, that he gave us each gifts that equip us for something special, and that one of the best things that can happen to anybody is for them to be living within the way that God created them. I am certain that Cass was created for music. I don’t know what that looks like for him. Perhaps he is supposed to write songs, or teach, or lead worship, or be the next big thing. Whatever it is I am glad he is working use the gifts God have him, and learning how to use those gifts to bring a bit of God’s creative caracter to the world.

I also know that a big part of Cass’ journey to using his talents fully is to record an album, which takes a lot of time, energy, and money (funny how this stuff always needs money). Cass has a Kickstarter project going to raise money to record an album. He is trying to raise a lot of money, because it takes a lot of money to record an album. Here is the thing though, he’s not asking you to just give him money, really he is asking you to pre-buy the album, or concert tickets, or dinner or even a spot in the liner notes. You get something back for your faith in him.

So, yes, I’m asking you to give my friend money. A lot of people pitched in to make our trip to Uganda possible, and that trip is going to be a big part of Beth and I learning how to live our lives as God created us, I don’t really see much difference in Cass’ project.

But, the people who gave us money believed in what we are doing…that is a really big important part of this. So, here is what I am asking:

1. check out Cass’ music. You can find a lot of it to listen to for free on his web site www.cassharrismusic.com
2. If you want to find him on facebook and twitter ask him some questions or something.
3. If you like his music and want to support his art go the his Kickstarter project and give him some money.
4. The really important thing is to tell a lot of other people about the project. A whole bunch of people giving a little bit of money will get him to his goal, but that will only happen if you spread the word, so tell your friends.

Ok, thats it, thanks for reading.

Day 7

• We drove back to Jinja on this day… a trip which wouldn’t have been complete without a little time spent fixing the brakes on the vehicle.

Day 8

• We spent the better part of this day in the car on our way to Murchison Falls National Park. On the way there, we stopped at the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. I had no idea that rhinos were so scarce in Uganda. In fact, there are no more in the wild, but hopefully one day that will change.
• We were supposed to camp our first night. (In the middle of the park, surrounded by all the elephants & giraffes.) But for several reasons, that wasn’t able to happen. So at the last minute, we ended up having to stay at the lodge. And this is what greeted us as we walked into the lobby:

(Thanks to the fabulous Rachel Klemmer, who actually took this picture.)

• Trust me when I tell you that I was really relieved to find out that we’d be staying at this really nice lodge instead of camping. Ben was disappointed that we weren’t going to actually camp.

Us with the hippos. We didn’t realize that we were literally standing in the most dangerous place for hippo viewing. Hippos are the most dangerous animals…did you know that? And standing in line of their path from the water to the land is really, really not the best place to be standing.

Thanks to Courtney Wrinkle for the photo!!!

Day 4

• We visited 2 more villages this day & talked about water wells. The first village of Kagoma had two broken wells & we got to sit in on a meeting with the village & Kibo about a plan to get the wells working again. The second village we saw was Waliio, where we were able to be there as they put the finishing touches on a well & started pumping water.

Day 5

• It was this morning that I discovered that I have a mango allergy. (Which explained my illness from Sunday’s church service-we had also eaten fresh mangoes with our breakfast that morning.)
• We got to spend a few hours at The Source Cafe
• We drove about 4 hours east to Mt. Elgon, near the border of Kenya. Mt. Elgon is where the coffee that The Source Cafe uses comes from.
• On the way there several things happened:

1. Bobby’s Landrover overheated. Nothing a little water & manpower couldn’t fix though…
   
2. One of the lodges we had booked for the night had canceled our reservation
3. We had arrived later than we planned, and were not entirely sure that the lodge we did still have a reservation for would still have any food to serve us. (They were up on the mountain, and the food all comes from down below.)

• We stayed the night at the Crow’s Nest, which had a pretty amazing view of Sipi Falls.
  

Day 6

• We got to visit a coffee farm & see a processing facility that is working with coffee, maize (corn), & barley farmers in the area.

• Ben took a harrowing trip to look for a coffee research facility that afternoon (I stayed at the lodge) & ended up with what sounds like a terrifying ride, sliding in the mud alittletooclose to some cliffs. The pictures look cool though!

Day 1:

• Drove from our Guest House in Entebbe to Jinja. (We passed through Kampala, the capital city. Kampala was nuts! Tons of people & very little “personal space”.)
• Celebrated Kibo’s 3-year-long process of receiving their NGO status with a goat roast. Bobby so graciously waited for us to get there so we could be there in person to witness the goat sacrifice. It was hard to watch, but symbolic & a special thing for them. It meant a lot that we were able to be part of this celebration. Something they’ve been working on for several years.
• Exchanging money. $1 = about 2300 shillings. It was interesting getting used to using a different currency system.
• Kilombera weaving factory.
• Bujagali Falls (on the River Nile). We saw kayaker tours, and Ugandans riding down the falls on just a 5 gallon jerry can.

Day 2:

• Visited Bulyakawi, a village our pastor, Greg, visited with weekly when he lived there. They were celebrating the 9-month mark of this village’s Mvule Tree Project. We brought them a 50 lb. bag of sugar & showed them how they could use it to make a simple rehydration solution with water, sugar, lemon juice & salt to give children that are dehydrated from diarrhea.
• We also saw a stove being built out of banana stalks, mud from a termite mound, and a machete. A simple thing that is safer, and more efficient.

Day 3

• We went to the church service at Jinja Church of Christ, which meets in the building that houses The Source Cafe (among many other things like one of the first lending libraries, Busoga Bible School, & a crafts shop.)
• One of our teammates, Tim, gave the message during the service, but I (Beth) don’t remember much of it, unfortunately. I was feeling pretty sick that morning.
• We had lunch at Ling Ling, a really good & authentic Chinese restaurant in Jinja. It’s located at a petrol station. And it used to be called the Fang Fang. (I promise I’m not making any of this up.)
• Our team split up & spent the night in different people’s homes. We had the honor of staying with Haba (aka: Babo) & Barbara’s house. As a teenager, Babo lived with our pastor, Greg, and his family when they lived in Uganda. They were very influential in Babo’s life & developed a great friendship. Now, Babo is married & has two beautiful children. We were honored to stay with them & get to experience life in a Ugandan home.

It took several flights to get to Uganda:
Tulsa to Atlanta: 2 hours
Atlanta to Amsterdam: 8 hours, 45 minutes
Amsterdam to Uganda: 10 hours, 35 minutes

We left Tulsa at 12:20pm on a Wednesday
W arrived in Uganda at 10:15pm on a Thursday
total time from leaving to destination: almost 34 hours.

We were greeted to our first morning in Uganda under the shelter of a mosquito net-covered bed, to the sounds of different birds singing in the trees. I don’t know how to describe the sounds, just that they were different enough from what we were used to that I knew I was in a very different, far off place.

Here is a picture of us from the first morning. Someone commented that we look tired. You think?

Mixed in with our posts about what we did each day on our trip we want to have some post that are just reflections on what we saw, did, and learned while in Uganda. So…here is a first one…

As we were preparing for this trip I tried really hard not to have ideas in my head about what Uganda was going to be like, I wanted to go as a learner with no assumptions. This is of course impossible in the end.

It’s kind of funny thought the things that I found surprising or that I was not prepared for. One of these was just the number of people. Well, not so much the number of people, but the density of people. Here at home if we drive say from Tulsa to Siloam Springs you never see anyone walking on the side of the road. Well, unless they ran out of gas or something like that. In Uganda you see hundreds of people walking or riding bikes just going about their daily lives. There would be small markets and houses almost the whole way.

So, just for comparison because it seems interesting (all these stats are from various Internet sources and are probably rounded off, but you get the idea):

Population:

• United States: 309 million
• Oklahoma: 3,500,000
• Tulsa: 400,000
• Uganda: 33.8 Million
• Kampala: 1,600,00

Density:

• United States: 87/mile2
• Oklahoma: 54/mile2
• Tulsa 2100/mile2
• Uganda: 438/mile2
• Kampala: 24,500/mile2

I think partly this density of population struck me because I value solitude, some of my favorite things to do involve getting far away from people and cities…so i would not be a good Ugandan! There are of course consequences (good and bad) to high population density, and I hope as I learn more about Uganda and Africa in general I will come to understand those better. But, while I was there driving around I think the amazing thing was to wonder and try to in some way imagine the stories of the people that we saw. Their lives are obviously very different from ours, but in the end I’m not so sure that the basic concerns of life…the basics of our story as broken people trying to live in a broken world are so different. Our friend Sara Swenson has a great song worth quoting (I left out a few verses..find the full lyrics here, better yet just buy the album):

Passing Cars, Passing Time

Written by Sara Swenson ©2010 S. Swenson Songs/ASCAP

I…I don’t know you
But we seem to be rolling the same way today
And you …you may ask who
Drives beside you on this long highway

…

Tires moving round and round
Destination next town
Thinking hard and moving on
Making plans for life beyond

And I…I don’t know you
But we seem to be rolling the same way today
And you …you may ask who
Drives beside you on this long highway

A billion thoughts, a million miles
A thousand stories on this road
A billion thoughts, a million miles

I…I don’t know you
But we seem to be rolling the same way today
You …you may ask who
Drives beside you on this long highway
Drives beside you on this long highway

There are all these stores of people, in the car next to you, or in a country all the way around the world. Its impossible to know them all (for the record world: population: 6.79 billion, density: 118/mile2), but I am more convinced then ever that it is worth doing your best to hear a few of them.

Alright, so most of you know that by now we are back home, safe & sound. We have been back for what feels like a really, really long week. When I mentioned that to Ben on Friday night, he reminded me that it really HAS been a really, really long week for us.

We started our in Amsterdam on Sunday: 7 hours ahead of us here in Central Daylight Time. And I (Beth) have been feeling the jet-lag this week. Ben has been adjusting faster.

And we know that you’re itching to hear from us about what we did, saw & discovered while we were gone.

Oh, and let’s just admit that many of you are waiting to see some of Ben’s pictures/video from the trip.

So here’s how we’re going to do this: We are going to give a little highlight reel from our trip, giving you a picture of what each day looked like. But we want to know what specific things you’re interested in hearing about.

And honestly, it’s REALLY overwhelming to answer “How was your trip?” I mean, we’ve walked the African clay & the rain-soaked streets of Amsterdam (& a LOT of places in between) in the past few weeks.

So in the comments, or in an email send us your questions. What specific things we have talked about intrigue you & leave you wanting more info from us. That will help us go deeper into reflecting on this trip, and it will help narrow down that surprisingly daunting question.

So, this is us in the airport in Tulsa, getting ready to leave. Excited, and eager to get on our way.

This is a picture from our last day in Uganda with our group. That’s the Nile you see behind us.

Things that have been occupying my mind lately:

- I think the foreign languages filling the air around me have been muted by my head, because I don’t notice them as much anymore.

- I wish I knew some German.

- Is walking around on my foot going to make what I think is a stress fracture even worse?

- How do I stand in places like this one and fully appreciate where I am and what I am seeing?

To tide you over until we get home & can put up some pictures, please take a few minutes to read through Courtney’s reflections on her blog. She has done a GREAT job of recording our trip!!!

http://tsucourt.blogspot.com/

Special thanks to her for this quintessential picture of Ben. In the village, the kids really did flock to us like this & I couldn’t help but think, “Wow…this really does happen!”

(These reflections may be a bit out of order, but it has been hard to just sit down & write about different things from our trip. So know that I have a few quiet minutes in front of a computer to write some reflections, I will just write what comes. And when we return we will add some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.)

We saw so much during our time in Africa.

We visited a few villages, where we spent some time observing villages & meetings they were having about water well projects, building stoves out of mud & banana tree stems (very, very cool!), and enjoying some really fabulous & generous portions of traditional Ugandan dishes like posho & beans, rice & beans, & chicken. (One of the craziest things about being in the village to me was these meetings about repairing broken water wells being interrupted by cell phone rings. Apparently, even in the remote parts of Uganda they have pretty amazing cell phone coverage…) Crazy.

We saw some of daily life in Jinja & drove through some CRAZY traffic & pace of life in Kampala (the capital.) Where the most used modes of transportation are boda bodas (motorbikes or bicycles) & 15 passenger vans. (that tend to transport more than what you might think would fit in a van that size.)

And we even got to go on Safari…complete with wild animal sightings like giraffes, elephants, warthogs, hippos, and even 2 sleeping lions! Very cool.

Currently we are in Germany, staying with Brandy & Sammy-one of my college roommates. After 9 years of her living here it is wonderful to be in her home, seeing her live daily life as a wife & mother!