Well, no better place to start then the begining.
I wound up here in this spot simply just wanting to help. God pretty much tugged at my heart, and tugged again at my heart and before you knew it, I was giving a deposit and doing some fundraising to go.
This is a unique oppurtunity in that trips out of the country are pretty special. Trips off the continent are rare, and trips into the heart land of Africa don't happen for normal people like myself everyday, especially one's to help people.
However, I firmly believe they will be helping me more than I can help them. While their needs are physical, such as water and education, food and physical health, my need is spiritual. This I will readily admit.
Just last year, the church was able to produce for them a well, something capable of producing a clean source of water and in this relationship, I can only see good things coming from it which is part of the reason why I have agreed to be a part of it.
Already I can see the miracles of modern North American plumbing in which I can turn on a tap and see clean running water. Leave it on for hours and come back and still be running. I don't know how far into the stone age parts of Africa are, but it's pretty special what we have here, and I'm learning less and less to take it for granted.
To be more grateful to God and the Lord Jesus for giving me parts of a good working heart in which when I get jaded due to abundance that something like this can take me back and remind me.
I won't even mention the shots and immunization that I have to get, the flights which I believe are two eight hour ones Calgary-London-Entebbe and then back again covering a distance of more than 14,000km each way.
I'm looking forward to a safari, but I think the oppurtunity to teach 400 kids is going to be stunning. I have a couple of brick walls to smash on my own - mental and emotional ones that I don't know how to get people to see past.
How do you teach a person to spiritually fish?
I'm reminded of a story about two boys playing in the ditch. Little James and John are their names. This older kid, Jesus he's walking down the street and finds them building dirt castles in the ditch and says to them, "What are you doing in that there ditch?"
James replies "We're building dirt castles Jesus."
Jesus says "Why don't you come with me to the beach where it's nicer? It's clean, the water is clean, the sand is beautiful and you can have all the fun in the world!"
John responds, "But we like it here in the ditch. Thanks though."
You see, until you take that leap of faith, you'll never know how good or how bad a time you're missing until you get there. In this case, no matter good or bad, it's going to change the lives of 8 people.
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