Day 90 - Worship

Hey everybody!  Sorry I haven’t blogged in awhile; everything has been really busy here these last couple of weeks.  I’m trying to finish up all of my papers for school, apply to North Dakota for the summer, and really just enjoy the rest of my time here with my family while I can.

One thing I haven’t written about yet is the music and church services we have here on campus.  Well on Sundays I usually attend our “home” church (that is literally 30 feet from our front door), but on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have the equivalent of Chapel here on campus.  Both were quite an adjustment, but the anthropologist in me loves the cultural differences between our American style of worship and the contemporary Ugandan style of worship.  Things aren’t all different though; much of the American way of doing things has transferred over, at least to Ugandan Christian University, which is relatively westernized. 

Our Chapel services, or Community Worship as we call them here, are scheduled to be an hour long.  If you’ve ever been to Uganda you know what I mean.  They’re about an hour long every Tuesday and Thursday and they usually follow the same schedule every week.  The service starts with worship, some in Luganda and the rest in English, which is directly followed by introductions and prayers.  Someone is called forward to read the scripture passage the correlates with the sermon and then the Reverend will give his piece.  Usually the end of the service involves some form of group prayer (The Lord’s Prayer, The Grace, etc.).

As a USP student we are required to attend a certain number of Community Worship services while we’re here in Ugandan.  It’s been a good way for us to get involved with other Ugandan students and also to interact in a different way with the culture.  Our place of worship is in a covered, but open auditorium with a stage and hundreds of those fancy chair/desk seats that most of us had in grade school.  Before everyone sits down they wipe off their wooden seat.  I used to laugh to myself when I saw them doing it, but now I find that I’m doing it myself.  Just add that to the list of weird things Jess started doing when she came back from Africa…

Overall, I like community worship.  It wasn’t always my favorite thing to go to, but I never minded it while I was there.  The music is always good; we have drums, keyboard, and guitar usually. Anyone and everyone sings no matter of how talented they are, which some people find annoying but I think it’s a good indicator that our friends here weren’t raised with the same “I’m not good enough” mindset that usually holds us back from things we want to try.  The messages the Reverend gives don’t usually resonate with me, but that’s okay.  Church functions are a huge part of campus involvement here and it’s cool to be a part of something like Community Worship for a semester.

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Also, thanks for all of your mail guys. I'm leaving Uganda (for Rwanda) in a week though, so no more mail please, otherwise I'll never get it! :) Love you all.

Day 88 – NEW BLOG POST! FINALLY!

So today I stayed home to write one of my big papers that’s due soon.  To everyone’s surprise, including mine, I finished the whole thing before 5pm! What an achievement.  Eight pages down, now only 12 or so more to go! This semester has flown by.  Our classes end this week! Next week I have one exam (LUGANDA, ehhhhh) and then that’s about it.  I’ve just got to get these papers out of the way.

I also went with Maama to school today after I wrote my paper.  I’ve gone with her once before on a Sunday morning.  She’s the Chaplin at a Day/Boarding School, so she teaches the Bible & I get to teach songs.  It sounds fun I guess, to teach songs to kids, but it’s actually really stressful and it makes me nervous.  First of all, I have to sing the song over and over again until the kids understand the words and the tune.  Good thing I’m not overly self-conscious about my voice.  But then you have to remember that English is the second language here… so that presents some challenges.  And lastly, I asked a woman today how many kids attend the school & she said that there were about 1,200.  I’d say that about half of them have been present while I’ve been there.  Overall I’d say that it’s gone pretty well.  They absolutely loved the first song that I taught them…

 “I want to sing, sing, sing. I want to shout, shout, shout. I want to sing, I want to shout, PRAISE THE LORD! When those gates are opened wide I’m going to sit by Jesus’ side.  I’m going to sing, I’m going to shout, PRAISE THE LORD!”

All of you camp people are smiling/singing along :)

The second one I taught them just today was…

“I love you Lord & I lift my voice to worship you, oh my soul rejoice.  Take joy my King in what you hear.  May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.”

That one was okay.  I think that the older students enjoyed it more than the younger ones though.  It’s getting late & I want to sleep, but first I need to share my baby moments of the day.  Everyone loves baby moments.

Nankinga Ruth Mary

1)   I walked out of my bedroom.  Came back not 3 minutes later to find the baby jumping/dancing on top of my laptop case with my toothbrush in her mouth.  Unforgettable moment.

2)   Maama brought Mary with us to the school for some reason.  A few minutes after we got in the car she tossed her into the backseat with me… On the way back home from school I got to carry her the whole way.  She fell asleep against me for a good 40 minutes.  Oh guys, she’s just wonderful.  I don’t even care that she used my toothbrush.

P.S. I have 37 more days in Africa, but only 15 more days with my host family in Uganda. What in the world am I going to do without the childrennn…??! AH man.

Day 87 - Ahem.

1) Women iron the bed sheets here.

2)   There are half a dozen vicious looking mosquitoes trying to gnaw their way through the net around my bed at the moment.

3)   I bought an elephant print dress recently.

4)   I’m getting really creative in the way that I kill cockroaches these days.

5)   Today was my friend Natasha’s birthday.  She’s my running buddy and my daily encouragement.  Too bad she lives on the West Coast! :(

Day 86 - Thanks

I’m definitely the most loved person here.  No joke, I’ve received no less than 20 pieces of mail in the past 3 months from over a dozen different people.  The last time I got a package my friend Kate shook her head & said, “Jess, if being in Africa doesn’t teach you anything else I hope that you realize how loved you are back home.”  And then I opened that letter & read the words “YOU ARE LOVED” & I just smiled.

Thanks guys.

I love you too.

(But really, the postmen are starting to get jealous.)