.Zoe.

This past weekend I had the privilege of visiting New Hope, a home for fatherless and motherless children in Kasana. I left Friday afternoon with a UCU student named Medie (Medie is from Kasana and attended primary and secondary school at New Hope). After sitting in a few different crowded and sweaty taxis, wandering through the crowded streets of Kampala, and getting pulled over by the police, we arrived in Kasana five hours later (about 2-3 hours longer than it would take if we had our own private hire). I was so glad to have had Medie with me, both for company and direction.
Medie’s father, a devout Muslim, has worked for New Hope for many years. Although it is a Christian organization, he enrolled Medie in their primary school, where Medie chose to give his life to Christ. Because of this, his family became very upset and stopped financially supporting him. Medie has maintained his faith and enrolled at UCU, where he has had to work extremely hard to pay his way through- he barely gets by (this is frustrating because he has some well-off relatives who could help him out, but refuse to because he has turned his back against Islam).
Medie and I got to New Hope late Friday night and I met up with a wonderful woman name Nancy, who has worked at New Hope for fourteen years. Nancy generously housed me and fed me during the weekend. Nancy lives on one of New Hope’s sites, which consists about 200 acres of land…. So her house is pretty much in the middle of a huge gorgeous field. It was so refreshing to be away from campus, on my own, and out in the country for a couple of days!
Saturday morning, Nancy and I got up early (after eating a delicious breakfast of chocolate chip oatmeal and an entire press of coffee!!!!!!!) and went to clean one of the classrooms. I had the opportunity to talk with a lot of the staff on sight as well as get an extensive tour of New Hope; I was beyond impressed.
New Hope is the home to around 140 orphans, 120 staff, and it serves a total of about 500 children in the community. It runs a primary school, secondary school, clinic, farm, an institute (for staff and people going into ministry), church, a baby house, offices, and seven family units. Each family unit consists of around 15-20 orphans and their adopted parents. All of the orphans are extremely well supported—they each have counselors, staff assigned to them as mentors, and opportunities to go to school, do vocational training, and start their own businesses (one night we bought hamburgers and chips..also known as fries… from one of the older girls). It was so encouraging to see an organization that is run entirely for the children… everyone on staff is so genuine and passionate about serving the fatherless in Uganda. They are all working hard to make New Hope self-sustaining, eventually they plan to have no foreigners on staff.
Along with hearing many moving stories about the children and staff, one of the most transforming moments of the weekend was on Saturday night when the children held their monthly worship service. For weeks now, many of the kids have been learning to play guitar, so about 5 guitarists, their teacher, and countless vocalists led worship. Not only was it amazing to worship with Ugandans, but also halfway through the service the power went out. This is nothing new for Africa, but considering we were out in the middle of nowhere, it was PITCH BLACK. Yet we continued to sing and worship for another 30 minutes, and as we were doing so, a huge rainstorm came! Worshipping the same God with 100s of orphaned children amidst pouring rain. I couldn’t have asked for a better Saturday night.
Another highlight of the weekend was having the opportunity to play with the orphaned babies at the baby house. This weekend there were only four babies there, but apparently they have had up to 12. Nancy and I took a beautiful baby girl, Zoe, with us to church on Sunday and I got to hold her for over two hours because she fell asleep on my lap. It was literally painful to leave her after church. Zoe is one of the most calm and joyous babies I have ever met; yet the circumstances she comes from are anything but happy. Zoe was born about a year ago in a pit latrine. Her mother was only 17 when she had her and claims that she did not know she was going to give birth, hence the reason Zoe fell into the latrine. During the beginning of her life, Zoe did not have the will to eat or sleep. It was as if she did not have the will to live. But after living at the baby house for 6 or so months (during which time she contracted a horrible case of malaria), Zoe began to thrive. While holding Zoe, I could not help but to think of all of the millions of orphans in Uganda, particularly all of those that are abandoned in pit latrines. I am so glad that there are wonderful places such as New Hope to love and care for kids such as Zoe.
This Friday we all leave for Soroti for ten days for our rural home stays! I’m not totally sure what to expect yet, and how living with a family there will compare to living with a family in Mukono, but I will let you know as soon as I return!!!
Love and miss you all like crazy! And sorry if I haven’t gotten your letters or packages yet, they can take up to two months to get here…. TIA (this is Africa)!!!!!!!!!!!!!... also, if you happen to send me a package, it will get here muchhh faster in a padded envelope, rather than a box.
Alive in His grace, Kelly
P.s. I joined the Buganda tribal dance group last week!!! Except I looked NOTHING like the Ugandan girls who were doing it….hopefully I can bust a few moves when I get back. :-D

Being Present: Life as a Mzungu in Africa.

As time is flying by and I am becoming more and more comfortable with my surroundings, I am beginning to realize how much I will miss this place when I leave. Lately I have been working on being Present in every situation and soaking in the beauty of Uganda. One of the main themes of the semester has been learning to be present—to be a learner at all times. As an outsider in Uganda, it is my job to listen, observe, ask questions, be silent, and take everything in. often times, westerners will come into places, such as Uganda, and try and impose their culture and ideals on the people. God has been teaching me that the best way to love on people is just to be present with them. To be okay just being. sitting, listening, eating, walking-- whatever it may be. By learning to just be present, I am also learning to practice humility. I am no better than Ugandans because I am from America, take warm showers, drive a car, own more than three shirts, eat a variety of foods every day, have clean water to drink, and have white skin. My traditions, sense of humor, taste in music, etc. are not better than any Ugandan’s. I know this is a simple statement, even an obvious idea, but becoming a learner has been much more difficult than I had anticipated. I have felt very humbled by the fact that although our world consists of a diversity of cultures and people, we are all human beings—people who desire to love, be loved and experience the richness of life.

Here are some beautiful things about Uganda that I never hope to forget:

-       - the large variety of birds

-       -people saying “sorry” every time I trip, drop something, etc.

-       - the slow pace of life: people sitting all day on their verandas

-       - music being played in public at all times

-       - adorable naked babies

-       -brightly painted buildings

-       - lush, green, trees, big rain drops, huge sunsets and sunrises, big puffy white clouds, bright blue skies, bright orange and pink skies, thousands of bright stars

-       - having to repeat myself at least 3 times in every conversation

-       -my lumpy pillows

-       - little shops everywhere full of random things

-       - bright red mud

and the list continues…..missing you all in Uganda! I would love to hear how your lives at home are going as well! At times it is hard being so separated from all of you and life at home. So keep me posted!!!!!!

Unreal.

Family & Friends!
The past few weeks of my time in Uganda have been absolutely unreal. Unreal in the sense that I have experienced some unreal cultural incidences (such as learning how to shop in a crowded market in Kampala where everyone is grabs your arm because you are white; such as riding in an open-sided, hour long, bus ride along the Nile with Ugandan, American, Australian, and Kenyan white water rafting guides and singing and laughing with them all the way; such as delivering milk with my home stay brother Joel; and such as attending an all day Scripture Party and being the only white person there; such as helping my roommate take out her red and brown weave; and such as watching my friend getting body-painted and perform in a tribal dance)….
Unreal in the sense that I am learning an incredible amount (about Ugandan politics and the corruption that follows; about the HSMF and the LRA and the impact that they are still having on the people of northern Uganda; about African traditional religions and the role they play in Ugandan every-day life; about Ugandan taboos, saying, myths, and proverbs; about poverty and the selfishness of the West; about living simply; and about the fact that I now feel more comfortable in poor towns like Mukono than at fancy resorts in Jinja)…
Unreal in the sense that I have been stretched emotionally, physically, and spiritually (as I have become more settled, homesickness has finally sunk in, but I am learning to live in the present and enjoy every moment of every day that I have here; being in Uganda is absolutely exhausting—I pass out every night around 10:30 because I am so drained from a day of walking, learning, difficult conversations, new concepts, cultural misunderstandings, and a full stomach of rice and beans; I was physically stretched last weekend went I went white water rafting on class five rapids and Bungee jumping 145 ft. over the Nile—the most petrifying, exhilarating, and exciting 30 hours of my life; spiritually stretching in the sense that God is revealing himself to me in new ways every day… I am just praying that he will continue to give me guidance as to what he wants me to do with all that I am learning, seeing, and experiencing; spiritually stretching in the sense that I am surrounded by a very faithful community of people—Africans incorporate their beliefs… whether they are traditional religions, Christianity, or Islam… into every part of their lives)….
Unreal in the sense that I still cannot believe that I am here, and that I am still here. Does that make sense? I have been talking to my roommates lately about how it feels like I am in a perpetual dream. Uganda is so different from anything that I know; I still cannot get used to the fact that this is my home, and I am not leaving for another two months.
For anyone who has ever studied abroad, you can sympathize with me when I say that writing a blog about my experience is ridiculously difficult. Attempting to put everything to words is very overwhelming, and I hope you can all forgive me when I say that there is sooo much more that I could be telling you.
Thanks again for all of your prayers and thoughts. I’m definitely feeling them over here :-D
By the way, if anyone gets a random urge to send me a package or a letter, here are some items that I am dearly missing:
- granola bars/ energy bars
- chocolate of any sort
- Mexican hot sauce (weird, I know… but the food is REAL bland)
- Plain t-shirts or tank tops (mine are already 6 times bigger than their normal size because of hand-washing.. even plain Hanes v-necks are lovely)
- Lollipops
- Candy corn!!!
- YOU (good one, right?)
Here’s my address in case you get the urge to write or send something (btw, don’t send anything later than the first week in November… it may not get here before I leave… or at all……):
Kelly Ranck, Uganda Studies Program
Uganda Christian University
PO Box 4
Mukono, Uganda
Thinking of you all daily!!!!!