Christmas

A few Christmas pics from my first Christmas back in the States in 2 years....

Kaleb, Mom, Me and Dad on Christmas morning.

Kaleb and I with the gradpartents (Mom's side)

The cousins (mom's side)...man I look short! grandparents (dad's side)

Me and my bubby :)

Amy's wedding

On Sunday my good friend, Amy got married in Tampa. We went to nursing school together at Union. It was a lot of fun to catch up with old friends as people came in from all over to be in the wedding. The wedding was outside and the weather was beautiful...it was at least 80 degrees! It was one of the most beautiful God-centered weddings I've ever been ,and Amy was such a gorgeous bride.

Here I am with Lindsey. We are reenacting our 'fight for the bouquet'. There were four of us single gals. Lindsey scratched me with her fingernail and I started bleeding. She won in the end...well I let her have it :)

Here I am with Bethany a fellow Unionite and former journeyman friend to Tanzania. She will be getting married on December 30th!

Some of the bridesmaids: me, Annie (friend from Union), Emily (friend from Union), Lindsey (Amy's friend from FL).

The happy couple....Amy and Adam. Adam is studying graphic design in Orlando. He is such a great guy who loves the Lord...I am so happy for Amy!

A trip to the salon...

The day before the wedding Amy treated all of us bridesmaids (8 total) to pedicures. It was amazing...we got to sit in big massage chairs and soak our feet in hot water. We had fun relaxing and of course talking :)

Union Dearest Union

This past weekend I went back to Union Univeristy www.uu.edu to speak about my time in Uganda for World AIDS Day (Dec 1st). A lot has changed in the last 2 years. The building on the right is the new science hall and nursing will have the entire 2nd floor. We used to only have a couple nursing classrooms and labs. Union is such a great school....I am proud of my alma mater.

I got to visit with several old friends while in Jackson. Cayce and I became friends our Junior year at Union. She is a special education teacher now. It was fun catching up and hanging out.

Thanksgiving

Every year we go to Aunt Julie's for Thanksgiving. The 'Adult Table'...this year they had to clarify as to who qualifies as an adult since there are three of us cousins who are over 18 and two over 21. So the qualification is now 'married adults' sit at the adult table and of course none of the cousins are married.....at least not yet ;) It was nice to be back with family this Thanksgiving. We have a lot to be greatful for!

The Cousins....there are 9 first cousins on my mom's side and we all live in Henderson. As you can see the boys out number the girls. I'm the oldest and Addie is the youngest with all the guys inbetween.

Every Thanksgiving all the cousins are measured to see how much they've grown (excluding me since I haven't grown now in like 12 years). My brother and oldest 3 boy cousins are all over 6 ft so it's a competetion each year to see who's taller. Andy here is the tallest this year at around 6'4''...he's almost 17.

Playing Rook (the best card game ever) with my great aunts and grandmommy. Unfortunately Aunt Katherine and I couldn't get any bids and lost.

My first time to contribute to the Thanksgiving meal...I made a pumkin roll.

Happy Birthday Kaleb

My bubby turned 16 on November 16th! Can it be possible?

Debriefing...

Well my two year term as a journeyman in Uganda is officially over now I guess. Last week I went back to Richmond, VA to the learning center where it all began. It was great to get to hang out with friends from orientation who were my age and could so easily relate to what I was feeling in coming back to the States. It was so neat to hear stories and see how God had worked in their lives during the last 2 years. It was a bitter sweet expereince. I was happy to be back at the learning center and see old friends, but I was also sad that this part of my life is over. I know I'll be overseas again one day most likely, but that place just gets you so excited about going overseas that it's hard to remain at 'home'. I look forward to hopefully going back there again one day for training.

Cheesecake Factory and Bowling

Good food with good friends. These were some of the people at debreifing who I went to orientation with back in the day. It was great catching up. We weren't outside but it was so cold in Cheesecake Factory we're all bundled up!
I hadn't bowled in forever! Didn't do too great either, but we had fun. We bowled under our national names that we used overseas (Kenyangi is mine). I think the guy at the check-out thought we were kind of strange...which we can't argue with. Ryan was the only real competetive one and thankfully he won if you couldn't tell :)
Me and Kim, my friend who served in East Asia and is also a nurse....yea for nurses!

The best time of the year...

Fall....my favorite time of year in one of my favorite places, the learning center in Virginia where I did my training before going to Uganda. These pictures don't do it justice....it was beautiful! I haven't seen leaves changing for 2 years! It was very strange to be in a place without any changing of seasons...it was almost like time wasn't passing. Time is greatly associated with seasons in our America culutre, but for a lot of places in the world they have never seen the beauty of autumn or snow or tulips in the spring.

Isn't it interesting that God made this process of dying for leaves so beautiful so that we not only can see His glory, but also enjoy it.

First attempt to make Indian food....not so good

I've definitely been missing my weekly Indian food fix that I got when I was in Uganda and visited our local Indian restaurant, "City Top". So I decided I would try to make some of my own for my mom, dad, and brother who have never had Indian food. This is my attempt to make chicken masala and garlic naan (a type of indian bread)...Unfortunately it was really bland :( I like spicy things so I was pretty disappointed. I followed the recipe exactly, but just didn't turn out right. It was an internet recipe though, so next time I'm going to try curry from a recipe that I trust more. Hopefully better luck next time.

Nicole's Wedding...

My good friend from college, Nicole, got married this past weekend in Nashville. Isn't she beautiful! This was my first wedding to be a bridesmaid in since I missed several friends' weddings while in Africa. It was nice to get to share in this special day with her. We made our own bouquets...aren't they beautiful! I definitely learned some new things. Nicole and her husband Trey will be living in Alabama now. My friends are spread out everywhere...kind of sad. But definitely exciting for Nicole as she begins this new adventure.

Enjoying American Food!

Finally after 2 years....Chick-fil-A!!! :)

Homecoming....

About 30 people including family, old friends, and church members came to welcome me back from Uganda....what a fun surprise! 

Me and dad 

Back with the fam.... 

Me and my little bubby :) 

Africa Meets America

So I thought that once I left the continent of Africa all my crazy stories would be over, but it turns out I was wrong. After flying for almost 24 hours on my way back from Uganda I boarded my last plane from Detroit to Evansville, IN. I was so tired because I didn't sleep on my two long flights very well so I fell asleep before the plane even took off. Before I fell asleep everyone was complaining that is was really hot because the air vents weren't working, but it didn't seem that hot to me compared to the airport in Uganda, so I fell asleep. After we'd been flying for about 10 minutes I awoke to the flight attendant running down the aisle cussing and the smoke alarm going off. Apparently the cabin was filling with smoke. And of course the air vents weren't working which didn't help anything. People were starting to get pretty nervous, but it didn't seem like such a big deal to me. Maybe cause I was still 'out of it' after not sleeping for so long, plus after living in Africa your idea of a 'big deal' sort of changes. So the pilot decided to turn the plane around and go back to Detroit. I was kind of frustrated cause at this point I just really wanted to see my family and get off the plane!

But it was a good thing because an elderly lady near me started having seizures. I was the only medical person on the plane so I offered to help. The flight attendant got oxygen for her and I just helped 'fan her'. Another lady that had a heart condition was also having difficulty breathing so we gave her some oxygen as well, and then a man complained of a bad headache because of the fumes. Thankfully though we were able to land and an ambulance met us on the runway to help the lady who was seizing. Then we had to get another plane and reboard. We finally reached Evansville 2 hours late. ( I never understood what exactly was wrong with the plane.) I arrived to see my family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...everyone!), old friends, and some church members at the airport with signs to welcome me! About 30 people....it was definitely a surprise. But it was fun to see family I hadn't seen for almost 2 years and how much all my cousins had changed!

Then one of the local news stations was at the airport to interview people from the flight so I was interviewed and put on the 5pm news! Everyone was making such a big deal out of it, but it just seemed normal to me for things to go wrong. Nothing ever went as expected in Uganda. But I am thankful to God for His protection and especially for watching over the lady who was seizing. Maybe God was just trying to give me an easy transition back into American life with a situation I could easily relate to :)

One last time from Uganda....

In an hour or so I will put my four pieces of luggage in my Rav 4 and leave Mbarara, this town I've called home for the last almost 2 years. A lot of people think returning to the States, my homeland, should be nothing but a joyous time for me, but it's hard to explain. See I don't really know where 'home' is anymore. It's been almost 6 years since I've really lived at home with my parents in Kentucky for more than a couple months. I've finished college, so Union University isn't home, and now I'm leaving Uganda, my 'home'. My friends are spread out literally all over the world and I feel very disconnected to life in America at this point. 

As believers we all know that this world isn't our home anyways....we are just sojourners in a foreign land awaiting our true heavenly home. But now I'm beginning to realize more than ever before what this really means. It's an uncomfortable place to be....we all want the comforts of a place we call 'home', but no earthly home lasts forever. And really we are all searching for a place to call home. So we must walk by faith and not by sight and take courage that those of us who know Jesus as our Lord and Savior can rest assured that whether we are at home or away we are never out of God's hand. "So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him." 2 Corinthians 5:6-9

Thanks for your prayers as I leave Uganda Saturday at 10:30pm (2:30pm CST). Today I travel to the capital, Kampala, to finish out my last couple days here. I look forward to seeing many of you in the days to come. Thank you for following my journey....but the journey is not over. While I am leaving Uganda, life is still full of exciting journeys, and I plan to keep blogging even as I return to to the States. So stay tuned!

One last game park trip....

Last Saturday I took my last game park trip (since I am leaving Uganda in a little over a week) :( This time we decided to do some chimpanzee trekking since I had never done that before. Queen Elizabeth game park is the second largest park in Uganda and a couple hours from Mbarara. In the middle of the huge 'savanna' is this 16km long gorge...it's pretty amazing. There are only 17 chimps that live in the gorge and we were fortunate to see 4 (including a mother and baby). This guy below was only about 25ft above us! They are funny little creatures...we watched him for a while and he just sat there then decided to lay down and relax with his arm behind his head....they seem to be lazy animals. We saw lots of other monkeys and baboons and some other game while in the park as well. This was a great last game park experience to end on. Just can't find this kind of beauty in America.

We had a close encounter with some elephants. There was a herd of about 7 that crossed the road right in front of us. This picture is after backing up two times. At first our car was where the elephants are standing...good thing we moved. The mother felt we were too close to her baby and 'trumpeted' so we quickly reversed! Thankfully they didn't try to charge, but it was a bit scary. I still can't believe how close we were...these pictures were taken with a little digital camera with barely any zoom. Elephants are huge!

"Little Dumbo" :)

Gotta love 'African Time'....

Last weekend was Evas' wedding. Evas is a nurse working with me in the Words of Hope ministry. It was a very nice wedding at the big anglican cathedral here. She attends our church and is a believer, but her family is anglican. As all things here, the wedding was running late. It was supposed to start at 1pm, but at 2:30pm it still hadn't started. Then the music started a bridesmaids started walking down the aisle, but they weren't Evas' maids and then a bride walked down the aisle, but it wasn't Evas! I was like, 'oh no, is she not getting married'?! But I asked the man who was handing out programs and he said that Evas' wedding was delayed and would be after this one! So Scarlett and I decided to leave and go get some lunch and then came back. The wedding scheduled for 1pm finally began at almost 4pm! Gotta love Africa :)

Scarlett and I went to the wedding dressed in our Indian tradtional punjabis. We were matching in red and black. I love taking these self protrait pictures with Spencer's camera (i get to borrow his since mine got stolen). He has this cool little flip out screen and it's fun :)

Me and my good friend Patience at Evas' give-away cermony. That is the traditional marriage here (notice my traditional dress). Most people here consider a couple to be married after the give-away, but most saved believers or 'christian' people will have church marriages here where they get their marriage license and are 'officially' married. Patience is also a nurse, who teaches at the University here. She has been such a blessing to me during my time here and a great friend...I will miss her when I leave Uganda!

In Christ Alone

Can we really say that our hope, our strength, our everything is found in Christ alone? Just wanted to share these lyrics that really challenged me.... 

In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song 

This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm 

What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease 

My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand 

In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless babe 

This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save 

'Till on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied

 For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live 

There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain 

Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again 

And as He stands in victory Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me 

For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ 

No guilt in life, no fear in death This is the power of Christ in me

 From life's first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny 

No power of hell, no scheme of man Can ever pluck me from His hand '

Till He returns or calls me home Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

Mosquito Nets and Road Kill

A big thanks to the Union University volunteer nursing team that came out in May. With the money they donated we were able to provide 300 mosquito nets to Nakivale Refugee Camp! Here I am with the pastor of the 'head' Baptist Church in the camp...John Peter. The people here suffer from malaria and treatment is not available. They could not afford mosquito nets and many of their young children die of malaria. Now at least 300 people will have treated mosquito nets to sleep under to help prevent malaria...what a blessing!

Here is Jared and Roland (our translator) along with national pastors helping to unload the nets. I bet you've always been wondering what types of road kill we have in Uganda. Well, we don't have to worry about hitting (or 'knocking' as we say here) opossums, skunks, squirrels, deer, or armadillo.....instead we have monkeys! As I was driving to the refugee camp this little guy ran out in front of me.....sorry, sorry (as Ugandans say when something bad happens) :)