the sabbath.

today was sunday, and so we got to have the adventure of church this morning. i was anticipating for it to actually be much worse than it was. lol. normally it would be much hotter than it was today (thank the Lord), crowded as it was today, while the people of uganda do not have/use deodorant, but THANKFULLY! (haha) we were able to sit in the front rows by the open door, the weather was fairly nice with a continuous breeze, so i was very happy to be in church even for those.. 3 to 4 hours. Josh (a member of our team who's a pastor back home) gave the sermon this morning and it was great - he spoke on Gideon and the fleece. there were numerous people in the church who felt immensely touched by the lesson and it was great!

while ms kathy and i had the babies and p. 1 kids this morining (p.1 = about first grade or kindergarden), the lesson on creation went very well. we taught the kids "jesus loves me", "God is great", and a song about a spring and they loved all that. after passing out little animal cards in the end, all the children were crowded around their native teacher, a baby that one of the girls had just layed in the grass a short ways away (very tiny - couldnt crawl or anything yet) started crying. all the kids ignored it, so i walked over and picked the little thing up. she was wet and i quickly realized - the kids here dont have diapers... but the baby stopped crying and played with my beads while i held her. the kids all started grouping up to leave, and i was like "uhm.. who's baby is this..?" lol - all the kids were jsut going to run off without her. finally the teacher called over them in their native language to find the baby's sister or brother. a little girl in pink finally came forward and claimed the child somewhat bored with the idea of the baby. ms kathy grabbed me a few minutes later to purell like crazy because she had seen 2 ringworms on the baby's head.. but after my shower tonight and as much purell and cleansing wipes as i used i feel sufficently clean lol. the baby was so precious though.. the kids at the church we visited in mbale come mostly from the slums area of the little city; its so amazing to see these children who have so very little praisign the Lord at the top of their lungs in church.

after church and lunch at the church this afternoon, we headed back to the hotel briefly before setting off for the home again. all the kids were SO excited to see us there today - and they all looked great, dressed up in their sunday clothes. pheobe (the little girls name who i couldnt rmr yday), zulfa, aidha, and juliet all wrote me notes today as well. they are all tooo priceless. bernard, flavia and gift were all quick to find me right after i got out of the van too to give me hugs:)

were almost done with the library and just waiting on one last shelf.

while we were carrying books in between the sorting room and the library - one of the books full of encyclopedias was very heavy, but little joesephat (one of the little boys who has helped us organize books the past couple days) was determined to carry it. he was struggling as ms mary handed it to him, so i grabbed the other end and held it up. i was holding the majority of the weight but let him have just enough to feel like he was still helping. he insisted "oh this is not heavy!" i laughed and chided "oh yes it is" just giving him a hard time. when we reached the library he came to the conclusion that "you are weak! you are much too weak!" i jus laughed and said oh i must be. but after he left i made a connection with that experience and my own spiritual walk. little joesephat didnt understand the full weight of the box because i was holding so much of it, but I knew that if i let the box go while he was still holding it, he would fall over for sure. but he was quite proud in the fact that he had it all under control and knew he could withstand the weight. in the same way, within the past year i exhibited the same trait as he did - after a full year of being so close to the Lord, where everything was going so well for me, i began to take pride in myself rather than Him after a while subconciously. i would think that i would never slack enough to let my grades slip beyond my straight A streak, nor would i ever give into any sexual temptation - that i would save my first kiss for the alter and such, that oh no, these girls getting into all sorts of shananagins and being so ridiculously stupid would neeeverr be me. but the moment that mindset set in - my grades slipped to colorful progress reports i thought i'd never own, with little hope of moving them higher than a mid B. i was tempted and gave in with somewhat very little resistance in my relationship - i started to become the very girl i never wanted to be. the Lord knew that all the things i go through in everyday life were immensely more difficult than i thought them to be because he was holding 99 percent of the burden, allowing me to endure just a few small things to remind me this was indeed still life and not a dream. haha. but the moment i became proud in "my" abilities to stay focused and remain stubbornly unmovable in my convictions, is when He said "alright, you're so strong? lets see just how strong you are when you try to carry it yourself for real." and i immediatly fell apart. just like the verse - "pride goes before a fall" as well as the thousand foot krutch song "falls apart". the main line in the chorus is "everything around me, falls apart, when i walk away from You." and oh how true i know that statement to be.. it was great the way the Lords used the little things through this trip to help me recognize Him in it all.