Going Home (to my new one)

Well this will be my final post. Sad day…

Wait. No it won’t. I’M GOING BACK!!!!!!!

I’m so excited I think about Uganda all day, every day. The date of my return has not been set but it will definitely be before Christmas. I can’t wait. I’ve been seeking God’s will for my life since I graduated from high school and I finally feel like the Lord wants me to be where I am. I won’t be able to finish my nursing degree, but Amazima asked me to stay and work with them long-term. They are confident that I have a skill-set that will be beneficial to their organization and I am confident in their work for the Kingdom and God’s guidance that led me to Jinja.

Anyway, I’ll say more about that later. This is a photo of Parent's Night we had prior to my leaving. We hosted a dinner for all the local chairmen (they are kind of like mayors of the villages) and the parents of the boys (the few that actually had some). Many organizations have things like this, but the focus often seems to be on what the white volunteers have done for the community. We wanted it to be clear that we were the ones that received the blessing. And that all the work had been done by the boys of these small villages. They built this playground. They pounded every nail, cut every board, and mixed every ounce of cement. The parents and community leaders needed to know that we couldn’t have done any of this without them. It was their boys that will forever be able to come back and say “I built that.” They will also be the ones that will have to explain what it is they built. HAH!

The rest of the photos are of the work that we had completed when I left. We didn’t have enough time to cover the entire allotted area for the playground, but I think I left them at a point that they could easily finish with little trouble. I’m super excited to see the final product because the finishing touches will change its appearance drastically…hopefully for the better. To be honest I spent most of my time running into town to buy materials. I really didn’t carry my weight when it came to actual construction. With that said…Congratulations to Sam, Francis, Joseph, Alex, Julius, Joseph, Alex, Isaac, and Samuel! You have probably just constructed one of the top five playgrounds in all of Uganda. I have no idea if that is actually true but I’m ok with that.