Leaving 'home' to go 'home'

Last Thursday I returned home after spending nine months in Uganda. I say that I returned home but really it would be more accurate to say that I feel like I’ve left ‘home’ to return ‘home.’ In the months that I spent in Uganda, my time wasn’t just a trip but was my life. The children we have worked with, the friends we have made, and the Smile family are all people that we have lived alongside, laughed with, shared with, cried with, prayed with, played with, eaten lots and rode bodas with. After getting used to the initial culture shock that comes from moving somewhere unfamiliar where you know nobody, I felt settled. Not only have I done lots of exciting, new and adventurous things but also all the usual events you might expect like celebrating birthdays and mundane jobs you would anywhere like washing my clothes, albeit this time by hand.  It’s small things like that that make you feel at home.

I have so many wonderful memories from my time in Uganda, a beautiful country not only for the beauty of its land but also for the people I have met and the culture I love. I am so grateful for being welcomed so warmly to the 'pearl of Africa.' 

Although it is very hard to leave a place which holds such a special place in my heart and where I have grown so much as a person and in my faith, I know that means I am incredibly blessed for everything I have experienced. I went with a heart to serve but have been richly blessed by and learnt so much from the people I worked with myself. There is a price you pay for the gift of loving people in more than one place but it is more than worth it. I thank God for bringing the opportunity in my life from putting the work and a passion for justice on my heart to providing financially to getting me through the challenges I encountered.

I am so thankful for everyone who has come alongside me. My journey to Kampala started a long time ago with all the people who have spent time with me growing up to nurture my faith and the examples I have seen of people serving God faithfully in many different ways, both through people I know and people I have read about. Thank you for the support I have been shown through prayer, words of encouragement, financially and many other ways. I could write pages of thank yous but here are a few:

-Thank you for the generosity of individual donors, to Gold Hill church mission board, Hazel’s Footprints Trust, 1^st Burnham Girls Brigade, St. Nicolas School Taplow, and the anonymous donor who  gifted me some money towards the extension of my stay.

-Thank you to everyone who came to my quiz fundraising evening last year and all those involved in organising it and helping on the evening.

-Thank you to the Smile 'family' and in particular Innocent and Gabit for helping us to get to grips with the field work and making sure we're always laughing on the projects and for Alex our project manager for checking on his 'three muskateers' .

- Thank you to the teachers at Ruth Mother Care for making us part of the team as Teacher Stephanie, Teacher Kate and Teacher Lois and showing us how you teach the children so lovingly.

Thank you to the children for never failing to make me smile and all your hugs and to their families for being so hospitable and friendly on community outreach.

-Thank you to my friends at Kampala Baptist Church for welcoming me into the church family and being there for me.

This is how I spent my last few days in Kampala and what it has been like since arriving home:


Sunday 24th- Our leaving party

On our last Sunday, a goodbye party was held for us at the Smile house. In the morning we went to KBC for the morning service, where we were called up on stage to say goodbye to the congregation and thank them for welcoming us and making us part of the church family.

Sunday morning KBC service

After, we headed back to the Smile house for our party and had a lovely afternoon spending time with our friends, eating our last meal with chapattis and taking lots of group photos. This was our last evening to spend with many of our friends who we knew wouldn't be coming to church the next day so it was difficult to say goodbye to them (or rather 'see you soon' as we preferred to say) but also a lovely send off for us.

Gathering for speeches

Playing cards

On our last day, we visited the teachers at Ruth Mother Care to give them the books and other resources like stickers that we had brought with us and to say goodbye to them. In the evening, we went to church to spend time with our friends there and share rolexes together (chapattis with omelettes inside them) . It felt very surreal to walk out the gate of a place that I've spent almost every evening in whilst being here.

On Tuesday morning before we left for the airport, we took photos with all the Smile team in the garden. It was a fun way to spend our last few hours and nice to have the photo memories. After saying our final farewells to the team, we set off with Alex and Innocent in the Smile van to Entebbe. Luckily, we were able to weigh our bags on the scales before we checked in and after some sharing between us, all three of our suitcases were under the 32kg limit!

We were trying to cheer ourselves up after
flying out of Uganda- English butter helped!

McDonalds at our stopover in Dubai

After being picked up from Gatwick airport on Wednesday morning by our gap year coordinator Emily and Smile International's CEO Clive, we drove to Operation Mobilization's guest house for returning missionaries in Bromley for our debrief. Luckily, we had Wednesday to sleep and then chat and watch movies with blankets and hot drinks. Thank you to Emily for buying us lots of yummy food to cheer us up! On Thursday morning, we had our debrief chats. It was weird to be in the UK but not to be able to see our families, but it was helpful to spend the first hours in the UK with Lois and Kate who were going through the same thing as me and be able to talk about our experiences together.

FOOD!!

Last few weeks in Uganda (mega photo post)

Path to the Smile house

 I can hardly believe that I have come to the end of my time with Smile Charity Uganda and soon I will be flying back to the UK. Nine months seemed to go so quickly but we have packed so much into them. We have been making the most of the last month doing fun activities with the children at our catch up class, kid's club and at Ruth Mother Care and enjoying spending time with out friends. Unfortunately my laptop broke a few weeks ago so I haven't been able to publish my blog for June until now. Here are my highlights for the month:

Interviews in Nabulagala

Over the last weeks, I spent time visiting the families we have built relationships with on community outreach with Gabit to hear more about their stories and their perception of life in Nabulagala. I am so grateful for the families for welcoming us into their homes and being willing to share about some tough experiences that must have be very emotional to tell. Many of the parents are refugees from conflicts such as from war in the Congo and the genocide in Rwanda and I hope to write about their testimonies soon. They inspire and encourage me greatly.

Mama Gadaffi family

Thursday 21st June- Sports day at Ruth Mother Care

Community outreach was cancelled on this day because most of the Smile team were involved in another children's outreach project at Return Ministries. We decided to run a games and sports day at Ruth Mother Care instead. We organised relay races, egg and spoon races, the limbo and parachute games, which was so much fun! The children and the teachers loved it, just as we did. The games were run in class groups and everyone was very competitive with lots of good natured cheering.

Ruth Mother Care

Benita

Relay races- P2 v P1

Fruit salad

Playing

Promise after winning a race

Parachute

Cheering on

Egg and spoon

Friday 22nd- 'Paper people'

On our last kid's club of teaching at Family Believer's Church before our goodbye session next week, Kate and I ran a session on image based on Psalm 134:14 'I am fearfully and wonderfully made.' To help them understand and think about what they had learnt, we gave out cut out paper people which I had written the memory verse on. We asked asked them to draw themselves on it and write the gifts that God has given them and things that make them special. Thank you to my mum for sending the out- the children loved them!

Lois 'unbirthday'

Javas

Lois' birthday is on the 8th of July, a week after we get back to the UK so she decided that she wanted to celebrate her birthday in Uganda too. We went out for a meal at our favourite restaurant Javas with Innocent, Gabit and Anna, who stayed at the Smile house for two weeks. It was a good time of giving speeches, eating some western style food and listening to the Javas staff singing happy birthday.

Cake

Singing

Tuesday 26th and  June- RMC goodbye and school trip

On Tuesday the children at school did goodbye performances for us, singing songs, dancing and modelling. It was a lovely, but very emotional sendoff! The songs included lines like, 'Kate, Stephanie and Lois, tell your parents that Ruth Mother Care is missing you.' There were definitely tears in my eyes. Through teaching each of the different classes from P1-P4 regularly, we have got to know each child in the primary section well. We don't just know them by name but know things like their academic strengths and weaknesses, their favourite story of the books we brought with us, their favourite picture to draw.... Ruth Mother Care is a special place that I will miss so much

Last tea and cassava chips at break

Preparing for the song

Watching the farewell performances 

Dances

Berindah

Goodbye present with Teacher Monica-
'Stephanie- you have been special to us, hopefully we pray
for you to come back again. God bless you.'

The next day we took the children on a school trip to Freedom City Kid's Park. I went on the bus with mostly children from the nursery section, who were so excited about the day ahead. I was just as excited as them and proceeded to get them cheering 'We're going to Freedom City' before we left. Once on, I taught them the song 'The wheels on the bus go round and round,', whilst each of us teachers led some songs on the journey, competing against the other bus when we stopped at a petrol station.

Teacher selfie

At Freedom City, the children enjoyed swimming, a bouncy castle (I wish teachers had been allowed to join them!!), playing on the swings, roundabouts and trampolines in the indoor park, going on the fairground rides and going down slides in the soft play area. They also liked their special lunch treat of chapattis, rice and meat with a soda, which made a nice change from their usual meal of posho, beans and vegetables.

It was a fun way to spend our last day with the children!

Teacher Anna

Bouncy castle

Teachers having fun too

Lunch time

Thursday 23rd and Friday 24th June - Goodbye to children at Nabulagala slums and Blessed Word

I couldn't believe that it was time to say goodbye to all the children we know and love so much at Nabulagala slums. To make time to say goodbye to both children's clubs we usually teach on a Friday, we ran the goodbye party for the children at FBC on Thursday instead of community outreach. We started with games and songs before Gabit got the children to share things that they had learnt from us and what they wanted to thank us for. Their responses ranged from thanking us for having good manners to saying we'd taught them to read letters. We also had a chance to thank them at the front.  At the end, we cut a celebratory cake and gave each of the children a slice. After our final few cuddles, it was time to say the hard goodbyes.

Goodbyes

Games

Children's thank yous- me with Becca

All the children

Kate and Jemima

On Friday, we ran a similar goodbye party at Blessed Word, this time with the addition of face paints and music through the sound system,

Cutting the cake at Blessed Word

Please pray:

-For Lois, Kate and I as we say goodbye to our friends over the next few days

-For safety as we fly back to the UK.

-For a successful debrief from Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon at the OM guest house for returning missionaries.

-For our families as they prepare to receive us back home.

The week of our youth worship event

Youth worship event

The main event of this week was our youth worship event at KBC on Saturday evening, which we have been working towards since the New Year. We were all excited to have this opportunity to come together with other young people who we had invited to lead them to worship God. Thank you to everyone who prayed for the event!

We set out a vision that the event would not be seen just as a 'concert' but as a time of worship:

- Desire to see a generation of youth worshipping the Lord and having their complete trust and confidence in God.
-Helping young people discover that their true identities are in the Lord.
-Leading others to encounter God's greatness.
-Rejoicing together for God's faithfulness.

The scripture that we chose as the theme for the evening was Isaiah 40:27-3, 'Hope in the Lord, He will renew your strength...' and we had a heart to encourage others to put their trust in God. These are some of my favourite verses and I read them on the evening.

Theme scripture

We had rehearsals for  on Monday-Wednesday and then our final dress rehearsal on Friday. I love being able to sing and worship so much whilst here with other people and it's something I will miss greatly when I'm back in the UK. It really does make such a difference to my day and it has been teaching me how to become better at praising God no matter how I am feeling or how my day has been.

 During the week, many of our team members fell ill one by one, with some hospital visits,  but we thank God that by the end of the week, everyone was healed or on the mend after lots of prayer. One encouraging thing that we did on Friday was set up a prayer chain between 10PM on Friday and 10AM on Saturday so that somebody was praying for the event during each half an hour during those times. My slot was 11:00-11:30 and because we got stuck in traffic on the taxi back home, I ended up praying on our boda (motorbike) ride home.

When we arrived at church on Saturday afternoon, people were working on the stage set and it looked amazing when it was finished. We then shared dinner of rice with sauce and meat, before having a final sound check and prayer.

The event was a brilliant time- there was a great turnout of people of all ages, the set and lighting looked fantastic and everyone enjoyed worshipping God through singing, dancing, watching skits and listening to poetry.

Worship

Worship

Worship

Lois singing her solo

After the event

After the event

The highlights of the week were:

- This week was our last week of having two catch up classes and one day making resources for and visiting Ruth Mother Care before the school term resumes next week.

- After eight months here, my shoes have been looking pretty worn out from all the walking up and down the hill we live on and through the slums, so I decided to go to the craft market on Tuesday to find some sandals to wear for the worship event so I looked a little more presentable. One of the most popular style of girl's shoe sizes here are 'crafts' sandals, with beaded decorations so I spent a long time trying on dozens of sandals at the little booth stalls there until I found a lovely blue and red floral pair. I always love visiting the market because there are so many beautiful crafty souvenirs- I could buy the whole shop!

Market booths

Examples of the crafts you can buy

- In community outreach, we ran a workshop on hygiene for the families we visit in Nabulagala. It was great to see that there was a good turnout.

Workshop

Please pray for:

- Preparations for the new school term.
- For Lois, Kate and I as we come into the final month of our time in Uganda, that we would be able to use these weeks to serve God and that He would prepare our hearts to be ready to make the transition back to the UK.
-For continued safety when travelling.
-That the new building at Ruth Mother Care would be completely finished for the new term.