A little bit of everything....

Hello Everyone,

Since I am struggling with knowing what to start on right now and since I will go home for lunch in about an hour I figured I would do a little blogging...

Hmmm.... what have I been up to lately.... Well... last weekend we went on a trip to Luweero, which I still don't know if it has one "e" or two, but oh well... On this trip it was mostly to get a first hand experience of working with AIDS orphans. Luweero is one of the places hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic in Uganda. We spent some time at a small place that a husband and wife had set up to serve people with AIDS. Basically, there story is: they used to work in Mukono at an orphanage there for many years... When he "retired" they decided to go back to Luweero and start something there to help people with AIDS. Mostly who they work with families that are directly affected by AIDS which mostly means families who have lost one or both parents due to AIDS and some or all of the children have it as well. Here in Uganda, even though they are one of the leading countries in dealing with AIDS there is still a lot of stigma associated with the disease. To give an example: One of the children in one of the families we spent time with was born without shoulder blades... so her mother brought the child to her mother because she didn't want it. The girl was seen as a sign of something bad in the family, a curse really , so the grandmother set the child out on the edge of the road hoping that a car would run the child over... Thankfully the girls sister would always go out and pull her away from the edge of the road, until someone finally came and took her into a family...

But, things like this happen all the time here, it really is sad. However, what is good news is there are many examples of people like who we worked with who have started places that care for these children and families. A lot of what they do is very basic, but necessary, and a big part of the basics is just showing these children and families love, because they do not get much of that. And that's basically what we went there to do... we played with the kids, ate lunch with them and learned a little about what this couple was doing...

Also part of the weekend was having two different speakers, a Anglican bishop, and Catholic Priest tell us about there work in the area and what their thoughts are about AIDS... Overall it was a good/interesting weekend, a little different flavor from our other trips...

On other notes, I have been struggling, along with everyone else, to regain motivation after our Rural homestays... yeah, I know it was a long time ago already, but that trip really sapped away the motivation... I have 4 papers and 2 presentations due within a 7-day period coming up shortly and have yet to start any of them... yay :( Everyone says I'll survive, but I'm not quite so convinced always... Plus, research here is really hard to do, because there aren't a lot of resources here, and power and the Internet are a little sketchy. Thanks to great librarians at Dordt though, I think I will survive... so, if you are a Dordt student reading this, first of all go thank the reference librarians who are so amazing, and second of all ask them for assistance because they are so amazing...

It really is amazing how our time is winding down here. Someone mentioned to me today that we only have two more weekends here, which is hard to imagine. Apparently, coming up this week is Thanksgiving, I know I'm terrible at dates, but when you live in a climate that basically never changes temperature beyond like a 5 degree shift it's hard to notice that time passes sometimes. We're going to be having a thanksgiving celebration/meal at our Directors house, which should be fun... maybe we'll have turkey :) but I doubt it... Mom, buy a really big one for Christmas... ;)

Umm... I have potential flight-time issues that I need to work out yet, but can't get a straight answer from anyone I talk to... basically I may miss my flight from D.C. to Minneapolis, or I may not... but it's going to be close either way... I just want to know what to do if I do miss it, but no one really seems to be able to tell me... grr...

Classes have been OK lately... for one class we are reading a really good book called "Mere Discipleship" by Lee Camp.... Basically it's an easier version of John Howard Yoder's "The Politics of Jesus" but still quite good. I would recommend to anyone interested but intimidated by Yoder...

I think that's about all... it's getting to the point here where it's kind of hard to know what to feel... I am really starting to feel at home here more than I have all semester, which probably makes sense, but I am really looking forward to being able to see you all again and be able to tell stories in person rather than through blogging and the occasional email...

OK, that's all, I'll see some of you in a few weeks...

Justin