The molding and unfolding process!!

To go through the refining/purifying process and be molded by The Potter, which is wonderful, but a somewhat painful place to be, YET to also be a delicate flower that is just unfolding and blooming...SIMULTANEOUSLY!! Seriously, is this possible to do both at the same time?! Well, with God all things are possible :) I'm in the midst of it right now! I have no idea how I'm changing exactly, I can just tell you that I'm changing....BIG TIME!! Change is a good thing. Change is an uncomfortable thing. However, I never want to be static and stop moving because I know you can't walk into your divine destiny by remaining where you are. I never want to be completely comfortable where I'm at because it means I'm satisfied with the consecration and transformation process....I always want to continue to know Him more and continue to grow and be transformed into His likeness. Soooo, right now I'm uncomfortably comfortable ;) Comfortable because I know I'm in His Hands and He is in control of my life, but uncomfortable because I'm being molded and unfolded at the same time :) I (we) must be willing to face my fears and step out of the darkness of insecurities!! I (we) either chose the pain of change or the pain of regret!!

First, I wanted to follow-up on the garbage clean-up from last week (posted a couple new pics to the right). One of my Ugandan classmates informed me this week about the impact we had on that community, and I wanted to share it with you all (because you just never know the impact you can have on people by sharing the love of Jesus). Of course the muzungus (white people) didn't know any of this during the clean-up, because we don't understand the native languages! My classmate told me that many people were standing around shouting insults at us (apparently they were "violent, criminal, gang-filled slums" that we were in). They thought we were there trying to make money by cleaning up the slums (because some people were taking pictures and the church video camera was there filming), and they were telling the muzungus that they should be in their air-condioned offices working. They also didn't think we could finish cleaning the whole heap of trash, so a huge crowd of people gathered around, just to watch us fail (I did see tons of people just standing there watching us, but had no idea why). However, that day, we just continued to work hour after hour after hour...continued smiling and smiling...continued singing songs of praise. Slowly their insults turned to questions. Why are you doing this? Who are you here with? What do you want from us? Then, finally they realized we weren't getting paid anything, realized we were staying until completion, and realized we were only there to show them love and meet a simple need....then their questions turned into "thank-you's". Pretty incredible...insults turned to questions turned to appreciation! Though there are sooo many needs in Uganda, we refused to sit around and do nothing, and I believe impacted a "rough community" with the love of Jesus and glorifed Him.

Next, I wanted to update on one of the Living Hope families. The young 17 year old who is HIV positive that deeply affected me the very first time we met him, is in terrible condition. In fact, this is the worst condition that we've ever seen him! He was unable to come out and visit us due to weakness, so we talked with the uncle (the caregiver) for a bit. Then, several of us went into his bedroom to visit and pray. He was laying on a blanket, on the floor and curled in the fetal position (because he was in so much pain). He had no shirt on, just boxers, which now appeared at least 3 times too big for him. He was soooo cachectic, frail, skin and bones...indescribable! He could barely whisper, he was in so much pain and so weak. We basically sat there in shock at his terrible condition and frail body, and thankfully one of my other team members offered to pray. I knew if I tried to utter a word out, I was going to start sobbing uncontrollable tears. It was an extremely difficult visit, but we must trust that he's in the Lord's Hands!

PS Well, to end on a humerous note....the best bug dance award this week officially goes to one of my roomates, Nina!! One night we were both out on our balcony (on the 2nd floor), gathering our sneakers for the next day. She saw that several creatures had crawled into her sneakers so she was banging the shoes against the railing to get them out. Well, about that time, apparently a rather large bug landed on her foot (and she was wearing flip flops). She began a little high-pitched, very girlie scream with a syncronized flailing of her arms and legs. Well, one of her legs flung a little too hard and sure enough...a flip flop went flying into the air....it did several spins in the air before it landed!! Of course it couldn't land on our balcony or on the roof below us or on the ground below that....somehow if lands perfectly on the large satellite dish hanging a bit below our balcony!!!! We were crying because we were laughing soooo hard!! The actual probablitlity of it getting stuck on there...slim to none!! After unsuccessfully trying to "fish" the flip-flop off with a hanger and string, we begged one of the security guards we know to help us...who had to act like a monkey and climb a wall to climb another wall to climb the roof and then walk across the roof in order to reach the satellite dish! Yeah, good times and most of that was caught of my video camera! TIA kinda fun ;)

Thanks for reading! Miss and love you all :)

HAPPY EASTER....HE IS RISEN!!!!!

Living to know Him more and more,

Michelle