I'm a banana.

We taught our driver Jimmy to recite the "Rejected Cartoon" video on youtube..."my spoon is too big. my spoon is too big. my spoon is too big. I'm a banana!" I legitimately peed in my pants the first time he said it in a high pitched voice. If you don't know what I'm talking about, youtube it.
It’s been a while since I have blogged. Much has happened since the last post and it is hard to say that some thoughts and events are more important, more blog-worthy than others. This whole blog thing still seems narcissistic anyways. But I find that writing words that other people will read makes me actually think about what I am thinking.
Last week I visited a hospital in Lira to pray for people. I don’t think I have ever gone somewhere for the specific purpose of praying for people; it was a right feeling though. We started in the maternity ward where there were newborn babies (just minutes old) laying next to their mothers. Newborn African babies aren’t black…they are a strange reddish purple color. There were pregnant mommy’s with tears rolling involuntarily down their faces, ready to pop at any hour. I prayed for two mamas sitting on separate hospital beds. They were both sitting up facing each other; I crouched down in between them. The one on the left gave birth that day, but the baby died. She was all alone. Her eyes were heavy and sad and were tied to the ground. The one on the right had a healthy baby girl that day who she named Jane. She was beaming with her husband holding her hand and glowing alongside her. It is an uncomfortable feeling to pray for such furiously contrasting situations. I was scared to pray a prayer of joy in front of the mourning mother. But at the same time, it is beautiful. To know and claim that God is crying with the mother who lost a child and laughing with the new mother. Such contrast. God dwells in both.
From the maternity ward we moved onto the Malnourished Children’s ward. The kids there looked like shriveled up old people, kind of like E.T. actually. Wrinkled skin and bulging eyes. Maybe that’s insensitive, but it’s the closest thing I can compare it to. Their eyes looked like it was painful just to breathe. There was a 2 month old baby named Amy. Her mother died during child birth and now a “step mother” (who had her own infant strapped to her back) takes care of her. Amy was a tiny little thing, I thought she was a newborn. Death is so normalized here. It’s not that people aren’t sad or that they don’t mourn. It’s that death is so prevalent that they must choose joy. My Ugandan friend James explained it to me this way: You are happy because you are eating chicken. But then the rebel soldiers come and you can either drop the chicken and run or carry the chicken and run. You hold on to the chicken and run. And if you arrive to a safe place and find that you dropped your chicken, you are happy because you are alive. Hope is tenacious here in Uganda. We hopefully believe in a tenacious God.
I walked outside and stood in the courtyard in the middle of all the wards. I could hear the TB patients coughing and the children with malaria crying. My eyes welled over with tears. I was compelled to go pray for the patients who couldn’t afford a room inside the hospital. They sit under the mango trees, trying to keep cool in the shade. I prayed for three very pregnant mothers. I love pregnant mamas. I put my hand on their bellies and when I started to pray, the babies started moving fiercely, like a fish trying to swim in a bowl it has outgrown. They were responding to the Spirit and it was beautiful.
This weekend the interns went on safari. I took a nap on top of a boat as we floated down the Nile River towards enormous waterfall, surrounded by hippos and crocodiles. Woke up and did yoga. It was possibly the most relaxing experience of my life. We discovered a fresh deer carcass in an acacia tree and our friend Jimmy knew there was a lion nearby. He tells me he can smell a lion from far away, but I don’t know if I actually believe him. We ventured off the road into the bush, driving over a million little ant hills. I was sitting on top of the van on a mattress, peering through the bushes looking for this lion. We found the lion. A female. In a tree, hiding. She was panting, tired from hunting the deer. She was mesmerizing and I couldn’t believe we were so close to her (probably 40 feet away). It made me feel way more adventurous than I actually am. The safari was a lovely adventure. Creation is a stunning beast. God is undeniable.
This coming week we are starting a “school” for kids in the bush who can’t afford school fees. Most don’t speak any English and for many, tomorrow will be their first day of school so this should be interesting. I am extremely excited though. Sharon will be coming to this school. Mercy’s older sister will too. Pray for these kids.