greatest 45 min of my life

so this is a short post about a jog that i did. it was late at night and pretty much every one had gone to bed. i took my zune, cranked the David Crowder Band, and jogged between the dorms/room where we slept and the house of the people hosting us. there was no lighting in site, except the stars and the moonlight. it is about half a kilometer between the dorm and the house and it was very uphill towards the house. so i started out. the temperature was perfect, the moon was bright, the stars were beautiful, and i was surrounded by nature and Gods creation. as i kept jogging back and forth i was overcome with emotion and couldnt help but cry out to God. i was literally in tears as i kept on jogging. i was just in this state of worship that i wanted to never end. i kept jogging until i felt like my legs were going to collapse, but then i just kept walking. it was just amazing. these words do not do justice to the way i felt. but after about 40 minutes of this i was drenched in sweat and i lied down in the middle of a field where i tried to take it all in. then i went to the "bathing station" where i poured freezing cold water all over myself to bathe. it felt so cold and yet so good. that is no doubt the best 45 minutes of my life

Masaka

so recently i had the opportunity to travel to a place called masaka. i went with cara, fred, mike, and tiny (its a nickname because he is bigger than me). masaka is about an hour or 2 below the equator. we stayed in a village that was far away from the city. it was beautiful at night... you could see all the stars (where there werent clouds).
So a few days before we left, I heard that I was going to a village far away for a few days. I had no idea what we were going to do, but I went with a heart of service and ready to do anything that might be needed. We left at about 6am on Monday morning, and arrived there at about noon. The people at the place that we stayed at were very hospitable. I was honored and touched by their kindness and generosity. But after we had lunch, we didn't waist any time. We started to evangelize.
As we started to evangelize, I started to notice the differences between here, and evangelizing in America. The first thing is that no one slammed their doors shut, or refused to let us talk to them. They were all very welcoming, and some even gave us gifts, just for coming. Secondly I noticed that these people really enjoyed listening to us, even if they weren't born again. The ones who were born again just wanted us to preach to them for as long as we could. I had to adjust to this different way of doing things, because I am used to just getting to the point/getting down to business. It was an awesome experience to be able to share the good news of Christ with so many people.
Each day after we finished evangelizing we took a nap and talked to each other until we had dinner and had a short time of fellowship/worship/Bible study. I enjoyed the Bible study so much. There were about 10-15 people crowded into a tiny room and we read by candle light and shared with each other about the passage that we had read. It was just a huge blessing and a great opportunity to evangelize to all those people and fellowship with the people at the house.

Christmas

hey so i know that this is totally late, but here is the scoop on how christmas went down over here. well it started a few days before the 25th. many people came to the church, and we handed out soap, salt, sugar, and corn to the people who came. it is kinda interesting that the things we handed out were more of necessities rather than "luxuries". then everyone was very busy on christmas eve preparing for the christmas meal. i helped peel matoke (bananas) and irish (potatoes). but my favorite part of preparing was slaughtering the chickens. i killed 3 of them (and filmed it to put on my facebook) and i helped "de-feather" them. then on christmas we went to the service and afterwards, about 50 people came to the house (mainly kids from the school). it was very cool. there was plenty to eat, and everyone was stuffed. there was no tree, presents, decorations, but there were friends and family. it was a cool experience

recent activity

yall might be wondering... sean, what have you done lately? well here i am to answer that. one of my biggest highlights so far is beheading a chicken. i did this sometime last week i think. first i had to pluck the feathers around where i was going to cut. then i stood on its feet and wings and grabbed the neck. then i whipped out my pocket knife and sliced through its skin cartilage and flesh. with the head still in my hand i stepped off it as i watched it try to stand up and run away. it struggled to stand up, and when it did it tried to run, but it had a really hard time trying to balance. so it kept taking a few steps and falling down over and over. it made it about 10 to 15 feet away from the place of execution when it just started to flop on the ground, similarly to a fish. it was quite an experience and i hear that we are having chicken for christmas again..... look out chickens, here i come!!!! i have also been to another wedding and introduction since then. the wedding which was yesterday was much nicer/fancier than the last. the bride and everyone else was actually ready when it was supposed to start which isnt very common in africa. the ceremony took place in a huge octagonal church. the reception was at a very nice hotel. after a while of sitting through the long talk during the reception, a few guys snuck me out of there and into the bar to watch soccer with them... that was awesome and cara was mad that we left her there :P ... today i went with one of my best friends, moses babu, to his sisters introduction. his brother is very funny and is absolutely crazy for my type of music. he is very talkative and told me at least 500 times how glad he was that i came to join them for this. this introduction was also much more enjoyable thanks to moses translating much of the talking for me. it was during this that i found out that he has 9 sisters and 4 brothers... holy crap!!! but overall it was much more enjoyable to me. i cant wait to find out what this upcoming week has in store for me!!!

my role

so idk how much info leaked though and how many of you were wondering about one of my latest fb posts, but a few days ago i kind of had a break down. it all starts with the fact that i havent really had much/any responsibilities here, which is mainly due to the fact that everyone is on holiday. well a responsibility eventually came up and it was one of the things that i was told i would do. so i got excited, finally something to do!!! the people in charge of the ministry that i came here through (rtp (remember the poor)) wanted an "american" to go and meet with a minister and to relay information back about him and his ministry so that rtp could decide if they want to help support him. well they decided that cara would be better qualified than me (and i agree), but they also said that i was not even allowed to go along with her because if they see 2 white people they might assume that they "have it made." so when i heard that i would not be able to participate in this this made me very very upset. i realized that cara is more qualified than me to do pretty much everything, so i felt like i am going to be watching her be doing much of the stuff that i was sent here to do.
the second thing that made me upset is that i realized that all the money i raised for "ministry purposes" had been spent for me without me even being able to give any input as to what it went towards. correct me if i am wrong, but doesnt the person/people who raised the money decide how they want it to benefit the ministry. at least i know that it hasnt gone to waste. anyway i just felt very useless and was wondering why i was here and had a breakdown.
i am sorry that this has been so much of a downer so far, but since then i have been able to come to terms with my situation (with a huge help from david yee... thanks ;P). i realize that i am here to serve, and i need to be willing to serve in any way that is needed. i have also been able to have a "discussion" with pastor john and i/cara told him that i feel like i havent been able to serve, and would like more opportunities. i guess i am joining him tomorrow (i have no idea what we are doing) and i just have to hope that he creates/finds more opportunities for me to serve. but i realize that i will just have to make the best of the situation i find myself in. thanks for the prayers and the continuing support.

Something Interesting

hey so today i think that i will write about something interesting for a change. this is the story as far as i know (which isnt much). so there is this girl who is sponsored at the school who used to live with her grandmother. well apparently her grandmother died and her mother took her away from the school for a while to live with her in the village. well... her mom just dropped her back off early in the morning yesterday. she is about 3 years old and had a hard time getting along with the other kids. cara noticed this and decided to show her special attention and tried to help her. well we found out 2 things. the first is that she didnt know a word of english(which is normal cause you star to learn it when you are about 4-5) or a word of luganda. apparently she only knew her moms language. well the other kids kept trying to talk to her, but when she kept getting frustrated and tried to hit them. the second thing is that she was very sick (i think it was malaria) and cara took her to the clinic. well eventually they came back and she was still very upset and just miserable, so cara decided to take her home for the night. cara cared for her all night long, by feeding her, bathing her, and basically holding and showing love to her all night until they fell asleep.(that happened last night) well this morning i went to the school and found her in a much better mood and getting along better with the kids. had cara not done this for her she would probably still be the miserable little kid that she was yesterday. so basically i was touched by the love of God that cara displayed to this girl and i am very glad to have her in my life as a role model that i can look up to.

and i thought the introduction was boring.....

whats crackin my peeps...... ok so in america we all hate it when there is a road sign that says something like "construction ahead, single lane only"... well in uganda they have that too... unfortunately it is one lane for both directions.... lol... i thought that was very funny and unusual. so yesterday i went to a wedding.... at first i thought i was in luck... the wedding was supposed to start at 10 am. we left the house at about that time and we were just planning to maybe catch the end of it and go to the reception to hang out, chat, and eat. well.... we beat the bride there apparently. the bride showed up quite a while after we did and this was about noon or so. so we watched a wedding that was going on in the church while we were waiting for the one we were there for. then after everyone was ready, they preformed the ceremony along side another couple who was getting married. yeah very bizzare... and having 2 couples did not make it go any faster either. btw the entire thing was in luganda too. after the ceremony we visited pastor johns mothers house cause it was on the way and cause the reception wasnt ready yet or something. when we finally got to the reception we sat and did nothing for about an hour or so until the bride and groom decided to show up. there were no tables, and i somehow ended up sitting in the back by myself . i thought ok... they are probably going to say a few things, eat, cut the cake and then par-tay. well that is exactelly what happened, except for saying a few things took about 7 hours, and everyone was tired and wanted to leave as soon as they started to party. so overall i spent about 10-12 hours just sitting and listening to people talk in a language that might as well be gibberish to me. it was an interesting experience, and i am glad that i went, but honestly i give up on these ceremonies. i really am not going to go to another one unless i have someone there to talk to and to interpret for me. i am ready for the students break to be over so i can start actually doing some work. sorry for another not very interesting blog, but i hope to have some crazy experiences soon... btw i am having some major pizza and wings withdrawals. i really am losing sleep at night because of it... i mean what else do you think i am doing up at 2 am writing this? so if anyone wants to send me a pizza i would be all for that... aight!!!!! peace out