howdie

...well, i'm back...enjoy :)

the pic left is of my son caleb and me with nabwire leah, the ten year old girl from bugiri district in uganda that our family sponsors through adopt uganda. she is a nut...loves cookies and coca cola. likes to play net ball (volleyball) and jump rope. is learning to read and write in english. has a terrific laugh. needs new shoes! has 4 brothers and sisters (they needs sponsors, btw). wants a red dress. was interested in what kind of roof we have on our house. can't say i have ever been asked that question before.

we were privileged to meet leah in july when we traveled to uganda for 18 days with michael pippen and scott swicegood from harmony and a group of 7 folks from focus ministries here in georgetown. it was one of the most amazing times of my life. i don't know that i could ever adequately described everything that we saw, the way God taught us through the beautiful people there, the challenges we faced along the way, etc. but, yeah, it was truly awesome and i consider it a great joy in my life to have shared this with these guys, especially caleb.

one of the things that simply blew me away was when we traveled to buwoya to visit the people whose lives were touched by the water project God worked through harmony student ministries to initiate and fund with our 30 hour famine in 2007. for a significant period of time thousands of people who otherwise have no access to drinkable water were able to go to this pond to draw water for their families and livestock. water for them is quite literally a matter of life or death. after we worshiped with the good folks in this congregation one after another they rose to thank us for helping them in this way, and for coming to visit them. i couldn't help but cry as they expressed the depth of their gratitude to God...not because of what we did, but for what we allowed God to do through us. so many of the young people involved in this project will never see the fruit of their labor...but i hope they can somehow know that they made a huge impact in the lives of many people by being obedient to what God called them to do.

when the congregation was done expressing their gratitude, they walked us down the path, about a mile, to the pond to see the source of their water, and their lives. they were so excited. i didn't really know what to expect, but i have to say i did not expect what i saw, which you can see in this pic.

the pond, for which they are so grateful is: 1) just about gone and 2) a source of water i'm not sure i'd step into, much less drink from.

this was just one of many examples of experiences like this that we had. over and over and over again we saw people be grateful and joyful and praise God in circumstances that most of us would at best complain about, much less see the way they did.

i'm amazed that a simple thing like where i was born can have such a radical impact on my ability to appreciate the life that i have. here in the u.s. we have literally dozens of options for obtaining clean drinking water, and generally make our choice based on preference and convenience.

for some reason as i write this, i'm reminded of the story of narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of clear, refreshing water, could not tear himself away from what he saw and died there.

so...yeah...i'm sure there'll be more pics and thoughts to come...i've been going through a lot of other stuff too, which i'll not talk about here but which as kept me from posting for a while...but which joins with the above experience in reminding me not so gently that life is a precious gift and that there's just not time to give to complaining, feeling slighted, petty arguing, gossiping, or any of the other things we get so wrapped up in some times. so...please...join with me to today in expressing gratitude for the mountain of blessings in our lives, rather than letting our vision be clouded by our own reflections.