Where's the Beef? There's the Beef! Ewww...

I was reading over past blogs, and realized that I had promised to show you pictures of how you buy beef here.  So I will!

Let me set the stage for my first beef-shopping trip.  It's May 6, 2008, my first full day in Mbale, Uganda.  I've just spent several hours at Messiah Theological Institute.  Well, probably just one or two, but it feels like several hours.  I'm suffering from exhaustion, jet lag, missing-luggage worries, rumpled-clothing-and-no-makeup embarrassment, plus, of the two hundred or so people I've just met, only ten speak English in a way that this Mzungu girl from Fort Worth, Texas, can understand.  To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure I'm not shaking hands the right way and I'm wondering if that's like a fatal cultural faux pas here.  So when Heidi finally asks if I'd like to do some grocery shopping and then go back to Welldone Cottage, I gratefully head for the car.

Heidi shops at "Happy Supermarket,"  which is considered to be, if not the Cadillac, at least the Plymouth of grocery stores here.  It's about the size of a small 7-Eleven, only a lot dustier and no ATM machine.  It has exactly four aisles:  two are for food, and two are for everything else.  I must admit, though, I'm quite impressed with how much inventory they can squeeze onto the shelves in those four aisles.  Heidi picks out most of the groceries since I'm having trouble reading the labels (I discover that my French, Italian, Hindi, and Arabic are a bit rusty), but I do comment on the fact that there's hardly any perishables sold there.  Heidi smiles and says, "Oh, you buy most of your meat at the market."  This isn't the market?  Oh.

So now we head a couple blocks away to the market. As we walk down the sidewalk, we go past all these little stalls with goods laid out on their counter, pavement sellers with various foodstuffs spread out on a tarp, and even people wandering around holding wooden rods with hundreds of items attached somehow.  Now we're at the market?  But no.  Heidi suddenly turns in to this dark doorway that really makes me think Black Hole of Calcutta, and voila!, now we're at the market.  The market covers a large area of ground (and I do mean ground), but I feel a little claustrophobic because the market is so packed with stalls and people, there's not much room to maneuver, and there's some sort of tin roof just a foot or so overhead.  I walk up and down between rows of tables and stalls (being careful not to trip because it's rocky ground) filled with every possible kind of food: carrots and beans and cucumbers and tomatoes and onions and maize and eggs and huge bags of flour and huger bags of rice (who knew there were so many different kinds of rice?) and several unidentifiable root-type substances.  I think it all looks very interesting, and evidently the flies agree with me.  Heidi winds her way to the what is apparently the meat aisle.  She stops at a stall, behind which stands a local butcher surrounded by hanging sides of beef.  A turkey is proudly on display at the very front of the stall, where you have a great view of the flies munching down.  I make a mental note: tuna fish for Thanksgiving this year.  Heidi dickers with the man on the price of a kilo or two of beef, then he grabs a side of beef with one hand and a machete with the other, and whacks off a piece -- after first shaking off the flies, naturally.  I watch fascinatedly as he skillfully and securely wraps it in a banana leaf (probably suffocating the last fly or two), and hands us the beef in its eco-friendly packaging.  Heidi smiles and thanks the man, we turn to leave, and I wonder where I go to join the local vegetarian group.  

When we get home, Heidi opens the banana parcel, after first allowing me to take a photo:

Now really, could YOU do as good a job wrapping a squashy hunk of beef in a banana leaf?  I doubt it.

And here's the beef!

Note:  Heidi -- after washing the beef in everything but bleach -- made some scrumptious Chinese-style sesame beef, and, yes, I ate it.  Yes, I have continued to eat local beef and chicken ever since.  I'm trying to get up my courage to eat goat.  But no, don't expect to see a photo of a turkey being unwrapped in our kitchen sink on Thanksgiving Day.  I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Good-bye from Mbale, Uganda, where I'm blessed to be having the grandest of grand adventures!

Reality Sets In

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Ps. 37:4) 

Being allowed to serve the Lord overseas has long been a desire of my heart, and I began rejoicing the moment I found out that I was going to have the privilege of going to Mbale, Uganda, to serve the Mbale Mission Team.  That sense of joy never really left me, even as I began packing up -- and even giving away -- my life back in the States.  I smiled as I gave my favorite dishes to a good friend.  I laughed when I handed over the guest room bed and some household stuff to a halfway house.  I laughed -- okay, and cried a little -- when I left the law firm I had worked at for eight and a half years.  

Yes, there were moments that I clutched a little, and wondered if I were doing the right thing.  Did I really want to wake up on Saturday morning and NOT go shopping with my best friend before I went to church and then babysat Noah?  Could I bear being away from my daughter for a year?  But the answer was always the same:  The joy of the Lord will be my strength.  God had given me a great gift.  I am going to rejoice in it.  I cried at the airport and held Jenni and Jonathan and Noah as close as I could as we said good-bye, but two hours later I was smiling through my tears and almost laughing for joy as I boarded the plane to head off to Uganda. 

That sense of wonder and joy stayed with me during my first few months in Uganda.  I knew I was in the "honeymoon stage," but to be honest, that was okay with me.  If I was in the honeymoon stage, great!  I fell in love with the country, which is easy to do, as eastern Uganda is incredibly beautiful.  I fell in love with people, who are so gracious and polite. (mostly).  I laughed every time we drove somewhere and had to stop for a herd of cows meandering along the road.  I chuckled as I carried buckets of water to our washing machine so that it would take less than an hour to fill.  I did my best to begin to get to know the local people I work with and worship with and was very excited when they would respond with overtures of friendship.  

Last Sunday, I was greeting people after church, and turned to greet Margaret, a new friend of mine whom I see only at church.  Sometimes I sit with her, and she helps translate the songs for me, which is wonderful indeed.  For the past couple weeks she had been asking me to pray for her daughter, but I wasn't sure why because, quite honestly, I can't always understand everything she says. This Sunday when she saw me, she immediately grabbed my arm and led me to the front of the church, saying, "My daughter is here today.  Please come pray for her."  Her daughter Catherine was sitting there, a young girl of about eight years old, very quiet, and obviously not in good health.  I was quite touched that Margaret wanted me to pray for Catherine.  I asked Phillip to come pray as well, mostly because he understands the local people much better than I do. He talked to Margaret for a minute or two, with me still not understanding more than every third word, and then both Phillip and I prayed for Catherine. Margaret and Catherine left, and it was then, as I talked to the other members of the team, that they explained to me that Catherine has sickle cell anemia.  She will probably not live to adulthood.  The little girl I had just so happily prayed over is almost certainly going to die in the next few years.  Reality Setting In Lesson No. 1:  Uganda is a real place with real people.  It is a third-world country. This is where I live and work and make friends, and people I care about are going to have very hard things happen to them that I can do nothing about.

Two days later I was still trying to come to terms with this reality, when I opened an e-mail from my best friend (Yes, the one I went shopping with every Saturday), whom I had not heard from in a while.  As I read the e-mail, I gradually realized that she was telling me that her husband had been rushed to the hospital with bacterial spinal meningitis about two weeks earlier, and he had almost died.  He had been put on life support, and his condition worsened to the point that they finally made the decision to take him off.  Praise God, when they took him off life support, he began to breathe on his own, and by the time my friend wrote me, her husband was definitely on the road to recovery.  But she had had to go through the experience of almost losing her husband, and I was not there for her. She needed me, and I wasn't there.  Reality Setting In Lesson No. 2:  The US is a real place with real people, and life is not holding still for a year while I am here.  Bad things are going to happen to people that I love and care about, and I can do nothing about it.

What is the answer?  Or perhaps, more properly, if these are "reality lessons," what did I learn?  Did I expect anything different?

The answer:  No, I didn't expect anything different.  And what I learned is a continuation of the lesson God has been teaching me since I was eleven years old, that He is sovereign, and I am not.  I am heartbroken that bad things are happening to people I love, whether here or in the US.  I pray fervently that God works his perfect will in their lives. I am glad, quite honestly, to be out of the honeymoon stage, so that I can get on with learning to love and rejoice in the reality in which God has placed me - the good parts and the bad parts.

As you read over this blog, you will notice the word "I" happens way too often.  You can see that I had way selfish reactions to what should have been just care and concern for other people.  Please pray that I become a better servant, that there will be less of me and more of what God wants in my life.  I want to care more about Margaret and Catherine.  And please pray for Margaret and Catherine, that God will work a miracle in their lives.  Thanks.

REFLECTIONS ON THE AVAILABILITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN A THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY, OR --

WHEN ARE THE UMEME AND UTL TECHS GOING TO SHOW UP?

Umeme = the electricity provider in Uganda

UTL = Uganda Telecom, the Internet provider in Mbale

Heidi and I are rejoicing -- and when I say rejoicing, think jumping up and down and dancing for joy -- over the fact that at this moment we have both electricity AND Internet.  Our Internet has effectively been down since last month sometime, and multiple phone calls, pleas, and, yes, even threats to UTL, did not produce any demonstrable results.  Okay, well, we did get three UTL techs to actually come out once, and they did agree that, yes, our Internet did not work.  But I'm not sure I considered that a step forward.  The Internet's repair was further complicated by the fact that power kept going off.  And for some odd reason, the UTL tech doesn't want to come out at all when there's no power on in the house.  To add insult to injury, the power line that delivers electricity to our house broke, so last night when the whole neighborhood finally got to turn their lights back on, our house remained dark.  (Big sigh here.)  The Umeme truck showed up this morning, worked for a while, then disappeared having made no apparent repairs.  But the electricity suddenly came on a couple hours ago, and the Internet came up with it -- no idea why, but we're not complaining! -- so we are excitedly reading e-mails, updating blogs, and seeing who posted comments on our wall in Facebook.  

Heidi and I have truly tried to maintain our composure and sense of humor through this, but we were beginning to get a bit frustrated.  We pay 180,000 shillings a month for Internet, and to our Western minds, this means that (when power is on) we should have Internet.  But in Uganda, it just doesn't always work out that way.  "Why not?" you ask.  "And for that matter, why is the power off so much, anyway?"  Well, those are fair questions.

One answer is that although First World technology exists here, the technology infrastructure is not particularly stable.  So when technology breaks down -- be it Internet, power lines, printers, computers, whatever -- the ability, expertise, and resources are not always available to effect competent repairs.  So repairs take longer, and, in fact, can be impossible, which is why we have a lot of nonworking or semiworking machines here.  For instance, our washer, dryer, and microwave are all in the "They sort of work" category.

Another answer is -- well, it's a little harder to put into words, but it's basically that the African mindset is different than the Westerners.  They don't feel a need to hold to schedules or to come out just because they said they would.  We have electricity power-outs because Umeme sells a lot of its electricity to Kenya, so they keep Uganda on a "loadshed" schedule.  But Umeme changes the schedule without notice.  Or they decide to do line maintenance on "power on" days, so they turn off the electricity so they can trim branches.  This drives us Westerners crazy.  But it's life here.  

But for now, we're still in the rejoicing mode because right now, right this minute, we have electricity AND Internet.  A fairly African outlook!

So thanks to all of you who wrote me e-mails, a little worried because you hadn't heard from me for a while.  There is no way to tell you all how much I appreciate your love and concern and, most of all, your prayers.  

love you all!

"Lord, I stand in the midst of a multitude..."

As many of you know, I get emotional at the drop of a hat.  And in the months preceding leaving for Uganda, the song at church that was sure to bring tears to my eyes was "Hallelujah to the Lamb" by Don Moen and Debbye Graafsma.  As I listened to an auditorium full of people singing, "Lord, I stand in the midst of a multitude of those from every tribe and tongue," and I would think of where the Lord was graciously sending me, how could I not cry for joy at the thought of getting to worship with believers from a different tribe, a different tongue?  So now I live in Mbale, and you may wonder, did the reality

meet my expectations?  Well, honey, let me tell you! 

Bible study here is at 9:00 am, and the worship service begins at 10:00 am and lasts until about noon.  It's divided fairly evenly between music and preaching. The worship service is led by a praise team (which unfortunately I do not have a photo of yet).  Movement is a big part of worship here - I love it!  We praise the Lord with clapping -- lots of clapping, sometimes with members of the church doing different clap patterns at the same time, which is way cool, but a little embarrassing to this Mzungu (white person) who doesn't keep the beat well.  We clap, wave, sway, bend over, turn in circles, and of course, raise our hands.  

Besides the missionaries, there are people representing several different native languages, so the praise team leads songs in

English, Swahili, Lugandan, and, I think, Lugisu. (I try to stand by one of the missionaries who will graciously translate the words for me, so I know what I'm singing.)  But even if I don't 

understand all the words, I KNOW I'm worshipping among "those from every tribe and tongue."

We pray for the children just before they leave for their Bible study time, and this Sunday

the children sang for us before they left -- quite beautifully, and with clapping of course.  By

the way, the group had been a little more international, but Asher, the blond boy at lower left of the photo of the children, decided he no longer wanted to sing, so his big brother took him out just before the photo was snapped.

We also sometimes get a youth group and/or an adult group that sings for us.  Last week we had two groups sing! In the photo, the singers are walking around the church as they sing, which is way cool.  As you can tell, worshipping the Lord

in song is a big part of African culture!

Finally, we have someone preach.  And this part is international as well.  So far, I've heard two Americans and a Kenyan.  They preach in English (no matter what their native language) with an interpreter translating into Lugandan so as to reach the maximum number of people. Once I got used to it, I enjoyed the rhythm of an interpreted sermon.  You get a few seconds to digest what is being said. This is Ian Shelburne, a member of Mbale Mission Team, preaching with David interpreting for him. 

After church - this MUST be an international tradition -- we all wander around and talk.  I managed to grab Hannah, our summer intern, so you could get a look at the beautiful braid job a local lady did with her hair.

It is a wonderful time of worship, but wait -- that's not the end of the day!  I saved the almost best for last!  

Sunday evenings we attend a Bible study for all the expatriates living in Mbale.  Believers attend who come from the U.S., England, Australia, Holland, Lebanon, and, yes, Uganda. We study together, pray together, and worship together, AND eat together.  (got to get some good fellowship time in there!)  

Here's my final photo of the day.  It's the group singing -- you guessed it --

Lord, I stand in the midst of a multitude

Of those from every tribe and tongue

We are your people, redeemed by your blood

Purchased from death by your love

There are no words good enough to thank you

There are no words to express my praise

But I will lift up my voice and sing from my heart

With all of my strength

Hallelujah to the Lamb!

 

   

SETTLING IN

Greetings!  I again have those three ingredients necessary to blog:  Electricity, a computer, and an Internet connection.  Yay!  

I am settling in here, in both home life and work life. The ease of the settling-in process is entirely due to the goodness of the Lord in giving me a wonderful roomie and a wonderful mission team.

  

My home here is "Welldone Cottage," which belongs to my roommate, Heidi Davison.  Here is the front yard of the cottage, as seen from the porch.  Isn't it beautiful?  If it weren't for Ugandan bugs (who LOVE me), I would probably set up my workstation outside.  The cottage itself is a pleasant, western-style, four-bedroom house. We have lots of windows, which stay open 24/7 to catch the breezes.  By the way, one way you know you're not in the States is that ALL the windows have screens and iron bars, but not all of them bother to have glass.  Here's a nice view of the house, courtesy of Heidi.  If you look closely at the photo, you will see what looks like some sort of lattice work on the windows.  Those are really iron bars.

I have a comfortable bedroom, which came already nicely painted, thanks to the person who had it before me.  Even the bed sheets are carefully color-coordinated to the walls.  Thanks, Laura Beth Chapman!  

Is the house "western-style" on the inside?  Well, that depends on how picky you are.  What are some differences?  The city water shuts off every day between about 6:00 pm and 6:00 am.  As with most houses in this neighborhood, Welldone Cottage has a water tower in the back yard which fills up with water every day while the water is on.  The tower feeds water to the bathrooms -- although don't expect high water pressure! -- but does not send water to the kitchen, which means yes to showers (and going potty!), but no to doing dishes after dinner.  Darn the bad luck!  Also, the hot water heater feeds only the baths, not the kitchen.  And, of course, the electricity goes on and off.  There's supposed to be a schedule, but Umeme, the power company, feels no need to hold to the schedule.  The first week here, power was off more than it was on.  This last week, power has been been mostly on.  You just don't know.  The good side of living here, though, is that you don't miss electricity as much as you would in the States.  You don't need air conditioning (honest!), and plenty of light comes into the house during the day.  We worry mostly about keeping our laptops charged up for work and keeping the food good in the refrigerator.  And I worry about blow-drying my hair.  (Heidi is blessed with beautiful naturally curly hair.)  Oh, and if the electricity is off long enough, we will lose hot water to the showers, but that happens very rarely.  

One more small difference:  you don't really watch television here.  At least Heidi and I don't.  We have a small TV to watch DVDs on, but we usually end up watching those on our computers.  But no TV shows.  Again, darn the bad luck!

There are other differences, such as the esthetics of the workmanship in the houses (workmen here go on the theory of "If it works, it's good enough"), but my Internet connection is getting shaky, so we'll leave that topic for another day, along with talking about how my work is coming along - very well, thank you, now that my printer is working! Oh, and I have photos of the beef wrapped in the banana leaves!  I know you're all waiting for that.

But just in case you're wondering, have I really given up much material stuff to come here? No, I haven't, especially when you consider what people have given up through the years to get to serve the Lord.  But what very little I may have given up, I am overjoyed to get to do so. Check out Philippians 3:7-11.  I couldn't say it better than Paul, who gave up so, so much more than I ever will.  

Again, please pray for me that I serve the team well.  Thanks!

  

Greetings from Uganda!

I am sitting in the living room of "Welldone Cottage" writing this blog, hoping that the Internet connection stays on for just a few more minutes! (Doesn't look good, but we'll try.) To use the Internet in Uganda, you need three things: a computer, electricity, and a working internet connection. Today is the first day since I arrived that I have had all three!

I have been in Uganda a week now. The jet lag is gone, and the culture shock seems to be going okay. Today I walked into town ALL BY MYSELF to buy some needed supplies. I estimate that I was overcharged no more than about 5,000 Ugandan shillings - or about a dollar - so I think I'm doing good! I didn't have to walk - I could have ridden on the back of a boda, which is a bicycle with a seat on the back, for about 500 shillings, but I decided that I'm not brave enough for that yet. The boda drivers weave in and out of traffic, and, well, it makes me nervous just to watch them.

Let me tell you a little about the country: Uganda is an unbelievably beautiful country. (I would show you a photo or two, but one of my bags is still MIA, and naturally it is the bag with the software and computer cable for my camera.) Mountains, tropical bushes, palm trees of course, gorgeous flowers - my front yard looks like a park. Ugandans are also beautiful and very polite and friendly, which is amazing, as life here is very hard for most Ugandans. Sadly, that makes labor here very cheap. It also make labor necessary, as we comparatively affluent Westerners must use guards to protect our property. Even missionaries are considered rich. And we are, by Ugandan standards. More about this later.

The mission team has been wonderful. They have helped me settle in and have already begun working with me on what my responsibilities will be. Tomorrow I will walk to work and hopefully begin being a productive member of the team! I have a really great roommate. Heidi has been in Uganda before, and she is the one teaching me all the ins and outs of the culture here. She took me to market and we bought two kilos of beef from a man in a stall with sides of beef hanging all around him. I was okay with that, but when the man took our money and wrapped the beef up in banana leaves, I decided on the spot to become a vegetarian.

Hey, my Internet connection is getting shaky. Better go for now. By the way, I have changed my settings so that you can leave comments without joining anything, so please comment!

Love you all, and thank you so much for your prayers!

MARY BETH HAS LEFT THE COUNTRY - FINALLY!

Yes, I'm sitting in a quiet corner at Heathrow Airport, feeling quite chipper, actually (note the smile on my face and not too much of that "deer in the headlights" look), and I thought it would be a good time to post my first official blog. It's not as if I don't have some spare time - my flight to Entebbe leaves at 9:10 pm, and it's 4:15 am now. Well, okay, it's 4:15 am Fort Worth time, and it's 10:15 am London time. But that still gives me ten hours to play with.

So I am branching out, technology-wise, taking little baby steps. I bought 24 hours of internet time from Boingo Hotspot - Heathrow does not have free wifi - and I have felt quite proud of myself for figuring out how to do that AND how to upload a photo of myself from my phone. I would be even more proud had I remembered to pack the digital camera cable in my overnight bag instead of somewhere in my 200 pounds of checked luggage so that I could have uploaded a good photo from the beautiful digital camera my family bought me just for that reason, but, hey - baby steps, remember! Well, I gave the man sitting across from me something to laugh about as he watched me try to get a decent photo from a razr phone.

The flight from DFW to Heathrow went well and actually seemed shorter than it was, probably because I spent much of the time trying to sleep ("trying" being the operative word.) btw, I knew I was on British Airways when I asked for tea and they gave me a cup of freshly brewed hot tea instead of a cup of hot water and a tea bag. Also btw, perhaps it's the accent, but the British flight attendants all seemed so polite!

When I did my Bible reading this morning, the first words of the Psalm I was on (I try to read one Psalm a day) were these: "Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples." (Psalm 96:1-3) Wow! I feel as if the Psalmist wrote it just for me. The Lord is giving me a new song and He is sending out to the nations. Thank you, Lord! Please pray that I am faithful and that I am a good servant.

I'm not going to talk about my actual leave-taking on this blog. It's still too recent, and I don't want to cry anymore right now. I'll talk about that later, but thanks to everyone who participated in that leave-taking. Thanks for your love and your well-wishes and your prayers. A special thanks for my darling daughter Jenni for getting us all together on fairly short notice.

I think I'll go wander around and see what cool stuff the shops at Heathrow have to offer. Talk to you again soon!