Just thinking

So I feel like now I'm finally hitting culture shock, haha. Not culture shock in the way I imagined it, but, it's just the realization that I have experienced something different, which requires responsibility on my part.

Ya know that quote from Spiderman which says "With great power comes great responsibility." I mean, I kinda feel like spiderman right now- without the tight suit. Not that I'm a hero, or that I have any powers, but, I have been given the opportunity, through the help of many caring people in my life and God's grace, to care for and live around African, specifically, Ugandan people.

And sometimes it's frustrating because no one really knows what exactly I felt and saw in Africa. It's not the problem of everyone else, but my world has been turned upside down. Have you ever been looking at the same picture and your seeing one thing and your friend is seeing another, and so you try to point out the thing you are seeing but they are not seeing it, so you try and try and possibly they finally say, "OH, I see now what you are talking about!"

While I was in Africa, our leader Phyllis said, "You have no rights to yourself, you gave up your rights when you signed up for this trip, in reality you signed up to give up your rights when you became a Christian." I really saw what that meant living in Africa, I gave up my rights to myself to meet African people's needs, to be a light to them, to serve them daily. Before I went to Africa, I saw the picture of life, God, this world in a certain way, through Sarah's eyes, and after this trip I saw the picture differently, and I feel like I no longer have the right to go back to the way I used to see the picture.

So, where does this leave me? With a new responsibility- possibly to just live giving up my rights to the way I thought I was going to live before I left, possibly living giving up the rights to think the way I used to think, possibly giving up my rights to complain about things I used to complain about. I'm not exactly sure what to do about how my life has changed, but I really see now that I don't own the papers on my own life, the Lord does, and I don't know how that will affect my life, and how it will possibly affect others.

(and I don't know if I was supposed to use "affect" or "effect" on that one, anyone know?)

By the way, check out invisiblechildren.com and see what is happening in Uganda and what people here in the US are doing about it- we need to pray for this situation because it is serious stuff, my gaurd Bosco was effected (again?) by this war, it's real there in Uganda and the surrounding countries.