So, one...or more blogs???

So, I'm trying to decide whether to keep up with this blog or to just let it rest since I am now in America. Mr. Lovelace from my church suggested that I keep going with this blog. Now, I don't know if I would have that many interesting stories anymore since I am in America (well, there are interesting things that happen here, but, I have to say there are so many things that are just REALLY funny that happen in Africa because, well, there's just things there that happen there that wouldn't happen here- like riding a motorcycle across the railroad tracks when a train is literally only 30 ft away, I mean come on, how many times does that happen in America?)

But, I am thinking that it might be really cool if I wrote on this my reflections of just being back in America- the transition into "my" culture- and whatever else God decides to do this year. I may not be as consistent, but, let's just see how this goes. I'll need your feedback if you want this to keep going!

One thing I do want to say- I feel like I have already "adjusted" into American culture, but, I don't feel like I'm fully seeing life the way we as Americans always have. Now, I'm going to be careful not to judge in this blog- this is one thing I have struggled with before coming back from a foreign country- and I prayed a lot about my attitude in entering back into America. But I do want to point out these things that have struck me differently than they would have in the past.

Just recently our air conditioner in our house broke, and of course this is a huge burden financially for our family and it's just stressful trying to get things like this fixed while waiting for them and sweating in the Texas heat. In Uganda, no one had air conditioning. Ok wait, I went in someone's car and exclaimed, "Whoa, AIR CONDITIONING!" But that was my only experience of that. When we wanted to keep cool we just opened our windows and turned on the fan. In fact when I first got home, my room was a little stuffy so I opened my window and didn't think twice about it. Then I opened my door and went into the hallway and realized how cold it was, and I was like "Oh yea, we have air conditioning, that probably means I need to close my window." In fact I think I'm still trying to get over a cold because my body is not used to being at a lower temperature by constantly being in some kind of air conditioning here.

Another story (I promise the point is soon coming): I was in the attic and I was fumbling through things and while I was doing this another box fell out of the attic onto the ground with all of my "precious valuables" and glass shattered everywhere and it made this terrible crashing noise and I screamed because I didn't know it had fallen and it scared me and it was MY stuff that fell and my dad was outside so he came running up saying "Are you ok? Are you ok?" And my response was "Yea I'm fine but all my stuff is broken!" And he just responded something like, "Oh it doesn't matter, just as long as you are ok."

We as people put a lot of value on stuff, we put security locks on our stuff, we don't like our stuff breaking or being stolen. For Ugandans, they don't have much stuff, and the stuff they do have is easily stolen. They don't have padded locks like we do- our gaurd had all of his stuff stolen out of his house and was left with nothing, his own friend stole his phone! And he makes what is equivalent to about $5 a day for working an entire night to gaurd our compound! He does not have enough money to replace those things that were lost.

What I'm getting at is this, many times we think that Satan is attacking us by getting to our stuff- and I'm not denying that He can do that-but maybe it's the fact that we keep ourselves in bondage by being attached to our stuff!

The other day a song was running through my head. "All I need is you...All I need is you Lord, is you Lord. And all I need is you." And I was thinking about how my Ugandan friends didn't have much stuff, but they had so much time for Christ, prayer, worship, and each other. In testimony time, many Ugandans would stand and say, "I thank God for my life, for keeping me alive." And that was their testimony. That's what my dad was concerned about, my life, the thing that actually matters. But even our lives we are not able to keep secure. So I started thinking, "we just can't hold to anything secure but you." So I started to change the words in my head, "All I have is you, all I have is you Lord, is you Lord, and all I have is you." Is that all we have to hold to? Or do we hold to so many other things that keep us from holding to the one thing that truly matters?

"Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and theives do not break in and steal."
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."