Learning to Love...

God has been teaching me a lot about the refining fire at the moment. About being completely surrendered to his will and allowing him to remove the old and dead and replace it with the new and alive.

Walking out this journey living with the poor and the broken is refining me. Its waking me up. Its making me alive. But if I'm honest it hurts. It hurts like hell. Its not easy. It doesn’t smell like roses and it certainly doesn’t look like them. Everyday here can feel like frustration, like hopelessness, like death, like pain, like darkness. Opening your heart to a people that is dying and vulnerable hurts. It is terrifying. Its like shooting yourself in the foot. You know that by loving them with everything your going to get hurt. Their lives are going to change yours. It would be impossible for them not too. Because of this its so easy to shut your heart down, to walk away and not look back. To want to escape.

That’s what I'm walking out at the moment. Learning to love with no regard for myself. Completely unafraid and exposed. How do I get there? That is my deepest cry at the moment. Jesus show me. And he points me to the cross. It’s the ultimate sacrifice. It’s the answer to my greatest question. Its all there is. What other example do I need? What else do I need to learn if I know this? Even more than that if I feel it. Its that simple. He loved me so much that he gave his life. He gave it all. Not just a little but everything. Holding nothing back for himself. He loved me to the end of himself. So why wouldn’t I do the same? My cry is that God would break my heart for this people so much that I cant help but love them to the end of myself.

Once I fully understand what Jesus did, that’s when I'm going to get it. When I understand the price he paid that’s when I will feel it. Foremost its about me. To him its about me, its about my heart, its about me loving out of a place of love rather than responsibility. He wants me to know, he wants me to feel, to experience a love that so changes me to the very core that I cant help but not give up until I have loved like he does. Often broken and bleeding, but loving. And that’s the hard thing. Will I ever really understand? Probably not. But Jesus is gracious and patient enough to let me try. To let me learn how to love like him. And I know its likely to not be perfect. After all learning makes mistakes. But that doesn’t mean we should give up. It means we should keep going until we get it right, or at least close.

My Promise To You

Banda is my beautiful baby!! When I came to Uganda I knew I would meet a ton of kids my heart will love more than myself but I didn’t realize that one of those kids would be a slum. Banda is my slum, I am ambassador over it and that makes my heart happy.

To someone with their eyes closed Banda is hell on earth, its death, it smells and is dirty, and it’s where poverty lives…but to someone who has their eyes open, I mean really open, Banda is beautiful. Its smiling faces, its laughing babies, its hope at its most alive. That’s with Jesus that is. Without him there is no point in me even stepping foot in Banda. Maybe I could spend a while giving out clothes or food…which will help the body, but in the long run the kids I work with would still be broken. What I need is Jesus to show me how to love, really LOVE!! Love is what makes hope a reality in this community, without it I might as well pack up and leave Uganda tomorrow.

Banda is the biggest slum we work in here and is from my point of view the darkest. The dirt in Banda isn’t brown like the rest of the slums, its black. Black from the years and years of neglect, the years of feet that have walked upon its streets carrying back breaking sacks of coal, the years of trampling and crushing. Right through the middle of Banda runs a street that seems to be what we in the west would call a high street…countless shops run along its edges and it is always busy. It is also used as a cut through for Boda’s (mopeds) so it’s a rule that you are constantly aware of moving vehicles headed towards you. This is an issue because the high street is jam-packed with children and also at its widest about 3 meters…It sounds horrible right?! It is. But at the same time when I walk though that street, the back bone of Banda, I can’t help but fall in love a little more. I know I sound crazy but if you could see it, and feel it, you would completely understand.

Banda is the one place on earth I feel the way I do when I'm there. I think its hope. Hope is breaking through the darkness, is crying up from the black soil, its forcing its way into existence though the faces of the children that day by day are changing due to the love of Jesus. I would be lying if I said it was my love that was doing anything, Jesus taught me everything I know.

I'm writing all this not for my own benefit, but so that you can maybe understand and feel a little of what I'm feeling living in this beautiful, broken country. I'm trying to wake your heart up to the world around you. Because its here, its all around you, you don’t have to move to Africa to find places like Banda, all you need to do is see where your feet take you, and not be afraid to open your eyes. The world is waiting in anticipation for you to realize who YOU are, not the person next to you. Come on, wake up, open your eyes, and allow your heart to be broken just a little bit, you will never go back, I promise.