BATS!

The Bethel team arrives here in two days. And we are all pretty excited. The itinerary is going to be jammed packed: hospitals, schools, village outreach, training,  a mental hospital, jails, and a weekend crusade in the surrounding villages where 40 different churches are joining in! This also means this will probably be my last blog post for a while since I won't be around internet until November. The team is going to be made of 24 people from age 19 to age 70. So we know it's gonna be a pretty diverse group. I'm personally excited for the older people coming…being in college and then with 6 young interns makes you appreciate grown up time! :) 

Sooo…In preparation we've have all been cleaning away. This means cleaning up bat guano with bleach and a scrub brush So fun! haha You could see the seeds in the fecal matter from all the fruit these nasty creatures eat. There are so many here! and they love to hang around the Ark--the large meeting room where we eat. As we were scrubbing away we noticed that the bats were sleeping under the back overhang. I watched as Brittany took the large pink duster, we call it the "poof", and go after the bats. We thought they were asleep at first but we could see their demonic little heads follow us when we came in sight. I followed close to Brittany's rear, not wanting to miss out on all the excitement, but at the same time my heart pounding and hoping one wouldn't fly my way. At first they were cooperative and flew away from us, but then they started getting more brave and coming at our head! eek. Brittany's and my squealing brought two more interns to join in on the bat hunting. We didn't realize that when we were scarring off the last few bats that we were just at the beginning of the quest. They started going into the ark!!! and that's not okay when you have just spent an hour scraping off their tar-like feces!! They were in the back corner over the school room. Us girls all grab our choice weapon and ammo--the "poof", brooms, scrapers, partnered with wiffle balls--and climb militantly up the stairs, or as militantly as possible while giggling. Even the guard puppies join us with their own balls in their mouth. We stand around couple minutes, the bats about 15ft away, and after assessing the situation decide on a plan of action. We will all throw our balls at once while holding our defense weapons in the other hand to keep them from possibly attacking our faces. "One, two, three throw!" and after all that buildup they uneventfully fly to the other side of the ark, but don't worry we screamed anyway! Laughing we run down and see that they are now about 30 ft away from hanging from the ceiling and there is no way we can get them now. Even when we tried hitting the wiffle balls with plastic bats, we were not even close, and were more consistently dodging each others balls than getting near the bats. The Ugandans just watched us crazy girls with amusement. So the bats won this time!!! But  we declare victory over the next.

News on the Clinic:

Dr. Martin came last Sunday evening. He is the one that would be able to get us legal and setup. Because everything seems the follow the trend of taking forever here, we were surprised when he said the clinic would take only a month or more to get going! Wahooo! So It seems that I might get to be working in the clinic after all before I leave, if everything goes as planned.

PRAISE!!!

So I had been disheartened at the beginning of this week by what God had not been doing with the clinic. You see, there is a building coming up before my eyes, but we have no doctors yet.  And we have some supplies, but not necessarily the means to ship it over.  Last Sunday during church, I was talking to God about all that was going on. I understand the fact that these things take time, but what about my timing? I've felt that He has called me here for a purpose, and that purpose is the clinic. I love the kids here, the programs, and teaching in the schools.  They do bring me joy…but I don't want to miss why it is that I came here in the first place. So I'm telling God all this and I hear in my spirit "Sarah, pray it in!"

Pray it in? You want me to simply pray in the clinic at this time? But it's right in front of me. So, God is that why you keep talking to me about the prophet Anna? She had prayed for the coming of the messiah decades before she finally got to see. Is that why I keep having dreams of myself giving birth?--(weird I know, but is a common one when helping "birth" something in this world) Is that why when Martha and Robin prayed and prophesied over me that they were saying I would be a pioneer…breaking through on new projects and then passing the baton? So….okay I should "Pray it in."

So of course I came home from church and immediately started praying!…haha NOT. Thoughts like, "I don't want to go out by myself to the clinic," or "maybe I'll do it tomorrow," come to mind. The next day is Monday, so men are building and working on finishing the clinic, "I definitely can't go now, how would it look for a Munzungu to start praying and worshipping amongst a bunch of Ugandan workers." And then of course I go back to feeling like, why am I here? Why did God make the clinic a desire of my heart? I want to be raising money, creating a system for the clinic, finding doctors and medicine! Let's get the pray healing team going! And the Lord again says, "Sarah, pray it in."

Then Wednesday night while the other interns are praying for me, I see myself going out into the clinic praying and worshipping and encouraging the men that are helping to finish the building. Something in my shifts. And instead of wanting to avoid the clinic I feel not only the need to go to pray, but the assurance that I am going to do it! So yesterday. Kimberly, Allie and I go out to the clinic. It's the middle of the day, there are men all around, and the clinic isn't your regular praying in an empty space. There was some awkwardness at first, but I we were determined! We asked the painter if we could pray in an empty examining room and he said yes. We get there and immediately the Holy Spirit leads us into powerful prayer. It was like he was giving us a book on what He wants this place to be like, and we just declared it out loud and prayed it out so it could come to pass. Towards the end the Holy Spirit tugs at my heart and says, "Ask the painter if he wants prayer." At that point in time I had forgotten about what I had seen the other night. Luckily, the painter--Sebastian--spoke English and so when we asked if he needed prayer he immediately got on his knees. We soon found that Sebastian was a believer and knew Jesus, and it was really fun to just pray for him and see the Holy Spirit bless and encourage him.

After we left the clinic, my heart was full from finally taking the step God had been asking me! As soon as we walk out it was like stepping into the picture I had seen a couple nights previous, and I soon found God had more in store than just our prayer time. We ended up getting to pray for a sick baby and minister to a couple of the workers through simply talking about Jesus. They had seen my Bible and kept asking me questions. We all became very excited when as soon as a question came up in conversation we would turn to a page on the Bible and God would be giving us the answer right there underlined on the page!

So…I am blessed! To know that God is doing His work around me and I'm getting to be a part of it, along with so many others. So after I went to "pray it in"…I  felt led to meet with Mike and Lori about the clinics progress.  I haven't really gotten to sit and talk to them about it for a couple weeks now. So pray with me on this! I still feel so little in meeting with adults, and the idea of taking their time or inconveniencing makes me nervous. You should have seen the nervous wreck I was when I felt God tell me to ask to meet and it still makes my stomach go in knots.

Love you and miss you guys!

Sarah

P.S. Feel free to pray it in with me! If God puts anything on your heart about the clinic--ideas, words of knowledge, encouragement--Please please message me.

Photos from Uganda

A longer post later..