why uganda?

--yeah...i'm studying abroad in the spring.
-oh really? where?
--uganda....
-uganda? (eyebrows raised....) what made you choose there?

i'm honestly not sure how many times this [approximate] situation has happened in the last 3 weeks or so. after that lil exchange things start to vary a bit. my answer varies depending on who i'm talking to and what kind of mood i'm in. it's typically one of the following:

1. i don't know.... (that's when i'm feeling lazy or i'm talking to a moron....if i've said this to you, you can safely assume it was because i was feeling lazy).
2. i've always wanted to go there! (this one is just a flat out lie. i have always wanted to study abroad....but i pretty much had my heart set on england for quite a while).
3. i've been really interested in africa lately.

#3 is definitely true, but pretty freaking vague. people who care (and have time) to hear more usually ask more questions after that. well, if you didn't have time to hear the whole explanation before and care to hear more....read on!

i've turned off billy [joel] (the love of my life) so i can focus

mmm.....freshman year in college a good friend from home (the beautiful callie grace) invited me to go to a newsboys concert w/ her (rebecca st. james also [dis]graced the stage, but i'm choosing to forget. haha no offense to any fans....i will admit i love her version of "be thou my vision")....anywhooo....compassion int'l was there and i decided to adopt a child....this first one i picked up was a lil boy from rwanda ("wherever that is...." i remember thinking)

later i when i got more information i learned that rwanda was the site of a massive genocide in 1994. now....i don't know how that would have affected you, but that definitely shook me a bit. "the rwandan genocide happened when i was 10! and i don't remember hearing a thing about it! and i'm 19 years old and i still haven't heard of it! and this was in my lifetime....stuff like this still happens today!"

sooo....i started researching rwanda a bit. i learned that somewhere between 800,000 and 1 million people were killed in 100 days....by ordinary people--farmers, teachers, lawyers--turned murders. for some crazy reason, i found this fascinating....so i started using it as my universal research topic....i used it for just about any open ended project a prof assigned. for speech i studied the role of the UN in the massacre (if you're interested in that i would recommend you read Shake Hands with the Devil) and for comm ethics i studied the role of propaganda in the incitement of the people

sooo yeah....i got very interested in africa. and at about the same time my interest in studying abroad began to reemerge. one day i was talking with my boss/friend/mentor/admissions counselor denise about studying abroad and she gave me a butt load (that's a lot, in case you weren't sure) of brochures to look at. there were a lot of interesting sounding ones: the middle east, china, costa rica, but one caught my attention--egypt....haha, jk....uganda.

so. i go and tell all my friends and family that i am going to study abroad in uganda. (do i really think i am actually going to do said study abroad--NO!)

im not sure what really turned this fantasy into reality (if it is indeed that now). might have been dad telling me he didn't think i could handle the cold showers....or maybe it was how much i learned to love being in other cultures on my missions trips (which i could probably write a whole other post on)....maybe it was being sick of roberts....maybe it was the AoA campaign (yay cassie, and trina, and bob, and diane, and beth, and ang, and whoever else i'm forgetting)....or maybe it was just that heaviness on my heart every time people talked about africa or it was on the news....maybe it was just God screaming it in my ear (i'm finding i have selective hearing, btw)....WHATEVER it was....i'm going.

***dr. mrs. and stew and meg and whoever else reads this that cares....i'm sorry if my verb tenses are scrambled*** :-)

mmm....so that's pretty much why i'm going to uganda. although....another huge part is that i really have missions stuff on my heart and i think it's so important to spend time immersed in a culture, and this is one step beyond that. i'll actually be studying the culture--history, lit, government and politics, theology, and religions! and HOPEFULLY @ the end of the semester i'll be staying in east africa somewhere(s) to work with missionaries and/or non profits. (But this is still in the works and much needing your prayers!!!)

alright....i'm going to go eat some soup and enjoy the snowflakes that are lackadaisically falling. and yes....you just heard me say i'll enjoy the snow! haha