to answer your questions (plus an additional rambling on safety)

Who/What: I am going to live with my girlfriend Suzan's family. I will also visit my host families from Fall semester.

When: May 19 - August 12

Where: Uganda (We will stay in Muyenga (Kampala suburb), Oyam (northern village) - and we will travel to Bugujju (Mukono) and rural Kapchorwa to visit my previous host families)

Why: Many have asked if I am doing missions. Most of you know I'm a bit cynical about white people doing missions in Africa, so the simple answer to the question is "no." Ugandan culture is much more about "being" whereas our fast-food-time-is-money culture is about "doing."

What further confirmed my idea to just live with Ugandans instead of working hard to convince myself I am saving the world was an interview with Ugandan Bishop Niringiye. It has been suggested in many cases that when foreigners come to many parts of Africa, they just make visits, eat the locals' food, and share tea/conversation. I once heard of an American group which was working hard to build a new building but they were asked to leave the country early. A local women said, "They didn't love us. They never came into my home to eat my food. We can build the building, and we a grateful for them, but it wasn't working out."

People ask, "What will you be doing there?" I try to respond, in some manner, "I will be 'being' there." Physically, this means I simply live as Suzan's family lives. Although I will probably be treated with favor as a guest or visitor, I will try to do what they do: eat, sleep, laugh, sit, dig in the garden, pay transport to make visits, etc.



If anyone has any questions about my trip, please ask. There are no dumb questions, as the cliche goes.




Rambling I Wanted to Document Before It Left My Mind:

To switch subjects, last night I went to a concert in Greencastle to see lots of my friends before my departure. It was quite funny because a lot of them were telling me to "be safe." Now, I don't plan to get myself in a lot of trouble while abroad. Far from it, actually. But the thought (yet again) crossed my mind: Should we really be concerned with safety? Is that the calling of the cross? I can just picture Jesus' death weapon being handed to Him, someone saying, "Here, take this cross, carry it to the top of the hill, and don't forget....Be safe."

Do our bodies really mean that much to us? Shouldn't we be more concerned with God's Kingdom than our own temporary bodies which are falling apart slowly (or quickly) anyway? Our nation was founded on the protection of private property, and more than ever, we are valuing abundance and storing away in barns (banks, sheds, rental storage?). Sometimes it's easy for me to forget that "I am not my own."

Safety is our Baal. The Christian community is blindly accepting it. If something is not safe, we think we probably shouldn't do it. I wonder if any of St. Paul's works would have made it into the book of Acts had he always been safe?

Risk and physical sacrifice isn't only for New Testament readers, either. I mean, I'd be pretty freaked out if I was marching around a fortified wall with a trumpet, expecting my instrument playing to make the wall crumble. We can adopt the attitude of loving others before ourselves, much like Esther, who told Mordecai, "I and my maids will fast as you do [for three days and nights]. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish."

That last sentence always strikes me: "If I perish, I perish." Essentially she is willing to say, "I am called to do the upright thing, which violates this unjust law. I am doing it for God and our people, not because they need me specifically, but because I am willing. If I die, the world will not collapse." It is such a hard concept for an individualistic, upwardly mobile culture to grasp. The idea that you are part of a whole, only a mere limb of a tree (or dare I say, "A small, disposable part of Christ's body") is foreign to us. We in the west have personal space, private property with "no trespassing" signs, and we can't even use anyone's thought without properly and thoroughly citing it in our writing. We do things to benefit ourselves, often at the expense of others. And we say this is okay because it's a dog-eat-dog world out there.

As I've often suggested (only because it has been suggested long before me), maybe the Christian call is one of suffering and affliction. Maybe the world isn't centered on us, and God actually doesn't need us to live for His work to be accomplished. Some people argue that God needed someone to die for His work to be "accomplished."

That all being said, I will still "be safe" this summer - I know you all mean well, and I appreciate that.