The sun is coming up... and with it the start of my first full day of my adventure in Kampala, Uganda! Here is the view from my room... Not much, just the compound of some legal association, but that's OK, I'm here at my destination!
I just woke up after having truly slept for the first time in about two days -- 6 hours worth... Whoo hoo! Needless to say, I have trouble sleeping on airplanes... and this trip was no exception! I caught about an hour of fitful sleep on the flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe, but that was about it (below is the KLM plane that brought me to Uganda... Almost exactly the same as the one from Detroit to Amsterdam)... The one good thing about not sleeping on the plane is that it gave me a substantial amount of time to practice the presence of God... And man, did he ever reveal himself in new and different ways to me!
Yesterday was a series of reminders from Him of just how awesome our Creator is! The first was sitting in the Amsterdam airport... I wrote in my journal that it was the ultimate in cross-cultural experiences -- more languages and nationalities than I have ever encountered in one place at one time in my entire life... simply put, it was a clear reminder of God's plan of diversity within the Body of Christ...The second was while flying from south from Amsterdam... I was struck with a different, but just as awesome, display of the creativity of God outside my window... We flew over the snow-capped Alps, the clear blue Mediterranean Sea, and the vast Sahara Desert -- natural wonders that I'd never before seen... A clear indication of His creative power!
Upon arriving in Uganda, I discovered the third, seemingly unconnected, indicator of God's creativity... On the drive from Entebbe to Kampala with Timothy and Nana Yaa, I was struck by the "simplicity" of life in Uganda and the disparity of wealth... from the poverty of the roadside markets, with everything from fresh meat (Timothy said it was goat) and produce (more bananas than I've ever seen) to TVs and other electronic devices, to the prosperity of downtown Kampala with its modern office buildings and hotels... It was a revealing indication of what my week may have in store.
Each of these encounters reminded me of something that I had read during one of the flights by Rob Bell, a pastor in Michigan. In his book Velvet Elvis, he writes "If there is a divine being who made everything, including us, what would our experiences with this being look like?" In Exodus, Moses was looking for a god that he could wrap his mind around... but instead he encountered God, who when Moses asks for his name replied, "I am who I am." (Exodus 3:14) The writers of the Bible go to great lengths to describe God as a being with no boundaries, but it is something that people have struggled with since the beginning...
For me, these encounters were a clear reminder of just what an awesome God we serve... creative, yet mysterious... powerful, yet unfathomable... He is obviously preparing my mind and heart for the adventure to come in Africa!
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