Daughter of the King

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:           a time to be born, and a time to die;           a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;           a time to kill, and a time to heal;           a time to break down, and a time to build up;           a time to weep, and a time to laugh;           a time to mourn, and a time to dance;           a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;           a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;           a time to seek, and a time to lose;           a time to keep, and a time to cast away;           a time to tear,...

I was sitting poolside at The Haven when the song "Finally Home" by MercyMe came on with the rain pouring down around me. The first line of the song was talking about wrapping your arms around your Father's neck. My initial thought was that when I come home, I am going to get to hug my Dad for the first time in a year. I'll also get to hug the rest of my family and my friends when I get to see them again. And then the song continued. And I realized that it was talking of going home to our Heavenly Father.  By the pool next to the Nile  As the song continued, I thought about what home meant to me. Home here on this earth is being with the people you love. And that made me realize that never again on this earth will I ever feel at home. I have people that I love all over this world. And I don't think my heart will ever be content again being in one place. However, I think that's how this life is supposed to be lived. We are supposed to love others a...

He's not even two and a half, but he's stolen a huge piece of my heart. This little boy is near and dear to me, and he's gone through more pain than many will in in their lifetime. Meet Joshua. Or Musa (Pronounced "Moo-sey" which is Luganda for Moses - because he's wise for his years). He's an old man in a little boy's body. And he has the biggest smile that lights up his entire face and everyone around him.    This precious little boy suffers from sickle cell disease. Sickle cell is a blood disorder where your red blood cells are actually shaped like sickles or crescents, hence the name.  Normal red blood cells are soft and round and can squeeze through tiny blood tubes (vessels). Normally, red blood cells live for about 120 days before new ones replace them.  People with sickle cell conditions make a different form of hemoglobin A called hemoglobin S (S stands for sickle). Red blood cells containing mostly hemoglobin S do not live as...

The last two weeks have been extremely busy. Tina arrived on Monday two weeks ago, and then the next day I had to go to Entebbe to pick a team that was arriving that night. Since then, it’s been balancing trying to go over everything that’s happened during the time that Tina was away and getting stuff that she needs done with doing all of the activities with the team. The team that is here is from Harpeth Hall, an all girls high school in Nashville, TN. Every time this year, they send a team of girls here to work with HEAL for a few weeks. There were originally supposed to be 22 girls coming, however, a lot of their parents freaked out about ebola (even though ebola is closer to them in Tennessee than it is to us here in Uganda. So, the trip ended up being only 7 girls, led by a woman who is on our board.  The last morning the team had at The James Place The Lord chose these 7 girls to be the ones to come on this trip, and it has been an honor getting to know them during...

For the past two weeks, HEAL Ministries has been on holiday. That means no staff, no kids, and nothing to do here at The James Place.  Last week, a few of us went on safari together. We went through Red Chilli Hideaways, and with that company, we got three days on safari in Murchison Falls, and they gave us a free night at their Red Chilli Kampala the night before we left. So, we packed up our backpacks and went to Kampala for the day before the safari. We ate at Cafesserie, a restaurant that has delicious food. We got to see Mockingjay Part 1 in a theatre that's nicer than the one I go to at home. And we were able to just hang out and not worry about anything. We then got a free bus ride out to Red Chilli Kampala where we ate dinner together and talked a little before going to sleep.  Sunrise morning of departure  The next morning we woke up bright and early before the sun was up, ate some breakfast, and then got in the van that was going to be our vehicle ...